Taiz, I love you!

While I'm typing this post, Taiz city, at the moment, in Yemen is under a heavy shelling from Saleh's security forces. So far, more than 20 people have been murdered and tens got wounded over the past three days due to the continuous shelling over residential buildings.

One wonders, how is that happening while, the semi-truce deal, the GCC deal was signed! “As if shelling the city was one of the GCC deal's passages which the JMP signed upon,” tweets @TahaAbdoh from Taiz. It's extremely heartbreaking to follow the news from Taiz while nothing has been done to stop the horror and the bloodshed.

My relationship with Taiz starts when I was a teenager and we had a relative of my family visiting us. Her name was Sa'ada (Happines) and she was from a village called al-Raheda, located at the countryside of Taiz. She was very sweet and spoke a pure Taizi dialect. She was very wise and taught me lots of housekeeping skills. I must admit, she was struggling with poverty but had a great grace. She stayed at our place for couple months while she was going forth and back from hospital; having medical treatment for her daughter, Hend, 6, who suffered from Meningitis.

Sa'ada used to tell me many stories about how life was difficult in Taiz. My teenage mind didn't really comprehend that Sa'ada used to tell me those stories with a great sense of resilience and fortitude. Now things are getting clear for me. She had the warmest smile .. I loved her dearly and will always do. The couple months passed and Sa'ada had to leave our house in Sana'a. She went back to Taiz with Hend. Months later we received the news that the little angel Hend passed away due to her chronic illness and probably lack of finance for proper medical treatment.

Years later, my family and I visited Taiz and met Sa'ada again .. life was still hard in Taiz; economically and infrastructure speaking. Yet, people of Taiz were very hospitable, warm-hearted, and welcoming with big smiles in their faces.

I have many stories about Taiz .. my best friends are from Taiz .. my two cousins are in Taiz at the moment .. I want to write about that too but .. I can't handle the pain anymore. My tears will ruin the keyboard .. I'll just leave it hear and hopefully Taiz rise up again and peace comes back to the city that I've always loved.