Category — Beneficiary Profiles

In December of 2003, a few months before photographs revealing torture at Abu Ghraib detention center shocked the world, American soldiers were fired upon in a rural farming community in Iraq. Unable to apprehend the attackers, the Americans went door-to-door, arresting men in neighboring houses. One of these men was Abu Hassan, and the arrest led to nineteen months of imprisonment and torture at US detention camps in Iraq, including Abu Ghraib. 

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When Noah Baker Merril and I were in Jordan recently, we had a long-awaited opportunity to visit with Moustafa, six years to the day that he was thrown off his roof by the concussion of a US missile, breaking his back. And Moustafa had a surprise for us.

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Award-winning photographer and filmmaker Tomiko Jones has posted a series of powerful black-and-white images taken during time spent accompanying the Direct Aid Iraq team in Amman, Jordan earlier this year.

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Writing from his experience working with DAI’s team in Amman, Jordan, DAI’s David Smith-Ferri tells the story of a man who embodies many of the struggles and the hopes of the people we have met in this work.

AMMAN, Jordan – On the first Saturday in May, at Churchill Downs, the underdog, come-from-behind, runaway victory of Mine That Bird in the 135th running of the Kentucky Derby thrilled people across the world. Racehorse victories are attributed to team efforts: credit the jockey and the trainer for winning. And the trainer in this case – Bennie Woolley – was as much an underdog as Mine That Bird was a long shot, having never previously run a horse in a stakes race before Saturday.

If this appeals to something in you, if you are cheered and comforted and strengthened by examples of people overcoming adversity and succeeding against the odds, not on the basis of privilege, but on talent and determination, then come with me to the Middle East, where an Iraqi horse trainer named Balasem is fashioning a kind of comeback that is far more remarkable and instructive than the one Mine That Bird and his team produced last week.

The first thing I learned when I spoke with Balasem is that he loves and respects horses. Practically as a greeting, he said to me, “Never hit a horse. Treat him kindly, and he will remember you as a friend.” There isn’t anything he’d rather talk about.

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