Jill Carroll and Allan Enwiya
Jill Carroll's story told in her own words has started to come out beginning last night in the Christian Science Monitor. The story begins, of course, with the final hours and minutes of the life of her translator, Allan Enwiya. Jill speaks fondly of Allan and of their previous adventures tracking down stories on war and politics in the streets of Baghdad and beyond. An equally moving and somewhat more intimate portrait of Allan was written back in January by an Iraqi acquaintance, the woman who writes the blog Baghdad Burning.
Allan loved Pink Floyd:
Did you see the frightened ones?
Did you hear the falling bombs?
Did you ever wonder why we
Had to run for shelter when the
Promise of a brave, new world
Unfurled beneath the clear blue sky?
Did you see the frightened ones?
Did you hear the falling bombs?
The flames are all long gone, but the pain lingers on.
Goodbye, blue sky
Goodbye, blue sky.
Goodbye. Goodbye.
Donations were raised and sent to Allan's widow by another Iraqi blogger. Fayrouz, who lives in Beaumont, Texas.
Getting back to Jill... I made it through all of "Part I - The Kidnapping" on the Christian Science Monitor website. The pages were slow to load, probably because of traffic. Part II comes out tomorrow, I think, but the site just updated with a flood of videos, graphics, and stories that were printed while she was held hostage. I am certain that Jill will bear scars of the experience for the rest of her life, but she seems to have bounced back to give a balanced, thoughtful, and gripping account of her ordeal.