Back in Baghdad, looking for the normal

A physician-journalist who fled Iraq with his wife and young daughters goes home after hearing that things have improved.

By Caesar Ahmed
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

March 13, 2008

BAGHDAD — I left Baghdad on June 29, 2006. It was time to escape the abyss, to start over. I lived in the capital's safest neighborhood, but even there, people died.

Two months earlier, my wife's cousin had visited our house in Karada in central Baghdad. A car bomb killed him on his way home. A month later, a cousin was abducted; his body was found at the morgue.

The day before our departure for Syria and then Egypt, I locked up our two family homes, and just missed an explosion that killed 14 people.

I described my country as hell. But here I am, back in Baghdad after failing to find decent work outside Iraq and hearing that things had improved here.

I flew in around New Year's. It took only five minutes to pass through customs, and I found a taxi easily.

But on the highway, the checkpoints were two miles apart and masked soldiers hid behind concrete barriers. When we reached the hotel, I called my wife and told her Baghdad was a ghost town. I stayed in the hotel two days before going out.

When I did, I saw that people in my old neighborhood finished their errands and hurried home without laughing or talking to one another. Destruction was on every block.

I visited a doctor friend, who scolded me for returning. "It will never get back to normal," he said. "All the decent people have left the country."

I asked whether there was any hope.

"Maybe in 10 years," he said.

I left the hospital depressed, but went to see a relative, a 60-year-old lawyer who lived nearby. He said he thought life was improving. Shops were reopening, he said; some didn't close till 11 p.m.

People didn't seem to be so afraid of the police anymore, and I noticed that officers had stopped hiding their faces behind ski masks.

I thought back to the day I had left Iraq with my wife, our year-old twin daughters, my mother and my younger brother. I put down a deposit for a large sport utility vehicle that was to pick us up and drive us to Syria. But the night before, the travel agency called to say the driver had been killed on his way back from the border.

Later, I learned the agency had simply found someone willing to pay more.

My brother's best friend, Ayman, came to say goodbye the morning we left. Six months later, Ayman was beheaded; his uncle, a prominent Sunni Muslim sheik, died soon after in a bombing that targeted tribal leaders fighting the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Iraq.

I was leaving my country, friends and two jobs -- one as a medical doctor, the other working for an American newspaper. I loaded clothes, money and gold into the SUV, hoping we could trust the driver and that the road was safe.

My wife is a Shiite Muslim and I'm Sunni. We knew that if Al Qaeda stopped us, it might kill any of us. But no matter what we faced, it was better than staying in Baghdad.

We reached the Syrian border about midnight, joining thousands of Iraqi men, women and children.

When a Syrian customs official called my wife's name, I jumped up. The man said an immigration officer wanted to see me. I was disheveled, with dust caked on my trousers. The officer shouted, saying he could not let my wife into Syria because her guardian was not with her. I told him we were married; I was her guardian.

But could we prove it? We had left most forms of identification behind because we were afraid they would reveal us as Sunni or Shiite. I ran to my family.

We opened our luggage looking for proof of our marriage. Our children cried as we unpacked. Then, I felt my bag's pocket and was amazed to find our wedding pictures.

The officer glanced at the girls in my arms and at the pictures. He studied our passports, our visas and entry dates in our passports. Then he smiled and stamped my wife's passport.

We had been on the road for 20 hours. At last, we felt like normal human beings.

But when I took the twins to get vaccinations at a public health center in Cairo, they were turned away because I did not have an Egyptian identity card, a health card or proof of residency. It was four months before they could get their shots.

Egyptian authorities did not recognize my medical license either. The best job I found was as an agent for an insurance company. It paid $140 a month, barely enough to cover my babies' diapers; I worked there one week. Finally, I gave up.

I watched Iraqi television channels and noticed footage of new cars in Baghdad and municipal workers planting flowers in public parks. I talked to relatives and friends. "Come back," they said. "Baghdad is better now; Karada is like heaven."

When my old company said it would rehire me, I bought a plane ticket.

My mother and brother have returned to Baghdad, but I've seen them only once because they live across the city. On the phone, my mother begs me not to go out.

The hardest part has been being away from my wife and girls. I had promised we would never be apart, but I have been away now for more than two months.

Sadly, I'd rather they stay far away. In Egypt, they can lead a normal life, with security, electricity and hot water. In Iraq, they might see what I saw a few days ago: blood staining the ground after a bombing.

But as I spend more time here, I realize many Iraqis are like me. They are sick of sectarian killings. A year ago, we just wished to stay alive. Now we dream about a normal life. We want to live in our homes and take our children to school.

Some Iraqis are hoping again, even me.