A year later, one Baghdad family rebuilds and returns
The most common sounds that punctuate the Baghdad air may be car bombs and mortar blasts, screaming victims and weeping mourners.
But other sounds resonate from the city's violent streets as well: of families rebuilding torn lives, of bricks and mortar rising – and not being blown apart – and of new glass being fitted.
One year after a dual suicide truck bombing targeted the Hamra Hotel complex, the extended al-Khafaji family, which lost three members as well as their home, has finished rebuilding.
"Maybe we did some good things for God," muses patriarch Khudair al-Khafaji, sitting at the same place, in the same room, where he was waiting for breakfast that Friday morning a year ago, when the blasts peppered his face and legs with glass.
Mr. Khafaji wipes his eyes at the memory. But now, this room smells of fresh pale- pink paint and has new carpets. The ornate wrought-iron door is original, but has been painted white instead of green.
"What you must remember are the good things," says the butcher, stoically hiding, for a moment, deep bitterness. Among those good things are the outpouring of support from neighbors and extended family after a tragedy that engulfed the entire neighborhood and killed eight Iraqis.
One building was reduced to rubble; another was too damaged to repair. Other houses less wrecked than the Khafaji's have been abandoned.
But the bombing of Nov. 18, 2005, came just weeks before an important election, in a relatively safe neighborhood. Affected families were given unusual attention from politicians trying to show that the Iraqi government was working to help victims.
Then-Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari's office gave this family the equivalent of $4,700. They received $2,000 from a pool raised by journalists to help a number of families affected by the blast. The mayor gave them another $500. The municipality provided some large sheets of pane glass, 1,000 bricks, two oil heaters, two blankets, and a small generator. Promises of prefabricated housing and other reimbursements were never met.
"That was the season of the election, this noisy thing before the vote," says Khafaji, to the knowing nods of his relatives. "After that, no one came to see us."
There were also promises from the religious establishment, and from other families and relatives. But they turned out to have their own problems to deal with first.
"At that time, we believed their promises," says Ahmed al-Khafaji, a nephew of Khudair. "Over time, we deleted these ideas."
The result meant that the family had to disperse to different parts of Baghdad while all efforts were put into rebuilding. To raise funds, the car was sold for $1,500, one-quarter of its preblast value, and builders and painters within the family were able to arrange work far more cheaply than most Iraqis would have to pay.
As cash ran out, however, the rebuilding had to be limited. The new house only has a ground floor, not two stories, like before, and it consists of only three rooms, not six.
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