Sarmad says

Thanks for visiting the page. As you've probably already read by now, this blog is set up to help our friend Sarmad help his family in Baghdad. After living in the US since 2004, he headed back to Iraq to help improve his family's lives and get them out of a pretty dire situation. 

He reports missing--in addition to all of us--his bed, the subway, and access to clean, running water. Here's how he describes what he found on his arrival back in Baghdad:

Rubble, trash and checkpoints are ubiquitous. The city is covered with dust, and at first glance it sounds as if no one lives here. Everywhere you go you get a sense of absolute hopelessness, helplessness and misery. Driving in this god-forsaken place makes you want to vomit. Everything is ruined and nothing was rebuilt. Everyone you talk to says it’s way better than last year or two years ago when things had fallen apart completely but what I see now is a pretty desperate situation.

He's trying to get his mother, two sisters and brother into safer circumstances. He's worried about how they'll fare, if he can really make the change in their lives he wants to make. "Anxiety is at its utmost," he reports. But we're here to help.

Thanks for your donations, and for taking the time to read this. Feel free to leave comments. We'll update as we hear from him.

Friends of Sarmad