Baghdad emerging

Home for a visit after working abroad for the last few months, Chikitita found a resurgent Baghdad this past weekend.

Mansur is the neighbourhood where I spent a big chunk of my life. Even when my family moved to other areas, I still have this extraordinary affection towards this spot of Baghdad. News reports of bombings in Iraq are heart-wrenching but when Mansur is involved it’s a different story, it’s like my own house has caught fire. Too many lives were lost there, too many women were widowed and too much blood has been spilt on its asphalt. Looking around I couldn’t see any signs of death; ice cream lovers are swarming around Ar-Rwad shop and the whole street was buzzing with life and I could actually see trendy young girls not wearing headscarves, which was the case in my younger days, when women like me were free to choose to wear it as I did, or not wear it as the majority of my friends did.

Miraj insisted on having lunch in the famous Samad Restaurant. I have always hated restaurants and crowded places, but I’m glad I said yes. We hardly found a table for the two of us; it looked as if all Baghdadi families had a rendezvous to reassure me that things are getting better so just shut up and feast your eyes on this new kind of non-violent normalcy. Food was not bad, service was crummy, windows are non-existent, waiters are rude but the whole place was so alive that day.

And it was only this past Friday that Neurotica ventured outside the Green Zone for the first time in the two years she has been in Baghdad. 

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[LT Nixon]

For another good read on Baghdad, check out Last of the Iraqis describe the rise of Adhamiyah, a once troubled neighborhood in northern Baghdad.