Wedding night in Baghdad
Weddings are going strong this Friday night at my hotel on the Tigris’ bank. Nobody seems to bother that yesterday a carbomb went off in a nearby street killing two people and barely missing the health minister: just one in the string of deadly explosions and suicide attacks that shook Baghdad, Kikruk, Ramadi, Baquba, Samarra and Mosul, leaving 34 people dead and more than 100 wounded in a single day. It’s business as usual at the Safeer Hotel: the japanese cars adorned with purple and pink plastic flowers, the drums and the trumpets, the women’s shrieks, the dancing children and the bakshish. It doesn’t take more than 15 minutes for the pairs to accomplish the feat: other cars are lining for their turn. The heavy made up baby bride in a shining white synthetic wedding gown and the clumsy young groom in a glossy-grey outsized suit stand still for the picture. Then they are ushered straight to the elevator. You can see the frightened look of the girl and feel the tension in the air. There’s nothing less romantic than this: two kids locked in a cheap hotel room, where you have to do it, sweetie, and do it with blood, since the relatives are waiting downstairs. Oh, the lovely nights of Baghdad!
