A Star from Mosul

This post was written on 4/8/2007 but I couldn't publish it since blogger somehow characterized my blog as spam and only let me blog after it was checked by humans who obviously had many other mistakenly marked blogs that it took them so long to fix mine!

We came back from Syria two days ago.. It was fun there, especially meeting my aunt and uncle's families who have been living in the United Arab Emirates and have come to Syria to see us. I saw Raghda, and having not seen her for a long time it was so much fun.

We were 6 different families, 4 stayed in one apartment, and the other two in another.

The weather was very hot since we came rather early compared to the previous years because otherwise, uncle Ahmed wouldn't be able to come.
I guess it's the first time 6 bloggers sleep in the same house, me, HNK, Raghda, uncle Ahmed, aunt Rose and dad, but neither of us had the time to think and realize that, I don't recall ever mentioning the blog.

We saw the celebrations of our triumph in football but missed those of us winning the cup since we were in a place with very few Iraqis then. The celebrations were very big, people carrying Iraqi flags walked in the streets shouting and singing and kissing the flag. It almost made me cry, it felt like winning would solve it all, we'd finally get to be happy and live like other people, but it wasn't the case of course.

We went to "Happiness City" (a playground) once and I had a very good time there. I rode the roller coaster for the first time in my life, it was really frightening though we rode the children version!

We spent most of the time while my uncle and aunt were around in Zabadani near Damascus, then they left to the UAE while we stayed with my other uncle's family (Who came with us from Mosul) in Syria and visited Latakia and Aleppo before returning to Iraq.

The electricity in Aleppo would turn off 4 hours a day approximately because they're supplying Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan with electricity. The hotel we were in didn't have a generator and so we would go up and down without using the elevator most of the time fearing that we'd get stuck if the electricity goes off, and we stayed in the fourth floor, so just imagine!

The thought of coming back to Iraq didn't seem too depressing for me when we were in Aleppo, I had spent 2 weeks in Syria and missed my laptop, mobile, bed and bathroom really badly.
We took a van (with air conditioning) to the borders that would fit us and my uncle's family (11 persons) at 7 AM thinking that we'd be comfortable and enjoy each others company on the way.

The road home was anything but comfortable.. After about an hour, I was relaxed, enjoying the cold air from the air cooler, and reading a book. I heard my uncle shouting and then the car started moving really weirdly right and left, we almost flipped over. It turned out later as the car settled that the driver was talking on his mobile and a little child shepherd ran towards the road before the car, my uncle noticed and shouted to the driver who started trying not to hit him, I looked behind and there was a little boy laying on the road, his sister weeping and howling next to him. It was a frightening scene. The driver and the men ran towards the boy, the time seemed to move really slowly as they approached his body. He was conscious, only his leg was broken. We rushed him to the nearest hospital 50 kilometers away..

The driver couldn't leave the boy and tried to find us another van, he only found one, but it didn't have air conditioning. The next 6 hours made me think that we've actually died and went to hell.. It was really really hot, the road was all desert, we were all thirsty and the water we carried was so close to boiling. The seats were covered with nylon which became too hot. The engine was under our feel which made it feel like they're burning. We were all sweating and hoping.

We arrived to the borders late of course, since we were delayed 2 hours because of the accident. The borders weren't crowded therefore. Some people have to wait up to 10 hours at the borders to get their passports approved and stamped, we had to wait for about 10 minutes. Then we took two cars home..

The road to Mosul and the first few neighborhoods are devastating, ruins all over, the walls of the houses have way too many holes caused by the bullets, there were remains of bomb cars and the street was very damaged. Yet all I wanted was getting home.

Back home at 7 PM were Aya and Ayman waiting at the door, Ayman was walking very well, he was only starting to learn when we left. Aya makes perfect sense when she talks. They have really grown up. Grandma was waiting too, she had missed us a lot.

We didn't buy Ayman gifts since we thought he wouldn't understand while Aya would feel jealous, but he made a really big fuss over Aya's gifts we were really surprised and ended up giving him some of these. Mom decided to go buy him few more gifts from Mosul because she felt very sorry for him.

Labels: family, syria, vacation