Baghdad Journal

A drive in the country

We are headed to the hospital near Old Deahlah Bridge, some 50 Kms south of Baghdad. Once we are across the New Deahlah Bridge, which has been blown out of existence and rebuilt as a clattering metal one laner, we hit the open countryside on the Saddam Highway. It's like jumping into a time machine -- going backwards fast. Men in dishdashas, boys, sheep all jostle for small slices of shade provided by the few deciduous trees that dot the landscape. The buildings we pass shrink in size until they are simple mud brick dwellings that are the color of sand. The ones that have no windows or doors look as though they could have been built by the Sumerians 20,000 years ago save for the palimpsets of shop signs faded by the wind and time. Then we see a severly damaged armored humvee hanging precariously off the bend of an offramp and are snapped back suddenly into the present.

That is only the latest destruction, brought on earlier in the morning by an improvised explosive on the road which, we learned later watching al Arabiya, injured two soldiers. We follow, in reverse, the battleground the Coalition troops made on their way to Baghdad in April. The sides of the highway are littered with abandoned truck and bus parts -- chasses, cabins, axles. There are so many that Adam tells our driver Abu Abdullah to go into the scrap business. Abu Abdullah laughs but then says he did try shipping 12 truckloads of iron to Jordan and was turned back by U.S. soldiers guarding the border. "They said nothing leaves Iraq, orders from the CPA," Abu Abdullah replies not without a note of bitterness.

Finally we arrive to al Wafaa, the town with the old bridge. The hospital must be near by. The town is a forsaken place with trash everywhere. Sunburnt leathery faces wrapped in dirty kaffiya watch us suspiciously. Attacked by flies and the heat, vendors at the farmers market cover their meat and fruit stalls with rags and pieces of cardboard. Abu Abdullah asks directions quickly from the best dressed man on the street -- his shirt reads "fashion club." The man points in one direction and Abu Abdullah guns the BMW down the street. He says we mustn't tarry in a lawless place like this.

At the hospital, we find three doctors sitting in a bare office -- no phone, no papers, no computers. Just a desk and some chairs. They all speak English well. They say the hosptial was looted after the war. Everything from AC units to lab equipment was stripped off the walls. Two nearby clinics -- one for TB and one for AIDS -- were destoyed. They say the medicine was stolen too. And they say they've been waiting for a certain drug, one they really needed. It's for combating rabies. They say a crazed dog, frothing at the mouth, broke into a nearby family's home a month or so ago and bit all the children -- five sisters. The doctors were unable to treat them and now one of the girls has already died. Can they get the drugs? We ask. Yes, but it is too late, they say. The drugs will do them no good now. They are simply at home, one by one they wait for their death. We've been visiting hospitals for several days now and each time we leave one, we've felt helpless and ashamed and exhausted. This time is no exception.

Posted by Brandon Sprague at August 9, 2003 10:42 AM | TrackBack