Written on 23rd February 2003
Over cardamom coffees and lemon teas in the Baghdad coffee shop where the 1958 revolution was plotted, amid the echoing clatter of the old men slamming down dominoes onto the tables and the fragrant smoke of narghilas, our companions, two final year medical students, said they would go to the hospitals if bombing begins, to do whatever they can to help. Suraj will leave his flat, because it is next to the telecommunications tower, and go to stay with Shawkat. They say they will still come to the coffee shop and smoke and play dominoes and backgammon and chat, no matter that the bombs are falling.
People here seem to talk less about "the situation" than people in Britain, but yesterday I drank tea with a young woman called Soulaf, who talked about the bombing in 1991, when she was 13. Her four-year-old cousin cried constantly throughout the bombardment, in terror for his life. Her voice quivered and I could tell she was trying hard not to cry. She wiped her eyes, trying not to smudge the black eyeliner, and I looked for a tissue - I've been stashing them wherever I go - but the one in my pocket was fluff-ridden and unappealing. I asked if they caaried on going to school. She said people still went to work, but the schools were closed, and when they reopened she had to study by candle light because there was no electricity.
Over cardamom coffees and lemon teas in the Baghdad coffee shop where the 1958 revolution was plotted, amid the echoing clatter of the old men slamming down dominoes onto the tables and the fragrant smoke of narghilas, our companions, two final year medical students, said they would go to the hospitals if bombing begins, to do whatever they can to help. Suraj will leave his flat, because it is next to the telecommunications tower, and go to stay with Shawkat. They say they will still come to the coffee shop and smoke and play dominoes and backgammon and chat, no matter that the bombs are falling.
People here seem to talk less about "the situation" than people in Britain, but yesterday I drank tea with a young woman called Soulaf, who talked about the bombing in 1991, when she was 13. Her four-year-old cousin cried constantly throughout the bombardment, in terror for his life. Her voice quivered and I could tell she was trying hard not to cry. She wiped her eyes, trying not to smudge the black eyeliner, and I looked for a tissue - I've been stashing them wherever I go - but the one in my pocket was fluff-ridden and unappealing. I asked if they caaried on going to school. She said people still went to work, but the schools were closed, and when they reopened she had to study by candle light because there was no electricity.