Remember the scene shown in all over the world about the missiles falling from the sky on buildings in the capital of Iraq Baghdad in 2003,I always wondered what would the viewer who didn’t visit Baghdad or Middle East in general ask himself this question “ what are the people on the buildings beside the explosion doing now”?
Interesting question if we can ask ourselves, although in my case, in 2003, I was one of those who were inside a house near by a falling missile in Baghdad-Iraq.
The war in 2003 that ended in the falling of Saddam Regime, lasted less than three weeks, on the other hand Iraqis in general, were so much used to the aircrafts war scene. Most of Baghdad citizens stayed home, with a good preparation waiting for the war clock to hit its bells.
personally I consider those days are bad days in my life, but to be honest I still remember several memories that I wont forget till the end of my life due to its wisdom and even mental experience that I got from. One of those days were the Poker and endless Beers night.
I was 23 years old when the war began, the war was in its second week when me and several friends decided to gather and spend the night to play poker and get hammered until sunrise.
First my parents refused to let me go out, as several of my friend’s parents did the same. After convincing them that everything will be ok and we will be in a “ kind of “ a safe area, in one of my friends house, the gathering date step by step got confirmed in its best possible way.
We hit the road around 5 PM, took all the “ booz “ that we could get, “ maybe the reader will ask himself from where we got the alcohol and if alcohol is forbidden in Iraq” and the answer is, alcohol were never been forbidden in Iraq, yes it was forbidden in most of restaurants and public places, but there were liquor stores in each neighbourhood, and in order to get the liquor store license, the own of the store has to be “ Christian”.
For us, the lucky coincidence, two guys were Christians, the parents of one of them, owned a liquor store in our neighbourhood, he told us that his parents gave him the permission to “only take beers from the store”, we took a huge quantity of boxes that filled two cars, and we hit the road to our gathering point.
Although when we reached the place we found that the electricity went of, and the small home generator is out of gas “ the electricity cut is a habitual thing that happens daily in Iraq for that reason, high percentage of families has their own small generator to generate electricity for their basic needs during the electricity cut”.
We prepared the candles, food, and the warm beer boxes were beside the dine table that we converted it into a poker table, everything was prepared before sunset, The war hour and the aircrafts attack usually begins after the sunset, around 8 PM.
8 Pm it was, and the dealer passed the cards for the first round, the rules were normal texas holdem poker, the money were plastic chips that we divided it equally to all players, plus whenever you drink a beer you can use the beer tops as the highest chip, “ 100 $ “ we used to call it, so the more beers you have, the more rich and drunk you get.
Our voices and laughs were getting higher than the explosions outside, we were enjoying the warm beers and cold food more than anything that can be offered to us during that night.
War was outside that house in the center of Baghdad, but inside we were in the maximum positive vibe that we can create and get in this situation.
I used to get the worst cards and the unlucky moves that you can imagine, following it with a comment that “ this is my unlucky day, we for sure will die today”.
I was the second to be out of the poker table, bad luck and stupid hands and more than enough level of alcohol in my body. The number of players on the poker table, went less and less through time, while the number of beer tops were getting more within the chips of the remained players,
The loosers “and I was one of them” decided to spend time in the kitchen trying to cook something, we didn’t care about what to cook and what to eat, while we were exchanging conversation about our personal lives in general, less politics talk, and more about what we will do in our lives after the end of the war.
Hours passed so quickly that we didn’t even noticed that it was almost 4 am, the sunrise is about to come, the bombs and explosion sound went off, the street outside were in pure silence, no more beer left, we were 8 totally drunk guys, who shared an unforgettable poker and beer night.
Some of the guys, passed out and decided to sleep, others stayed awake until the sunrise, we hit the road again and each one went to his own home to sleep and dream about a better life in the future.
Now, when I remember those moments after 14 years, I remember the good laughs and remember on the same time how we managed to be in a mindset that can create good moments inside a war and dark scene in Iraq. We were all in the same university and most of us went to the same high school.
when I think about the group and the poker table that let us gather during war, I see that each one now is living his own life, few of them stayed in the middle east, most of them “ and Im one of them “ decided to leave and begin my new life in another part of the planet.
Its funny and sad on the same time how we didn’t “ give a damn “ about war at that time, all what we wanted is to live. So remember whenever you see an Iraqi guy, drinking a beer somewhere in silence, remember that maybe his silence was to remember a poker night during war.
talk to you soon :)
to go back and read Episode 1: https://steemit.com/politics/@hashimalmadani/what-you-don-t-know-about-middle-east-series-part-1