The Iraqis' Stories: Meat, light and water become luxuries

Kawkab Sami wakes up at 5 o'clock every morning to clean her house and feed her four children breakfast before getting them off to school. As a resident of Baghdad, the 35-year-old widow says she lives in constant fear of a bomb killing her children and herself at any moment.

Her husband was killed by US troops in the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Her children are between the ages of 4 and 10.

With only a few hours of power a day at home, no clean water, and broken sewer pipes in the road outside, Sami cries every night, worried about how long she will be able to take care of her family and keep them healthy.

"I cannot afford a generator and special filter for the water because my salary is hardly enough for the main needs of my children," said Sami who, as a primary school teacher, earns US $200 a month.

"People tell me that I have to boil the [tap] water before I drink it, but I will need to use gas to do that and it is so expensive. The only thing I can do is pray my children do not get sick from it," she added.

Sami's basic costs add up quickly. She pays US $80 a month to rent a small house in a suburb of the capital; $30 a month for milk for the children and US $16 a month on cooking gas. That leaves her with less than $3 a day to feed, clothe and buy other necessities for herself and her children.

"Meat is like gold in Iraq," Sami said, adding that good meat costs US $7 per kilo. "Because I cannot afford that, most of the time we have eggs, which are cheaper. Two or three times a month I buy meat for us, which is seen by my children as a gift."

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