The
Gulf War
I
wouldn't call it an experience, for I only stayed in Kuwait for a little
while during the invasion. I don't remember anything really; I was
just a child of five years. There is one incident, however, I remember
happening. This is what happened:
12 September, 1990 (my sister's birthday)
I woke up early in the morning, with the sound of commotion downstairs.
I looked around me and saw all three of my sisters still sleeping.
Being a curious child, I ran down the stairs eager to know what was happening.
I stopped when I saw two (maybe three) soldiers in uniform. Thinking
about it right now, I'd say they were Iraqis. My grandmother (or
was it my aunt?) saw me and told me to go upstairs and not go down until
I was told I could. I ran upstairs eager to share my discovery with
my sisters, but when I reached the room, they had already found out
by themselves. They were looking outside the window curious as I
was. We stayed there looking at the cars and soldiers outside until
they were gone.
This was everyday life for many people. Iraqi soldiers would go in
and out of their houses whenever they wanted. Iraqis burned, destroyed,
and even shot at houses of many Kuwaiti families. But this all was
going to be out of my life when my family decided to escape:
"May listen to me carefully. This is daddy. Do you understand?
This is daddy," my sister repeated for the zillionth time pointing at the
man I have never seen before.
Being a Saudi, was more dangerous than being a Kuwaiti. Since Sadam
hated the Saudis, we had a problem going out of Kuwait. We had met with
an officer who also needed to get out of Kuwait as soon as possible.
Our plan was to bribe the Iraqis at the border (between Kuwait and Saudi
Arabia) and claim our passports had been burned in a fire. We would
then say that the officer (the man) was our father. Pretty clever,
huh? Since the Iraqis were cheap, we gave them a TV set. But,
ofcourse, I didn't Know all that at the time.
"But I thought daddy is my daddy!!" I said still confused.
"Not now! For now, he is your daddy. OK!" She explained pointing
at the man again.
Still not getting it I decided to do as she says. "But where is daddy?"
I asked.
"He can't be with us, dear, but he will be soon." That was my mom
with a worried look on her face.
Our car was close to the border. Suddenly the car stopped.
We carried on with our plan. We were about to go when the leader
of the soldiers told us to stop again. He then spotted 'Siti' our
maid. She is someone very dear to us and was a member of our family.
He told us that she can't come along with us. She had to go back.
A relative of ours was in the car behind us. He came along just to
make sure we were OK until we reached the border. He took Siti back
to my daddy. We on the other hand carried on with our journey.
My father eventually made it with Siti across the Iraqi/Jordanian border,
and in no time we were together again.
