Reflections on experiencing another carbomb

So I'm not going to write about all the bombs which go off while I'm here. In part this is because I don't want to worry my parents who'll be reading this blog, and in part because the violence here is just so routine that they hardly register. But this one time I'm going to try and give you a feel of what its like to live through these events on the ground.

So it was about 9.30am this morning and I'd just got a call from an Iraqi friend saying there was a rally happening over in Kharkh (the other side of the river) for the families of detainees. While waiting for her to arrive I was talking with my CPT team mates about our plans to go back to Kerbala to support our friends in the newly formed Muslim Peacemaker Team there.

Suddenly the room shock and we gave each other that "not again" look. "I guess someone better go up on the roof and check" said Sheila. We all assented but no one got up to move, willing that someone else would volunteer. I always crack first in these situations so I sprinted up the 4 flights of stairs. As I reached the third floor the second bomb went off (if you read the BBC report this is the car which flipped over in the centre of the street). "Get away from the windows" someone shouted, since there is a danger of flying glass if the shockwave is powerful enough. However I could see that the windows were open, which means that they'll swing on their hinges with the blast and so there isn't much danger from glass (often you'll see in houses that people leave windows slightly ajar for precisely this reason).

As I reached the top of the stairs I saw our landlady and her housekeeper in a huddle looking South West. This is the direction of the university and, as I emerged with foreboding onto the roof, there was the dreaded plume of black smoke belching forth from the vicinity of Baghdad U, about a mile away along the river. The housekeeper was in floods of tears as her son was over there studying. She fumbled with her phone and called his number. Thankfully he answered, "Mum, I'm in an exam now, not allowed to talk, bye" and hung up. I had a picture of a hall of exam students scribbling away, looking up briefly as the building shock and then returning immediately to their papers until they were disturbed a second time by the ring-tone cacophony of worried parents. This is Baghdad, you've just got to carry on regardless.

I look down from the roof as the activity and sounds of the city continue: the metallic tap tap tap of a man on a donkey cart advertising his gas cylinders for sale, the kids in the park who haven't even paused their game of football, the annoying synthesised jingle (always to the tune of "It’s A Small World" for some unknown reason) played by cars as they reverse, horn honking by drivers stuck helplessly in the vessels of Baghdad's capillaries, narrowed and clogged like a smoker's lungs.

In a spinal reaction I fumble for my camera and take a few snaps of the smoke cloud. I know this is a completely futile gesture, and the photos will be indistinguishable from dozens of similar ones taken over the past two years, but somehow it always feels necessary to reverently document these things. I sink to my knees on the roof and try to concentrate my thoughts enough to pray coherently - for the injured, for the families of the dead and for a change of heart in the people who planned this attack. By the time I look up the smoke cloud has already dispersed, petrol tanks burn up quickly.

I stumble back down to our apartment and my Iraqi friends have arrived. Their main concern is whether the roads will be open, as the bridge we need to cross isn't far from the epicentre of those explosions. They decide to give it a go and we drive towards Jadriya. The traffic is dense but it is moving. Some motorcycles weave through the lanes and I notice that the passengers have video cameras out, so these are the journalists rushing to record pictures which you may have seen today on TV. Our driver is actually a part-time journalist himself and asks me to load up a new film into his camera. My nails are pretty blunt and I'm having difficulty unwrapping the awkwardly wrapped tapes. Eventually I succeed and pass him the camera, by which time we are driving over the bridge, which is open for the time being. There are no obvious signs of the explosions nearby so he decides to drive onwards to the detainee meeting as we'd arranged.

Throughout the day I hear garbled second hand rumours about what happened. Firstly the news is that 10 students were killed; next I hear that no, the blast was at the office of the Badr Brigades (a militia group attached to one of the main Shia parties) and the casualty figure is more like 12. Eventually someone sets us straight that the Interior Ministry seems to have been the intended target and by now the bodycount has risen to 15. After the rally (which was really productive as it happens - we saw old friends who we'd helped in the past and took details of some new cases including a 14yr old kid locked up in Abu G) we try to head home. We hear that by now the bridge has been closed and we wonder what to do. There's a possibility of a lock down on all the bridges, essentially cutting Baghdad in two and marooning us on the wrong side of the city. Our Iraqi friends (naturally) invite us to come and stay at their home on this side, but we still have some important meetings today so decide to try and break through. Heading north and weaving through a maze of back streets (which by now all Iraqi drivers have come to know better than the freeways) we manage to find a bridge which is still open and get back home.

Finally, hours after the event, I wait until the electricity comes on and am able to check the precise details of the attacks on the web and see some photos - there's a good chance that you saw this on the news hours before I did. In the street people discuss the attacks, but in the bored and formulaic way people usually discuss the weather - all you can do about it is moan and just get on with your lives.

So this is not the first and unfortunately I'm sure it won't be the last bombing I experience. But I probably won't blog about them much because they just are a background noise, albeit a painful one. Be aware of the psychological effect they have on the city, pray for the victims and perpetrators, but don't let them drown out the other news. This is the news of Iraqis knuckling down and trying to build lives for their families in spite of the Occupation. This is the news of the guy who's started welding signal-boosting aerials out of scrap metal in order to set up a wireless internet business. This is the news of the family squatting in an abandoned building who's kids nonetheless have the biggest smiles I've ever seen. This is the news of Iraqis who have spent time in detention, have had family members killed or abused by my government, and yet who nonetheless greet me with the traditional "peace upon you" and insist that I drink endless glasses of sweet tea.