Operation Smile - Amman, Jordan

I am in Amman with my friend from the Berkeley Free Clinic. It is really good to see her. For all you heppies, she looks absolutely fabulous! And boy, is it really amazing to watch and hear her speak in Jordanian Arabic!

Actually, not only with A, it is very cool to watch and listen to the Peace Corps volunteers here speak Jordanian Arabic. Also, it's amazing to see them in action with the Operation Smile mission going on here. (Here's a link to the operation currently happening: http://www.operationsmile.org/missions/reports/?country=JO. It's very cool!!!) They are working with the medical volunteers in coordinating the surgery schedules, answering questions and concerns from worried parents/guardians as well as talking and generally hanging out with them to keep them occupied and relaxed as much possible. They also play with the children and hold the babies to keep them entertained or to give the parents a break. It is so touching to see how gratified many of the adults are for the volunteers' efforts.

It has also been very heartbreaking at times. As mentioned in the link, most of the families were bussed in from Baghdad. They are mostly Iraquis but some are also Kurds. (A few of the patients are Jordanian.) On the way towards the Iraq-Jordan border, the bus was stopped by a group of Sunni insurgents demanding all Shi'ia or those from south Iraq get off the bus so that they may kill them. Although all the patients are from the south, someone insisted they were all from Baghdad. When an insurgent demanded to see his identificaiton, the man handed over his passport instead of his ID card which spcified the region of where he is from. The insurgents eventually let the people go but now they are very scared about what may happen upon their return as the insurgents threatened to keep watch for them. The volunteers are now trying to figure out how to get them safely back home. But how must the parents and guardians feel? I cannot even possibly start to imagine! The excitement and joy of having their child undergo a procedure that would improve one aspect of life just to face the strong possibility of having their child be killed shortly!!!

But the fear doesn't stop there. As one man related the politics of Iraq and its violent and deadly fallout to my friend, fear for their lives and even more so, fear for the lives of their family members and loved ones is a constant. As this man relayed, life was very bad before under Saddam. Despite his removal from power, life has not gotten any better. As told to me, the word chosen to describe the situation now is "bloodbath." How's that for the "War on Terrorism" in Iraq??!??

Oh. For those of you that are haven't heard of this, do please try it. Go to Google's home page. Type in the word "failure" in the Search box. Then hit the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button. Whatcha think??!