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After thirty-six hours of traveling, with no time to put my thoughts down, I find myself home. Back to my steam-powered laptop, put to shame by the high-speed connection I had on the APTN (http://www.aptn.com) system in Baghdad. The power never failed on us. The water was always hot. 6.30 am for check out, farewell to our lovely, polite and gentlemanly (and hopefully happy) Iraqi client.
Eventually Sallah appears, and we are off to his land again, to change vehicles – we have a different driver this time, someone he has used more frequently than our Man with a Van from Amman. We load the vehicle. Drink tea. One of Sallah’s workers picks me the most fragrant rose I have ever smelt. I help myself to some orange blossom. This is real sensual overload. Truffles found in the desert are loaded in the vehicle. Apparently Iraq is famous for its truffles.
We set off on the International Highway, but as we approached Fallujah, the US presence on the road steadily increased, proportionally to our traveling speed decreasing.
Sallah tells us that Fallujah is the only place in Iraq where (even during Saddam’s regime) there was never a ruling Governor. It’s a real rebel town based on the traditional tribal system (which still exists). They are very proud and dignified people who will not accept just having any person promoted to a ruling Governor. of their multi-tribal society. The first Governor lasted a day before he was shot dead, the second, two.
A conversation in Arabic takes place between the Fixer and the driver. Next thing we know, we are off-roading, trying to find a different route. We can hear automatic gunfire. And it sounds quite close.
The road we first aim for is full of returning cars. Nasir, our driver, talks in Arabic to those coming the other way. This road is closed also.
There is an absolute lack of communication between the GIs and the Iraqis. When they first arrived in the country they would use their standard hand signals to get Iraqi drivers to stop on the highway. Hand signals that the locals didn’t understand. Hand signals that got you shot if you didn’t halt for them.
We are hemmed in between the car behind and the car in front of us. Eventually the car behind reverses out and we too can set off at speed, over the desert sands away from the troops, through burnt out wrecks of trucks and oil containers (relieved of the driving chassis) into Fallujah.
We drive through the back streets of Fallujah. Never have I been so grateful to be in place that I should never visit. I feel that there is safety in the fact that both Nasir and Sallah are from tribes in this area. It amazes me how calm you can be in a situation of such absolute danger.
The sound of gunfire fades as we gain distance on the situation. We drive through Fallujah, then past what was the tourist area of Habbaniya. In my guidebook to Iraq, I read that water skiing and horse riding used to be available here. On the other side of the road is the old Iraqi air force base. All of the planes have been dismantled by the US soldiers, like flies with their wings pulled off. -
We pass through into Ramadi. Nasir drives to his house to drop his brother off. We sit in the vehicle, knowing that his taking us here could cause him trouble, associating with Westerners. The problem being English (or in my case a New Zealander) in this kind of place is that I speak no Arabic and cannot explain that I am not American. He brings out drinking yoghurt homemade by his mother. His inquisitive nephew turns up to practice his English. Fantastic yoghurt, tastes like the kind of stuff that my Mum used to make when I was a kid. I climb past the others out of the van and find the Manchester City badged bear that I brought to Iraq in casethis kind of occasion ever occurred and give it to the nephew. We are then invited in for tea and homemade biscuits, generosity and hospitality too strong in these people to allow them to ignore even perhaps unwanted guests. Or maybe it was just me being “brave” enough to give a kid a toy that made the invitation appear?
Sallah tells us later that he told the driver to wait in line on the highway. Nasir knows this area better, so he knew to get us out and away from the troops as quickly as possible. He may well have saved our lives. We certainly believe so.
We say our thanks to Nasir’s family and their hospitality. Back on the road, the back routes to re-join the highway. Just before, we stop for some food. Wonderful salad and yoghurt with lettuce and char grilled tomatoes scooped up in fresh bread. Back on the highway, the miles and hours pass on our way to the border with Jordan.
It takes four hours for us to cross from Iraq back into Jordan, even with queue jumping and Sallah knowing the security chiefs on both sides of the border. Nasir is interrogated, even though they can see from his passport he is a driver from Baghdad to Amman. I look at his passport, which is so full of stamps that there is no place for his latest Jordan visa. This is his livelihood, however. The vehicle we travel in cost him $18000 US and in two years, if he works constantly, he will have paid for it.
As the service returns on the mobile phones, our boss’s wife phones to say that there are reports of fatal shootings in the area that Nasir managed to drive us away from. Along the roadside are trailers laden with the scrap metal from the war. Leaving Iraq bound for Aqaba in Jordan, then on by ship to either Japan or India to be melted down. Dozens of them. So much twisted and destroyed metal.
I talk to Sallah and he asks me what I thought of Baghdad. It is a beautiful city, so I told him as much. He questioned me: “Beautiful or sad?”
Baghdad is beautiful and sad. Terribly, terribly sad. Her people are sad. Her condition is sad.
I get the feeling that he would love, Atlas-like, to take the weight of his country’s problems on his shoulders and solve them all, regain the pre-Saddam Iraq of his childhood. I see the frustration in his face. He is a powerless, good, strong man in this situation.
Finally to the airport. And this is the end of my blog. Inshallah, I shall return. If I do, I shall resume this. All I have left now is to send through my photographs.
I want to go back, to continue to do my bit to help the Iraqi people turn their country into the kind of society it should be. I want to associate again with people so full of pride and dignity and hospitality.
I put the orange blossom I picked from Sallah’s garden, along with some he gave me, into a “Palestine Hotel” envelope. It still smells beautiful. I now have my Baghdad barometer. I will have to return when the scent fades.
Americans are proud of being American – and the history of your country is one of the shortest there is. Imagine the pride that beats within the chests of Iraqis, who have spent the majority of their lives being manipulated and repressed, yet whose history and culture pre-date most of what are now considered to be “the civilized world.”
I cannot explain the typical characteristics of an Iraqi to you. All that I can say is that I met some wonderful Iraqi’s in Baghdad, and now worry about them on an hourly basis. |  |  | FLAG THIS STORY FOR REVIEW | |
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