While I was talking to the young boys, a little girl slowly made her way to the back of the group. One of the other soldiers pointed out how adorable she looked in her tracksuit and rose print hijab (veil). As soon as we looked at her, one of the boys holding a palm frond smacked her in the face with it; she began crying and ran to the other side of the street. I turned to the boy and said, “Are you a haywan (animal) or an Iraqi? If you are an Iraqi, you’ll go and tell her sorry.” Little Ali got mad and refused to. The other boys started chiding him and he then sat down, lowered his head and began sulking.

My attention got distracted though by another boy walking up towards me. He carried books in one hand and a full book bag - one of the school kits passed out by USAID - in the other. As I noticed how smartly dressed he was, even though his slippers were repaired with duct tape, I couldn’t help but think that he exuded a lot of pride and class regardless of how poor his family may have been. Mustafa was 12 years old. He held up his notebook (adorned with a picture of the late Ayatollah Hakim) and asked me to write my name for him. After I handed the book to Mustafa he asked me, “Are the Americans going to give us a king?” I told him, “No, the Iraqis will write a constitution first with all the rules and ideas of Iraq Jadeed (a New Iraq).” This news made Mustafa so puzzled that he asked me three times if Iraqis would write it. Then I asked him what he wanted as the new rules. Mustafa, with the determination etched onto his face one would never expect from a child, said, “No more people missing.” Mustafa’s uncle had been in Dawa Party, a political party persecuted by Saddam, until he went missing one day. The moment he said the word Dawa, all the other children hushed.

By then it was time for my unit to leave. As we began to mount up and drive off in our humvees, the kids caught a glimpse of our Taiwanese driver and began yelling “Yabanee” (Japanese) and “Jackie Chan.” The little boy stopped sulking, got up and said asif (sorry) to the little girl still hiding behind the man who I presume was her grandfather. I looked at him. We both said “ma3aa salama” (peace be with you), and, as we drove off, the children kept running for a few blocks holding thumbs up and waving, with two little girls yelling “where’s my backpack (the USAID schoolkits being given out to all the schoolchildren)?”

I can’t help but wish, in sha’ Allah (God Willing), that every child in every school in Iraq will learn about a constitution and speak up for what they want it to say.

Masry
09 NOV 03
Baghdad, Iraq