That place called home, back to Iraq!!!

A few days ago, I celebrated my 20th birthday. It didn't feel the way others make it sound like, I don't feel like an adult all of a sudden nor do I feel young with a life waiting in front of me and accomplishments to achieve. It doesn't feel at all. Maybe it's because age stopped meaning anything to me. The number of "old" individuals who make no sense at all nor act their "age" makes me never count it in when I am measuring a person!!

The winter is here, it's cold in the morning and windy but still no rain. I am waiting for the rain. Somehow it feels cleansing, maybe if I stand in it for a while I'd feel better, maybe more pure "spiritually speaking of course, standing in the rain in Cairo means nothing less than a laundry disaster"!

A week from now, my family is going back to Iraq. By family I mean my uncle, his wife and children, my aunt and my cousin. I am not very comfortable saying that I don't want them to leave. Coming to think about it, as an Iraqi who loves her country, if all those who left didn't come back, who is to rebuild it again. Where are we going to find the genius minds and the hard workers who will revive it again, make it more or less the Iraq we all miss with the clean streets and the beautiful houses and buildings?!
That was me thinking objectively, trying to justify it one way or another.

On the other hand, my aunt and cousin have been living with us for the last year becoming a vital part in our small family which won't feel any easier to be separated than if it was one of us, the original members leaving. Leaving the emotions aside, and the way we adore this little girl, is it really safe to go back??!

I keep asking myself this question without finding a satisfying answer. Can we say that walking in the streets of Baghdad or anywhere else in Iraq now is as safe as walking in the streets of Cairo??
How safe is it really?!

Leaving the safety aside, as it is very relative and differs from one place to another, If you go back, what kind of life is waiting for you there?! Can people re cope with the kind of life there again? How would it feel to be back to electricity for a few hours everyday? Not having hot water in the freezing nights of winter? Not finding proper medical treatment if your kid gets sick in the middle of the night?! And the list goes on and on!

Do you risk a comfortable, safe life in a country other than yours to go back to a place that doesn't even look the way you remember it because you miss it? miss your friends? miss your life there? Are you sure it would be remotely close to what you imagine???!

It is a bit over a year since my uncle died in a car explosion in Baghdad, leaving a little girl of a year and a half without a mother nor a father. We managed to get her here, she was admitted to one of the best schools in Egypt, even better than the one I myself went to! She goes out and plays, has friends and people who adore her. I can take her to the mall with my friends to spend a day while she is running all over the place playing and pretending to hold a camera and shooting us with it! Is my uncle going to be happy knowing that his child was forbidden of something this good, of basically a some how granted future, to go back to that unknown place called home, just because it is home?!!!!!

I am confused.