Children of War Read online

  The neighbors walk right into their house and hit Eman and her mother. When a charity brings them food or blankets, the neighbors sometimes steal from them. “We are poor, too,” the neighbors say. “Why doesn’t anybody help us?”

  It is hard to get a coherent story from Eman’s mother. Too many years of too much difficulty have stopped her mind from thinking clearly.

  There is a bad smell in the house, and a heavy feeling of damp and dirt.

  Rusol, 16, Sally, 15, and Vinn, 16

  The Ahliyyah School for Girls in Amman, Jordan, was founded in 1926. Its big, bright buildings surround a courtyard of volleyball nets and basketball courts. Girls read and giggle in the sun, eating lunches bought at the student-run canteen. The school even has its own forest, and each student is entrusted with a tree to look after while she’s there.

  Rusol, Sally and Vinn are three of several Iraqi girls who attend the Ahliyyah School, and whose families have the resources to pay the private school fees.

  RUSOL – I have been in Jordan for five years. We left Iraq one month before the war. We thought something bad was going to happen. Everyone knew the war was coming. We came here first as tourists. We didn’t know that we would end up staying so we didn’t pack up all our things. We brought very little with us.

  I am from Baghdad. My father had a lot of factories in Iraq. My mother was busy at home, taking care of us.

  SALLY – I came here with my family two years ago. Like Rusol, we didn’t know if we would stay. We thought we would just come here as tourists and see what it was like. We decided to stay because the situation in Iraq was very, very bad. Whenever we went off to school, my mother didn’t know if she would ever see us again. It was hard for me at first, because I was a stranger here, but when I found friends it became easier.

  My family is also from Baghdad, but we went out to Syria during the time of the bombing. We went back to Baghdad for three years after the fall of Saddam. Then we came here.

  Our home in Baghdad was a very well-protected place, but all around us, the way between home and school, was very dangerous. It was very hard to go out anywhere, to see friends. You know, I’m a girl, and I want to live my life at this time and do everything. It’s hard for me to live in one house between four walls.

  That’s why we came here, to build a new life without war and without fear.

  VINN – I left Iraq three years ago. During the war and the beginning of the invasion, I was here in Jordan. We were here for a year, then we went back to Baghdad. It was hard for us girls because we had to wear a headscarf everywhere. This is not something we were used to, even though we are Muslims. And it was hard for my mother to drive, because the same people who made us cover our heads decided that it was wrong for women to drive! Such thoughts in a forward-thinking country like Iraq. Every time we went anywhere, my father had to drive. If there was a woman driving herself in the car, she would be dead. She would be killed. This is not normal for Iraq. This is backwards.

  SALLY – We face a very big problem when we travel to another country. They make a big difference between the Iraqi people and other people. It is hard for us to get a visa to go anywhere. We are not dangerous, but still they make it difficult for us.

  RUSOL – At the same time, we are not planning to stay here in Jordan. Now my father is in Canada, in a place called Winnipeg. He is trying to find work there, and I would like to study there.

  VINN – I will stay in Jordan. I like it here.

  SALLY – Everybody thinks we Iraqis have a lot of money because our country has oil, but that doesn’t mean that we are rich. The American soldiers are sometimes very kind, but there are other strange people in Iraq — not Americans but other nationalities — and they are trying to destroy Iraq now.

  RUSOL – Saddam Hussein being in power was normal for us. That’s how we grew up. We didn’t know what was difficult about our lives until we came here and saw another way of doing things. We saw what we were missing. We didn’t have internet or satellite TV. When we came to Jordan, we saw these things, and now we are used to them, but under Saddam, it was normal not to have them.

  SALLY – Maybe we didn’t have internet or satellite or mobile phones, but we had security, a good situation, a good life to live. It is not important to have satellite TV. It is more important to have a good life.

  VINN – Everybody was in danger in Iraq. Whenever you left your home, you never knew if you would be alive at the end of your trip. It was hard to feel safe anywhere.

  We left behind our house, our books, all our furniture, all our little things that we had gathered in our lives. We had to start here from the beginning.

  If I could go back, all I’d really want to get are my pictures — my photos of friends and family and my childhood. Everything else we can get again, or get something like it. But the photos, we can’t get. And I can’t go home, so I’ll never see them.

  I think it’s hard for American people to see Iraqi people happy.

  SALLY – It’s not the American people, it’s the American government. There are a lot of American people who don’t like to be killing Iraqis. We have to remember that and not blame the American people for what their government decides.

  RUSOL – It’s important to think of the future, and to work for what we want. I want to study medicine in Canada, to find some nice guy there and get married.

  SALLY – I also want to be a doctor. I know it’s hard, but I will be one.

  VINN – I want to be a pharmacist here in Jordan. I want to live my life in Jordan.

  RUSOL – If I had the power to make the world better, I would say that we need peace, and to have everyone knowing the culture of everyone else, and having lots of people meet each other and get to know each other, so there will be no fear.

  SALLY – There should be no difference between Arab people and European people. We should see each other as the same, not one better than the other. An open world, not closed. No borders! No visas! Just people, living.

  B., 16

  Even those Iraqis who have found safety in Jordan have no reason to believe that safety will last. Jordan, like any nation, has the right to decide who can reside within its borders and under what conditions. Many Jordanians claim that the large influx of Iraqis has pushed down their own wages and raised rents for everyone.

  Most Iraqis who are in Jordan now have entered under time-limited visitors’ visas. If they are caught staying longer than they have permission for, they are fined, with penalties that grow each day, or they are expelled. If they are caught working without proper permits, they are deported back to Iraq, without the ability to return to Jordan.

  Iraqi workers who are cheated by their bosses cannot report this behavior to any authority, since they are not supposed to be working in the first place. Economic hardship forces Iraqis to work illegally, at great risk. They are unable to lead relaxed lives. A single mistake could see them deported back to Iraq. They must take great care not to come to the attention of the authorities. A traffic accident, an argument with neighbors, a problem with a shopkeeper — any of these things could draw the notice of the immigration police and lead to questions about papers and trips back to the border. Iraqis are even afraid to report crimes committed against them, in case that reporting leads to their deportation.

  B.’s brother was caught working illegally in Jordan and was sent back to Iraq, which is why B. doesn’t want his real name or photo used. He lives with his father and older sister and her baby at the end of an alley. In front of the house is a small walled courtyard of broken concrete. The rooms of the house are small and dark, with water and mold patches on the walls and odd bits of furniture for the family to use.

  My brother was caught working here in Jordan, and he was sent back to Iraq. That’s why you can’t take my picture or use my real name. That’s why I never leave the house. I feel that the immigration police are out there watching for me and waiting for me to make a mistake. Then they will grab me. People tell me I
am wrong about this, that there are so many Iraqis here the police don’t have time to worry about me, that there are lots of others they can catch. To them I say, so where is my brother? And to that they have no answer.

  I am almost a man, but I have no work, I have no future. My hair is already turning gray. When I was young, I wanted to be a famous football player. I feel foolish now, for having that dream.

  I have been in Jordan with my family for nine years. We live in Zarqa, a crowded, noisy place outside Amman. Our house is a poor house without even a proper ceiling. It’s all reeds and we’ve put plastic under the reeds to keep out the rain and the dust, but it doesn’t work that well.

  My life was not supposed to be like this. I was supposed to have a different future. My father is a goldsmith. He learned the trade from his father, who learned it from his father, who learned it from his father, back many, many generations. I was supposed to be learning the trade in my father’s goldsmith shop in Baghdad, but the shop doesn’t exist any more.

  When my father was younger he was a very important goldsmith. He went on trips to Bulgaria and other European places, showing people what he could do. The shop was very successful, and we were very rich. We had a beautiful house, many possessions, cars, everything anyone would want. Now look at us! Even the rugs on the floor came from someone else’s garbage out in the street.

  My father’s shop was taken by Saddam because my father refused to join the Ba’ath Party. Saddam considered him a traitor, took away his shop and threatened to hang him. So we left. We have been in Jordan since before the Americans came. I had to leave school in the sixth grade, and have not been back.

  Now my father is very sick. He has diabetes, very bad, and he had to have his leg cut off. They gave him an artificial leg, but he lost a lot of weight, so the leg no longer fits. He usually manages without it, hobbling around on his crutches.

  His heart is bad, too. His heart problems became worse when my brother was arrested.

  My brother was selling cigarettes in the streets and markets around Zarqa. It wasn’t much of a job, but it brought in a little money to help feed us. The Jordanian immigration police grabbed him and said, “Show us your papers!” He didn’t have any papers because we’re not legal to be in Jordan.

  The police brought him back to us in handcuffs and told him to quickly pack a few things. Then they drove him to the Iraq border. We heard from him later that he was met there by American soldiers. He said they treated him well. They let him wash, gave him a bit of money and food. Now he’s staying with relatives in Al Kut, two hours from Baghdad. He doesn’t do anything there. Just misses us.

  My sister lives with us, too. She is older than me and married, although her husband has disappeared. We don’t know if he is dead or in prison or what. Maybe the police got him and deported him, or maybe he was just tired of taking care of so many people and went away. We don’t know. My sister and her baby live here with us.

  We keep to ourselves. We don’t want to draw attention.

  I don’t know where my life will go. Should I go back to Iraq and be with my brother? I hardly know Iraq, and I would have no job there. My only hope is if I can get out of Jordan and start life fresh in a new country, somewhere far away, somewhere new.

  I really try not to think. When I think, I am too much reminded of what I’ve lost, and then it’s like I fall into a deep, deep pit, with no way out.

  Abbadar, 12

  Abbadar lives with his family in an apartment building near a public laundry in Zarqa. His street is fragrant with the scent of detergent. Up a few stories of a narrow, dark staircase is their small apartment. Posters from airlines and sports teams decorate the walls.

  The United Nations Declaration of the Rights of the Child states that all children have the right to a nationality, and to documents that protect them. Without these documents, without proof of who they are and where they come from, children are not protected and are denied other rights, such as health care and schooling.

  A universal problem for refugees, from no matter which war or which country, is the loss of papers, the loss of proof of who they are. It makes their struggle that much harder.

  My brother was killed eight months ago in Baghdad. He was seventeen years old. Nobody knows who did it, or if they know, they aren’t saying. His body was found on a rubbish pile. That’s how we know he is dead.

  We left both of my older brothers behind in Iraq when we came to Jordan. Jordan doesn’t let young Iraqi men into their country. They’re afraid young men will become terrorists. They let me in because I am a child. If I were older, they would have said no.

  My other brother is still alive in Iraq, but he’s homeless. He works in a bakery, and his boss lets him sleep in the storeroom, but that’s not like having a real home. He calls us when he can and asks my father to send him money. That makes my father cry, because he doesn’t have any money to send.

  We live in my sister’s house. She is married to a Palestinian, so they can live here and he can work. He sells coffee and tea from a little shop along the street. My sister is twenty-two and has two children. They are very small even for babies, because they don’t get the right kind of food. They get sick a lot, too, and there is no medicine.

  One of the babies was born in a hospital here in Jordan, but my sister and her husband had no money to pay the hospital fees. They had to sneak out of the hospital with the baby, but they can’t get the birth certificate until they pay the bill. Papers are important. You learn that very quickly when you have to leave your country.

  I am enrolled in a Jordanian public school. This year they let us into their schools so we can continue our education. We have to be educated so we can be prepared for what life throws at us. I’m a good student. The class I like best is the one where we learn English. If I learn enough English, maybe we can go to America.

  It might be better for my father’s heart if we went to America. His heart is bad and it got worse when we got the news about my brother’s death. He’s not able to work, so he has too much time to miss my brothers and to miss our old life.

  He has friends who help us out when they can, both Jordanian and Iraqi friends. Like today, someone gave my father some olive oil and some olives for free, as a present. He’s very proud to have such good friends.

  At one time my father made a very good salary in Iraq. He was a 747 jumbo jet engineer. He’s very smart and knows all about how to make airplanes able to fly. But under sanctions, Saddam cut all the salaries, and my father was earning only a little bit of money for doing the same work. It wasn’t enough money to live on, so our lives were very hard.

  Then he and my mother had a bad feeling that war was coming. It was going to go hard on Iraq, he said. So he and my mother decided we should leave our homeland and come here. It cost them almost all the money they had left for visas for the three of us. We got out just before the bombing started.

  My brothers got left behind. Eight months ago, one of them was killed. We don’t know who killed him or why. I don’t know why they left his body in such a terrible place. I don’t know if they killed him as part of the war, or if they just killed him because they were mean anyway. And I don’t know if we will ever see my other brother again.

  So now, instead of being an important man with an important job, my father stays home and cries a lot because he doesn’t see how it will get any better.

  Masim, 15

  The Iraqi constitution of 1970 included equal rights for women, specifically, their right to vote, attend school, run for office and own property — rights not allowed in many Arab countries. Under Saddam Hussein, women had a harder time maintaining those rights. Saddam tried to tighten his hold on power by making friends with regressive religious leaders, and this also restricted women’s mobility and access to jobs. In 1998, to increase jobs for men, the government fired a lot of women working in the civil service. Women were less free to travel abroad, and some co-ed schools were forced to become single-sex.
r />   Since the American invasion, women’s rights have gone on a quick downward spiral. Many have been kidnapped, raped, forbidden to drive and kept from participating in society. Women who had been used to moving around freely were suddenly forced into wearing hijab and staying inside.

  Masim lives with her mother, brother and little sister in a nice third-floor apartment in a brand-new building in Amman. Although her mother is educated, she is unable to work in Jordan. She is isolated and at the mercy of her abusive second husband, Masim’s stepfather.

  We used to live in Baghdad. We never wanted to leave. We stayed all through Saddam, all through the bombing and the invasion, and even through so much death and killing.

  We finally had to leave because sectarian militia killed my uncle, because he was a Sunni Muslim from Fallujah, and they threatened to kill the rest of us, too, if we didn’t go.

  We live in a very lovely new apartment building on the edge of Amman. Amman keeps expanding out into the desert, and we are in one of the new buildings. We have very nice furniture, and when you walk into our apartment, you probably think, what problems could this family have?

  I am living here with my brother, Saif, who is seventeen, my mother, my aunt and my half-sister, Meyar, who is five years old.

  My father — the father of me and my brother — was a pilot in the Iraqi army. He left our house one day in 1994 and never returned. He was with a special branch of the army that did secret things, and we guess he died doing one of those secret missions. We didn’t ask questions. We wouldn’t have been given answers anyway.

  My mother remarried four years later.

  My mother is from Tikrit, from the same tribe as Saddam Hussein. Her new husband — my stepfather — is from a very rich family. He was a friend of my father’s and had one wife already. My mother became his second wife. It is not an uncommon custom.