Riverbend in October

Veteran Iraqi blog-meistress Riverbend has had three good posts (out of three– a great record, Riv!) so far in October. Thank God she’s back, even if only intermittently.
The most recent one is a strong appeal to American voters not to inflict another four years of Bush rule on her country (or indeed, on ours).
The one before that is a great disquisition on the recourse to valium during a war.
Here is one great excerpt:

She wrote about ‘Will’, someone who had emailed her with an urgent question…

Will asked if valium had become addictive after the war. Of course it has. Valium is a staple during wars. I remember when we were preparing for the war, we would make list after list of ‘necessities’. One list was for pharmaceutical necessities. It included such basics as cotton, band-aids, alcohol, gauze and an ordinary painkiller. It also included medicines such as ampicloxine, codeine and valium. No one in the family takes valium, but it was one of those ‘just in case’ medications- the kind you buy and hope you never have to use.
We had to use it during the first week of April, as the tanks started rolling into Baghdad. We had an older aunt staying at our house (she had been evacuated from her area) and along with my cousin, his wife, his two daughters, and an uncle, the house was crowded and- at bizarre moments- almost festive.
The bombing had gotten very heavy and our eating, and sleeping schedules were thrown off balance. Everything seemed to revolve around the attack on Baghdad- we’d hastily cook and eat during the lulls in bombing and we’d get snatches of sleep in between the ‘shock and awe’. There were a few nights where we didn’t sleep at all- we’d just stay up and sit around, staring at each other in the dark, listening to the explosions and feeling the earth tremble beneath.
So imagine this. It’s a chilly night in Baghdad and the black of the sky suddenly lights up with flashes of white- as if the stars were exploding in the distance. The bombing was so heavy, we could hear the windows rattling, the ground shaking and the whiz of missiles ominously close. We were all gathered in the windowless hallway- adults and children. My cousin’s daughters were wrapped in blankets and they sat huddled up close to their mother. They were so silent, they might have been asleep- but I knew they weren’t because I could vaguely see the whites of their eyes, open wide, across the lamp-lit hallway.
Now, during the more lively hours of a shock and awe bombing storm, there’s no way you can have a normal conversation. You might be able to blurt out a few hasty sentences, but eventually, there’s bound to be an explosion that makes you stop, duck your head and wonder how the house didn’t fall down around you.
Throughout this, we sit around, mumbling silent prayers, reviewing our lives and making vague promises about what we’d do if we got out of this one alive. Sometimes, one of us would turn to the kids and crack some lame joke or ask how they were doing. Often, the answer would be in the form of a wane smile or silence.
So where does the valium fit in? Imagine through all of this commotion, an elderly aunt who is terrified of bombing. She was so afraid, she couldn’t, and wouldn’t, sit still. She stood pacing the hallway, cursing Bush, Blair and anyone involved with the war- and that was during her calmer moments. When she was feeling especially terrified, the curses and rampage would turn into a storm of weeping and desolation (during which she imagines she can’t breathe)- we were all going to die. They would have to remove us from the rubble of our home. We’d burn alive. And so on. And so forth.
During those fits of hysteria, my cousin would quietly, but firmly, hand her a valium and a glass of water. The aunt would accept both and in a matter of minutes, she’d grow calmer and a little bit more sane. This aunt wasn’t addicted to valium, but it certainly came in handy during the more hectic moments of the war.
I guess it’s happening a lot now after the war too. When the load gets too heavy, people turn to something to comfort them. Abroad, under normal circumstances, if you have a burden- you don’t have to bear it alone. You can talk to a friend or relative or psychiatrist or SOMEONE. Here, everyone has their own set of problems- a death in the family, a detainee, a robbery, a kidnapping, an explosion, etc. So you have two choices- take a valium, or start a blog.

River, I’m glad you’re back to blogging. I hope it’s helping to keep you sane…