BAGHDAD — Muntadhar al-Sharify stood shivering Saturday in Baghdad’s searing heat, a smile on his young face.
The Iraqi boy had just completed a rite of passage known to children around the world — his first swim. But his fun also marked something broader: Another small step in Baghdad’s halting progress from violence to more normal life.
Across the city this summer, a handful of parks and pools are opening to the public. And places such as Zawra Park, where three swimming pools opened Saturday after repairs financed by the U.S. military, are drawing crowds of Iraqi families.
“In the last eight or nine months, life has been normal in Zawra,” said Salah al-Mandalawy, the assistant general manager of the park in western Baghdad.
For years, the sectarian violence after the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 kept Iraqis cooped up inside their houses for fear any trip out the door could be their last.
The U.S. military hopes the recent ebb in violence will allow Iraqis to begin restoring their lives to normal. It’s encouraging the process with projects like the refurbishment of the pools at Zawra, one of the city’s main parks.
Iraqi families now often spend the entire day in the park, al-Mandalawy said. With temperatures regularly over 100 degrees, the parks provide a much-needed respite.
The tranquility contrasts sharply with the period after the U.S.-led invasion when the park was hit by mortar fire, al-Mandalawy said. Some of the animals in the park’s zoo were stolen.
Zawra’s neighborhood was never among Baghdad’s most violent, but suffered its share of attacks.
Now, violence in Iraq has dropped to its lowest level in more than four years. The reasons: The 2007 buildup of U.S. forces, a Sunni revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq and government crackdowns against Sunni extremists and Shiite militias, among other factors.
Ten-year-old Muntadhar al-Tammimi may not know the reasons for the drop in violence, but there was no hiding his smile Saturday as he stripped off his shirt and jumped into one of Zawra’s pools, still wearing his jeans.
“I feel good!” said al-Tammimi, as he and 10 other children splashed around.
Most of the children at the pool, like al-Tammimi, were sons or daughters of local officials who attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony to mark the pools’ opening. But officials say the pools are open to the general public.
The pools were first built under Saddam Hussein in the 1970s but have been closed since the U.S.-led invasion, al-Mandalawy said. The U.S. military worked with local officials and park managers over the past year to get them repaired, providing the needed $500,000.
At least one other public pool has opened recently in Baghdad and another is being built along Abu Nawas street, the riverside promenade along the Tigris River’s east bank, long closed to the public.
Abu Nawas street reopened late last year after a $5 million joint American and private project to build parks and playgrounds along its length. In the late afternoon sun Saturday, it was filled with shouting children and strolling parents.
Adults stress that the signs of normal life are a relief to them, too.
At Zawra, some men attending the opening ceremony stripped off their pants and shirts and jumped into the largest of the three pools in boxer shorts, after the ceremony ended.
“It’s a big happiness for us because we have been missing this for a long time,” said Midhak al-Rubaie, 30, who lives near Zawra.
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