NEWSLETTER

SEEN IS FOR SA’AH RESTAURANT
Sa’ah is a very famous Iraqi restaurant. A lot of foreigners even know it because it was in the news many times during the war. Saddam was believed to be hiding in a house behind it, so the American army dropped a ton of bombs on it, which turned the house into a big hole in the ground and damaged the crap out of all the surrounding buildings. It was rebuilt later. The restaurant is in the Mansour neighborhood and is still running although many car bombs have exploded near it since the start of the war. Like all Iraqis, this restaurant is a survivor.


SHEEN IS FOR SHAY
In Iraqi it’s pronounced chay, (the “ch” sound is common in the Iraqi dialect but has no equivalent in the Arabic alphabet). This tea is so mean it makes black coffee look gay. It’s brewed for hours with a ton of cardamom, it’s dark as death, and it is consumed with piles of sugar. This is the drink of choice for all Iraqis. They drink it all day long at home, at work, and in public. Today if you see an Iraqi in the street who isn’t nursing a cup of shay, he’s probably about to reach for an RPG.


SAAD IS FOR SAYD CLUB (NADI IL SAYD)
Sayd Club is one of the most famous social clubs in Baghdad. It’s the place where families would get together to spend an evening and have dinner, or children would go during the day to swim or play basketball or tennis. Uday, Saddam’s son, used to go there a lot too, but as long as you stayed away from him and minded your own business, you’d generally be fine.


DHAAD IS FOR DHARBA (ATTACK)
The 1991 war on Iraq is often referred to by local Iraqis as “the Bush’s Dharba”. After a number of attacks ensued people started tagging on numbers to distinguish them: the First Dharba and the Second Dharba, and so on. There were smaller dharbas in between too, during the 90s. People used to use “the Dharba” as a reference for time, like: “I started working two years after the Dharba.” Now when you say “the Dharba” everyone’s like, “Which one?”


TAH IS FOR TAREEQ IL MATAR (AIRPORT ROAD)
I used to live very close to the airport. Practically the entire war happened around us as we were surrounded by the airport, the national security college, and the presidential warehouses. I can’t possibly count how many thousands of rockets and missiles went over our heads. The airport road, which we used to take every day to go home, was one of the most beautiful in Baghdad. It’s very wide and was decorated with flowers, bushes, and tall palm trees. Since the American army used the airport as a base, they were being targeted daily on that road with roadside bombs, car bombs, and RPG attacks—all of which left the street full of holes. Eventually the American army had to remove and burn all the trees and bushes to make sure nobody was hiding among them to attack them.

MINO JIBILLA


TO BE CONTINUED:
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