The Days of Aubergine

With a kind and warm smile she handed me the bag saying: “I cooked something for you”, I didn’t know what was in the bag but I was pleased by the piece of paper which she gave me as I was already searching for the poem in it.

Aubergine was the most common Iraqi dish during the Embargo; it had a place on the table in every meal.

I have a lot of memories from those hard days; they represent 12 years in my life, from a child playing football in our area to a teenager with a fundamentalist Islamic mentality, and eventually; a young student doctor with an unexplained passion toward the casualty unit of Al-Yarmook hospital!

In each period of those, there were many stories about people’s sufferance and how hard their life was; still I remember many of those stories as I was involved in some of them.

In the period 1991 to 1996, we were living in a local area for the teaching staff of Basra University, people there represented the highly educated slice of the society in Basra and most of them got their qualifications from the western world.

The income of all the governmental employee was not enough, many of our neighbors had to look for another source of money, some of them had little shops, others worked as taxi drivers and one of them started selling cigarettes as all what he could prepare was a small table in the market.
Those who couldn’t find another source of income started gradually selling their furniture or their wives’ jewels to provide food for their children.
My family was a bit in a better condition as we were blessed by relatives living outside Iraq, yet, that doesn’t mean we didn’t have to sell anything.

Many of the academic professions had to run away as they couldn’t cope with that life, however, not everyone had such chance as it was an illegal action.

According to the watchword “Necessity is behind invention” or as Iraqis say it “Necessity is the mother of invention” many alternatives started to appear in our life; meat was the first to disappear and was replaced by different things like legumes and vegetables, sugar was expensive so it was replaced by molasses, it was common to see small chicken coop in the garden, people tried to reuse their old clothes after doing some changes on them.
Moreover tiers were so expensive so our neighbor used to sew them adding some screws!

People had to struggle with the flour; the provided flour was of a very bad quality and small quantity, bread was dark and not tasty at all, many families including mine had their own kiln to deal with this problem by themselves.

Yet, not everything could be replaced, there were things which were completely absent like banana, I heard many funny stories about children who had the chance to see it but they didn’t know how to eat it, I know one of them in person who commented on it saying “they gave something like aubergine”!

In 1996 we moved to live in Baghdad; the stander of living there was much better; at least water and electricity were available; things which were not available in Basra.

We were walking in the local public market when an elderly man with small grocery; talked to my father about his sufferance, and of course without saying any taboo “political” word; “Until when? It’s too hard now, we can’t tolerate anymore” the man looked so exausted when he said that.
My father replied trying to comfort the man: “Allah is generous, let’s hope, didn’t you live the days of Rasheed Al-Gailani ?
“I lived those days when I was in the age of your son, yet, it didn’t take so long as these days and it wasn’t like this” the man replied.
Days of Rasheed Al-Gailani were in 1941 when there was a revolution and chaos, obviously; it was also a hard period.

Despite the fact that life in Baghdad was much better, many people had to suffer for different reasons; our next door neighbors were a family whose father was a teacher in the morning and a shopkeeper in the afternoon while the mother was teacher in the morning and a dressmaker for the rest of the day, still they were unable to provide good food and clothes for their four children.
I’m still captured by the shout of a hungry boy who knocked our door asking for food, my sister gave him a chicken sandwich, he just shouted happily “DIJAAAAJ” which means chicken, it seemed has hadn’t tasted it for a long time.

Lack was not only in food, many drugs were unavailable especially drugs for treating cancer, I can’t forget the only time in my life I heard my father admitting that he couldn’t control his tears, it was when he heard about an engineer lady who laid on the ground kissing the foot of another cancer patient to give her the doses she needed to survive as he had plenty of them.

As soon as I became a medical student, I saw many people who were so poor and unable to pay the5$ charge to be admitted into the hospital, I examined one of them who was a young man working as a laborer, small worms were getting out of the deep wound in his hand, yet, he couldn’t afford for treating himself, I realized that we were living without dignity.
Even doctors were not well, their whole salary was not more than 30$ in the best circumstances and including the overtime and everything, many of them used to live on that sum of money!
Corruption escalated at that time and we had to bribe people to make things easier.

Isn’t it a fact that what we live nowadays are the consequences of our life in those days?
It’s also a fact that those who claimed liberating us were pleased to make us suffering on those days?

While watching T.V, I was thinking about those days and how horrible they were, a lady called Hibba Bassam was talking on Al-Jazeera English channel, she was describing her sufferance in Baghdad, she couldn’t find any reason to go on, she mentioned that life is so horrible, her words don’t go far away from what Nasooh said yesterday when I phoned him “It doesn’t matter with me if I have to stop working as a doctor for the rest of my life, I just want to leave this country”.
I kept thinking about their words, I’m sure both of them would prefer eating Aubergine frequently rather than living this terror.

I linked what they said to the words of the elderly man we met 11 years ago, I wonder if they consider our the life 11 years ago as good life, I worry of seeing someone after 10 years consider nowadays life in Baghdad much better than his life.

Still and despite all the sufferance we had been through, I’m in love with aubergine! It reminds me of my country which I really miss, it reminds me of my family, we didn’t eat meat as frequent as we do now but we were together.
Moreover; it’s the thing which stood beside Iraqis when the whole world didn’t care,
I wonder if there is something standing beside Iraqis nowadays.

I enjoyed eating the special dish she cooked for me in our Iraqi way “TEPSI” and yet, it was with meat this time!
I’ll leave this poem which I really like and I got with the dish:

( معلقة البيتنجان )

أسود سواد الليل والزلف أخضر................ واللمعة جن روغان والريحة عنبر
غلطان إذا ظنيت بالشتا ننساك ................... رسمك ثبت بالعين والطاوة وياك
بالحمس بالتركيب بالمركة شفناك ............................... موتت كل الناس من بعد فركاك
كذاب كلمن كال متفيد ؛مغثوث ...................... يمنشط المصران يمصبغ ال*تووث**
بالدهن من غطيت نشفته كله................................. سعر الدهن يا ناس سوالي عله
يروح السمج والبيض واللحم فدوة .................................. لعيون بيتنجان بس وه يسوه
أسود بعيون الناس بعيوني تبني............................. واحد من أهل البيت حسبتك إبني
هم طرشي هم تكلاه هم شيخ محشي ............................. مثل الذهب يا ناس بالسوك يمشي
يالتحجي عالروغان تستاهل إعدام...................................... لو فاركته العين ما تكدر تنام
أسود سواد الليل بس كلبه أبيض.............................. أدري الطماطة تفيد بس إنت أفرض
لو وجبة ما ألكاك صدكني أمرض................................. من كثر اللي بيك سويته معرض
زاير بيوت الناس والبيت بيته..................................... لو بيدي يا هالناس ما كشريته
لو تحجي يا هالناس هالمعدة كالت...................................... جيبولي بيتنجان الفركة طالت
كطعت ورد البيت وزرعتك إنت ........................................حيرني لغز البيك وما فهمته
دار الزمان ودار وبقيت إنت.................................... والباقي يا هالناس خلوها سكته
كلبك صخر جلمود يالكشريته مو جنت............................................. تبجي دموع من فاركيته
لو يصعد الدولار هم هذا أزدد....................................... حسبالك الدولار النفط الأسود
شكد حاول العدوان يفرض حصاره ما يدري.............................................. وحش الليل سواله جارة
يالدزك الرحمن للناس رحمة........................................... أتخيلك باليل بالطاوة لحمة
بكد ما بليت الناس من الله يبلاك.................................. إبتعد عني روح أرجوك يا*بلاك*
ما أظن انا بيوم أكدر أعوفك.................................. لوما كتلني الجوع ما جنت أشوفك
العظم أسود صار وحتى الخلية ........................................ من سمع بيتنجان بالصيدلية
يومية ناخذ *دوز* شو صار إدمان ....................................... إتعوت عليه وهسه اني ندمان
القرحة بالأمعاء والمعدة *ألسر*................................ ماي العمى للعين والكلب*كانسر*
وكافي بعد ياناس ما أكدر أحجي......................................... لو شفت بتنجان هاليوم أبجي

Tooth: تووث
Ulcer: السر
Cancer: كانسر
Black: بلاك