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=> blind...deaf and dumb

blind...deaf and dumb
Posted by farid (Guest) - Wednesday, October 22 2003, 9:21:59 (EDT)
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+++Tragedy is all around you...you don't have to go to Iraq today to see it. The news here isn't that a young woman lost her eyes and daughter. The most telling thing here is that the woman had family in the same country that did this to her...that she has a Chaldean/Assyrian community who wanted this to happen...people die and get blinded in wars...you want one, this will happen...who won't do anything for her and reference the bible to justify their callousness...after all the woman had the bad luck to be wounded by Christians...had this happened to her at the hands of the those terrible and cruel Muslims it would be another thing entirely...it would be a "good" thing then...worth a lot...Jackie would weep, Narsai would cook...we would eat...National Work, you know. The presence of this woman makes us nervous...we don't want to see our handiwork...our community doesn't want to deal with the victims of Christianity...with the people our own brutal thugs have killed and destroyed...her daughter was no "martyr" we'll "never forget"...we'll forget the two of them as fast as we can...hurts the franchise.

And where do they go for help? To the same country with the miracle doctors that also has the miracle bombs...a full service country the United States...they'll poke your eyes out and treat you for it too.



October 20, 2003



Photo gallery




EL CAJON – Majdolin Yonan's eyelids are sunken, the sockets empty. But she can still picture her 2½-year-old daughter, Valantina, who died when bombs hit their apartment building in Mosul, Iraq.

Remembering how her daughter slept and played is an obsession for the 24-year-old, who lost both eyes in the late March war raid.

She cannot see the frightful condition of her own once-beautiful features, although she can feel the haphazard ridges of scars that crisscross her face from the 250 stitches required to repair shrapnel damage.

Majdolin's unborn son, who was to be named David, did not survive an emergency Caesarean section at the Iraqi hospital where doctors saved her life.

When Wardiya Yonan first saw Majdolin's image on the Al-Jazeera television network at midnight on April 1, she didn't recognize her younger sister.

The news broadcast showed a woman with eyes and forehead covered in bandages and her face darkened by black stitches.

"I thought, 'Oh my God! God help this lady,' " said Wardiya, 35, who lives in El Cajon. Then the TV screen showed Majdolin's wedding picture and an image of Valantina.

Wardiya, who arrived in San Diego 2½ years ago, immediately began a quest to help her sister.

With the aid of her congressman, the Red Cross and the International Communities Services Center, she managed to bring her sister to the United States for medical care.

"She is first in my life, and my life is second," Wardiya said of the sacrifices she has made for Majdolin, who now lives with her. "I love her."

While no official estimate of Iraqi civilian casualties exists, an Associated Press analysis concluded that at least 3,240 civilians died during the war.

The Department of Defense has not verified whether the U.S. military mistakenly bombed Majdolin Yonan's residence, as her relatives have claimed. News reports indicated intense bombardments by U.S.-led forces on enemy positions near Mosul that day.

Majdolin hides her short black hair – cut in Iraq to facilitate surgeries – under a black felt hat and hides her eyes behind sunglasses. She walks with uncertainty, even when supported by her sister.

She welcomes any human touch as if it were a rarity, and shows her gratitude with a slight smile that lifts her misshapen lips.

"If anyone had told me I won't see for the rest of my life, I wish I had died," Majdolin said shortly after she and her husband arrived in July on temporary visas to receive medical treatment. Majdolin's husband, Bashar Salloe, 33, lost his left eye in the bombing.

A local team of ophthalmologists, plastic surgeons and ear, nose and throat specialists, a dentist and a gynecologist have volunteered their services.

Although Majdolin recently overheard a doctor's comments in Arabic, suggesting she probably will never see again because she lost her eyeballs, her illusions linger. She hangs onto the hope that the land of medical miracles can produce one for her.

"If Americans can make rockets, they can help me see again," she says as her sister translates.

If she could have just one functioning eye, Majdolin tells her sister, she'd be able to bathe herself, cook her meals and, maybe, have children again.

Majdolin, who is Catholic, once dreamed that the Virgin Mary granted her two eyes in return for her unflagging faith.

But just one would be good enough, she says in mellifluous Chaldean.

The reality is, said Dr. Lawrence Cooper, an ophthalmologist who examined her, that Majdolin will not see again.


Political matters
Wardiya refuses to translate questions to Majdolin about how she fared under Saddam Hussein because of the risk of further upsetting her.
Wardiya, who came to the United States 2½ years ago from Iraq, expressed her own frustration at increasing lawlessness after the war.

"OK, Saddam Hussein is a bad man. Every day we hear about how much more dangerous and how much more bad it was under Saddam Hussein," Wardiya said. "But what happened to my country after Saddam Hussein? They don't have water, electricity, security. My family said they have to lock their doors after 6 p.m. You think this is a better life or freedom? It's just more bad, nothing good."

But none of the politics matter, Wardiya said.

"My mind is too stressed out, and I'm too busy to worry about Saddam Hussein or anyone else. I don't have time to feel anything," she said. "I just want to help my sister."

While Majdolin waits for medical appointments and hopes for the unlikely to materialize, she spends her days in the El Cajon apartment she and her husband share with her sister.

"When she talks, she talks about her daughter – how she moved, how she slept, what she liked to eat. I have to change the subject every time," Wardiya said.

"I never can cry when she's with me. I have to drive my car for five minutes, cry and come back. If I cried, she'd ask me, 'Why you cry? You think my eyes don't have a chance?'

"It's too hard to tell her, 'You're going to be like this all your life,' " Wardiya said, her face red from suppressing tears.


Medical advice
Difficult as it may be to break the truth to Majdolin, it should be done soon, Dr. Cooper said.
"The truth can be sad and frightening, but it is liberating," Cooper said. "The quicker we adapt to our disabilities, the faster we function."

To help her accept her new life, Majdolin needs psychological help, said Dr. Geva Mannor, an eye plastic surgeon at Scripps Clinic. He will perform plastic surgery on Majdolin's eyelids and fill the lost volume caused by missing ocular eye tissue.

"She would benefit from counseling and support – medical, social, psychological or religious. That's more important than any of the surgery I might do," Mannor said.

But the $368 Wardiya earns each week as a cashier and buffet waitress at Sycuan Casino is stretched thin. She cannot afford paid medical care or long-term counseling for Majdolin.

Majdolin's trust fund – established with donations from San Diegans – has dwindled from around $11,000 to $5,000, Wardiya said.

"We have a lot of Chaldean organizations here, but nobody helped me. Everybody gave me their back," she said.

Sam Abbod, who co-owned the former Chaldean-Assyrian American Social Club in El Cajon, where Wardiya first made her case for her sister, said if the Chaldean community helped the Yonans, it would have to help everyone else who was maimed or lost loved ones in the war.

"The community will be broke in two days," he said. "Helping one and leaving thousands behind is not a good Samaritan."

Many Chaldeans, who are Catholic, fled to the United States to escape persecution because of their religion and anti-Saddam Hussein political views, Abbod said.


Counselor sought
Raymond Barno, director for the International Community Services Center, said he will try to find Majdolin a pro bono counselor. Barno donated his time taking Yonan to the Red Cross to search for her sister's whereabouts, writing letters to Iraqi hospitals, filling out immigration papers and contacting the office of Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-San Diego, to help Majdolin and her husband obtain visas.
Loretta Moore, an instructor for the San Diego Center for the Blind and Vision Impaired, said her agency will contact Majdolin to offer help in counseling and rehabilitation.

When Majdolin first arrived, she and her husband lived in an apartment Wardiya shared with an aunt and uncle. Now three of them have moved to a separate apartment in El Cajon, leaving the uncle and aunt behind. In the old place, Wardiya slept on a living room couch while Majdolin and her husband used the available bedroom.

Wardiya still bathes her sister, feeds her, paints her toenails and fingernails to match her clothes and calls her "my daughter" and "my love" in Chaldean. She cooks and does laundry for Majdolin and her husband, who, by cultural habit, does not perform household chores – although he folds his laundry when asked.

"I feel like I have the world on my hands," Wardiya says.

Majdolin's husband, who cannot speak English, looks on glumly, if not helplessly. He says he feels as though his life is gone. He cries when he's alone. He wants to return to Iraq to his family, and he wonders why no visible progress has been made in his wife's situation.

Wardiya has lost 20 pounds since her sister's ordeal began on March 31, the day of the bombing. On a recent Sunday, she passed out while on duty at the casino and was taken to an emergency room. She knows it comes from shouldering her sister's troubles.

"What can I do?" she asks.

"A lot of people tell me you can't stop your life for your sister.

"I answer: I promised her – if she wants to be with me, I'll be with her all my life. I don't want her to feel I forgot about her because I have a separate life."

Most of the day, Majdolin sits beside her husband in the living room. She doesn't speak or move much. Her family knows she is recalling the life that was and dreading the future.

One moment, she giggles at jokes. Another, she lapses into silence, stroking her forehead with her fingertips.

"I want to know whose fault this is. Is this my fault?" she asks. "Is it my president's fault? Is it Americans' fault?"



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