Iraqis taking care of business

Omar posts about a friend's experiences building a new power plant in Baghdad.

For over a year, I closely followed the progress of the work and I never allowed myself to sleep in that part of the 8 hour biweekly trip as some kind of strong passion appeared between me and that power station (sounds weird I know). Later I got transferred back to Baghdad and began to pass through that street more often and every time I would drive really slowly to get more time near the construction site just to see if anything new had been added.

...

Last week, I met my engineer friend again and he told me that the two turbines will be experimentally operated on May 24 and if the experiment runs smoothly, the two new units would be connected to the grid adding 300 megawatts to the national power supply.
When I asked my friend how he feels about it he sighed and said:

"I feel really proud of being part of this; this time I wasn't working for material benefit only, I felt overwhelming happiness for doing something good in such a hard time. You have no idea my friend what we’ve been through to make this project work out. The work was suspended many times because of attacks; mortars hit the site three times, RPGs two or three times, small guns fire attacks happen every other while. We have lost 11 men in these attacks, 7 Iraqis and 4 foreigners and many others received death threats. It wasn't an easy job at all my friend. We also had to establish a 6 meter tall concrete wall to provide more protection for the workers and the station".