Dear Friends of Salee,

I know that, like me, those of you in the Carolinas have been anxiously awaiting Salee’s return “home”. Many of you not in the area have either met Salee or heard me rattle on about her so much that you feel like you know her! All of you know that she’s a sweet, charismatic, fun, beautiful and loving little girl.

Maybe for some of you, part of your heart is in Iraq with her like mine is. So you know it’s difficult for me to have to let you all know that we’ll have to postpone Salee’s trip to the States, probably until at least September. But, I know it won’t come as a surprise to anyone that NMV, like the rest of our nation, is suffering a serious financial setback. We thought we could cover Salee’s trip with money from our general fund until we could raise the funds here, but our general fund no longer has the money to do this. As you all know, NMV had some serious financial situations recently with Mustafa Ghazwan’s stay in Jordan lasting several months as they awaited his father’s visa approval, Mustafa Abed undergoing emergency life-saving surgery at a hospital that was not the one signed on for pro bono care, and little Noora still here, awaiting what we hope to be a successful surgery on May 4th.

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Well, Rusul continues to be amazing! She’s cheerful and kind, laughing and loving. She came through her amputation with flying colors and “no ouch,” and her incision has now fully healed. She should have a new foot in ten days! And, anyone who’s seen how FAST she is hopping around without a foot (most of the time now, she just shoves her walker to the side), can’t imagine how speedy she’ll be WITH a foot! It’ll be hard to keep up with her!

Abu Ali continues to be the most loving and compassionate father. And, a good friend to everyone he meets.

So many wonderful folks from both the Greenville and Asheville areas have tended to their needs, extended warm bonds of friendship, and visited and played with both of them. Rusul’s discovered that she LOVES putt-putt, big blow-up slides, merry-go-rounds, spaghetti, making jewelry with beads, and of course, “potatoes with ketchup” (french fries). As soon as she woke from surgery, she demanded “potatoes with ketchup”; she had to be satisfied with “crackers” with ketchup (Saltines) for a while to keep from getting nauseated, but I think the ketchup was the main draw so she was a trooper as long as the ketchup kept flowing.

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Could it be only a little over a week since Rusul entered our lives? Hard to believe. In that short amount of time, she’s made some new and dear friends, learned some English, had her foot amputated, been discharged from the hospital, and is now walking with a walker! And our dear friend, Abu Ali, her father, feels comfortable and welcome again in his “home away from home”.

But so much more has happened in the short time since Rusul’s been here. She’s taught me so much; not only a few more words in Arabic and that she loves french fries and ketchup to an alarming degree, but she’s reminded me to be more appreciative.

She’s taught me that the focus should be on the positive ending, not the struggle along the way. Having “your foot chopped off” can be a GOOD thing because it means walking better and getting to go to school!

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Rusul had her surgery today; her foot was amputated.  She wasn’t scared though; she’s just anxious to walk and go to school again!

Post-surgery, she just had to share her experience with her buddy Nora!  (after demanding french fries and LOTS of ketchup for her post-surgery meal!)

She danced.

Her dress billowed, circling her like a flower’s petals as she spun in the sun.  She laughed and sang, then broke into giggles of pure joy.

Suddenly stopping, she turned to me.  Her gorgeous dark eyes with the long, curling lashes became moist with sorrow as she began to walk away in her proud and independent way that almost hides the struggle.

“Good-bye, Ann.  I love and miss you, Ann,” she called over her shoulder as she reached the sidewalk.  She turned and sadly waved one last time, then lifted her right arm high and in a firm, clear voice, called “TAXI!  TAXI!”

I ran to the sidewalk and scooped her up and she became a rag doll, overcome with giggles.

This was Rusul, the drama queen, the child of joy and laughter, yesterday in front of her temporary new home at the Ronald McDonald House.  Play-acting, having fun, being silly.  Being a child.

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Wow! I’m still walking on air after this morning’s phone call. Dr. John Davids, Chief of Staff at Shriners Hospital in Greenville, called today to let me know that Salee’s little sister, Rusul, has been accepted for treatment! What a dream come true. I was on pins and needles worrying that, after helping to get the care for Salee to be able to walk again, her little sister would be left sitting at home, forever maimed. But, there is now hope for Rusul, too! What a blessing!

Rusul’s right leg was horribly mangled in the same US air strike of November 2006, that took the lives of her little brother and friend, and both legs of her big sister as they were outside of their homes, playing. To imagine children, innocently at play, being hit by missiles paid for by our tax dollars, is heart-wrenching. Can we even imagine how we’d feel (and react) if another nation’s bombs dropped from the sky onto our children? If we ran outside to find them scattered on the ground, blood-soaked and broken? No, we can’t imagine it, yet we’re inflicting this horror on the families of Iraq on a daily basis. The feeling that I, as an American, am somehow responsible for the loss of Salee’s legs, the death of her brother, and the maiming of precious little Rusul brings me such sorrow.
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Cole called tonight and said that Salee and Abu Ali had made it safely home to Fallujah.  There was a welcoming party with a huge feast and a sacrificial lamb.  All was well, and they were happy.

But happiness must be a pretty relative thing in a city that’s been decimated by siege and sanction.  In a city where nobody doesn’t have somebody that they loved who’s been killed as a result of our invasion.

I want to think of Salee happy.  Her smile lit up every room into which she walked (or wheeled).  Her laugh was infectious.  Her joy was pure. (more…)

Our little girl has gone. And my heart with her. I just returned from a week in Los Angeles, Salee’s first stop on her trip home to Iraq.

Sitting in LAX waiting for my flight home, as Salee, Abu Ali and Cole fly on to New York for a three day stop before heading to the Middle East, I think of the past week. Cole’s incredible passion for the cause filled the week with presentations and schedules to meet, but also many memories.

I’ll never forget Abu Ali’s eloquence when speaking about Iraq. I’ll never forget his face when he tells of a family near him, seven members killed in one bombing and a soldier coming to the hospital and saying “Sorry”. “SORRY?” Abu Ali says. “You killed seven people and all we hear is ‘sorry’? But that’s how it always is,” he adds sadly. He talks about Iraq before the invasion, how Shia and Sunni lived together peacefully, without a thought. “Sectarian violence? There wasn’t any,” he says. “We were friends.” (more…)

Cole and I went to a lunchtime presentation today given by Congressman Bob Inglis who has monthly talks with his constituents in area restaurants. Today’s topic was “Accountability in Iraq”. Apparently, although we are the ones who invaded their country, bombed their cities, destroyed their infrastructure and are killing their people, accountability rests entirely on the shoulders of the Iraqis.

The main frustration in the room seemed to be that the new Iraqi government wasn’t getting the situation in Iraq under control. The fact that “control” might be a little difficult when your country had 160,000 armed foreign troops in tanks and airplanes firing upon its citizens, when they hadn’t had a full day’s electricity in four and a half years, clean drinking water was an expensive luxury most cannot afford, and starvation was as big a danger as imminent death from US firepower, seemed to have entirely eluded these people. The fact that a government forced upon you by the very people who had invaded your country might not actually be accepted as legitimate by victims of the invasion, also seemed to be an alien concept. (more…)

Selena Frank and I contacted No More Victims back in 2005 looking for a way for our interfaith youth group to help a war-injured Iraqi child. They were already doing wonderful work with the homeless and hungry in our local area but we wanted them to reach out to a child affected by our actions in Iraq and perhaps, to gain an awareness for civilian casualties. Cole Miller e-mailed me back immediately with the name of a little girl who’d been blinded by a cluster bomb outside of her home. Ayat was beyond medical intervention, but we were able to show our youth photos of her and tell them her story and they were very anxious to help, holding car washes and barbeques, talking to our local school for the blind, and eventually sending a package of things a young blind child might be able to use to brighten her day. (more…)