Hugh in Iraq, Wednesday
Hugh's reflection on five years of war in Iraq tonight is about Marlene. And her sister Samira. Here are his words and pictures:
"A year ago, I was in Marlene's kitchen asking her about the cost of living. We'd dealt with cooking oil and bottled gas; just as she was talking about the soaring cost of bread, there was a massive explosion that shook the building and rattled the glass in the windows. It was the bomb attack on the UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon visiting the Green Zone a mile away. Marlene crossed herself, said "Oh my God!", and "I'm sorry". She then laughed as I commented: "How ironic, I was about to say that your life must be very stressful!"
A year on, Marlene is not laughing, She is barely speaking.
Marlene
Marlene with her sister Samira
In memoriam. Marlene's and Samira's parents
Their father as a young man. He's wearing the uniform of one of the mostly Assyrian-Christian Levy Units of the British Army in the early twentieth century, and under the "Mandate for Mesopotamia". There's more on the Levies :
Better days. Another photograph on Marlene's wall: the River Tigris waterfront in Baghdad, in the nineteen sixties she thinks. Cafes, fish restaurants, seats on the sand, big American cars with fins, and timeless VW Beetles.
Samira. How does she stay so cheerful? "It's my nature"
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