CPTNet
July 28, 2003
IRAQ: Welcome in Iraq!
By Maureen Jack
The Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) in Iraq recently moved from an
apartment hotel in Baghdad into an apartment in a block. Our new home is
ideally placed. It's just off Karrada, a main shopping street in the
centre of Baghdad, where Iraqis shop for everything from onions to
saucepans. It's a street where you see families out walking in the evening
and where people recognise us from when we were conducting an opinion
poll. The apartment block is on the corner of Abu Nawas, a street that
runs alongside the Tigris; just a bit further along the street is the
Palestine Hotel, where a Reuters journalist was killed during the war and
where some street kids hang out. The view of the Tigris from the roof of
our block is stunning. So, our new place has many advantages. One other
advantage (which I am working hard to appreciate!) is that it shields us
much less from how things are for Iraqis in Baghdad. If anyone reading
this would like to get some idea of what it's like, they might wish to try
the following, just for a day.
1 Do not use the telephone, and leave the cell-phone switched
off. There is no cell-phone system in Iraq. In most of Baghdad the
telephone system does not work (in a few areas you can make calls just
within your own neighbourhood); the telecommunications building in Baghdad
was destroyed during the war and there is no timescale for rebuilding the
system.
2 Do not drink the tap water. Those who can afford to do so buy
bottled water; that excludes most Iraqis. Drinking the water puts people
at risk of infection and diarrhoea. One professional family we have met
buy bottled water for their toddler and drink the tap water
themselves. What we do is to boil the tap water hard for twenty minutes
and then filter it through a water filter I brought over from the UK. This
is a timeconsuming process given that we need water for washing vegetables
we are not going to cook, brushing teeth, and drinking; we drink a lot of
water because of the heat.
3 If you have a car, be prepared to spend an hour or two in a queue
for petrol, or else pay three times the normal cost and buy a can at the
roadside (and the quality is variable).
4 Switch off the electricity. That means everything: lights,
refrigerator, freezer, computer, television, fans, and air conditioning (if
you are lucky enough to have it.) In the first 24 hours in our new
apartment we had six hours of electricity, from 4.00 pm to 6.00 pm, from
10.00 pm to midnight, and from 4.00 am to 6.00 am. One problem is that the
supply is unpredictable and so, if you are unlucky, you might be out when
the electricity is on.
While doing these things, remember that you probably don't have a job and
that if you do it probably pays very little. And imagine that the
temperature during the day is approaching 120 degrees Fahrenheit, with the
nights scarcely cooler. But then go outside and find people you have never
seen before greeting you. Go into a store to buy a plug for the sink and
have the storekeeper offer you water, tea, coffee and Pepsi . . . and then
refuse payment for the plug. Take a taxi and find that the driver refuses
to take a fare from you. As people say to us here, "Welcome in Iraq!"
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Christian Peacemaker Teams is an initiative among Mennonite and Church of
the Brethren congregations and Friends Meetings that supports violence
reduction efforts around the world. Contact CPT, POB 6508 Chicago, IL
60680; Telephone: 773-277-0253 Fax: 773-277-0291.
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