excerpt
The Dreamliner is one of the latest airplanes made by Boeing, the
famous 787, an aircraft no more than three years old.
After they reach cruising altitude, they’re served dinner consisting of
well-cooked Cajun chicken with pasta. Talal and Emily also enjoy a glass of red
wine; they relax and their flight to JFK Airport, which lasts about four hours and
ten minutes, is smooth and pleasant.
By the time they get to New York, Emily is half asleep; it’s 11:15 p.m.; she
doesn’t even notice some new people have boarded the plane; two more couples
are seated in the first-class section and many more in the economy section. They
take off on time and are heading to Baghdad, flying over the north Atlantic
toward England, Europe, and the Middle East. They will arrive in Baghdad the
following afternoon. Baghdad a Middle-Eastern city of seven million inhabitants
is the third-largest in the area after Cairo and Tehran. Before the war of 2003,
during the 1970s, Baghdad experienced a period of prosperity and growth
because of the sharp increase in the price of oil and petroleum products, the
main exports of the country. The infrastructure was at its best during those years.
However, with the war against Iran in the 1980s, life became difficult for this city
as most of the country’s resources were dedicated to the war. Thousands of
Baghdad residents were killed by massive Iranian missile attacks.
During the war of 2003, Baghdad was heavily bombed again and its
infrastructure badly damaged. But another major blow to its facilities came
because of the looting that took place after the country fell to the American army
and during the transitory period before the establishment of the first Iraqi
government.
Baghdad is cut in two by the river Tigris, and the climate is very hot, one of the
hottest in the world. The average temperature in the summer months is about 44
degrees Celcius and temperatures around 50 degrees are not unusual. There is no
rain during the summer months, but there are sandstorms, usually blowing from
east to west. The winter temperatures hover around 15 degrees Celcius in the
daytime and it’s not unusual for temperatures to drop to 0 Celcius at night.
When Talal and Emily arrive in Baghdad, it is a very hot 34 degrees, although
the airport is air-conditioned. It takes them three-quarters of an hour to get their
bags and go through customs, but soon they are strolling out of the airport.
Emily, being in the country for the first time, feels like she’s in a fairytale
country where Ali Baba still lives with his forty thieves. She notices that the
surroundings don’t look any different from any other airport that she has been in
the United States or Mexico. But the air and the people around her, some of them
dressed in traditional garments, give her the impression of a mythical place where
fakirs and genies could pop out from just about everywhere …
Libros Libertad 