I went back to Thaura, formerly Saddam City, the place where millions of poor Shi’ites live in Baghdad, where all the looted stuff gets sold. I wanted to see where the poorest people live and we went out in search of Haya Tinik, metal plate neighborhood. To just say that the roads there are unpaved is misleading. It’s more like the neighborhood was built on an enormous pile of dirt, garbage and sand. (more…)
One quick note. I love getting emails about the site, but I hardly get any. It’s so nice to hear from people. I feel sometimes isolated here, disconnected from the states and how people are thinking about these things. So, please do write, if you’d like. Also, as I wrote before, check out my friend, Jen’s site at www.mideastdiaries.com/jensite. We’re traveling together some of the time and then doing different things some of the time and she has a different way of writing about things. (more…)
I’ve been back in Baghdad a few days but have been running around so much and, really, socializing too much, and I’ve just not sat down and written. I was in Amman the right amount of time. When I was driving back in to Iraq, I felt excited. I was so glad to be coming back and eager to start reporting again. That’s good. I was pretty burned out when I left. (more…)
I spent the day going around to the different political parties, trying to figure out what their plans are for the future of Iraq’s economy. I found it so interesting to see how much action is going on, so many different groups making big plans for the future. We started off at the INC, Ahmed Chalabi’s group. They have taken over this huge country club. There are tons of men walking around in suits carrying kalachnikovs and other automatic rifles. (more…)
I took the day off and barely left my hotel. It was a much-needed rest. My translator and driver came by at 2 and we went to lunch. At lunch my translator was telling me about how he has satellite TV for the first time. Saddam outlawed it and now everybody has it, as, I think, I’ve written. He said, “do you know this program, Friends? It is so funny. It’s the best show I’ve ever seen.” (more…)
I feel like I don’t have a lot to write today. I’m particularly exhausted. I had a very early briefing from the US Treasury department people in charge of rebuilding Iraq’s banking system. Nothing like getting up after 4 hours sleep for a talk on banking. Yay. I actually met the guys yesterday when I crashed one of their meetings. To prepare for the meeting, I read all these articles about how the Bush administration plans to transform the Iraqi economy from a socialist to a capitalist economy. All these huge plans. (more…)
I had the best reporting day I’ve had in a while. I started as I always do at this house where the Central Bank and the Ministry of Finance people go to hang out, since there is no longer a Central Bank or a Ministry of Finance. They just sit there all day and talk. I’ve been told this guy Mr. Karim is the only one of them meeting with Americans. There doesn’t seem to be any way to actually speak with the Americans to find out how they are restructuring the economy of this country. (more…)
There is so much need in Baghdad, it’s so awful. And it surrounds you every where you go. I had my driver drop me off a block from the hotel. While walking back, one man stopped me and asked if I’m American. He spoke English pretty badly but enough to say he desperately needs work, could I hire him as a translator. While I was explaining to him that I have a translator, another guy came up and asked me if he could use my Sat phone. Then a whole group of people surrounded me and were saying things in Arabic that I didn’t understand. I just walked away. (more…)
Working in Baghdad has changed. It’s no longer a place where you can walk outside the hotel and the stories hurl themselves at you. It’s now hard work finding stories. It’s odd, because it doesn’t seem possible something would change that quickly. But it has and everyone is talking about it, all the reporters anyway. I’ve been working so hard this week and I haven’t gotten a single story done. It’s embarrassing and so frustrating. (more…)
I went this morning to find the gun market. It took longer than I would have thought, since everyone here has guns, I figured they’d be easy to find. But it took a lot of time to find where people buy them. It’s in the miserably poor Baghdad neighborhood called Ur. I went in the morning, and it turns out they only sell guns in the afternoon. There was one guy trying to unload a Chinese-made Kalachnikov for $33 and a Czech rifle for around $40. (more…)