Straight out of Iraq: The blog

blog ^ | 2003 | x

[dennisw]

A reader sent me an angry email a couple of days ago (not the reader who writes in the comments, someone else) asking me why I dislike the “human shields” so much, he/she actually asked “why do you spit on them?”. Ewww. Now I was never that unfriendly. I have not met any of them in person, which just might happen in the next couple of days, what I dislike is the idea. But since dissing them gets people so exited, here we go and do what [destiny’s child] don’t, “cause their mamma taught them better than that”, we be dissing the shields again on the internet.
One of the latest group to arrive in Baghdad, mostly Europeans, were welcomed to the Rasheed hotel , which is like the Waldorf Astoria of Baghdad, no other hotel is more expensive and exclusive. All of them were wearing T-shirts with what was supposed to be "Human Shields" in Arabic, but they had it all wrong it said "Adra'a Basharia" instead of "Duru'u Basharia" which got them a few giggles and a new name; they are now the "Adra'a" just to show how clueless they are. A lot of funny Arabic these days with all these HS's running around, a van with a foreign number plate standing near the ministry of information has "No War" written all over it in many languages the biggest in Arabic. All over the front of it is says "La Harba" which is wrong and sounds like a night club, my cousin thought that was cute. Anyway, what really got my goat this time was finding out that they get food coupons worth 15,000 dinars per meal, 3 for every day.fifteen thousan.
Do you know how much the monthly food ration for a 4 person family is worth, for a whole month not per meal (real cost, not subsidized) ? 30,000 dinars, if you get someone to buy the bad rice they give you for a decent price. 15,000. What are they eating? A whole lamb every meal? Let's put this within context. Today in the morning Raed, our friend G. and I went for a late big breakfast we had 2 tishreeb bagilas (can't explain that, you have to be an Iraqi to get it otherwise it sounds inedible) and a makhlama (which is an omelet with minced meat), tea, fizzy drinks and argila afterwards (the water-pipe-thingy) all for 4,750 dinars, and we were not going super cheap. A lunch in any above-average restaurant will not be more than 8,000 dinars and that includes everything. 15,000 thousand is a meal in a super expensive restaurant in Arasat Street, in one of those places that really almost have an "only foreigners allowed, no Iraqis welcome unless you are UN staff" sign on it. I will stop calling them tourist when they stop taking all this pampering from the Iraqi government. Did I tell you about the tours? Today was Babylon day. You are really missing it, the cheapest way to do the Iraq trip you have wanted to do but were too scared.
And I have a tip for all freelance journalists who are not getting their Visas. Join your colleagues. It's the best way to get past the visa thing, every third one of these "shields" will be writing an article somewhere. Hurry contact your local "war tourism" travel agent.
Sorry, I just don't get it. What are they doing here?
So, that should get me enough hate mail for the next couple of days. Enough of that. TV time. the biggest TV event last week was the first [waznak thahab - your weight in gold] show with Noor al-Sharif (no relation to Omar) as show host. Noor is a very serious Egyptian actor, I linked to one of his shows in a post I wrote last Ramadan, this is his first as show host and he totally blew it, he looked scared and nervous. The contestants were calmer and cooler than him, we used to have Aiman Zedan, who is a Syrian actor, do the show and he was a killer. The show is actually on Abu Dhabi TV but our Youth TV just steals it off the air and shows it the next day, state sanctioned piracy, what else can you wish for?
:: salam 7:17 PM [+] ::

[dennisw]

The URL is:

http://dear_raed.blogspot.com/

[dennisw]

Found some old pictures.
mini picture tour time (click on small pix to see larger):

 

this building was hit by a number of "precision bombs" during the Gulf War. This is now our main link to the internet world. The picture is face on if you could see the side you would notice that a couple of the floors are built with slightly different color of brick, these are the floors that were hit. The Sinek building was built in the late sixties, designed by Rifa'at al-Chaderji, he lives in the States now.
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