Dylan was entranced by the animated avatar of Professor McGonagall transforming from a cat into a witch used by a poster at a Harry Potter discussion board I frequent. I asked him if he wanted to see more kitties. I did a Google image search for “cat,” and the first picture that appeared came from a blog kept by a fourteen-year-old Iraqi girl named Raghda. She posts a new picture of a cute cat almost each day. In the midst of all these cute kittens, she posted an entry titled “We Are Living in Hell” after a bomb exploded down the street from her home, shattering her windows and causing the deaths of two children she knew. It’s amazing to me that Raghda is still able to search for and find beauty in this world (in feline form) in the midst of the daily terror in which she lives.
One thought on “Baghdad Girl”
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Thanks for sharing this, Dana. It says a lot about the human spirit. I find it both amazing and humbling that in her post on the bombings she wasn't filled with anger or hatred, just stating the facts, and in those facts, there is such sadness, almost as if she is so used to it, as if there's not room for anger anymore – almost an acceptance. And, really, for a girl of 14 to be so innocently posting pictures of cats while there's such ugliness going on around her, is…well, so wonderful that it's one of those sad/beautiful things that make you stop what you're doing and take a look at what life's all about. How many other girls, boys, women and men are in Baghdad, or elsewhere, and trying their best among so much terror? It's a shame; it's all so unfair.