the land between two rivers
Last night i dreamt of Iraq. I was there with T, and it was slowly being rebuilt after the war. We were in a town by water, i'm not sure where... One of the first places we visited was a little corner store and it made me smile that they sold Disney comics there, like the ones they sell in Europe - Donald Duck and friends. The mood was subdued but the people were friendly. The sky was blue and it was very moderate, not too hot, quite dry, but there was a pool and perhaps a fountain. And tiles... some beautiful tiles. Then suddenly we were somewhere else, a hill, green grass, and a building. Some people were together for some kind of ceremony, it might have been a wedding. It felt quite Western, but still exotic and strangely beautiful.
Every night since this started i've fallen asleep with the television on. One of the local channels is flicking over to BBC coverage from about midnight through to 4am. I wonder how long that's going to last - the Australian media has a habit of completely ignoring anything important that's happening in the real world.
It was nice today after work stopping off to buy a Coke. I started talking to the guy who owns the store; we chat fairly regularly. And he just went off, fuming and spouting about the protesters and left-wing fanatics that get so much press coverage in this country. It was nice to find out i'm not the only one who sees their stupidity and hypocrisy, though it figures he's an immigrant too. He mentioned watching the extensive live coverage of one of the protests here and spoke of his amusement when a young Iraqi ex-pat went up on stage to talk about how she remembered being told by her mother to lie on the ground and stay covered in wet blankets in the hope of avoiding the deadly chemicals. "No war! Kill Bush! Go Saddam!" chanted the protesters, somehow entirely missing the point that it was Saddam's post-1991 genocidal chemical weapons strikes she was speaking about and not the Allied bombing.
On the other side of things, my ex-flatmate from Pakistan dropped by this afternoon. When he saw the American flag in my room he exclaimed "you're on their side!" We kidded around a bit about Pakistan's strategy of changing sides to whoever is pointing bigger guns at them, talked a little about the war and browsed through some of the extremely bloody pictures of Iraqi civilian and military deaths on Al Jazeera and another site that features some Arabic articles translated into English.
Now i am home and talking to my love. She is an amazing artist, a truly wonderful woman who reminds me of all the beautiful things in life.
"Salam Pax" has updated his blog with news of the bombing in his home town. Here.
Every night since this started i've fallen asleep with the television on. One of the local channels is flicking over to BBC coverage from about midnight through to 4am. I wonder how long that's going to last - the Australian media has a habit of completely ignoring anything important that's happening in the real world.
It was nice today after work stopping off to buy a Coke. I started talking to the guy who owns the store; we chat fairly regularly. And he just went off, fuming and spouting about the protesters and left-wing fanatics that get so much press coverage in this country. It was nice to find out i'm not the only one who sees their stupidity and hypocrisy, though it figures he's an immigrant too. He mentioned watching the extensive live coverage of one of the protests here and spoke of his amusement when a young Iraqi ex-pat went up on stage to talk about how she remembered being told by her mother to lie on the ground and stay covered in wet blankets in the hope of avoiding the deadly chemicals. "No war! Kill Bush! Go Saddam!" chanted the protesters, somehow entirely missing the point that it was Saddam's post-1991 genocidal chemical weapons strikes she was speaking about and not the Allied bombing.
On the other side of things, my ex-flatmate from Pakistan dropped by this afternoon. When he saw the American flag in my room he exclaimed "you're on their side!" We kidded around a bit about Pakistan's strategy of changing sides to whoever is pointing bigger guns at them, talked a little about the war and browsed through some of the extremely bloody pictures of Iraqi civilian and military deaths on Al Jazeera and another site that features some Arabic articles translated into English.
Now i am home and talking to my love. She is an amazing artist, a truly wonderful woman who reminds me of all the beautiful things in life.
"Salam Pax" has updated his blog with news of the bombing in his home town. Here.