Sweaty and Dirty

I'm inside a baking hot first floor internet cafe in Shamiya right now. I've got to stay put here till Fozzy finishes seeing the doctor because he's got a nasty flu or something. Early this morning he was wailing puke out. I'm surprised I'm not sick myself yet.

I got back here a couple days ago. The good news is that unlike last time, I was able to take a dump the very day I arrived. Last time I think it took me three days for my bum to feel at home enough to take a poo.

The electricity isn't as good as last time unfortunately and there's no fuel being at the petrol station either. Oh yay, the electricity is here but it's been five minutes and the air conditioner looks dead to me.

Looks like it's nearly time for me to get picked up. I wasn't able to finish my last post at home because the mains adapter to both my access point and wireless router died on me. Another problem with having no national electricity is that you end up using bad electricity that fries everything. Today I was thinking of sweeping the tarmac area in front of our storage rooms. But changed my mind because I didn't have a good enough broom and because I don't know how to deal with the many piles of dog poo that are scattered all around.

Water's pretty scarce at my house here too. I haven't had a shower since I got here. But I'm okay with that so far. I'm a dirty person. I did shampoo my hair today though with bottled water. Apparently today our guard let some punks take water from the guest hall tanks. And the thing is that those water tanks need to be filled before the one for the house begins to fill up. This guard of ours is such a wanker. And there's another one that I don't see much, which I like more but just because I do not see him. Apparently the other one is planning to ditch his wife and seven daughters to get married to another and then perhaps hop off to another town.

Back in Baghdad, my brother has a house that last year I was visiting every other week to photograph during it's construction and which this year I used the "it's not safe" excuse to avoid the hassle. The last time I went there before going off to the UK for my summer vacation last year, the guys building the house put a lady to live in the place to avoid squatters from moving into it. It's recently been revealed to me when Nahida chatted to a friend of mine who lives in the neighbourhood that the woman has three girls that she prostitutes. Unfortunately, it was to late to take advantage of that because the scene there has indeed become too dangerous for me since Nahida has been receiving threats regarding my dad's house which is next to my bro's.

At first the threats demanded that she puts decent people to occupy the house. The house had been occupied by a Sudanese man for the past few years but he went to Samara to fix some engines and never came back. After the first threat call Nahida got a Sudanese woman and her children in the house. And it's around about this time that the police who had set up a checkpoint near the house began hassling the Sudanese woman asking her to share the house with them. The guys making the threats then began sending SMS messages because Nahida wouldn't pick up when they call. They disapproved of the Sudanese family. Nahida suspects that it's the police that's pretending to be part of a militia and is making the threats. One of my friends thinks that the guys making the threats aren't the real deal since they haven't come to our doorstep yet. I think it was at this point that Nahida and my dad got our high up government connection in action for the first time. I think the threats have stopped and a few days ago the army came and picked up the woman and her prostitute daughters.

Whilst Nahida was chit chatting with Mos it turned out that the same woman and her prostituted daughters used to live near his house until they were threatened to leave with a grenade. He also said the girls were very hot.

It would've been so cool had I known there were cute prostitutes there from the beginning. Just pop in because I've got to take pics for my bro and get a blow job and walk out.

Ah no, I was mistaken the army didn't pick up the woman and her daughters.

[update 18/9/07: I got this whole story messed up towards the end... our government connection got the cops that wanted to move into my dad's house off of our backs, but it was the angry neighbours who complained to a local official and had the army come and pay the prostitutes a visit. The neighbours then approached the prostitutes and convinced them it was best for them to leave and gave them some money from a mosque to get them on their way. And apparently the latest is that they didn't move all that far away, and they'll eventually got kicked off again rather soon.]