CNN & Leaving:
During dinner that night, we watched CNN. The wife of the owner of the orphanage--names will be in later—looked at the pictures on the 20" TV, the she looked back at us. To Naomi she asked for our names. Naomi told her that yes; we were the 6 teens that were missing from American. The husband looked up and said that we needed to start trying to get to the Americans & the only way to do that was to leave tonight with everyone from the orphanage.
Everyone started packing that night. The little kids--babies, toddlers, disabled—would be carried in backpacks and slings. Ruthie looked at me & said that we would have to pack every bit of clothes that we could find. Ruthie, Katie & I started to collect any bags that we could find. We would use the hoodies to make slings for the babies & smaller kids. Some of the toddlers needed special care since some of them had disabilities that were evident w/their surroundings. Some had gas burns from gas bombs exploding near their homes. Others had limbs missing from a bomb landing near their homes. One girl had both of her arms amputated from the elbows down. That little girl had grown attached to Ruthie & me. She would barely leave our sides, which was kinda getting hard, because she kept getting in our way. We had names the girl Kayla. The owner finally took her & put her with the rest of the kids.
As we were getting ready to leave the orphanage, we heard yelling outside that made us all run to the windows. Some Iraqi & American soldiers were trying to figure out which building we were in. Ruthie went over to Kayla and picked her up. We had given some of the kids English names so that they knew who we were talking to when we called them. When we were ready, we took our first steps from the orphanage & into the depths of the Iraqi street. The American & Iraqi soldiers stopped what they were doing and asked where we were going & if we knew where the 6 American teens were being held hostage. My first thought was that my Cousin Hector was one of these American soldiers, but on taking a closer look, I saw that he wasn't among these soldiers. If any of them were, I would have recognized the burn scar on the side of his face. We quickly told them that we were headed to the next town because there was a larger orphanage to house all the kids. The soldiers told us to be careful. We said that we would & were on our way.