It was interesting going on this trip to Al Ristamiyah because I got to see a little more of the country beyond the Green Zone (albeit, only what I could see through the window of the Humvee.) All of what I saw was dirty, dusty and run down. Lots of what one might call shanties. The homes are made of wood frames with corrugated tin roofs and cloth porches. There is garbage everywhere. Absolutely every where. Wrappers, bottles, and who knows what else just laying all over the place. Lots of rubble and piles of dirt and stones every where. There are broken down and abandoned cars littering the sides of the road. Many of the structures that are a bit more built up remind me of the adobe houses out in the western United States in style and construction.

People have herds of sheep just hanging out in their back yard eating the grass and garbage laying around. In the city, people set up on the side walks to sell their goods. Their "stores" are little more than carts with stuff piled high on them in no seeming order. It looks like the images of Calcutta I had seen on TV - overcrowded and dirty. There are 3 or 4 story buildings in the city as well with shops on the first level, but these as well appear dimly lit and over crowded. Merchandise jammed into every corner of shop. Take the House of Guitars, multiply it by about five (in the same square footage) and put a layer of dirt over everything and you get the effect.

All in all, I'd say what I've seen so far is a shit heap, to use the vernacular. Have you ever seen an abandoned lot in the inner city in the States? Broken concrete with grass growing out of it, garbage and wrappers collected in the corners where the wind has blown them. Bent and mangled fences, maybe a small shelter put up by a homeless person. Much of what I've seen of the country so far reminds me of that. It has the feeling of an abandoned lot where crack addicts do their drugs and no one really wants to go anymore. The only difference being the sheep.