I'm In :) :)

Yeeeees, finally I'm in...I'm writing from Jordan/Amman, I'm writing this while I'm sitting with my parents and in-laws whom we haven't seen for two years...God, it's great to meet with people you have been missing for so long.

The trip was really exhausting but all the tiredness just disappeared the moment the officer gave us our passports with the entry stamp in them...we went to Baghdad's airport at 7am, the flight was supposed to be at 11:30 am but it was postponed to 4:30pm and about 4pm a sand storm was in Baghdad so we can't fly until the storm is gone which normally takes a day!!! but I didn't worry because something insides me told me that everything will be fine...this is the fist time that I went to Amman and I'm sure everything will be fine for reasons I'll explain later...anyway, at about 6pm the weather got a bit better and we were ably to fly...we reached Queen Alia's airport (Amman's airport) and once we got off the plane and got into the bus, I started to have a squeeze in my heart, I don't know how to describe it but I was angry, sad, happy, traumatized, excited...I had almost all the feeling a man could feel...we got out of the bus and I felt much better when they took us to direction opposite to that of the jail, that means the situation might be better...I don't want to go into boring details so after 45min they let us in! I couldn't believe it and till this moment I'm not.

I'll tell you a little secret, since the moment my baby girl was created inside my wife everything was taking the right path...everything good started happening to us and almost nothing bad happened! Yes, I believe I have a lucky charm. Yes, it's my baby girl...and that's why I'm always optimistic these days, I believe god is helping and standing by our side because of her, I believe god loves this unborn girl.

so, now I can say that everything is perfect (thank you god) but for one thing that I don't have a salary but I believe god will compensate me, either materialistically or by other means.

Getting closer

At last, I almost got what I've been long waiting and wishing for, some of our personal fears have been defeated.

About two months ago we applied for a visa to Jordan. Thank god we got it, we got the visa and we were approved for entering Jordan, I still can't believe that this is possible; us getting to Jordan so that my wife could have a natural delivery with good medical care and overcome the medical disasters here (which I discussed in an earlier post) we got it because my in-laws signed a paper there to guarantee that we will return to Iraq otherwise they will be jailed and they will lose everything they have in Amman and for that we got approved.

And because we must reach Jordan by the beginning of my wife's ninth month of pregnancy and she should rest for at least another month, then a bigger challenge awaits me that is getting a leave for two months, once I got the visa I started working on that, I applied for two months with salary and it was rejected by the district's health manager despite that I deserve it because I have credit of 65 days of accumulating leave days (each month the employee have 3 days to take them as leaves and if he didn't take them it will be accumulated so that he could take them all at once) he rejected it saying that my wife can have delivery here and when I told him that I deserve more than 2 months for any reason, even if I wanted just to have some rest, he rejected the application again! I'm sure it's for personal reasons because of the dispute we had with him about the clinic's generator that he refused to fix (I discussed that in an earlier post), then I applied for two months without salary and he rejected the request for the third time because "you are needed in the clinic" as he wrote back despite that we are three dentists now with one dental chair that isn't even working. So after three weeks of the exhausting tries to get it done I finally gave up on that because he will never give me the leave no matter what I do or how hard I try.

I decided to go the ministry of health and see what can I do, wishing that I can get an order from above so that my district's health manager can't reject my request…I wanted to meet the minister and the guard told me that this isn't his business, I wanted to meet other officials in the ministry but my efforts weren't successful, as I was wandering in the ministry hloding the heaviest mountains in my chest and carrying the saddest expression on my face I decided to call my father and ask him if he knows anyone that could help me…I called him and he gave me a name and a number of a man who works in the ministry that might be able to do something as he said…I called him and he was very welcoming and told me where to find him, I went to him and he was a very nice man with some power, he said I can give you two months without salary that's the maximum I can do, It was great for me, at least it's a leave even if it's not paid.

I took the orders after finishing some application and took it to the district's health manager, I felt like I have defeated him which gave me a very good feeling.

Now I'm in the final stages of getting the leave (because Bureaucracy really suffocates in Iraq)… everything might look good but there is a bad side in all of that; I'll have no salary for two months, It's true that I'm in real need of the salary specially at this time but my desire for my baby to be born without complications and my wife's life and her health after delivery is much more important than the salaries.

If god wills, I'll be leaving to Amman within 10 days from now, wish me luck my dear friends and readers and I'd really appreciate the donations to compensate for the two months without payment and my salary loss, it would be greatly appreciated and I'd be really thankful.

Thank you in advance

Purple pride

I'm so sorry my dear readers for being late on giving you insights for the Election Day, but you know me; I wouldn't neglect such important event unless there is a good reason. I was waiting for the New York Times to publish my article.
So here is the link for my article in the New York Times newspaper

And here is the article:
I WOKE up with hope, hope for Iraq to be taken along the correct path by its sons. I woke to the noises voters were making in the street. As I dressed I was thinking about how different this election would be. Most of the people I know were not voting based on sects, but on sense. We are sick to death of corruption and sectarianism, and desperate for a change.
Many people I spoke to had no faith in the credibility of the elections, thinking that the winners were already decided. But they wanted to do their part, hoping they might be wrong. Others voted to satisfy their consciences — especially after some religious leaders announced that it would be a sin not to participate.
I opened the door and I felt a very soft breeze. The weather was great, neither hot nor cold, perfect for a walk in the car-free streets, a walk along the sacred road to democracy. Yet with every step my hopes were crushed by a sad reality: there were far fewer people heading to the polls than there had been in previous elections. Still, there were some scenes that filled my heart with joy: for example, an elderly woman, so stooped she could barely walk, pushing her husband to a polling station in his wheelchair.
With the sparse crowds, I had only a short wait before the employee found my name in the list and gave me my voting paper. I took it to the booth and chose what I believed was best for Baghdad, then I painted my finger purple — it might look ugly, but I like it and I’m proud of it. At the same time, a child reached the table and insisted on painting his finger, too; everybody smiled because he was so happy about it.
On my way home I developed an obsession of looking at the fingertips of every man and woman I passed. Too many had no ink. I hope the electoral committee does its part better than we did. I hope the election will not be fraudulent and the winners will not let us down. And I hope the people who didn’t vote this time will do so next time, and a real democracy will be achieved in the land where the first laws of the human race were set.

And for my dear readers, here is an addition:
I went back from the polling center with my wife to our friends' house, and there we found some other friends of us and we took this photo that speaks almost everything….a group of real Iraqis; Sunnis, Shiites and a Kurd who all are united in friendship and in purple fingers, what a nice day it was, we had lots of fun and some useful political conversations.
The primary results till now shows the winning of Maliki at the first place then Dr.Ayad Alwai in the second place…If this will be the final results, then I'll be satisfied, the party I think is the best among the available candidates will take the second place; that's good for me.
And Maliki in my opinion is bad but he is much better when he left the coalition (Ali`tilaf) and left AlHakeem, and better than Sadriasts and Dr.Jaffari.
Well, I hope the candidates that people have elected and placed their faith in will not let us down.