Baghdad Burning Bleak Eid.../while bushballs

[roenyc]

From my favorite girl blogger in baghdad. her blog is great, if you have never been to her site please visit and read at least the entries from right before the election up to this one. she isn't fond of um the administration and the occupation. she is frank and smart and talks about life everyday life and how the jerks ruined it.



http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/
Saturday, January 22, 2005

Bleak Eid...
It's the third day of Eid. Eid is the Islamic holiday and usually it’s a time for families to get together, eat, drink and celebrate. Not this Eid. This Eid is unbearable. We managed a feeble gathering on the first day and no one was in a celebratory mood. There have been several explosions- some far and some near but even those aren't as worrisome as the tension that seems to be growing on a daily basis.

There hasn’t been a drop of water in the faucets for six days. six days. Even at the beginning of the occupation, when the water would disappear in the summer, there was always a trickle that would come from one of the pipes in the garden. Now, even that is gone. We’ve been purchasing bottles of water (the price has gone up) to use for cooking and drinking. Forget about cleaning. It’s really frustrating because everyone cleans house during Eid. It’s like a part of the tradition. The days leading up to Eid are a frenzy of mops, brooms, dusting rags and disinfectant. The cleaning makes one feel like there's room for a fresh start. It's almost as if the house and its inhabitants are being reborn. Not this year. We’re managing just enough water to rinse dishes with. To bathe, we have to try to make-do with a few liters of water heated in pots on kerosene heaters.

Water is like peace- you never really know just how valuable it is until someone takes it away. It’s maddening to walk up to the sink, turn one of the faucets and hear the pipes groan with nothing. The toilets don’t function… the dishes sit piled up until two of us can manage to do them- one scrubbing and rinsing and the other pouring the water.

Why is this happening? Is it because of the electricity? If it is, we should at least be getting water a couple of hours a day- like before. Is it some sort of collective punishment leading up to the elections? It’s unbelievable. At first, I thought it was just our area but I’ve been asking around and apparently, almost all of the areas (if not all) are suffering this drought.

I’m sure people outside of the country are shaking their heads at the words ‘collective punishment’. “No, Riverbend,” they are saying, “That’s impossible.” But anything is possible these days. People in many areas are being told that if they don’t vote- Sunnis and Shia alike- the food and supply rations we are supposed to get monthly will be cut off. We’ve been getting these rations since the beginning of the nineties and for many families, it’s their main source of sustenance. What sort of democracy is it when you FORCE people to go vote for someone or another they don’t want?

Allawi’s people were passing out pamphlets a few days ago. I went out to the garden to check the low faucet, hoping to find a trickle of water and instead, I found some paper crushed under the garden gate. Upon studying it, it turned out to be some sort of “Elect Allawi” pamphlet promising security and prosperity, amongst other things, for occupied Iraq. I'd say it was a completely useless pamphlet but that isn't completely true. It fit nicely on the bottom of the cage of E.'s newly acquired pet parakeet.

They say the borders are closed with Jordan and possibly Syria. I also heard yesterday that people aren't being let into Baghdad. They have American check-points on the main roads leading into the city and they say that the cars are being turned back to wherever they came from. It's a bad situation and things are looking very bleak at this point.

It's amazing how as things get worse, you begin to require less and less. We have a saying for that in Iraq, "Ili yishoof il mawt, yirdha bil iskhooneh." Which means, "If you see death, you settle for a fever." We've given up on democracy, security and even electricity. Just bring back the water.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. the last line is telling

people will do anything to survive, including allowing a tyrranical dictator taking over. I bet a lot of Iraqis look back on the Saddam era with nostalgia.

[roenyc]

6. You mean like when i look back on Nixon? nt

[Warpy]

2. Were it possible to run a hose and extension cord

from my house to hers, I'd do so immediately. I've done it in the past for neighbors I like far less than Riverbend.

The evil and incompetence of this Bush junta will come back to haunt us for many decades, I'm afraid. I just hope people outside this country realize he had to cheat his way into office, that we the people really didn't install him.

[stellanoir]

3. I love this girl

and have been reading her since she wrote a cameo installment on Salam Pax's (does anyone know what the heck happenned to him?) blog in early '03, and since she started her own in August of '03.

To see her trust erode and anger well up has been excrutiating.

This line I find as one of her simplist but most profound. . .

"Water is like peace- you never really know just how valuable it is until someone takes it away. "

I just pray for the global and national exposure of the war mongers who've destroyed so many lives with their absolute bufoonery and innumerable deceits.

Freedom my ass.

[patdem]

4. I agree that is a VERY profound statement...peace..not democracy..peace

Peace is MUCH better than capitalism (er uh what bush** calls democracy) Peace is what HUMANS crave, not capitalism, not freedom at the end of a gun barrel? What kind of freedom is that? Freedom from being able to have Peace?

[roenyc]

7. Yes i remember Salam Pax's

think thats how i found river too. i worry when she doesn't write. i get so scared that she is dead or something. she is so smart and sarcastic and does not deserve this hell. no one does.

damn i dont believe this administration. and their followers they are just ignorant war pigs with no respect for human life unless its not fully formed and breathing that is.

[teryang]

5. When you lose your water supply, you know its the end of the

...line. You are in a fight for your life.

[wabeewoman]

8. We used to hear about the 100,000

children who died during Saddam's regime (well, in the 90's during the sanctions anyway-yes I've seen it discredited too). I wonder how many children and elderly are dying from lack of heat/air conditioning and water. I too have read Riverbend from somewhere near the war and I suspect her tone is indicative of how the rest of the country feels about us. I recommend her blog to everyone I can so they can 'know' someone there who is suffering from our government's actions.