Hide and Seek Memories

I grew up in a special neighborhood, It was sort of a compound for the employees of a government company  where my dad worked. The number of kids there was ridiculous I can not even remember how many best friends I had back then not to mention the ones I had in school. so with all the tiny brains around my tiny brain we had some seriously waked-up ideas and beliefs. Our normal day would start around 9:00am after breakfast we would all go out, morning are usually dedicated to barbie dolls, board games or indoor activities, then comes lunch, TV and once it's afternoon everybody's out, we played and played and played until midnight sometimes, I remember being dragged home crying at times.

Back then I had some crazy beliefs  and I was thinking about those things the other day and I cracked myself up laughing, I was certain that back in the 60's life was in black and white and I remember seeing one of dad's college pictures in color for the first time and freaking out about it, I thought it was magic! I also believed that everyone, everywhere spoke Arabic, Iraqi to be more accurate and that other languages were simply TV dialect. I thought that compound we lived in was pretty much home and anything outside its walls was abroad. When "Truman Show" came out, for months I thought I was in a show like that and was looking for hidden cameras everywhere. I thought songs were broadcasted live and was always amazed by how they managed to do every single move look exactly the same every time. I believed if I looked at something long enough I could move it with the power of thought!

We had so many games and so many things to do that I don't remember ever being bored. Every summer we would have a sensation, a game or a thing that we would usually invent and get completely addicted to for at least two months and man did we enjoy ourselves, no worries, no problems just pure fun. Life is so much easier when you're only worry is how fast will you be able to run during tomorrow's baseball game, isn't it?
Now you should know that I've always had a thing against those stuck in a period of their lives when they were happy and always wanted to go back there or try their best to stay there, I've always thought that it's human nature to evolve and by doing that you would be messing with the universe. So I'm not one of those people I just think I had the most outrageously crazy beautiful childhood any girl could ever ask for and sometimes only very few times I wonder what it would be like if I could go back in time for one last bicycle race, to feel the freezing cold February air on my face while insisting on wearing summer clothes because hey it's spring! you know, just to have that care-free feeling for one second, to step away from adulthood and all the huss and fuss we're surrounded by everyday. We all long for childhood sometimes, When I look back at my life and look at how things turned out I really wish that if someday Ali and I have a baby, he or she would have a childhood just as good as mine, to be able o appreciate everything in life, be thankful for what ever it brings them and most importantly realize that they should embrace life even if their life did not turn out to be as planed to know that God has bigger and much better ones for everyone.


Have a wonderful day,

T.

Lice Almost Got Me Killed

Iraqi people tend to be very dramatic when describing things and we always and I emphasis ALWAYS do it, seriously if a woman is wearing a skirt with a tear and you noticed immediately she would get all defensive and start telling the story of how it all happened , well here's how it would be told "I walked out wearing this gorgeous skirt (mentioning the price and the place where she got is a complete must) and I was walking looking all pretty and stuff and out of nowhere came this brat driving his fancy car all speedy and almost ran me over, I had to run to the side walk, I tripped and fell and tore my beautiful skirt.. Uh that idiot" and she would probably start lashing his parents and the police for allowing kids to drive cars and most likely this conversation ends up with it's all because of Saddam Hussein, if you're Iraqi you would relate to this for some reason all of our conversations end up with blaming Saddam and the government (seriously why do we do that?), now back to the skirt, here's the real story she didn't trip and fall, didn't almost have a car accident, nor did she buy that skirt for the price she mentioned, simply she wore and completely forgot that last week it got caught in the tree branch outside the building where she works because she wasn’t paying attention to where she was going since she was yapping on the phone with her friend! We tend to make things more interesting and if it's a sad story we're telling man you're in for some serious drama, now for a change I will tell you a story, a true one that happened to yours truly and I've told this story so many times before but I always tend to make it more scary like I would mention so many details that I'm not sure actuallyy happened, but it keeps people thinking about what will happen next, but this time I will tell the truth and you will realize that this story was not scary at all.

This took place In Baghdad, Al-Rubay'ee Street (RS), July 2007. I had to go to my university to get some paper work done and since the situation really crappy back then I decided to take public transportation and despite the fact that I have done this a number of times before I was really scared because all the roads were blocked and drivers had to go through a very wired and suspicious root when compared to the one they took before 2003 or at least I thought it was. On the ride from college back home I had to take one bus (mini Kia bus) from the uni. main gate and get off half way and take another one and I have memorized the route after the little crossover they go straight to RS and by the end of this street I get off and take the other bus,  we reach the traffic light after the crossover and guess what he doesn't go straight he goes left, being distracted (you'll find out later why) and losing my sense of direction I asked the driver to stop and I got off and decided to walk all the way to the end of RS after all I have walked along this street a million times with my sisters when I was little how long could it be right? In my head I was thinking kids see things larger than they are, you know the whole relativity thing, and I remember this as a very short walk as a kid now that I'm all grown up it must be what 5 minutes max? so I crossover and I start walking past the national guards check point and one of the guards come out of the little tent the placed on the side walk and says "The streets are blocked when you pass by them and every one salutes you" and he salutes me lol that is by far the funniest thing ever said to me by a complete stranger (P.S if you didn’t know this is a song by a very famous Iraq singer) so I pased really quickly as if I was running away from the guard and when I was far away I started laughing and continued walking, I always tell people how I noticed that the street was completely empty but the truth is at this point I was thinking about a couple of things:

1. man I should stop wearing open toe shoes my feet are so dark its disgusting and why does all the dirt on the streets end up landing on my feet?

2. What kind of an idiot would walk out, in Baghdad during July without their sunglasses? The answer would me.

3. It's true that black should never be worn in this weather I' technically being roasted here.

4. Awwww cute couple, God that baby is ugly.

5. The street looks kinds of empty I wonder why? Eh it must be the heat; no one is crazy enough to walk out in this weather.

6. When did RS get so long?

7. Hungry, hungry, Hungry.

8. Thirsty, thirsty, thirsty.

And before I knew it wohooooooooo there was the end of the street, I get the other bus and take off, got home my brother was a bit worried because I was late, I told him it was the traffic, had lunch and straight to bed. I woke up at dusk and I was telling my brother and his wife about my adventure and he says “What are you nuts? You haven’t noticed that the street was completely empty? or how almost all the shops are closed?", the truth is I have noticed the empty street for a split of a second then I was distracted by my dirty feet and for the shops the truth is no, I haven't I only noticed that the place where they make the best burgers in the city is closed I also noticed how my favorite ice cream shop as a kid turned into a cell phones shop which was also closed and I thought it was a coincidence lol so answering my brother and trying not look stupid I said " yeh I did, completely empty and everything is closed I was scared to death I literally jogged to get out of that place" lol me lying is a very funny site believe me even I laugh at myself, and he says " it's because there were snipers on top of the street's buildings and no one really dares to go there anymore", shocking, isn't it? hehehe, I have walked along a street with snipers and came out alive with dirty feet and a very wired looking tanned face and hands lol I must be a hero then, right? truth is I'm not, it was actually a very stupid decision not because I could have got killed but because when the driver turned left he only meant to take a short cut and would have ended up dropping me off at the exact same place but I only realized this around midnight that same day hehehe.

Moral of the story is never look at the disgustingly-dirty-person-sitting-infront-of-you-in-a-public-transportaion's hair and wonder if they have lice right before the place where you should get off, so with that being said Mr. Dirty hair (he didn't have lice in case you're wondering) thank you for giving me a story that makes me look like a hereon and I hope that someone have introduced you to shampoo!

P.S: the skirt thing I have done this before, but with shoes and much less details lol

Have a nice day.