Life’s simple pleasures, far from the war

From the back of a Jeep atop a Santa Catalina Island peak, Salee Allawe could see for miles in every direction Monday.

“Look over there!” her father, Hussein Allawe Feras, said in Arabic. She followed his stare to vessels sliding across the blue ocean below.

Her response was a dreamy smile. “Balmaat,” she said. Boats.

It was a simple pleasure, but that was the point.

The 10-year-old girl lost her legs in what her family said was a U.S. air strike on the outskirts of Baghdad last November. Salee, who was discovered by her mother dragging herself over a pile of bricks, helped identify the remains of her 13-year-old brother and her best friend, who were killed in the same incident.

Salee recently was fitted with mechanical knees and prosthetic limbs at the Shriners Hospital for Children in Greenville, S.C. Her sponsors wanted to give her a happy memory before she returns to her war-torn country next Monday.

So they brought her and her father to Catalina Island. The little girl with short brown hair, big brown eyes and an infectious laugh was greeted in Avalon by a group of well-wishers who held up a colorful banner reading “Welcome to Catalina Salee!” and handed her armfuls of gifts.

“People keep giving me things -- necklaces, like this one,” Salee said through an interpreter, fingering an abalone necklace that had been placed around her neck. “I don’t even know their names.”

The trip seemed to accomplish its goal.

During an hourlong, teeth-chattering ride into the interior of the island, Salee screamed gleefully as the Jeep negotiated hairpin turns into steep valleys. The adults, meanwhile, grabbed the roll bars.

And when she was introduced to Tachi, a Catalina Island fox cradled by a biologist, she blurted out one of the few English phrases she knows: “Oh, my gosh.”

The little female fox is a survivor of sorts as well. The 4-year-old Tachi, the product of a captive breeding program, has bonded too much with humans to be released into the wild, so conservancy workers have named her Ne Shun Tachi, or Tachi for short. In the Tongva language, it means “Little girl of hope.”

As Salee was carried back to the Jeep in the arms of a caretaker, she waved and again ventured some more English: “Goodbye, Tachi. Thank you so very much!”

The trip -- an eco-tour arranged by a group of island organizations led by Leslie Baer of the Catalina Island Conservancy -- began at sunrise Monday when Salee and her father boarded a sleek Catalina Express boat in Long Beach.

Salee, who did not wear her artificial legs on the trip, clambered up on a ledge and, with her faced pressed to the glass, watched transfixed by the sights as the ship pushed out to sea: port lights reflecting off the water, flying seabirds following the contours of the waves, a massive cruise ship with the letters of its name lighted up with strings of bright lights.

“What does that mean?” she asked in Arabic.

Translator Laith Mahmood provided the answer: Paradise.

Salee was still glued to the window of the vessel when it nosed into Avalon’s cozy harbor, a place that her father muttered “is just like heaven,” with its oceanfront Victorian cottages crowned with cupolas and turrets, and a beach edged with a curved, cafe-lined promenade.

Her companions included Mahmood and two people who raised most of the funds to bring Salee to the United States in July for corrective surgery: social worker Ann Cothran of Greenville, N.C., and Cole Miller, founder of Los Angeles-based No More Victims, a grass-roots organization dedicated to assisting Iraqi children injured in the war.

“There are thousands of Salees in Iraq,” Miller said. “I don’t consider this charity. It’s responsibility.”

The Jeep tour was followed by a trip on a glass-bottom boat. Salee whistled and tapped hard on a plate-glass portal when a cloud of brightly colored fish swam past.

After snapping dozens of photographs, she turned to the translator and whispered: “I want to be a photographer when I grow up. But don’t tell anyone because all the kids I know want to be doctors.”

Her whirlwind tour ended with a kayaking adventure at picturesque Descanso Beach with island residents Montana Troeger, 11, and Sammi Arnold, 12. They paddled hard for about a mile with Salee occasionally breaking stride to wave at nearby sea lions and passing sailing vessels with bright pennants flapping in the breeze.

After returning to shore, Salee pulled a pair of white socks up over her thighs and gave a thumbs up to Miller. “Nice!” she said. They gave each other a high-five.

Next week, Salee will begin her journey back to Baghdad, where she will reunite with her mother, who is pregnant, a diabetic brother and a sister who lost part of a foot in the attack.

“We hope to bring her sister to the United States for treatment,” Miller said. “In the meantime, Salee will be returning to the United States every 12 to 18 months for follow-up examinations and more sophisticated mechanical knees, which will enable her to walk unaided by crutches.”

Moments before Salee boarded a boat for the return to Long Beach, a shop owner draped a lei of shells around her neck, and Baer handed her something to remind of her trip: a furry puppet shaped like a bison, and a book of color photographs of Catalina Island.

“Oh, my gosh,” Salee said. “Thank you so very much!”

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louis.sahagun@latimes.com