Meet Sami

As every foreign correspondent knows, llife is a lot easier if you have a good interpreter and driver.  I've found an excellent team in driver Sami, shown here, and Avan, a young Kurdish engineer who honed her English by working for the UN and a big American contractor after Saddam Hussein's  regime fell in 2003

Sami, who lives in a mixed Christian-Muslim village outside Erbil, agreed to pose in front of this daunting stone staircase that leads to an ancient tomb atop the mountain. Christians say a revered Christian religious figure was buried there centuries ago; Muslims say the tomb contains a revered Muslim figure! Whatever the case, I wasn't about to spend an hour in the heat climbing up.

Avan didn't want to photographed. Like many Iraqis, even those in the safe, Kurdish-controlled north, she fears being targetted by terrorists who consider anyone who works with Americans to be consorting with the enemy.

Fill 'er up

I have yet to see a regular gas station here - it seems that most people buy from roadside vendors like this poor fellow trying to make a dinar and grab a bit of shade in 109 degree heat. It's definitely convenient but the downside is that the gas is often adulterated with water or kerosene.

My driver, Sami, always does a simple test - he sticks his pinkie into the container and if it (the finger) turns white for a minute, he knows the gas is good. But if his finger feels oily, he knows the gas has been mixed with something, and so he looks elsewhere.

The highest quality gas sold here is from Turkey can costs about 21,000 dinars - one U.S. dollar equals 1,255 dinars so you do the math - for 20 litres (a litre is about a quart.)