[Mb-civic] just bring back the water...

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

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sent by David McReynolds

Riverbend Blog, Baghdad - Jan 22, 2005
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/

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.


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