I love life!
I am warning you this post is long and doesn't have any political statements or comments on bad news in Iraq or whatever..It's just me talking to you late at night...pouring the content of my brain at the moment in this poor white page, and it's totally your responsibility to decide to go through it or not:)
I love life, because God is there! Watching and taking care of me.
I love life, It's full of beautiful things and full of happiness, in spite of all the sadness.
I went to Syria and Lebanon in a short vacation during Eid, and saw lots of things that I haven't seen before, saw the beauty of history in Syria, and the beauty of the modern and neat shops in Beirut, well not shops only, everything there looks so neat and elegant, even people. Although I was stopped on the Jordanian borders for good three hours in my way back to Jordan, and interrogated for long long time by the secret service wanting to know what is a guy like me, who was in Iraq, doing in Syria, and why did he go to Lebanon now and for less than 24 hours?
What is your sect, they asked? I innocently, surprised by their question, said: Sonni?!
Are you trying to be funny? He said, the only sect of Islam known among Jordanians is Sonni Muslim!! I am asking about your beliefs, are you Salafi? Sofi? What are you? Hanafy? Maliki? Hambali?
I, a bit traumatized by their questions and the tone, said: Ahh...umm..mmm...I really don't follow any particular scholar...I just follow the prophet and Quran!
They were upset. Not even close to be satisfied with that moderate answer.
Put on the table everything in your pocket, they said.
I put everything that I had. They went through everything, opened all the papers in my wallet, read every personal thing, asked me who is the girl that wrote this letter I am holding with me and if I was going to marry her or not. They looked into my mobile phone and saw all the videos I recorded with the phone camera. The wedding party of my cousin, the videos I shoot in the
mosque of the prophet pbuh, and a video of my cat. They searched me to see if I was hiding something in my clothes. And were seriously frustrated that they couldn't find a single thing to incriminate me. Not a single thing to support all the hate and suspect in their eyes. And then they woke up the head of the secret service office on the borders, it was about 5 am by that time, and he came to question me, again, since they were really puzzled and didn't know how exactly I was a terrorist but they felt it in their hearts hehehe. Alright, anyways he was a very polite man, I don't know if he was faking it or if he was really nice, he treated me well and asked me all the questions again, and wrote down everything, and asked me even more questions, about all the details related to
my arrest in Iraq, and about everything I did in my life for the last years. The only thing that didn't happen is that they didn't arrest me, they asked me if I was a part of any political or religious groups and I said no, and some of them didn't seem to believe me, they asked if I ever got military training and I said no, and I don't know if they believed me and I don't care, they asked again and again if I was a part of any religious or political group, and I told them that I am not and never was and that I am responsible for that answer and that I dare anyone to prove the opposite. Questions....Questions...Lots of them...And I answered them all, it was freezing cold. They asked me to go and bring my bag from the car and I did, and they searched my bag too, and they found... NOTHING!! My clothes, my toothbrush and my phone charger, and some diary products that we don't have in Jordan and some sort of olive that I thought my family would like. I mean I was away for three days only!
After that, the man, the head of the secret service there thought, or that's how it seemed to me, that this is just a mistake, and gave me the boring lecture of how it's their duty to save the country and make sure everything is alright, and that they mean no harm at all, and how they believe in the personal freedom of people. and then told me that he would give me my passport back in a minute. And then instead, after ten minutes they gave me a paper that says: This is a temporary replacement of a passport, and stamped it, and told me to go get my passport from the headquarter of the secret service in Amman next week.
Whhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhy!!!! I said.
I went back to the office of the nice guy, he said I am sorry there is nothing I can do, they asked to see you, they just said they wanna ask you couple of questions about Iraq.
BUT THIS IS WHAT THEY FU****G SAID LAST FU****G TIME WHEN THEY WASTED TWO FU****G DAYS OF MY LIFE IN THE SECRET SERVICE FU****G HEADQUARTER FEW MONTHS AGO when I entrered jordan last time
coming back from KSA and they asked me all the fu****g boring question and I answered them all and they said they got all what they wanted and won't bother me again [so sorry for the F*s but they really express what I want to say]. Well I didn't say any of that of course, I just don't want to give them anything against me. I was a perfect peaceful cooperating little sheep.
I keep telling myself: let them ask all what they want, as long as I really have nothing to hide, they are not going anywhere! But they are wasting my time, and treating me as a suspect and I wanna help them realize that I really am not. And if you really think of it, I am wasting their time and money for nothing hehehehe!! that thought gives me some peace actually:D
This is unbelievable, I am gonna have to go now to waste a day or two again to answer the same questions and go home with my passport, or be arrested and put in some prison that only God knows where for only God knows what reason, depending on the mood of the interrogator and the weather. Well, depending on what God wants, anyways.
Being in Iraq for years is a curse that will always hunt me, I am gonna always be a suspect for the secret service. The ghosts of the past
hunts Iraqis no matter where they are.
Still, like I was saying, I love life:) I really do! It's full of beautiful things! And friends and lovely people! And special ones! And chocolates! and beautiful smiles! and people that their eyes smile and laugh when they see you, and people that smile for total strangers and offer them help, And lots of beautiful green fields and mountains and lot's of graces from God. I have a lot to be thankful for. In every single moment of my life, I have plenty to be thankful for, more than I can even count. o 2in ta3oddo ni3mata Allahi la to79ooha!
My final exams are soon, and I am feeling the stress in my stomach, I have a lot to lose if I don't do well enough but I don't feel like like starting to study, I am intimidated by all these big books and notes I have to read, I know that once I start everything works just fine, but I need to convince myself that I really should start!
I love life, cause I know that all this burden will go away in few weeks, and will go back to living life and hopefully do good thing for myself and others. Don't you love that feeling? When you know that all this mess will go away? Just l like a speeding cloud, will pass and take all the darkness with it? I love that feeling, I love hope:)
Few years ago I asked a girl I knew, a journalist that is about ten years older than me and have been traveling around the world following the "hot spots", Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan, etc.. We were talking about age, and I asked her: How does it feel to be 32? Do you feel different? She said: I don't know! I still feel 21! But I guess... She paused. I guess you just know that if you are ever sad that it will go away, and if you are ever happy it will also end at some point, nothing lasts for ever.
Tara dear, you are so right. Happiness and Sadness -in this life- never last. Brings on the table many questions, but reliefs you when you are going through rough times.
I always tell me friends that are going through rough times or having any problems: "just count for it! Think with me, ten days from now, you won't even remember this problem, you had millions of problems before and you can't remember any of them now, they all just go away! Why worry about your current problem so much then?" and it's really true, try it:) Whenever you have a problem, just set a time that you think the problem will be solved during it: three days, a week, ten days, etc. And just think of that day whenever you think of your problem, tell yourself that in three days all this will be behind me and I won't even think about it, I will just wait, nothing bad is gonna happen! And see if it works or not! It works every single time. Live your life worry-free!
That was one my my theories in life:)
Let me share with you another one of my theories, this one is my favorite, I mean let me share this with the ones that are actually still reading this:) this one even has a name, It's called: Be A parliament Member. Seriously! Let me explain it to you:) you know how when they mention a certain PM and you don't know him, and to identify him they tell you his stand on all the important issues that you care about? And they tell you that in that certain occasion he said that certain thing, and in that particular issue he did this or that? And when they tell you all these things about him, you can identify him and judge if you like him or not, if he is good or not, right?
Alright, now think of yourself as a PM, every word you say is recorded, everything you do is noted, and all that will be used to evaluate who you are one day, whether in this life or the other one, you remember that fight? Nobody cares to know what the other party did to you, they will only care to hear what YOU did and what YOU said, nobody wants to hear the story of who started and who did what, they just wanna know: what did YOU do, and basing on that, and that only, you will be judged and evaluated. You have to believe that someone is always watching you and recording your life, and that you will be judged basing on what you do, in public and in private, one day. Keep that in mind all the time, and you will be a better person, you will treat people well, and say only what needs to be said and do only the right things, and go only where you should go, and you won't say, go to or do anything that is not right, because basing on these things only, you will be judged and evaluated. Be a good parliament member, and live a worry-free life, those were my two tips of the day for you people, I love life, and I hope that I am living it the way that makes me a good parliament member, and I hope you do too:)
From Amman, at almost 1 am, this was your correspondent Khalid Jarrar:)
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Note: This post and the one before it, were editted with the much appreciated help of the amazing
Chikitita, Thanks dear:)
I Just found this picture couple of days ago. I took it back in 2005 in Baghdad, I was driving behind the tanks. Stopped the car and dragged the camera and filmed that scene through the wind shield, it was raining. This is a still picture of one of the short films i made for CBC back then.
