In Baghdad, elusive electricity is rare delight

Jay Price and Jenan Hussein McClatchy Newspapers

It was October, but still too hot to sleep inside, so the eight members of the Faekh family climbed onto the roof of their house for another night of torment. It wasn't just the nagging fear of a bomb on their road and the thumping passage of U.S. helicopters. It wasn't just the clatter and exhaust from generators all over the neighborhood. It was impossible to sleep well when they had to keep constant watch on a light by the front gate, a light that wasn't even on. Then, suddenly, it was. "God bless Prophet Muhammad," said the mother, Akhbal. She and her teenage daughter, Abeer, leaped up. No matter that it was after 2 a.m. The power was on and so was the race to harness it. They had an hour to wash clothes and iron them so that Akhbal's husband, Haidar, and the six children could be presentable at work and school. It was the second of two hours of electricity they get each day from the state-run power grid. Four and a half years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, it's never certain when the power will arrive, just that one electrified hour will come in the morning, another at night. U.S. reconstruction officials say that on average, electricity is available 10 hours a day, but Akhbal, a small woman whose face is worn beyond her 48 years, doesn't know anyone who gets close to that much...

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