Yesterday I was on my way to my nephew's wedding party. The trip usually takes 20 minutes but now everything changed in Baghdad because the traffic jams, the blocked roads and the continuous Iraqi and American convoys. Now the shortest trip takes two hours.
I left the office at 3:30 to get to the party on time. Thank God I crossed half the way without problems except the swift passing Iraqi convoys here and there. In the center of Baghdad I faced my first real problem: a "huge traffic jam" around al Tahreer square. The traffic was still, worthless waiting. But suddenly one of stopped car lines started moving and we saw the American convoy emerge. I felt happy that finally I'll get rid of this huge traffic jam because of the gap made by this convoy; I was rushing to take my place behind them to resume my trip. I counted three Humvees, which was the usual number of vehicles in a convoy, and drove in! And found myself in an awkward situation because I was in the middle of the American military convoy, which turned out to be more than three vehicles this time and the scene froze.
I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and I said to myself "I'm dead!" and I was waiting for the "execution" of my fate.
But the nice soldier who was opening the road for his comrades was satisfied with jumping and yelling at me! I had broken into this convoy like a car bomb would.
The convoy stopped for two minutes until I found a space for my car away from them. Everyone round me was astonished. I think the Americans, this time, did not behave in aggressive reaction towards such a situation. I was lucky. I remembered all the stories of Iraqis who found themselves in the wrong place at wrong time and paid their lives as the cost. They deserved such a chance from the American side, but unfortunately aggressiveness was the master of such situations.
