Viewing

The Provincial Council boycott continues. I held some negotiations with some of the senior members last week; it seemed as though the impasse was about to end. However, Thursday’s council meeting was inconclusive and we are left waiting to see who will make the next move. I just came back down from the roof of our building; the cell phone reception is much better up there. It’s getting hot again. From the roof, I can see the major landmarks of the IZ (international zone/ ‘green’ zone) and beyond that, the sprawling city of Baghdad. The IZ extends for several blocks in either direction; we are tucked into a bend in the Tigris River and it defines one of our heavily-defended boundaries. The IZ itself can be compared in some ways to a walled-off version the Washington Mall, with many official public buildings separated by parks and gardens. Some neighborhoods are tucked in here as well; apparently the population has been vetted, but each individual building of consequence within the IZ also has its own compound and security checkpoints. Every morning hundreds of local Iraqis stand in line to enter the IZ at its several checkpoints in order to get to work; the day laborers, the interpreters, the janitors, many Iraqi government officials, the office support staff, the cooks and the shopkeepers. And every evening the tide reverses and hundreds of people leave the relative security of the IZ to head back to their homes and families in the assorted neighborhoods in Baghdad. It’s dangerous to work for the Coalition and the Iraqi Government, but also quite lucrative. I would like, for one night, to be able to go home with Johnny or one of my other interpreters and watch as his family goes about their nightly routine amidst the constant threat of violence that pervades the city. Observe and understand. Baghdad doesn’t have much of a skyline; certainly no skyscrapers. Without the battle damage, the view from my office would look out at some rather impressive palaces and government buildings. Unfortunately, when you are at ground-level in the IZ, you can barely see anything other than the 12 foot concrete T-walls that line most of the streets. Over the past few months there has been a noticeable reduction in these barriers, but still you need to have some height to make any sense of the IZ; driving around or being on foot still gives one the sense of being in a concrete maze. I made some calls to some of my contacts; hopefully we can set up some meetings this week and continue the hard work we’ve got in front of us. I watch as the sun starts to dip and the orange glow of refracted light warms the buildings of this panorama; some in a state of precarious destruction, others emerging from the ground like skeletal shoots growing into the next generation of Baghdad’s structural topography.