INTERVIEW WITH AGLAME HECHMET

Aglame Hechmet hosted me in her modest apartment. Her mother, Ibelene Ilias Habel was recuperating from an illness on a bed in the living room and she filled me in on the family while Aglame prepared Turkish coffee. Aglame's son, Wian, participated by serving the coffee.

Ibelene: I have twelve children, five boys and seven girls, and all are married. Well, Aglame is separated now but her husband lives in this neighborhood. Besides Aglame, all my children have left Iraq and live in France, Belgium, and the US: Detroit and San Diego. I visited them once but I couldn't stay for very long as I got so homesick for Baghdad. Homesickness is very powerful. It made me very sad to go such a long way to visit my children and then have to leave due to homesickness.

Can you stay for lunch? We are Chaldeen Christians celebrating Christian holidays and we cannot eat meat but we have other food that doesn't include meat.

Aglame: There are eleven of us living in this place now, myself and my mother and nine children. The children don't want to go to school as there have been attacks by US soldiers with grenades on schools. I am concerned for the safety of my hildren and I do not like to force them to go to school when they are scared. But I worry about their education.

There are patrols that conduct searches in this neighborhood. In nine months there have been two house searches where the US soldiers kick in the doors in the middle of the night, pull the family out of their beds and make them stand in the streets without giving the family time to get fully covered. In Muslim religion this is very bad. In Christian religion this is bad too but it is worse for Muslims who have strict codes about dress and undress. Thank God there are no injuries so far in our neighborhood.

Before the war started the young men in this neighborhood said that Saddam wanted them to enlist in the army and fight the Americans. Our neighbor, Issam, told these young men not to do that. Issam was a colonel in the Iraqi army during the time of the war with Iran. Then he ran away from the army and said he would no longer fight in that war or for Saddam. He said there was too much waste and useless death of our people in that war. From then, 1983, until this war, 2003 Saddam tried to catch Issam. Saddam said, �ring me that man Issam, dead or alive.�But Issam was very clever and hid from Saddam and avoided all his spies. And now, when Saddam called the young men of our neighborhood to fight in the war, Issam told them about the reality of war. He told them they will surely die if they try to fight this war for Saddam against the Americans. Best for them to hide away from Saddam. That way they will live long lives.

When the war started, my children and I could look up into the sky and see the bombers flying over our home. We could see the bomb bays opening under these airplanes and then we could see the bombs dropping on the buildings near here, on the river (Tigris) where the big buildings are. We heard the explosions, too, so many explosions from so many bombs. Now our children don� want to play outside; if they do go outside, they stay in the neighborhood, they don� go further. Sometimes they have nightmares. But everybody in this neighborhood knows everybody else and the children can duck into any house if there is trouble.

Ibelene: I ask the Christian God to get the US soldiers home soon, back to their country. Insallah. My husband, Shou-ket, used to work as a waiter in the nightclubs. He made a good living but, after 1986, all the nightclubs were closed. Now, our family outside is supporting us.

Aglame: Life with Saddam was the same as now except now we do not have jobs and we do not have safety. No body in this neighborhood liked the days of Saddam but now, we cannot go out at night like we used to do. I cannot even go to the store alone, I must wait for one of my son� to go with me. Sometimes I think it was better in the days of Saddam because then at least we had safety and security.