An Iraqi family faces chaotic times

Every morning at 10 a.m., the oldest daughter of Karima Selman Methboub dons her black head scarf, grabs her press card, and walks down the broken steps of the family's lightless apartment stairwell to begin work.

Fatima is a volunteer at the recently founded Al Muajaha newspaper, or "The Iraqi Witness," and spends her days typing up stories on a computer in Arabic - without pay - and learning about journalism.

"I'm trying to learn more - I'm excited by this job!" says Fatima.

The 17-year-old was forced to drop out of school three years ago because of high fees, and because she was needed at home to help her widowed mother care for Fatima's seven siblings. "I hope this newspaper will be big in the future."

That's not the only bright spot in the Methboub's postwar lives. Another is that the primary school attended by Duha and Hibba, twin girls who are 11, is being completely renovated by "the Americans."

"There will be a cafeteria, air conditioning, and even a television - though that is for the headmaster, not us," says Duha breathlessly. "They gave us a paper saying that children are the future."

These are signs of hope, to be sure, in lives once overshadowed by the repressive grip of Saddam Hussein. But for the large and strug- gling Methboub family - which the Monitor has followed since last December - life in postwar Iraq has also been hard, and fraught with new dangers.

The youngest three children - the twins and brother Mahmoud, who is 9 - seem to have grown half a foot each since American forces took Baghdad last April. But coalition gains are being wiped out for this family by persistent insecurity.

"There are killings in the street and kidnappings," says Methboub, sitting on a thin mattress on her living-room floor, surrounded by a gaggle of her kids. "Every day [criminals] kill someone. They kill families. And groceries have become very expensive - sometimes double or triple the price."

Besides the school renovation and Fatima's job - sister Amal, who kept a diary during the war, also volunteers at the paper - this family has seen few improvements.

"It's a sea of illusions," Fatima said yesterday, as she walked to the newsroom.

The two young women are escorted to the newspaper every morning by their mother or an older brother. The family stays at home much more than before, battling power cuts and water shortages in a ramshackle apartment. Painted on a wall and the building entrance, where there seems to be a permanent pile of garbage, is the warning: "May God damn anyone who throws trash."

Electricity has shifted to four hours on and two hours off. That's up from three hours on and three off. But water was cut for two days a week ago. The family says they heard American military vehicles then broadcast a stark message: "Give us safety and stability, and we will give you water and electricity."

As the US occupation nears five months, the Methboubs say they are "shocked" that American forces can't protect themselves from armed resisters that conduct a dozen attacks a day, much less overcome sabotage that is crippling essential services.

"Now the situation is becoming worse and worse," says Methboub. "I am shocked. In one month, they could provide everything, electricity and water. Improvements? We see nothing, we touched nothing."

"Where are all the promises, and those who made those promises?" asks Amal. "If you ask American soldiers now, they say: 'We didn't promise any- thing.' "

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