Your world, My world and OUR World.

Dear Audience Members,

I hope everyone enjoyed their respective spring breaks and had a blast. Now that we are back in the real world, it’s time to talk about more serious issues. I was reading the newspaper this week-end and I noticed an article about protests that were held in New York City in opposition to the war in Iraq. That reminded me of my time during the wars on Iraq and I thought I should share that story with all of you. So here it goes.

In August, 1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait and basically took over our country in about 5 hours. The reasons behind the attack are debatable and very political. For those of you, who are curious to know why it happened, hit the library. No just kidding. I will post a page with a few links to help you out. Anyway moving on…..

I was in Kuwait when the Iraqis attacked us. I was about 8 years old so my memory is a little faint, but I do remember that it happened on an early Thursday morning. My brother, my father and I were in our beach house waiting for my mother to arrive since it was the week-end. (Week-ends in Kuwait and other Arab countries start on Wednesday and end on Friday which is our Sabbath.) I woke up and turned the TV on and noticed that our regular cartoons were not on. Instead there were messages of patriotism and strength on TV and the radio urging us to defend our country against what is happening and to stay strong. It was pretty bad. After two months, Iraqi soldiers were infiltrated in almost all parts of the country and they were starting to enter houses at their will and do horrible things to whoever would not cooperate. They would find military personnel and take them as P.O.W’s; sometimes they would kill them in front of their children and their wives or vice versa. It’s pretty graphic and disturbing what they were doing to the people of Kuwait. We resided in an area in Kuwait were the Iraqis were facing lots of resistance from the residence, so it was becoming a really dangerous area to live in. My father was the only man in our house at that time, since all of my aunts and uncles were already out of the country on vacation when the incident had happened. Because of fear that something might happen to us or to my father, he asked us to leave the country. Our journey began…..

My mom packed our things and I remember that she hid her passport and my eldest sister’s passport by tailoring them into some clothes that we had packed. The Iraqi soldiers at the border were taking everything away from the people that were leaving the country. Passports, money and any other form of identification. I guess it was a way of just completely stripping us of our identity. So we left with what ever we had and we headed to Saudi Arabia. The road was dark and very rough, and I remember that we were traveling in a huge troop of other cars that were also coming from Kuwait. While in Saudi Arabia, we stayed for a while in some public schools that had been turned into refugee camps. After that we proceeded to another area where we had some family and we were able to stay with them. After that we left and went to London, where the rest of my family was. We own a house in Brighton, England and that is where we stayed for about 3 months. After that we left again and went to the United Arab Emirates. There the government was setting people up in all kinds of places. Hotels, apartments, schools and other places. We stayed at a hotel that was called the Metropolitan and it was completely filled with Kuwaitis who had fled the invasion. We stayed there until the February, 26, 1991 when Kuwait was liberated with the help of the U.S. and other allied countries.

Quite an adventure I know. It was the happiest day of our lives the day that Kuwait was liberated. I remember watching the whole thing on none other than CNN. We were jumping on the beds and screaming as every bomb went down and as all the soldiers entered Kuwait and took the Iraqis out. The war was not only devastating to our country, it was devastating to out lives. It tore a part families, left hundreds homeless and penniless, killed fathers, mothers and children. It is something that I wish upon no one and hope that none of you ever experience in your lives.