Childhood Memories in Iraq

A college friend posted photos from her childhood. I viewed them with envy. I wish I had pictures of my childhood. Maybe I have some but they're in Iraq. And then I started wondering if I had had a fun childhood. I've lived 7 years of my life in Iraq. All the memories I have of that time are very dear to me. Me and Noor running to welcome baba when he came home from work and he'd drop the bags he's carrying and carry us both instead. This had to be somewhere before 1997 which means that I was 5. But I remember it still. I remember our friends coming over and playing in our garden but my sister was annoyed by their voices and kicked them out. I remember that big swing that turned over while 10 of us were on it. I remember my brother locking himself up in his room as he acted out the teenaged rebel. I remember being the girl who always fainted, broke her hair slides when she was angry and was the evil twin.

I remember leaving my friends and going to Jordan when I was 7. I remember writing to my best friend (who stayed in Iraq) letters and sending her pictures. I haven't heard from her in years. When most Iraqis suffered from power cuts, I never did as the house we lived in was supplied by the same supply for nearby factories. I remember how my grandmother, may her soul rest in peace, used complain of her eyesight and still be able to recognise actors on tv. I remember when it was damp after a light pour of rain, we used to go out in the garden and find colourful ladybirds on bright green leaves. I remember sleeping in one place and waking up in another and being convinced that I sleep walked. I remember being excessively but weirdly shy of our neighbour's son who was married to a Huda.

But I never learnt how to ride a bicycle, how to swim, how to dance ballet. I've had best friends who left me or I left them as either moved to a different country. I felt like an outsider. And that stayed with me for a long time. I still remember leaving Iraq in 1999 and how we stopped in the middle of nowhere because we ran out of petrol. How my sister buried her face through it all because she didn't want to leave Iraq. I remember the whole neighbourhood gathering and going to the nearest farm as they were afraid of a rocket shattering their houses. I assume this was in 1998, maybe the only experience of such kind I had, as we lived in a safe area.

Maybe these don't qualify my childhood to be called happy but I wasn't sad when I was a kid, I didn't know any better, and going to exotic places doesn't make it a 'happy' childhood. When my older siblings talk about the wonderful playful childhood they've had as they lived in better times and my father was there with them more than with us. But still the fact that I spent 7 years of it in Iraq brings me immense joy. I love it whether it was boring or not.
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