A Journey of Iraq

Anup Gurung "lovlyanup"

I am Anup Gurung, now I am in Iraq. I am not a writer but just want to share my story to you, and here I am going to tell you how I came to Iraq.

After I left my study I didn't have any work to do or let's say I didn't have anything to do, which is a usual situation in our country. I always used to gather with friends. I felt in my mind that I should go abroad to earn money and visit a new country as well, so I departed to Dubai. First I wanted to go to Hong Kong, however, China's government had changed rules for Nepalese visitor regarding the visa. They had stopped issuing visa for Nepalese who wanted to visit HongKong. Those who have Hong Kong ID only can get a visa and the one who is married with ID holder's also can get visa. So, Hong Kong visa is limited only for few Nepalese people. If I wanted to go Hong Kong, I would have to marry with a Hong Kong ID holder girl and I didn't have any one to marry me or a contact person to arrange those stuffs.

So I was concerned for Dubai and I sent my all document to my cousins, who were working in Dubai. After 4, 5 months they called me to Iraq. You know this country; where daily car bombs blast, and everyday people are being killed. It's very terrible place. I also heard about Iraq, where our 12 Nepalese people were killed inhumanly by the terrorists. We know that Nepal government restricted to work in Iraq. But we don't have any option to do and also our country's situation is so bad. We can't do anything in Nepal. Everything is expensive, every month there are strikes and Nepal Bandhs. If somebody is killed the people call a strike. But our government does not do anything, they only watch the situation like watching a film. Nepal government knows all that but it doesn't do anything for Nepalese people. They are only living for them not for us and country. So we have to leave our country and go aboard to earn money. But there are also many problems. We know that we need skill for work if we don't have any skills we need to learn. But we don't think we need to take training first, we are only here to earn money. We don't think how they are earning money. We only see that they are earning more and more money. They are working really hard to earn money.

I also wanted to earn money, thats why I applied for Iraq and left Nepal on November. I was happy when I left Nepal as well as sad since I was going far from my family, my country. I didn’t knew whether we can stay or not in a foreign land. I miss my family. I was thinking about my self. At the end of the flight Air hostess announced we were landing on Dubai… please fasten your seat belt.......then I fastened my belt.

We arrived in Dubai. Then one of our friend called the agent at Dubai Airport. The Agent asked us to wait there. After 2 hours our agents came to pick us. Then they dropped us to Ajaman. We saw there were eight Nepalese brothers, where they were eating only rice with salt. They didn't have vegetable and oil, to eat with rice. When we started to talk to them they said they were not eating rice for 7 days. They called agent but they didn't respond anything. It's very sad. We also told the agent, we were hungry. There was nothing and agents said that that day we were going to take our lunch at Restaurant and next day he would bring rice etc. for us.

After 1 hour we went to look for a Restaurant for dinner at night. We were new there and we didn't know where the Restaurant was. But after 5 minutes we found a Bangali Restaurant and we took our dinner there. There was fish and daal, rice but honestly I didn't like that dinner. I missed my family's rice that time. Then next morning our agent brought rice, oil, vegetable, spices, and all things that were needed to cook. There was no cook for us so we cooked ourselves for all. Then all friends took lunch & dinner. The Agent told us our flight will be after 1 week. We went for swimming and fishing to pass our time. Thats how we spent 1 month there. After one month, a man from the agent came at 2 a.m. and called the 4 people who came there 125 days ago. The agent told those people have flight for PPI Company, Iraq. We were also happy for our turn. But that day about 11 am, one of our friend, Yadav called from Dubai Airport to a friend called Basnet and said "Basanta Bhai hamilai ta PPI bhanera Nepal Pathaidiyo". Then we had a meeting and we called our agent to come our camp.

After 2 days our agents came to our camp and we told to them that we needed to clear information about our Flight. We asked "When were we flying to Iraq? If you can't send us to Iraq we want to return Nepal." Then our agent told us they returned back those people whose agent did not gave commission to them to fly to Iraq so they sent back to Nepal. But asked us not to worry and told our flight should be after 1 week, we told them if you can't send us this week this is not good. We also didn't have other option but to wait for our flight in Dubai, so we waited for our flight to Iraq. On January we had our flight schedule. The company chartered a plane. We left Dubai. After 3 hours we arrived at Erbil International Airport. Then we were given an emergency visa. Then we left Erbil after half an hour, we arrived Joint Base Balad. We were little bit afraid when we saw open area from plane and there were lot of helicopters and some fighter plan. This is the story how I came to joint Base Balad in Iraq.

The author has his personal blog: http://www.lovlyanup.blogspot.com/