Baghdad's sky had a dark halo around it today. Nobody could figure out what it was until we read a headline that said an oil pipeline had been blown up. That explains it.
I went to the Ministry of Health today with the intention of getting "permission" to volunteer in the hospitals of Baghdad. I intended to be there at 10, but traffic kept me until 11am. On the way, I bought a dress shirt for the equivalent of $1. The shirt, coupled with my attempted mustache, my fluffed out chest hair and my newfound ability to completely suppress smiles has made it almost impossible for people to identify me as a foreigner until I speak. So, I mostly just speak in monosyllables and keep to myself, just like everybody else.
I got to the Ministry of Health at 11am and was sent from one place to another. I told them I was a Canadian student who wanted permission to enter the hospitals so I could write a report on the conditions of the hospitals before and after the 30 June handover of "sovereignty". They wanted papers proving this and that, so papers I presented them. In the end, I plum ran out of time. At 12:30, there was a mass exodus of people the likes of which I could only have imagined previously. As I asked what was happening, one guard laughed and told me that the work day was over.
"It's 12:30!" I should have known that no such protest would reverse The Exodus, so I finally resigned myself to my fate and left.
I have concluded that I am more capable at dealing with thugs with guns than thugs with red tape. So, if I can't get my permission tomorrow (when they said it would be "ready"), then I will go to someplace outside of Baghdad. It is said by most of those with experience that the Bureaucracy of Baghdad ends at its borders. I guess we'll see about that!
tarek
Photos:
Tuesday, 22 June 2004: As we drove back from Sadr City in the morning, Baghdad's skyline was filled with an ominous black smoke. We later found out that it was an oil pipeline explosion.
Tuesday, 22 June 2004: As we drove back from Sadr City in the morning, Baghdad's skyline was filled with an ominous black smoke. We later found out that it was an oil pipeline explosion.