
Me lembro muito bem dessa estóri , um garoto de 4 anos teve o rosto completamente queimado durante a Guerra no Iraque, e ele e a familia foram acusados de ajudar os americanos.o garoto e sua familia fugiram para os EUa, e agora depois de dezenas de operações platicas,ele começa a viver novamente.Leia estória dela,tá em Inglês.
Meeting Youssif, two years on
Posted: 340 GMT
LOS ANGELES, California – I am not one who is inclined to cry. I never have been.
CNN's Arwa Damon and Youssif goof off in Los Angeles.
CNN's Arwa Damon and Youssif goof off in Los Angeles.
When I first met Youssif it was hard to look at his heavily scarred face and his sad dark eyes peering out from underneath the thick scar tissue.
The scope of the horror of what had happened to him was impossible for my mind to absorb. What kind of a world do we live in where someone can douse a four-year-old in gasoline and set him on fire?
Since that first day he has taught me so much. Now six, he offers a story in the survival of the human spirit.
At first, Youssif wouldn’t talk to me. Girls have cooties. To be honest, I was jealous of the male members of our crew.
He finally did speak to me a few days after we arrived in Los Angeles. We were at the beach — a first for the family. Youssif ran shrieking toward the water as fast as his little legs would take him. We laughed so much that day!
It was my first glimpse of the boy that he once was. He ordered me to bring him water from the ocean for the sand castle we were trying to build. I’m not one who is inclined to take orders, but I was so happy he was talking to me that I obeyed. I’ve been obeying him ever since.
This family has been through so much, and they still are. His parents are struggling not only with the horror of what their son went through but also the trauma of watching him struggle through the multiple surgeries. But day by day they say their son is coming back.
I can’t even begin to imagine what it’s been like. To see your son trying to put out the flames on his face with his little hands. To think that all hope is lost. To land in a foreign country and know that you can’t go back home because you’ve accepted help from an American NGO and you’re associated with an American TV network.
I speak with Youssif’s parents on a regular basis. It had been a year since I was able to make it back to Los Angeles and spend time with them in person. And I have to admit, I was nervous.
Even a year ago, when I made several trips, it took Youssif a while to warm up to me again. I also have to admit that I don’t spend much time with kids. So I had no idea how he would react to me.
When I walked into the apartment he was hiding under the table with his kid sister grinning devilishly. I barely fit but wriggled my way underneath. He laughed. I breathed a sigh of relief: We were golden.
I look at him now talking a mile a minute about anything and everything in a mix of Arabic and English, and I can’t believe he’s the same boy I met in Baghdad. I would really do anything for this kid. I made paper airplanes for the first time in over two decades.
“Are you working on my story?” Youssif asks me, looking over my shoulder as I type this.
“Yup,” I say.
He’s looking over my shoulder again, pointing to the numerous times his name comes up. I love that we’re “hanging out” now. We’re even sharing popcorn. He’s shrieking with laughter at something silly I am doing.
“Here, you can take this too,” he said in giving me his toothpaste, as I packed my bags.
I am so childishly flattered. I am also the proud owner of a gingerbread snowman he made in class, a little pink flower, two paper airplanes we made together, a stuffed rabbit, and a cold soda because he noticed I was done drinking the one I already had.
And a used eraser.
“I want to grow up so I can be a doctor,” he says. “Is being 10 a man?”
I laugh. He’s being serious.
“I want to help other burnt Iraqi kids. I want to be like Dr. Peter,” he says referring to his surgeon, Dr. Peter Grossman with the Grossman Burn Center.
Youssif’s even sitting in my lap now.
“Are you leaving today?” he asks.
I nod.
“Oooooh,” he exclaims, his usual expression of surprise, as his eyes widened.
He keeps running over asking me how much time I have left.
It’s breaking my damn heart to leave. And I thought I was the “tough Baghdad correspondent.”
But watching Youssif standing on stage singing “Jinglebell Rock” with the other first-graders, I felt tears sting my eyes. It’s not the first time the little guy has caused such a rare reaction in me.
Click here to watch Arwa Damon’s report on her reunion with Youssif.
Posted by: Arwa Damon, CNN Correspondent
Filed under: General • Iraq