Riverbend:...Summer of Goodbyes... I hope she's okay

[RedEarth]

August 5 was her last post..I'm starting to get a little worried ... below is the 8/5 post......

Summer of Goodbyes...
Residents of Baghdad are systematically being pushed out of the city. Some families are waking up to find a Klashnikov bullet and a letter in an envelope with the words “Leave your area or else.” The culprits behind these attacks and threats are Sadr’s followers- Mahdi Army. It’s general knowledge, although no one dares say it out loud. In the last month we’ve had two different families staying with us in our house, after having to leave their neighborhoods due to death threats and attacks. It’s not just Sunnis- it’s Shia, Arabs, Kurds- most of the middle-class areas are being targeted by militias.

Other areas are being overrun by armed Islamists. The Americans have absolutely no control in these areas. Or maybe they simply don’t want to control the areas because when there’s a clash between Sadr’s militia and another militia in a residential neighborhood, they surround the area and watch things happen.

Since the beginning of July, the men in our area have been patrolling the streets. Some of them patrol the rooftops and others sit quietly by the homemade road blocks we have on the major roads leading into the area. You cannot in any way rely on Americans or the government. You can only hope your family and friends will remain alive- not safe, not secure- just alive. That’s good enough.

For me, June marked the first month I don’t dare leave the house without a hijab, or headscarf. I don’t wear a hijab usually, but it’s no longer possible to drive around Baghdad without one. It’s just not a good idea. (Take note that when I say ‘drive’ I actually mean ‘sit in the back seat of the car’- I haven’t driven for the longest time.) Going around bare-headed in a car or in the street also puts the family members with you in danger. You risk hearing something you don’t want to hear and then the father or the brother or cousin or uncle can’t just sit by and let it happen. I haven’t driven for the longest time. If you’re a female, you risk being attacked.

I look at my older clothes- the jeans and t-shirts and colorful skirts- and it’s like I’m studying a wardrobe from another country, another lifetime. There was a time, a couple of years ago, when you could more or less wear what you wanted if you weren’t going to a public place. If you were going to a friends or relatives house, you could wear trousers and a shirt, or jeans, something you wouldn’t ordinarily wear. We don’t do that anymore because there’s always that risk of getting stopped in the car and checked by one militia or another.

more........

http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2006_08_01_riverbendblog_archive.html#115472425289075262

[TexasProgresive]

1. I've been worried too

Last week sometime the site was down and that just increase my concerns but then it was back. The reports of executed Iraqi women by a bullet to the chest is just awful to contemplate that any women are being killed and then someone like our Iraqi "girl blogger" it is so much worse.

[Jeanette in FL]

2. I check every day

I am so worried about her. I can't help but wonder what has happened. When you hear that over 6,000 Iraqi's died in the months of July and August and over 5,000 of them were in Baghdad, you cannot help but be worried for her safety.

In her last blog, she writes about how many of her friends are leaving Baghdad because of the violence. You just know that if she decided to leave, she would have found a computer and communicated with us.

I just can pray for her safety.

[annabanana]

3. nominated, for visibility. . . . . . n/t

[watercolors]

4. I'm hoping she and family are safe

Her last posting was so depressing. my granddaughter checks everyday, and is worried that something has happed to her.

[Chalco]

5. I might be mistaken but I thought there was a movie being

made about something she'd written? Perhaps she's busy with that, although, I would assume she would be writing in her blog anyway. Yes, I've been worried, too.

[Dystopian]

6. k&r.....

I am also afraid for her...she knows how many are awaiting a post.
It's been too long....

[sueh]

7. k & r, too

Hope to hear from you again, Riverbend. Sending good vibes & prayers up for you.

[Chalco]

8. Here's the info re: stage play based on Riverbend.

From the BBC and posted on 8/14

Iraqi woman's blog adapted for stage

Riverbend has been writing her blog for three years
Baghdad Burning, an anonymous blog written by a young woman in Iraq, has been turned into a play.
For the last three years, the 25-year-old, who calls herself Riverbend, has been writing a daily internet account about life in Baghdad.

She speaks ...

More here <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4790577.stm>

[Bucky]

9. Hope she posts soon. She sounds like she's being safe, but just can't

post so much b/c of the electricity problem. Why oh why couldn't Saddam have been overthrown by a country that had trained electrical engineers?

[vickitulsa]

10. Another Baghdad blogger, a friend of mine named Zeyad

left Baghdad some months ago. Had a bit of a stressful journey, he and his family, going first to Jordan (where millions of Iraqis are refugees) and then on to America where he has been offered a job and further college education. He's a dentist by profession, and I read his blog since he started it, I think in 2003 or thereabouts. About the time the invasion was launched.

At first he had high hopes that things would improve in his Baghdad neighborhood, but in his business he also traveled to Basra and elsewhere, and he finally decided that Baghdad was NOT SAFE for him and his young family any longer. They were in a big wave of Baghdadis (? - do I have that right?) who abandoned their homes and hometown and fled in terror. Got that word? TERROR.

I'm relieved that Zeyad is now in the United States and pursuing his career -- evidently a dual career now that he's learning more about writing for some kind of publisher. I look forward to seeing what he eventually writes about his home country and this war. He was very sad to have to leave, and particularly for the reasons he did, though.

Unless we read stories like his and Riverbend's, we have no clue to what life in Iraq is really like for its people. Those who turned their once stable state into a crazed, violent madhouse armed with more weaponry than it ever had before should burn in hell for what they've done!


Please check Zeyad's blog, "Healing Iraq," which he just posted to the last time on Sept 15th, with the first news of his arrival in NYC!

http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/

I just read it, and it's heartening. It was due to his blog that the CUNY people ever contacted him in the first place -- and his excellent English, of course. I'm hoping he adapts to life in the U.S. smoothly enough to feel comfortable and has a great life here for the time he must be away from his home country.

I can't remember for sure, but I think he may have studied dentistry in America, or perhaps the UK or another English-speaking country.

Someday soon I hope we hear equally good news on what happened to Riverbend! When she's able, surely she'll post to her blog again....

[beachmom]

14. Sorry, I hadn't read your post, before I posted mine

Read Zeyad again, because he has a new post up. He is still reporting on Baghdad from all of his sources; it is an absolute nightmare. You know, I can't totally blame the MSM -- Time magazine had a cover story about Baghdad being Hell. And yet, people don't seem to care much about Iraq. It's like it's a far off war, and if they don't have family or friends in the military over there, they don't think it's their problem.

I'm sure Zeyad will run into that complacency even in NY, and I'm sure that's going to hurt.

When you say he's your friend, does that mean that you guys exchanged e-mails?

[vickitulsa]

17. OMG, what a nightmare poor Zeyad is living now!

Thanks for sending me back to read his latest update -- I know how he feels about his brother and all of his family, and I guess I didn't catch it if he has mentioned that any of his family were returning to their neighborhood.

I understood he was the only one coming to the U.S., but I suppose I was just hoping against hope that the rest of his family would be allowed to remain in Amman or somewhere else in Jordan ... or ANYWHERE else besides going back to where they lived in Baghdad!

Now he's learning that people he knew who lived on his street are being killed almost daily ... how scary can it get for him, worrying constantly about his family? I rather think that he won't be able to remain here for long if his family ends up in such a threatening situation.

It seems to me he is not getting enough support from the folks who brought him to our shores and got him started in school -- or maybe I'm just wanting more for him than anyone can give. I would very much like to see him permitted to bring at least his own little family here so he wouldn't be so distraught and unable to work or study!

I remember in one of Zeyad's now-archived posts when he talked about sending his daughter off to school one morning as he was getting ready for work. She was on the sidewalk just outside his house when he heard flurries of gunfire erupting right in front of his house! He said he didn't even think, just ran outside to get her back in. Fortunately he managed to do that with both of them getting back in safely, but he said the gunfire continued for a few more minutes and then faded away ... and people pretty much went on about their day like nothing had happened.

That's what life was like for him well over a year ago, and I doubt then that he ever dreamed it would get as bad in his neighborhood as it has now. Since he is Sunni (but not really a practicing one) and also a medical professional (dentist), I have worried all along that the Shi'a militias might target him for death or kidnapping.

I'm sure it's been very hard for many Iraqis to really believe just how much WORSE their lives could get -- and all with the American troops there! Like the doctors that Zeyad wrote about in that last update to his blog, the ones who try to stay instead of abandoning their countrymen and families are often paying for it with their lives. I get so angry about all this I just want to scream at somebody.

As for Zeyad being my friend ... well, I'm not sure he would remember me as well as I do him, since he corresponds with a lot of people he has never met -- largely through his blog but also in emails. Back when I first discovered his Healing Iraq site in 2003, he didn't have so many comments or contacts from others coming in yet and he could respond to them more often. I can't remember now if I actually received emails from him or if we had exchanges in the comments sections, but because I've been reading his blog and following his story and the news he provides us for so long now, I do feel like he's a friend. I'm not sure he would say that I'm a friend of his in so casual a way. :)

But I care about him so much -- and I've been concerned about his wellbeing so much for so long, he just feels almost like family to me!

I was so relieved when he finally made it to NY, but now I'm worried all over again because I know he just might pack up and go back to Iraq to try to protect his family.... :cry:

[poverlay]

11. I've emailed Raed Jarrar who calls her his "virtual sister" and have yet

to receive a reply. I'll post immediately if I hear from him.

[magellan]

15. I've done the same

I imagine Raed gets a lot of mail to sort through, just like River. Someone suggested her last blog entry sounded like a cryptic way of saying she and her family might be getting out. For their sake I hope so. It'd be nice to hear they're someplace safe, perhaps in London, and she's advising on the play.

[Generic Other]

12. The women of Iraq have lost so much of their freedom

It's heartbreaking.

:cry:

[beachmom]

13. A lot of the Iraqi bloggers are leaving Iraq

Zeyad is in New York, not that Iraq is ever far from his mind:

http://www.healingiraq.blogspot.com/

Eject Kid was in Jordan, but has returned to Baghdad to complete his studies; still, I believe his plans are to attend university in Jordan after 4 of his friends were killed in a bombing of a market:

http://ejectiraqikkk.blogspot.com/

Iraq the Model looks like he will be staying put (at least until the Americans leave). He wants the occupying force to stay and goes to seminars sponsored by the Cato Institute. Despite my disagreements with him, I fear for his life every day, since his brother in law was brutally murdered several months ago:

http://www.iraqthemodel.blogspot.com/

13 is in Jordan:

http://come-getsome.blogspot.com/


The last statistics I saw was that 25% of Middle Class Iraqis have fled the country. That number will continue to grow.

[madokie]

16. It is so sad what we have done to the Iraqi people

a once proud people:cry:

[burrowowl]

18. Does anyone know

how we can get some info.
Do the BBC people know anything?