My new life in Baghdad

Greetings from Baghdad!

(This letter is coming to you ten days after I wrote it, due to internet
troubles). I have arrived safely and in good health, but after a pretty
exhausting trek. We have a suprisingly nice team apartment about the size
of our office in Hebron and fully furnished. We’re just off Abu Nawwas
St, about a mile from the Palestine Hotel which makes the news often, and
on the last block before a large park and the banks of the Tigris.

We have power about 1/3rd of the day, and are blessed with air
conditioning during those times. Otherwise it gets humid in the
apartment, and the air can be oppressive in mid-afternoon, but the summer
heat has broken. I was surprised even still at the climate change from
Jordan and the cool of the desert border crossing, where I wrapped up
double in my shawl not to let the almost-icy winds blow through.

On my way here, I had a stopover in Amsterdam which was fantastic. After
accidentally dozing through half my 13-hour wait, I joined a cheesy
minibus tour, and we visited a Gouda cheese-and-wooden shoe-making shop
(free samples and try-ons!); toured the canals; a windmill, all the
downtown historic architecture, and saw but didn’t have time to enter Anne
Frank’s hiding house and museum. The whole city was much more beautiful
and well-preserved than I’d heard or imagined. The air was incredibly
clean, and the people were friendly. I definitely plan to return.
Curiously, those years of studying German paid off once again and I didn’t
have any problems reading street signs or how to use the telephone. The
Dutch don’t seem to translate much.

[An American on our tour looked at the canals and said, “Wow. This looks
just like Holland….” I just hope comments like that are the result of
jetlag only].

I thought I might get lucky on the second stretch of the trip by having no
one else in my row of seats on the plane. Five minutes after I lay down,
though, an indignant Jordanian grandmother was nudging me. She wanted to
sit in my row because her grandchildren were in the row ahead of her. So
much for the nap. But I impressed her with my little Arabic and she
became a very pleasant seatmate. At one point after supper, she grabbed
my wrist and sprayed me with some expensive looking perfume, then doused
herself. Not bad, probably an improvement over my day-and-a half old
clothes. In the meantime, we were treated to a full-color-spectrum sunset
over the Alps and through southeastern Europe. Spectacular.

We spent the night in Amman, and headed out the next night at 2 am. We
crossed the border at sunrise. There were Iraqis working the border
again, some of whom I recognized from before the war, and two US soldiers
who were awfully chipper for standing around looking soldierly at sunrise.
The road to Baghdad was uneventful, but difficult to witness the
destruction. The first was gingerly negotiating the truck around a
missile crater which removed ¾ of the four-lane highway bridge. Debris
was scattered several hundred meters. Other highway overpasses were
removed after having been hit by missiles earlier. I also noticed many
rusty overturned auto and bus wrecks along the highway, which had likely
burned. I wondered, if they also had been hit by shelling, or if they
were rollovers like we’d had, only no government existed to remove them
from the roadsides anymore. And with every one of the hundreds of
disintegrated tire remains I saw littering the highway, I thought about
George.

I am surprised by how much is now open and that the main road, Saadoun
St., is quite active, though interrupted at regular intervals by US tanks
and Humvees. It reminds me of Nablus, where curfew is lifted but Israeli
military vehicles patrol the streets, and the Palestinians try their best
to maintain a normal routine despite their presence. We hear the tanks
rolling by our apartment throughout the day and night, just like in
Hebron. I am surprised by how much bigger US tanks seem than Israeli
tanks, which I had thought were pretty big themselves. They made our
Suburban feel pretty small by comparison. Occasionally we hear bursts of
gunfire at night somewhere in our neighborhood. Many buildings are
destroyed, or occupied by US forces. The building across from us is burnt
and pockmarked with shelling, and no windows remain; after the military
assault on it it was looted; now squatters (refugees likely from destroyed
other parts of town) are making a home of it. I see quite a bit of food
for sale here, though not necessarily staples, for those who can buy it; I
understand half the population who were employed before the invasion now
find themselves not. Someone has organized the young men into a sort of
civil conservation corps who I see cleaning the streets and moving debris,
which I understand fell to the wayside during the invasion. I’ve only
been around the neighborhood on foot here today, tomorrow I’ll venture
further. A few of the cities we passed through on the way from Amman had
little left untouched and many demolished buildings.

Our apartment comfortably holds six people. I’m in charge of
re-organizing to see if we can squeeze any more in, plus create a
serviceable office and reception/living area in the main room.

I went with Jerry Stein to Chaldean mass today. Later I learned I
couldn’t understand the liturgy because they were speaking in Chaldean.
Before that, I was quite worried. Someone gently reprimanded me about
crossing my legs while sitting in church, but I soon discovered it is much
cooler not to, anyway. Chaldean worship is a bodily and sensory
experience, much like Sufi worship (which I had the opportunity to try out
in Toronto, incidentally). The chanting by the men of the congregation
started before we arrived, a continual influx of sound that made the
moments of silence even more profound. Chaldeans genuflect (cross
themselves) multiple times throughout the worship, as well as bow on one
knee when entering and leaving the pew and bowing to the reading of
Scriptures and the transubstantiation. I kept looking out the corner of
my eye to keep up with the others. (Also like the Sufi worship). I
missed only one genuflection, I am proud to say (pretty good for a
Lutheran), but the lady next to me let me know it, too. I placated her in
Arabic by admitting it was my first time in a Chaldean church. It’s good
to know Arabic here.

I designed a curriculum for teaching new teammates Arabic today. We’ve
found a potential teacher who is actually trained as an engineer but is
willing to try. She lives a few doors down. The newbies can look forward
to at least two hours of instruction every day for at least two months.
Sure wish we could have gotten that worked out for Hebron.

It’s really exciting to be working on a new project. My enthusiasm is
growing hourly, and I think this is why I’m still up at 2 am writing right
now. It certainly couldn’t have been the three hour nap this afternoon!

We will be primarily working with detainees and the disappeared, helping
families find out if they are still alive, their health, where they’re
being held, and pressing for the release of those who were picked up at
random and have not been charged, etc., much like the situation in
Palestine. We’ve had a few successes so far. We’ll also be working with
and encouraging the dozens of local human rights and social welfare
societies which are springing up to fill in the void left by the
destruction of the government and the lack of an interim civil
infrastructure under the Occupation. I hear I’ll be spending a lot of
time with women and hearing about the changes in their situation here.
Much the rest of the work will be very similar to what we’ve been doing in
Hebron all along—listening to peoples’ stories and telling them to people
back home who need to hear them; being present in the streets;
accompanying those working for nonviolent solutions to the crisis. I will
write more in detail about all of these.

My own emails may not be frequent, but you are all able to access the
team’s reports either by going to the website, www.cpt.org and reading the
latest as they appear, or by asking via website to be subscribed to our
team’s own listserve (about as frequent postings as the Hebron team’s),
which you’ll receive as soon as we write them.

I should get on towards bed while it is cool and I can still rest enough
before morning. It’s good to get up early and finish our appointments
before the heat of the day overwhelms. Though, if we stay on past noon,
my teammates warn me that we get fed really well by our local partner
organizations and families we meet. We’ll see what the week brings and
when I’ll be able to write next.

Peace,

Le Anne

Memoir for Mazen

I lost another friend this week. His name was Mazen.
I found out when a teammate picked me up for breakfast yesterday morning.
It took a while for the reality to sink in.

US soldiers shot him in the chest.
He was a journalist from Hebron, covering a story at the Abu Ghraib prison
in Baghdad.

Mazen.

I couldn't sleep much last night, after dreaming that I was indeed in
Baghdad, witnessing him being killed, running over to his body on the
ground, red blood intermingling with light brown skin and silver hair,
screaming his name and trying to bring him back. My voice was echoing in my
ears as I woke up, and lingered through the day.

In this dream, the US soldiers look at me as if I'm crazy. Why do I, an
American, care so much and am so upset over the death of this man? To them,
he is just another Arab.

I am shamefully grateful that I was not there and did not and will not see
his body. I do not wish to be broken so soon, after having been broken this
spring and the winter before that and the fall before that and the spring
before that. [Already, I was worried whom I might know at the UN. I knew
Michael, who narrowly escaped and set himself to helping the wounded.
Michael the Invincible, I will call him. Ah.]

I feel sick, knowing that Mazen narrowly escaped death on the streets of
Hebron at the hands of Israeli soldiers and settlers, only to die in Iraq at
the hands of US soldiers.

I thought of Mazen as the Dan Rather of Palestine. I don't know if that's
how others felt. He stood out from the fray, probably because of his
noticeably silver hair on a younger face; his ability to appear polished
even in the midst of chaos; his kind of movie-star bravado personality. He
was, or at least appeared bigger than most Palestinians--built more like a
quarterback. Well, come to think of it, Dan Rather really doesn't have
quite the charisma, or 'presence,' that Mazen did.

When I started working in Palestine, it was a time when international NGO
workers were pulling out because of the violence, and I learned to temper my
relationships, to not get too invested in people because who knows when they
would be moving on. Now, it seems, I could avoid much heartbreak by not
getting close to people with whom I work, because who knows when they will
be killed.

But that is no way to live. And I have too many friends, especially friends
who are journalists.

Mazen taught me a lot about documentation, and how important it is. Mostly
this happened by his yelling at me in mock exasperation, "Why didn't you get
that on film? I can't do anything with it unless it was on film!" One of
these times was after I got beat up by the settlers. That time, I shrugged
my shoulders and sheepishly said, "sorry Mazen, I was busy." But I kept the
lesson.



Sometimes when I was alone on the streets of Hebron (usually stepping out to
buy bread or another forgotten grocery item), and finding myself suddenly in
the midst of soldiers wreaking havoc in the marketplace (and yes, without
having remembered cell phone or camera), I would spot the journalists
standing nearby in a group, taking pictures. During those times when I knew
I was in over my head, I would simply join them. There is strength in
numbers, after all. At other times, when trouble arose from unfriendly
strangers in the street, I remember standing next to Mazen, and occasionally
behind him, for protection, and being kidded by him that I, an accompaniment
worker, needed protection from him! But he was pleased to oblige.

I only wish I could have been there to return the favor, Mazen.

And so, at different times today I find myself on the brink of tears, a dark
void settling in my heart. It's becoming a familiar feeling.

It makes me realize anew how I am entering face-first into the storm and how
it will hurt. I want to steel myself somehow for the experience, against
the pain, even; but I know all the same if I cannot feel the pain of human
suffering I am no longer humane, nor of use in bringing comfort to the
victims of human violence.

Mazen was training a successor, Nael, also a friend of mine. I know who I
will look up first in Baghdad when I arrive, to try and bring comfort to a
grieving friend.

Sadly, I have more tales like this one to share that are coming from Iraq.
I will try to pace them for you, lest you become hardened to the realities,
or overwhelmed by their frequency. A letter from one of my friends working
in Baghdad, previously in Palestine, is due tomorrow.

peace

Le Anne



"the West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or
religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.
Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."
----------

Samuel P. Huntington

Heading to Iraq!

Hi everyone,

Well, it's official now and the plane tickets are being ordered as I write.
I depart Monday the 18th for two weeks in Toronto to watch the CPT office
there and be the support person for the Grassy Narrows project while the
Canada director is away, then I depart to Iraq on Sept. 2nd. I'll be in
Iraq until Christmas, when I'll travel to Palestine and try to visit as many
of my friends there as possible. That puts me back here in the US around
January 2.

So, I get to do a final week's worth of packing, sewing some last-minute
Iraq-suitable summer clothes (long-sleeved, dressy, and lightweight),
contacting media friends, wrapping up things here and saying good-byes. I'm
glad I'll make it to the family reunion the day before I ship out. I am
glad to be heading to Toronto first--it makes packing easier and Toronto is
a fun city as well as home to several good friends.

I started writing a longer reflection on some of the amazing and inspiring
things I saw happening within churches I visited this summer. While in
Michigan last week, for example, I got to see what a real "mission-minded"
congregation and synod looked like. Wow! So I'm working on that to send to
you all later. A large part of me wants to stay here and get more things
organized, but after three months away, I really miss the field. Next year,
in seminary, some of those big ideas will evolve into reality. I've got a
heck of a long 'wish list' these days...

peace,

Le Anne