Jill Carroll – Correspondent

Baghdad has been a violent place for over two years now, but when I got back this time I noticed people were more afraid of sectarian violence than they were before. Now people have to dance around these Sunni-Shiite divides in order to work.

In the street in Shiite areas, my driver, my interpreter, and I call one another by Shiite names, in case we are overheard. In Sunni areas we use Sunni names. These days, the ethnic and religious background of our drivers and interpreters matters much more to the people we are interviewing. It comes up almost every time we talk to someone.

Luckily my interpreter is a Christian, and to all but the most extreme people here, he is viewed as a more or less neutral party and, thus, above suspicion.

One time we were picking up a Sunni man my interpreter knows who was going to take us to meet his family. After arriving at the house, he pulled my interpreter aside, gestured toward our driver and whispered, "Who is this guy? You know, Sunni or Shiite?" He was reassured to know our driver is Sunni.

Several times my interpreter and I have had to take taxis when our car breaks down. When we get in, my interpreter quickly assesses the ethnicity of the taxi driver on the basis of religious pictures and trinkets displayed on the dashboard and adjusts the answers to the inevitable questions about our identities accordingly. One time he slipped up, at first saying I was his Sunni wife and then later saying he was a Christian. The driver remarked at such a highly unusual match in Iraq.

Jill Carroll - Correspondent

Last spring we reported on the plight of Jabbar Kathem Hassan’s 27-member family who was left homeless by a car bomb in October 2003.

Their youngest, Zeinab, was paralyzed from the waist down in the blast that destroyed their home. Their only choice was to move into a small compound of municipal buildings down the street from the destroyed house. It’s shelter, but little else. No heat, no electricity, no bathroom. An outdoor spigot provides the only running water.

I visited the Hassans recently to see what – if any – changes had occurred in their life.

They are still living in the municipal buildings but when asked about their lives, 80-year-old Jabbar, affectionately known as Abu Ali, says “We have no problems. The only problem is the house problem. If they kick us out where will we go?”

At first they thought someone would help them find a new home. But by their second spring in the compound they painted, “Here lives Abu Ali” in white on the blue metal door leading to the cluster of buildings. It’s a sign their living situation has become permanent.

But the generosity of some Monitor readers has given them some hope.

After reading about their plight last spring, several people sent money to the family. It was gratefully received. The money went toward medical bills and food. Abu Ali told me that he prays for those people and, even more than the financial help, he takes great comfort in knowing people halfway around the world care about them.

Now there are just the smallest signs of improvement. Zeinab is sitting up. She was even interacting with the people around her, laughing as her sister Nisreen fed her chips. She still can’t talk and hasn’t regained the use of her legs, but she has begun to rejoin the world in small ways.

Hamid Hussein, her uncle, pointed out that when they ask her, “Where is mama?” or “Where is baba?” she points to her mother or father.

But for Hamid, who was a school teacher and the only breadwinner for the family, life here still remains a daily struggle. He was working a second job in a friend’s barber shop last spring when a gunman entered and shot and killed his friend and wounded Hamid. Barbers have been targeted by some insurgent groups who feel cutting beards violates Islam.

This large family typifies the randomness of violence here and the impotency of the government that can’t stop the bombers, much less set up a support network for its victims. But like many Iraqi families, they soldier on in the face of daunting obstacles with an “it’s in the hands of God” attitude.