By Anna Bachmann
Voices in the Wilderness
Baghdad
April 23, 2004

No time to do a proper post …

First off we’re all fine and dandy! At the moment eight of us are all staying in three ratty apartments in Karada Dakhil (Central Baghdad). Things have been very quiet for the last few days … no bombings or gunfire that I’ve heard for awhile (but we did have a lighting and thunder storm last night!) … atleast in the city. Outside Baghdad is another matter, as I’m sure you’ve seen from the news … sporadic fighting in Fallujah and various other places, Najaf is still surrounded by Coalition Forces and the terrible bombings in Basrah. We did hear in Baghdad of the kidnapping of a Jordanian man and the killing of a Spanish Journalist within the last few days. I have actually met a Sheikh recently who has negotiated hostage releases in Najaf (a good man to know!).

Lately we’ve been interviewing Fallujah families … I have so many notes to write up, it’s crazy. Some friends are considering a trip into Najaf with the Red Crescent Society. Today, I was also able to visit with Ahmed, a young man who has MS. He is finally getting some treatment (yeah!). And tomorrow I give a test to my students at the University!

As far as the general situation goes … Karrada has been quiet, everything looks normal. Iraqis still warn us to keep a low profile. I tell and encourage A, my translator, to quit anytime she wants, but she will not hear anything of it. I’ve had no problem and everyone is still very nice (most of the time Iraqis are warning me to watch out for other Iraqis!) but I also wear hijab all the time outside now.

Jo Wilding
April 22nd
Baghdad

“This is my honeymoon,” Heba said, in the crowded corridor of bomb shelter number 24 in the Al-Ameriya district of Baghdad. Married just under a month, she fled Falluja with her extended family. “There were bombs all the time. We couldn’t sleep. Even if you fell asleep, nightmares woke you up. We just gathered the whole family in one room and waited.

“It is better here than in Falluja. We hear bombs but they are far away and not so many. But there is no water in here: we have to go outside for water for drinking, cooking and washing ourselves and our clothes and we buy ice. There is no fridge, no fans, no air conditioning, no generator and only one stove for us all. We have to go to the garden for a toilet and that’s a problem at night. Everyone has diarrhoea from the ice that we bought.

“Now I am a bride but I couldn’t bring any of my clothes.” As if there would be any privacy anyway, the 88 members of 18 families piled on mattresses in the long narrow passage from the door to the kitchen at the end, from where a stream of tea and sweet sesame biscuits is flowing, part of the commemoration of Heba’s uncle.

He died 7 days ago, the day after they arrived in Baghdad. Heba’s dad Rabiia said his brother died of sadness. Because all the family’s identity documents were in Falluja, they were unable to get the body from the hospital. Rabiia met some friends, doctors who worked in the hospital, and they were able to help him get the body back after a day.