HW 34: Responding to Riverbend

Gold plays a huge role in families in Iraq. “Gold is a part of our culture and the roll it plays in ‘family savings’ has increased since 1990 when the Iraqi Dinar began fluctuating crazily.” (Riverbend 100) Gold is an importance to the Iraqi people; they are converting their money into gold. By doing this they are eventually making items to sell, money rates can change, but gold will always be valuable. The Iraqi people are so hurt, continuing in the reading, there was a statement made about how some troops only money our of their homes because they didn’t even bother looking for gold because people like “that” didn’t own gold.


Riverbend talked about how in Iraq a garden is not complete without a palm tree in it. “From kilometers away, you can see the vivid green of proud date palms shimmering through the waves of heat and smoke reaching for a sky, rarely overcast.” (Riverbend, 103) It is evident that she is very right about there being an incomplete sense about a garden, or just any area around Iraq without a palm tree. It seems almost weird to me that there such a lavish amount of palm tree’s because when I think about palm trees I think of relaxing tropical Islands but when I think about Iraq, I only think of the war of terror. Maybe that is wrong of me, but that is how I feel I guess, and it is really good to read that from someone’s mouth.