IRAQ: Vying for power

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By Usama Redha in Baghdad

For many months, I heard that the Ministry of Electricity was planning to ration power in Baghdad by giving each family 10 amperes of electricity, or a bit more depending on how many people lived in a house. The idea was to attach a circuit breaker at the top of the electricity poles so people could not mess with their allotted share of amperes and there would be more to go around.

Finally, the electricity workers came to my neighborhood and began installing the breaker boxes. I was granted 16 amps, because I lived with my parents. I asked the engineer, who wore a blue uniform and carried a notebook, what would happen if we went over our 16-amp limit and the circuit breaker shut off our power. How would we reach the box to flip the switch back on?

He told me in such cases, you must visit the local maintenance unit and ask for someone to come out, climb the pole and fix the problem.

Not long afterward, I was awakened early in the morning by the sounds of many voices on the street outside. I dressed quickly and opened the door to take a look. I laughed at what I saw. My neighbor, Haider, had brought a long stick with a hook at one end and he was trying to reach the circuit breaker at the top of the power pole.

His power had cut off because he had forgotten to turn off his electric water heater and had used more than his share of amps. The stick wasn’t long enough, so he found another one and somehow taped it to the first one. People had gathered round to watch and were encouraging him.

After a few tries, he managed to flip the necessary switch using his stick and hook. It turned out there were others in the crowd with the same problem, so he fixed theirs before heading off to work.

A week later, the power in my house went out. I immediately went to Haider, who by now had become famous in the neighborhood for turning people’s power back on. In fact, he had begun charging for the service: $2 each time he was asked to fix someone’s electricity by fiddling with the circuit box.

Haider immediately came over with his stick. Like a circus acrobat, he climbed a wall close to the electricity pole and began using his stick to try to open the box holding the circuit breaker. For some reason, he could not get the box open. Finally, he gave up and told me I’d have to do things the official way: by visiting the area maintenance unit and asking them to come out and fix the power.

I did so, and was promised someone would come in about an hour. I figured if they came in two hours, I would be lucky. In the meantime, I started chatting with a neighbor, who told me he had bribed a worker to get him 40 amps -- enough to run both his air conditioners. I was startled. ‘Is that possible?’ I asked him. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s that simple.’

Six hours later, they still had not showed up, but I saw one of their blue pickup trucks down the street. I went over to the worker and asked when he could come climb the pole outside my house and get the power back on. It seems he was one of the workers my neighbor had referred to, because he said he was not doing official work -- he was on a secret mission, presumably arranging for someone to have more than their permitted share of power.

The man told me he could not help me because his maintenance unit had not sent him to the neighborhood. He told me to go talk to the unit, so I returned for the second time that day.

By the next day, still nobody had come, so I visited the maintenance unit again. I gave them my address and a description of the house so the workers could be sure to find it. As I was describing it, the man behind the desk said he knew me, because I lived close to the man tapping electricity illegally.

I walked home in despair, thinking they never would come. But three hours later, workers showed up to fix my problem. They called me a troublemaker because I had visited the maintenance office three times. But at least they turned my power back on.

Photos by Tina Susman / Los Angeles Times

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