Inside Iraq Blog - Times Online - WBLG

Hello. Hello. Can you hear me?

Trying to make a phone call in Iraq is one of the most difficult, frustrating, time-consuming and frequently futile activities I have ever experienced.
The network is terrible, the signal patchy at best and a number often needs to be dialed three or four times before a connection is made, and even then the call usually gets cut short.
For example, a conversation with The Times in London usually goes like this:
Foreign desk (answering phone): Hello, foreign.
Me (on mobile phone): Hello. It’s Debbie here in Baghdad.
Foreign desk: Hello, foreign?
Me: Hello. Hello. It’s Debbie here in Baghdad
Foreign desk: Er, hello-o??
Me: Hello. Hello HELLO-OOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Foreign desk: I’m sorry, I can’t hear you.
Me: HELLO HE-
Foreign desk (hangs up phone)
Me (throws phone on floor muttering unprintable expletives)

Learning to line up in Baghdad

Living in Baghdad sometimes feels like being in one long queue.
To go anywhere I have to drive down crowded streets, often sitting motionless in traffic for extended periods of time. The experience is particularly unpleasant due to the added risk of a possible suicide bomber lurking in the car behind.
Filling up for petrol is also a notoriously painful chore.
People endure what can be a day-long wait under a relentless sun outside a petrol station with their car and its empty tank.
Mazen Haaki, a 39-year-old lawyer, was one of scores of frustrated drivers queuing for fuel at the al-Horea petrol station in central Baghdad earlier this week.
“For most of the year we have a fuel problem,” Mr Haaki said. “I wait a quarter of the day just to buy petrol.”
Iraqis also need fuel to run the generators they use in their houses to power electrical items when the electricity cuts off – a frequent hazard across the country thanks to the patchy electricity grid.

A lot happens in a month in Iraq

Sitting back in my bureau in Baghdad after a month away, nothing much about my immediate surroundings has changed.
- The cranky, metal air conditioner still rattles as though someone is playing a permanent drum roll on the inside of it with long nails;
- The toilet still doesn’t flush;
- I remain addicted to samoon – an Iraqi version of bread, which looks like a flat rugby ball, has the consistency of naan but tastes like a bagel.
Despite such points of familiarity, life outside my office has definitely moved on.
Iraq changes by the day so a month contains a host of developments and these past four weeks have been no exception.

(Picture: A piece of samoon against the backdrop of my bureau)