Children of War (12 page)

When the bombing was happening, the sirens would go off. We were living in
our house with eighteen other people. My grandparents and other relatives came to stay
with us because their homes were in more dangerous places.

When the sirens went off we would all gather in one small place, because
nobody wanted to be alone. The electricity stayed on for the first half of the bombing
time, so we would be able to play computer games or watch TV, or listen to music really
loud, to drown out the sound of the explosions. When the electricity stopped, we
listened to a battery radio, or played cards, and lit candles.

There was also a lot of work to do in the house with
all the people living there. We had to get clean water, prepare food, keep things
clean.

Even when the bombs were falling, my parents would make jokes and
encourage us to make music and play games and tell stories. I think that is the best way
to be. Being scared and crying would not have protected us. So we tried to laugh.

HUTHAIFA
– I really thought I would die,
but I was ready for it. I felt like an angel, without sins. But later, the war got
worse, and then I became afraid.

After the war, the clashes between the militias started happening, and
that affected our neighborhood.

YEMAN
– There was a car bombing at my
school one day. I was walking along a corridor with glass all down the side of it. The
bomb went off and the glass shattered all around me. I ran away as fast as I could. As
the explosion happened, a song came into my mind, “I Disappear,” by
Metallica. It goes

Do you bury me when I'm gone?
Do you teach me while
I'm here?
Just as soon as I belong,
Then it's time I
disappear.

I think it's on the soundtrack for
Mission Impossible II
,
with the glass breaking. I felt like I was in a movie.

HUTHAIFA
– I had a lot
of thoughts go through my head when we saw Saddam Hussein be executed. Saddam
didn't mean anything to us. He did a lot of bad things, but he also did good
things. Iraq had a very good education system, free for everyone. Even university was
free.

When the Americans came and took Saddam from power, we thought that maybe
it is the time for a new, bright Iraq. We were wrong. Many Iraqis would like to have the
old days back, because at least then we could have our families together. So many
families are separated and spread out far from each other.

For nine to twelve months after Saddam fell, things were kind of getting
better. There was killing, but not the same as now. We used to go out and feel safe to
stay out until 10 p.m. Then it gradually got earlier and earlier when we felt we needed
to be at home.

When the bombing of the shrine in Samarra happened, I was in my last year
of high school. It was the most important year in my life because the outcome of the
examinations would decide what my future would be. A good average would mean a chance to
go to a good university and study medicine or engineering. I had to study a lot. I also
went to private lessons. These were held in different areas of Baghdad, so I had to
travel around the city. The militias were everywhere in the street. You couldn't
predict what was going to happen. We would see a checkpoint and we wouldn't know
if it was the real army, or if it was the militia wearing army uniforms, wanting to rob
us or kill us.

YEMAN
– There were
many car bombings in our area. We got up every morning to learn that someone else was
killed in a brutal way. My friends and I would talk about it. We decided the whole world
had gone crazy.

HUTHAIFA
– I remember one of my
father's friends predicting this. It was about five days after the fall of Saddam.
This friend had a generator, so we could watch TV. I went to his house. He is a doctor
and lives in Baghdad with his son, my friend. He said to us, “Don't be very
much happy, because things will get worse. One day all of us will have to carry a weapon
just to protect ourselves.”

After the war, in October of 2003, our father got involved with LIFE, an
American-based NGO. LIFE's mission is to rebuild schools, get children school
supplies and uniforms, books and bags. There had to be new textbooks, not the ones that
were used under Saddam. They do other amazing things, like fixing up the water
supply.

Then his colleague at LIFE was abducted and killed. It was a terrible
shock for everybody. This was a brilliant man, and a great friend to our father. They
killed him the same day they abducted him. It was for sectarian reasons.

Our father decided not to take any more chances with our lives. He sent us
out of the country, and he joined us two months later. He stayed on his own in Baghdad
to finish up some work.

YEMAN
– First me, my brother and our mother
moved to Syria to stay with my aunt and her children. I thought at first it was going to
be a holiday. I didn't know we were
leaving forever so I was
able to enjoy being in Syria, away from the danger. Then my father called and said we
should forget about Baghdad, that we would not be going back.

I cried for three days, because it meant I lost the chance to go to
Baghdad College. I wanted to go there so much! It was the only high school in Baghdad
that taught only in the English language. It had the most beautiful campus, the biggest
in Baghdad, and it has a history of creating leaders. I think even the minister of
health for the United Kingdom went there.

Praise God, though, that my father's LIFE office moved from Baghdad
to here in Amman. So he has a job, and can continue his work.

HUTHAIFA
– I hope I can continue my studies
somehow, here in Amman.

YEMAN
– In Syria I began to compose music.
There is a website called Macjams, where you can meet up with other people creating
music all over the world. If you go on it, you can hear some of my music.

Here is the site:
http://www.macjams.com/artist/BirdmanWayne94
.

HUTHAIFA
– In Baghdad I played guitar for
the US army. It was one of those nights the soldiers were going from house to house,
searching for weapons. They came to our house at 2:30 in the morning. I was awake,
studying for my Arabic final exam. There were five soldiers at the door. I was friendly
to them, so they were friendly to me in
return. I let them see that
we had no weapons, and one of them saw my guitar. His name was Smith, and he was
twenty-three, very young. He asked if I would play them a song. He asked in a way that
was kind, like he really wanted to hear some music. I played them something from
Metallica. You can tell that we both like Metallica. Then he picked up my
brother's guitar and we jammed together on “Fade to Black.” It was a
good moment.

I saw them later, during the day. They asked me to help translate for them
with someone. First they asked to search my bag. I was coming home from swimming, so I
had my towel and swimsuit in a bag. Then they asked me to help translate. I did, but
just for five minutes. Then I got scared that I could be killed for helping them, and I
went home.

YEMAN
– I wish we could use music somehow
to stop war. Maybe it sounds silly, but instead of picking up a gun, soldiers should
instead pick up a guitar or a saxophone or a trumpet. They could have battles with
music, to see who could make the best music. That would make the world much, much
better.

HUTHAIFA
– To make the world better, I am
planning to be like my father, and find a way to work with an NGO to stop people from
suffering.

YEMAN
– I wish American kids could
understand that we have many things in common. Really, we are not different. They
don't need to be afraid of us.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched,
every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are
not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending
money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the
hopes of its children.

— Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953

Abu Ghraib – A prison near Baghdad, known for torture and
executions of political prisoners under Saddam. Photos of US soldiers abusing Iraqi
prisoners at Abu Ghraib appeared in newspapers around the world. It has been renamed the
Baghdad Central Detention Center.

Arabic – A language and a reference to a group of people
with roots in the Middle Eastern areas of Iraq, Saudia Arabia and others.

Ba'ath – A political party that stood for Arab
unity, socialism and the separation of religion from government. It was formed in the
1950s in the Middle East.

Bedouin – Nomadic Arabs who live in the desert.

Coalition – A collection of diverse groups coming
together for a specific purpose.

Democracy – A system of government where citizens choose
their leaders and tell them what to do.

Depleted uranium – Radioactive waste product from
enriching uranium; it is added to weapons to make them more deadly.

Dictator – A leader who rules by force and does not
tolerate dissent.

Dinar – A form of currency in several countries,
including Iraq and Jordan.

Guerrilla – An armed fighter who engages in
unconventional warfare.

Hijab – A head covering worn by some Muslim women.

Inflation – When the price of goods goes up but the value
of money goes down.

Insurgent – Someone who takes up
weapons against the official government.

Kurds – An ethnic group from Kurdistan, an area that
currently occupies parts of Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey.

Mandaean Sabians – Followers of a very old religion that
reveres John the Baptist.

Mehdi Army – A Shia Muslim guerrilla army, formed in Iraq
after the US invasion in 2003.

Muslim – A follower of the religion of Islam.

NGO – Non-governmental organization.

9/11 – September 11, 2001, the day planes attacked the
Pentagon in Washington and the World Trade Center in New York City.

Refugees – People who have to leave their home country
because their lives are in danger.

Sanctions – Economic and diplomatic
“punishments” one nation can impose on another to try to bring about policy
change.

Sectarian – An interpretation of a religion; sectarian
violence refers to violence between different branches of the same religion.

Shia – A branch of Islam.

Sunni – A branch of Islam.

Terrorist – Someone who uses violence or the threat of
violence to force others to behave in a certain way; generally, terrorism targets
civilian populations.

UNICEF – United Nations International Children's
Emergency Fund; an agency that helps governments (especially in developing countries)
improve the health and education of children and mothers.

Visa – A document allowing someone to enter another
country.

White phosphorus – A chemical that can be used to light
up areas of a battlefield; it is also mixed with explosives to create weapons that start
large fires.

CARE (a humanitarian organization that works around the world
with people living in poverty)
www.careinternational.org

Caritas (a Catholic humanitarian organization)
www.caritas.org

Collateral Repair Project (an American organization that
provides assistance to Iraqi refugees and people who need help inside Iraq)
www.collateralrepairproject.org

Iraq Body Count (keeps track of confirmed Iraqi civilian deaths
due to violence)
www.iraqbodycount.org

Iraqi Children's Art Exchange (exchanges art between
Iraqi and American children)
www.iraqichildrensart.org

Iraqi Red Crescent (Red Crescent is an Islamic relief
organization that serves people of all faiths; Iraqi Red Crescent assists Iraqi refugees
and those who are internally displaced)

Life for Relief and Development (a Muslim relief organization
that assists people around the world)
www.lifeusa.org

National Priorities (keeps a tally of the cost of the Iraq war
to the American taxpayers)
www.nationalpriorities.org

No More Victims (provides medical care in the United States for
Iraqi children injured in the war)
www.nomorevictims.org

UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees; the UN
Refugee Agency formed to protect refugees)
www.unhcr.org

DEBORAH ELLIS
has achieved international acclaim with her
courageous and dramatic books that give Western readers a glimpse into the lives of
children in developing countries. She is best known for her Breadwinner trilogy, which
has been published around the world in seventeen languages, with more than half a
million dollars in royalties donated to
Street Kids
International
and to
Women for
Women
, an organization that supports education projects for Afghan girls in refugee
camps in Pakistan.

Royalties from this book are being donated to the Children in Crisis
Fund of IBBY, the
International Board on Books for Young People
.

FICTION

Looking for X

The Breadwinner

Parvana's Journey

Mud City

The Breadwinner Trilogy
(Anthology)

A Company of Fools

The Heaven Shop

I Am a Taxi

Sacred Leaf

Jackal in the Garden: An Encounter with Bihzad