DEC 2, 2006 The one called Tania

June 24, 2004 Tania was one of the first students to write to us from Baghdad. She was about 11 when she wrote to Mimi and Rhoda in Brooklyn.   

“THANKS to all of you, you are great. I mean no offence, and no hatred, I LIKE YOU ALL .You are special to me. I wish we could meet in a way or another because I am eager to see you. OK, let me tell you something, nobody hates you or dislikes you here believe me, we all have some good thoughts about you,  that you are nice, beautiful, clever and delicate.

   May be war changed some of us against you these days because of the mistreatment the Iraqis have got from your soldiers. I follow news on TV more than Cartoon and I saw what happened to you (Trade centre fall) but we didn’t do that - for this reason I am asking you not to dislike us. Let us be more than Friends…OK!

    Tania

 Dec 2, 2006 And today I got this email from Tania. She’s going on 15 now. She’s going.

She’s going in the midst of a madness whose reason she cannot comprehend. And she’s going strong!

   My country. My government. My war. We brought these nightmare events to Tania’s days. And we understand only a very little of how we have profoundly affected Tania’s life. We don’t even have a name for such a cause and effect. And you know what else we have no name for? We don’t have a name for that beautiful quality that allows a person, a human being, to respond to violence and grief without extinguishing love and humor.

   But we do have a name for the one called Tania.

 Dear Uncle Bruce,

How are you uncle, I know that you are so worried about me and I am sorry for being late in my writing to you. You already know the situation here and how life is getting more difficult each day so please forgive me.

My grandmother died the days before the ban and the days of funeral looked like years to us, people were stuck at our home because of the curfew .My father had to spend the money of the funeral at the people who came to consoled us…they were about 25 persons, men and women, young and old. My parents laughed at the whole situation instead of crying…they didn’t know what to do…they have to warm each room in the house because we don’t have enough blankets for each one and we did not have enough   kerosene or oil for each heater, and we do not have many rooms either!! The days of the curfew were so cold…I am sure that you want to know what was the solution…am I right?  Ok our neighbors were great help; they allowed us to borrow their blankets and we allowed them to borrow our guests!!...yes, men were gathered at neighbors’ house and women stayed in our house, they were four funny nights.

We may leave Baghdad because our neighborhood becomes very dangerous, bandits are every where, bombs happened all of a sudden, corpses are scattered here and there… 

My school is no more the same; teachers are no longer loyal to their jobs…they don’t care if we understand our lessons or not, they don’t even ask if we need more explanation in any subject and if we ask them the answer will be(you will pass so don’t worry!).

tell me about you and your students...please send my regards to all who cares.

with love

Tania

Comments

[Bruce Wallace]

I am posting this for a friend.

Dear Bruce,
I have little more to say to your friends in Baghdad than "keep safe." And that's pitifully little. Yet I mean it.

The helpless are the victims always. When the monster is out of the bottle, that's all you can say. Poor Nesreen doesn't know whether it's better for the Americans to stay or go. It is so out of hand that anything may be the right thing. Religion may not be the cause of all this but it certainly is an instrument easily exploited by the power-driven. I'll quote the physicist, Jacob Wiesberg: "With or without religion good people can behave well and bad people can do evil, but for good people to do evil, that takes religion." What we have is the dark side of belief, religion turned on its head -- and hardly for the first time.

America's part in all this has been so criminally maladroit that I will be forever ashamed to travel abroad, something I love to do. This is the sort of ghastly episode for which the term "forgive me" was coined. And yet who can expect that?

And peace to you friend,
Joe

[Bruce Wallace]

I am posting this for a friend.

Heartbreaking, horrifying and seemingly hopeless. Can you even imagine living
under such circumstances? Sometimes I try to imagine Gramercy Park under siege...several 1000 people...foodless, waterless, even cigaretteless;
utterly resourseless, huddled in their apartments in mortal fear of the next
sound. And, then I try to imagine it all over the city. My mind doesn't stretch that far and the anxiety knot in my chest becomes unbearable. I escape the thoughts with inanities like TV, a book, cooking something...any useless activity. But,
worst of all, I try not to think about it.