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Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Baby Noor in the midst of war
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Louie Favorite
Noor al-Zahra, known to most Atlantans as Baby Noor, is held by her grandmother, Soad, in Baghdad's Green Zone.
Baghdad, Iraq - Inside the medical office of the Iraqi National Assistance Center, the grandmother unravels a school-bus yellow piece of paper containing the results of her granddaughter’s latest medical examination.
A doctor reads the report as the baby, Noor al-Zahra, dressed in a red and beige Barbie outfit, howls.
The smile that captured hearts in Atlanta cannot be coaxed — not even with a fuzzy, pink teddy bear that a soldier drops by.
Baby Noor, as she has become known, is cranky and unwell.
“I don’t know what to do,” her grandmother, Soad, says through a translator. “Noor feels good one week and bad the next.”
Born with a severe spinal cord defect, Noor caught the attention of Georgia Army National Guard soldiers who plucked her from impoverished Abu Ghraib and flew her to Atlanta.
Doctors at Children’s Healthcare gave Noor the treatment the family could not access in Iraq. A tumor-like growth on her back was removed, a shunt placed in her head to prevent fluid buildup.
The Iraqi baby who had little chance at life was miraculously given one. That single act of humanitarianism in the midst of war gained Noor instant celebrity.
Now, more than a year after she was discovered, her life has lost some of its luster. Out of the media spotlight, she is once again just one of thousands of Iraqi children in need of care that’s often difficult to find.
On this day, Dr. Ali (his full name, like that of Noor’s family members, is withheld for security reasons), says Noor has a urinary tract infection that is causing bouts of fever and making her belly swell. Given her circumstances, he urges her grandmother to make an appointment to have a scan done of Noor’s brain. He had asked for the scan on Soad’s previous visit to the center last fall.
Soad explains the wait for an appointment at a public hospital near her home was very long. Baghdad’s widening sectarian divide has limited where she can take Noor for medical care. She tells Dr. Ali she has no money to go to a private clinic.
Soad says the doctors who were asked by her Atlanta sponsors to examine Noor on a regular basis are no longer around. Dr. Ali says many doctors have fled Iraq or resettled in safer areas in the northern part of the country.
He has thought about doing the same but is still here because he works in the relative safety of the heavily fortified area of Baghdad known as the “Green Zone.”
Dr. Ali and his staff coordinate medical care for Iraqi children with foreign humanitarian associations like Childspring International, which sponsored Noor’s trip to Atlanta last year. So far, the Iraqi assistance center has sent 120 children abroad. Some have cleft palates, nervous tissue damage or congenital heart problems. Ali knows Noor was lucky to have come face-to-face with soldiers who were able to rescue her quickly.
“It’s her fate,” he says. But Dr. Ali also knows Noor’s life is a health challenge multiplied manifold in Iraq’s difficult conditions.
As Noor sits in her grandmother’s lap, a woman on the center’s staff compliments Noor’s lacy, white espadrilles. They are a gift from her Atlanta sponsor, Nancy Turner, who has tried to stay in touch with the family. But Noor’s feet don’t move. Nor do her legs. The doctors have told Soad from the beginning that even with the best surgery and care, her granddaughter will probably have to use a wheelchair.
As she gets older, Noor wants to play with other children. But Soad has noticed that Noor now gets agitated when she can’t make move like the other children do.
Soad is weary from carrying Noor —- now almost 18 months old and big for her age. She eats solid food, and is particularly fond of potatoes, rice and stew and, of course, cookies. Soad wants one day to get her a motorized wheelchair.
Again, Dr. Ali presses Soad to have Noor’s brain scanned.
“Noor can live,” he says. “She needs medical consultation. It all depends on the family.”
Noor’s cries echo through the hallways between the metal shipping containers that serve as the assistance center’s offices. Soad collects her things and walks toward a security checkpoint that demarcates the Green Zone from the rest of Baghdad.
Noor’s father, Haider, is waiting on the other side. He was barred from entering because his passport expired and he lacks sufficient identification.
On the way, Soad lets out a torrent of frustration. She says her family has paid a price for their American connections.
She says her shop at Abu Ghraib market was bombed last summer and that the owners of the space hounded her for money.
Her elder son Bashar has been detained by the U.S. military for months. Soad goes to see him periodically but says she does not know the charges against him. Haider was abducted and released twice after the family paid the ransom, she says. They do not know the identity of his kidnappers.
Out of fear, the family left their Abu Ghraib home. Now Haider rarely ventures out. He has no income.
Soad asks if anyone can help Haider and his family emigrate — to Jordan, to the United States. She wants them to live anywhere but here.
Noor plays with a color photograph of her brother Karrar, born in July.
Their mother, Iman, took the healthy baby boy and returned to be with her parents in Abu Ghraib. Soad worries that Noor, who was separated from Iman during her six months in Atlanta, may grow up not knowing her mother.
Soad approaches the heavily guarded checkpoint. She is relieved to give up the weight of the child to Haider.
Noor, who is beginning to talk, can say her father’s name.
As military choppers swarm overhead, Haider covers his daughter’s delicate ears to shield her from the noise. Despite the difficulties, he says, the family will not give up on Noor.
“The terrorists don’t know that I went to America for my baby,” he says.
He marches out of the checkpoint, his mother behind him, his baby in his arms. Noor, oblivious to the uncertainty in this violent city and in her own future, flashes her captivating smile. This time, there is no one to come to the rescue.
Cox Correspondent Larry Kaplow contributed to this story.
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Beauty is found in things that seem ugly
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Camp Victory, Iraq — In this country, one expects certain sounds: thundering explosions, whirling Black Hawks, the rat-a-tat of machine gun fire.
• See photos • Audio: Hear guitarist play
But two other sounds drift from a small, out-of-the-way office. First, there’s the curious, constant grinding noise coming from under the desk of a public affairs officer in the headquarters of an Atlanta-based medical command. Then, there’s the mellifluous melody of a Burmese pop song.
One is an attempt to cleanse ugliness —- the aim of every humanitarian act in Iraq. The other, a representation of the beautiful —- an increasing rarity amid the bloodshed.
Maj. Robert Hart, a schoolteacher from Jacksonville, slides an orange and blue Florida Gators box from underneath his desk. From it, he extracts another box surrounded by Styrofoam peanuts. And inside that? A strange-looking contraption that cleans rocks.
Hart collects the rocks from the vast gravel fields of Camp Victory. The military lays down the stony stuff to reduce dust and mud. The rocks look dull and gray and, truth be told, rather ugly, surrounding the living trailers, dining halls and port-a-johns.
But after 30 days in Hart’s rock tumbler, they emerge as glistening jewels.
In Iraq, people learn to find beauty in things that seem ugly.
“Some of them are absolutely breathtaking,” Hart says, showing off a rust-colored rock with streaks of gold.
He thinks the rocks may have come from the river beds of the Tigris and Euphrates. He hopes to take some of his polished gems home and sell them to raise money for military charities.
Hart and the Fort Gillem-based 3rd Medical Command staff —- many of whom are Atlantans —- are in charge of all military combat hospitals in Iraq. Though the soldiers at the unit’s headquarters have grown used to the drone of the rock machine, it’s not exactly music to their ears. That’s where the second sound comes in.
Hart’s assistant, Sgt. Thawng Lian, hangs his guitar on the wall of the same office. He strums it now and then and sings songs from his homeland, Burma.
Lian immigrated to Atlanta a decade ago and earned a business degree from Georgia Perimeter College. He works as an event tech supervisor at the Renaissance Hotel and joined the Army Reserve in 2001 as a way to give back to the United States.
Here, he slices through the stress of war with music.
“If we love each other, then nobody will have to go to war,” he sings in his native Burmese.
In Iraq, everyone has a way of coping.
For these Atlanta soldiers, two opposing sounds provide solace.
