The Washington Post ran a piece today by an dentist who lives in Baghdad and authors a blog called Last of Iraqis. His blog contemplates whether Iraqis may very well become extinct. The toll of his daily burdens are profoundly affecting:
When will I die? That’s the question circling in my head when I awake on Wednesday. I’m sweating, as usual. My muscles ache from another long night of no electricity in weather only slightly cooler than hell. As I dress for work, other questions assail me: How will I die? Will it be a shot in the head? Will I be blown to pieces? Or be seized at a police checkpoint because of my sect, then tortured and killed and thrown out on the sidewalk?
Perhaps the most painful irony of this fiasco is that in a country of immense energy resources, gas lines and power outages have persisted for years:
In my neighborhood (and most of Baghdad), we depend on ourselves for power. In most places, there’s someone who owns a large generator and sells other residents eight hours of electricity a day. I pay $120 a month for that service. For an additional three hours a day, I use my home generator. That costs me about $150 a month because fuel here is so expensive. We have to wait six to eight hours in line to get any at the gas stations, which close at 6 or 7 p.m. The curfew starts at 11 p.m., so many people sleep in their cars until the stations reopen in the morning. This farce has created a booming black market in which fuel sells for double its official price.
In the Washington DC area, there is intense outrage if, following a storm, power is not restored within a day or two. We still have much to learn about the rest of the world.
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