The surreal nature of life in Iraq

Yeah, so here's a picture:



This is what makes life here so strangely surreal. First of all, it's a cloudy day, so the dark thing hanging in the sky (smoke) doesn't seem too odd at first, because maybe its a storm cloud. But no, if you look closely, its a huge plume of black smoke, billowing up from somewhere to the north of us. So - maybe its inside the wall, maybe outside. But no one, and I mean no one, seems to even register it. I look on the news, no mention of it. Just this huge plume of black smoke, happens everyday. Well, not everyday, but you get used to seeing things on fire here, so you just give it a miss. Very bizarre. So, I jump in my car and head out to find it. Actually, I was on my way to somewhere else and I kept getting closer, so I just drove out to the wall to take a look. Turns out it was someone burning trash. A LOT of trash:



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