So, six barrels later - only 144 to go.
It was a long day today, dusty and hot and full of grasping hands and full volume discussion.
We have established the barrel swap and now will have to see how effective it is.....
There is tension in the air elsewhere in the city today. "Baghdad is burning" I heard several times - something of an overstatement I feel - I've seen cities burning before and although the black smoke from the fires at several points around the city was worrying when we first woke - and continued to smolder throughout the day, it was not the fires that made me nervous...
It was the nervousness of the troops on the street.
I worked for a few years in Northern Ireland and anxious soldiers make me twitchy.
New check points have sprung up all over the city overnight. Days of dead soldiers and random attacks have left the forces on a visible high state of alert - the first time I have really felt under siege.
It was interesting that in our adopted homeland - Al Tuwaitha and the surrounding villages - not only do we feel safe, but the soldiers are rarely visible.
It's hard to know if it is part of the general apathy about the condition of the villages that we have seen in connection with the radiation scandal, or if it a far more simple process of elimination that it is not a threatening area.
But in the city it is a different matter.
The area around the Palestine hotel has been declared a possible soft target area - I go there almost daily to meet with journalists and talk about our work here.
The Palestine was a soft target when the US army shelled it during the war, killing a TV cameraman and badly injuring another (an old friend and work colleague of mine in fact). I'm not clear exactly whose soft target it is now, but additional check points have been installed, Now, no matter how many times I visit in the space of a day, I get my car, my pockets and my body searched every time. More long queues to wait in, in the oppressive heat.
The temperature seems to match the mood. The levels of discomfort from relentless sweating, itching and general unpleasantness, make people short on temper - another thing that makes me twitchy. The city may not be burning, but it's getting hot in so many different ways.
Part of our convoy got mixed up in the middle of an army patrol in one of the daily traffic jams..... the guns swiveled in their turrets and pointed straight through the windscreen as sharp commands where barked at our drivers.......everywhere you look the soldiers have gone from slinging their guns over their shoulders like some bizarre metallic fashion accessory, into carrying them across their body or at the shoulder, slippery fingers hovering over the trigger.
In the midst of the attacks, the heat and the anxiety - we still have to work. Sampling continues, more barrels and radioactivity uncovered by our experts, and the media still want to know. I spoke to one journalist whose first question to me over an evening drink, was how was my day....what did Greenpeace do today....thanks for the really great pictures.....the shots of women lifting the shinning new barrels were really great.
I asked how her days was. A catalogue of disasters, car break downs, missed stories and god knows what else. The most disturbing story she told me was that soldiers have apparently started paying children to tip them off about abandoned or stashed weaponry.
We know from past experience what children do when they have new toys to play with ...... someone out there convince me this horror story isn't true, please.
Posted by | Permalink | Discuss | TrackBack