An Iraq Diary

[Robbien]

I came in the morning ready to start new day, anxious to see my new byline, and what the world is doing today in Baghdad, specially after the new security plan that we all follow because it is our work! While outside no one, no one is even care to know, not because they don’t know about, its because they feel hopeless and desperate.

I came to the office, and found this message in my phone saying “we are Kata’eb al Jehad, we know you, and we are watching you” isn’t that exciting!!! To get threat from unknown side whether al Jehad battalion or others!

Since a while a got this feeling that am counting down, yet I have to move on because as a single mother, full with ambitions and enthusiasm to achieve better future for me and for two daughters, pushes me to go on, beside, it is the work I love, to let the world understand the reality of what is going on here.

Living in Iraq, working as journalist, not in Iraqi media, but American one, going back and forth to work puts me in great danger because I live in an area fully controlled by the Mahdi army that you have to take different roads each time trying not to draw attention, pretend you don’t speak English, with spreading several rumors that you are working two jobs to justify you coming late to your neighborhood.

Such things are hard to get adopt on but I think I felt that it’s a duty on us to report what is going here since Iraq and specifically Baghdad as it is now one of the hottest spots in the world.

so I red the message, I stood for a while thinking that it might be the hidden camera, that all my colleagues are hiding all of a sudden would jump and say Yaaaa, surprise, but no one was there, I came back and re red the message, apparently this is not a jock, OH my God, they are addressing me personally, they know me, they have been following me … I think got a real threat.

I stood for a second feeling nothing at all, seconds after, I went like small tornado in the office telling everybody, I GOT A THREAT ... HELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLP, DOOOO SOMETHING.

 

 

Have you reached sometimes to a moment when you have a struggle within yourself but you can not express it, and you pretend to be ok and normal advising yourself to be calm down, despite being scared is so obvious on you. I hate it when I look like that.

Many have told me that I should leave, saying that it’s the only possible solution, that I should leave all my life, career, family, my house, take the kids and flew away, as if its easy to be uprooted from your homeland and live away in solitude, as if when you leave you are going to find everything previously set and waiting for you, new life with new job and comfortable house, as if its easy to leave everything behind, they don’t realize that leaving means going to the unknown forgetting all the things you have worked so hard to accomplish no matter how small they look to them yet they are so big in your eyes.

With such distracted mind, I waited for few hours to see what will I decide to do if I got another message, or should I throw the simcard right now?, should I spent the night at the bureau? Should I go back home and be with my kids? Should I take it seriously and leave the country? But where to?

Busy with these thoughts the message tone rings, it was them again saying “you are running out of time, consider this is a warning.”