- Jeff - Just as Cathy Buckle's reports detail the horrors
of her personal daily life, "RiverBend" is providing a unique,
first person diary of what hell looks and feels like. This is a fine piece
on "What It's Like With No Water."
-
- RiverBend is a young, 24 year old Iraqi woman with a
degree in computer science, and an ability to paint powerful pictures of
what is going on in Occupied Iraq. She seems to file something every few
days, and this is the most recent post since the last one you ran...
-
-
- Bad, Bad, Bad Day...
- Bad #1: Mosque shooting.
- Bad #2: No water.
- Bad #3: Rumsfeld.
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- By Riverbend 9-6-3
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- Today, in Al-Shaâab area, a highly populated area
of Baghdad, armed men pulled up to a mosque during morning prayer and opened
fire on the people. It was horrific and chilling. Someone said 3 people
died, but someone else said it was more· no one knows who they are
or where theyâre from, but itâs said that they were using semiautomatic
machineguns (not a part of the army arsenal, as far as I know). And these
were just ordinary people. Itâs incomprehensible and nightmarish·
if you are no longer safe in a shrine or a mosque, where *are* you safe?
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- No running water all day today. Horrible. Usually there
are at least a few hours of running water, today there's none. E. went
out and asked if there was perhaps a pipe broken? The neighbors have no
idea. Everyone is annoyed beyond reason.
-
- A word of advice: never take water for granted. Every
time you wash your hands in cold, clean, clear water- say a prayer of thanks
to whatever deity you revere. Every time you drink fresh, odorless water-
say the same prayer. Never throw out the clean water remaining in your
glass- water a plant, give it to the cat, throw it out into the garden·
whatever. Never take it for granted.
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- Luckily, yesterday I filled all the water bottles. We
have dozens of water bottles, both glass and plastic. Every time thereâs
even a semblance of running water, we put something under the faucet to
catch the precious drops. We fill bottles, pots, thermoses, buckets- anything
that will hold water. Some days are better than others.
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- The problem is this: when the electricity is off, the
municipal water pumps donât work- the water pressure is so low, the
water wonât go up the faucet. When there *is* electricity, everyone
starts up their own, personal, water pumps to fill the water tanks on the
roof and the water pressure drops again.
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- Washing clothes is a trial. Automatic washers are obsolete-
useless. The best washers to use are those little 'National' washers. They
look like small garbage bins. You fill them with water and detergent and
throw the clothes in. The clothes rotate and swish for about 10 minutes
(there has to be electricity). We pull them out, rinse them in clean water
and wring out the excess water. The excess water goes back into the washer.
After the washing is done, the dirty soap water is used to wash the tiled
driveway.
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- Washing dishes is another problem. We try to limit the
use of dishes to what is absolutely necessary. Most of the water we store
in buckets and tubs is used to wash people. We wash using the old-fashioned
way- a smallish tub full of water, a ladle, a loofah, soap and shampoo.
The problem is that because of the heat, everyone wants to wash at least
twice a day. The best time to wash is right before going to bed because
for a few heavenly minutes after you wash, you feel cool enough to try
to sleep. I have forgotten the delights of a shower...
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- Before the war, many people dug wells in their gardens.
These wells don't look like your traditional well- a circular, stone wall
with a bucket hanging in the middle. They are merely small, unpretentious
holes in the ground to which mechanical pumps are attached. They provide
a more or less decent water supply. The water has to be boiled or chlorinated
to be used for drinking.
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- To make matters worse, Rumsfeld is in Iraq. It's awful
to see him strutting all over the place. I hate the hard, smug look that
seems plastered on his face· some people just have cruel features.
The reaction to seeing him on tv differs from the reaction to seeing Bremer
or one of the puppets. The latter are greeted with jeers and scorn. Seeing
Rumsfeld is something else - there's resentment and disgust. It feels like
he's here to add insult to injury - you know, just in case anyone forgets
we're an occupied country.
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- And now heâs going to go back to America and give
a speech about how he doesnât know what anyone is talking about when
they say 'chaos' (*he* was safe in the middle of all his bodyguards)·
how electricity and water are functioning (after all, his air-conditioner
was working *fine*) - how the people are gloriously happy and traffic is
frequently at a stand-still because the Iraqis are dancing in the streets
- how the 'armed forces' are cheerful and *grateful* to be on this heroic,
historical mission - how kids wave at him, troops cheer him, dogs wag their
tails in welcome and doves hover above his head.
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- To hell with him.
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- And no. I'm not whining- I'm ranting. You can't see me
right now, but I'm shaking my fist at the computer screen, shaking my fist
at the television, and heaping colorful, bilingual insults on Rumsfeld's
head (hope the doves crap on him)... I'm angry.
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