So now I’m sitting in the middle of dogs, mice, rabbits, birds, bears (of course they outnumber the others…), sheep, cows, lions, elephants, monkeys, turtles, hippos and so many more and feel like in wonderland. I did wash and dry all of them...
...and now will put them into two big boxes and send them to Dohuk and Bagdad.
... I had to climb pretty high to get this pic ... ;)
They could be even more since a friend collected toys in her school but because of a misunderstanding the package went to a shelter for disabled children in Frankfurt/Main. Maybe she will collect some more and send them herself to Iraq. But I couldn’t stand the big brown boxes in my kitchen anymore and am happy to finally send them away.
Some of the collected will stay with me. I tell you which ones so you know what you don’t want in case you decide to collect plushies for peace too. Some of them I couldn’t clean without cracking them. Others had electric devices inside which make them talk or whistle or bark. Because Iraq is a war zone I wanted to make sure that nobody at the customs would suspect anything else but a friendly gift for children who need it. So some of theses devices I could remove, the others will stay with me in Germany and I have to think what to do about them. Somebody send me a very sweet little pink pig holding a heart. But in Islam pigs are impure, even worse than dogs. This knowledge led me to the decision to not send the pig to the kids of Iraq because I don’t want to offend anybody.
EDIT: The young man who is the reason of my little collecting story told me that he is sure nobody in Bagdad would have been offended by the little pink pig. But still, I remember an artikel in the Yemen Times, condemning "M&Ms" because of the big feet of the advertisement guys, and think my decision was not entirely wrong. However the pig now is loved by the daughter of a friend of mine *g*
My contact person in Bagdad promised to send me some pictures of the arrival of the toys in Bagdad. So stay tuned, I will post them ;)
