My first day at "Shokal Zakaria"

At 3:45 yesterday afternoon, my phone rang reminding me that I was to be moving to the new apartments in 15 minutes... Yikes! I had gone home early as I was suffering from what had been diagnosed as ameobic dysentery. I surveyed my apartment and quickly shoved all the stuff I had been planning to procure another box for into plastic shopping bags and readied myself for the truck.

At 4:00 sharp, the truck arrived and we loaded everything into the back. After finishing, Tu (a university person) arrived very angry that there was no transportation from the university to the new apartments and insisted that the truck transport her and another to the new apartments... That would have been fine, except that both the driver and I had real a real need to get the moving over quickly... and the second passenger was shopping in New City). I offered to taxi to the new place and meet them there, but in the end, we crunched up into the cab with what I admit was too much stuff for any single person to accumulate living in Iraq.

After arrival, I discovered that the apartments had been provided with all sorts of necessities (cutlery, dishes, microwaves, laundry detergent, etc), but NO toilet paper... the one thing I really needed. Anyway, I managed to get to the market and even though we still don't know the security key code to enter the apartment, I was lucky to find the door propped open on my return.

Tonight I look forward to cleaning my place (considering the size, it could take a while); It is dusty, the floors are all dirty, there is a pond in my living room from a leaky air conditioner and there is a little plumbing problem in one of the three bathrooms (a worker appears to have used it and it won't flush!). But other than that, it is rather 'splendid'... It looks just like a realtor's showroom (No worries, I will take care of that). Lots of flash with considerably less practicality. Already the movement-sensitive light switches are driving me crazy. However, after my dark New City hovel, the sun rising between two buildings and shining in through my bedroom balcony window was a really pleasant way to start the day.

PS. Shokal Zakaria is the unofficial name of the new apartments - Zakaria is a famous singer who purportedly owns the new place - taxi driver's don't know the real name.