Dreamed this Aug. 24th. I dreamed I went to Iraq to start a new life. Mom and I drove down an Iraqi highway in seperate cars. Mom drove a little Toyota Corolla (she doesn't own a Toyota, she owns a Subaru Legacy). I drove the same car I have in real life, a yellow Suzuki Aerio (which is also a compact car). I checked the back seat and I was happy to see that the dogs were with me. The highway looked like it was in good shape. This was not the violent and unstable Iraq I was used to hearing about. People put aside their differences and were actively improving their country, and the first thing they did was rebuild their infrastructure so people could travel easily. It was a peaceful country.
I felt great. I was leaving everything behind to go help build this new country. Everything had been pre-arranged so I had a job and a place to live when I arrived. I didn't know the local language but this was not a problem.
We came to a section of highway where there were caution signs sitting out and people directing traffic due to a big chunk of the road missing from a past roadside bomb. Traffic slowed to drive over the missing section. Mom stopped and parked the toyota along the side of the road and got in my car. She said we would be back for the toyota later.
My apartment was in a high rise building. It was small, simple, and clean. I looked out my window and I could see the parkinglot below. I noticed a lot of people drove compact cars here, mainly toyota and suzuki. In the U.S people made fun of me driving a little car but little cars are very practical. I could see a lot of people here felt the same way. The parkinglot was jammed tight with cars parked so close to each other it looked like they almost were parked on top of each other.
I was part of a very large group of foreigners here to reconstruct the country. We all worked in a massive building that was like a city on the inside. I would be working along side some of the most brilliant minds in the world in engineering, city planning, and leadership. My offical job was to job was to create a high art community and culture with poetry, visual art, dance, & music and so forth but, I was going to design an education and economy where people will never be poor again. This will be a prosperous country; and because I'll be rewarded for my contribution, I will be rich too.
I wondered about daily life here...will have to look out for people targeting Americans for harm? I looked back out the window. The parking lot was gone! In its place, was a really large elegant French cafe' complete with a live orchestra playing eitheir Blue Danube or Moon River. Anyway, the music was from the 1940's big band era. People were eating, dancing, and having a good time. Everyone was dressed up in their best clothes. I looked back at my room and there was a huge hornets nest attached to my bedroom wall. I was worried about the dogs being stung. Then, I wondered if I could live with them. I took a closer look. None of the hornets had stingers. They were harmless for they put away their stingers. Only one hornet had a stinger and tried to sting me but I easily squashed it. None of the hornets were hostile, even after I squashed the only one who tried to sting me. The hornet nest was going to be safe to live with. The hornets talked to me, they said they liked me and would not harm me. In fact, they were going to protect me and my dogs from any person planning harm for me.
I went down to the cafe. All the signs were in French. The annoucer spoke in French. He annouced in French, "Welcome Ladies and Gentlemen! Relax, enjoy yourselves! Dance, enjoy the food, whatever you like!" Why was this so French? Why was the national language being changed to French? Who decided this? Well, it looks like I'm going to learn French while I'm here. I felt welcome and I felt that there was a sense of community that all we foreigners had a bond of friendship and the Iraqi people welcomed us.
Reminds me of the quote from the Bible "they will beat their swords into plowshares, and beat their spears into pruning hooks, nor will they train for war any more"
END.