I was eager to live in an Iraq without Saddam. I always hated his brutal rule of Iraq. He had taken us into wars in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed. Iraqis might also easily face death if they spoke out against Saddam or criticized his government. But if you kept your mouth shut and did not join any political party other than his now outlawed Baath party, you most probably would have been left alone.
    When Saddam was ousted by the invasion, and Baghdad fell to U.S. troops on April 9, 2003, I thought then that Iraq would finally be at peace after a long period of tough times. I never imagined what followed. It never crossed my mind that tens of thousands would be slaughtered simply for being a Shi'ite Muslim or a Sunni, the two Islamic sects in Iraq. Millions would flee their homes. And that bombs laid by insurgents would mow down thousands more.
    I sometimes wondered why did we get rid of Saddam if the killing continued, although for different reasons?
    The violence has begun to ebb, but still my relatives and friends are scattered to the winds.
    As an Iraqi journalist I have explored the social impact of war on my country. I have interviewed orphans and widows, and people whose limbs were blown off by bombs. It has left my heart full of more pain than I ever thought it could bear.
    I have also seen Iraq, amid the violence and fear, embrace new freedoms in politics and also in life: we have cellular telephones and satellite television, both restricted or banned in Saddam's time. Saddam's government had long lists of forbidden items.  One of them was satellite television. Anyone caught watching international news shows could be sent to prison for six months.
    It is clear to me that Iraqi society would not have been allowed to develop had Saddam remained in charge. Now despite the dark years that have passed, we can at least cling to hopes of better times. We have a parliament that we elect, and not one-man rule.
    This week, an Iraqi appeals court reduced to one year a three-year prison sentence handed to an Iraqi journalist who dared to throw his shoes at former U.S. President George W. Bush. I was impressed and had to raise my hat to the independence of the judiciary. I asked my parents what they thought the journalist's sentence would have been had he committed the same offence during Saddam's times. My mother answered: "He would not only have been executed without trial but all of his family would have been erased from the Iraqi map."

The last time Iraq held provincial elections four years ago, the sole question haunting people's minds, mine included, was whether or not to venture out to vote, risking life and limb to make our way to polling places as Iraq slid into civil war.

Then, suicide and car bomb attacks were close to their peak, as sectarian violence surged between the Shi'ite majority and Sunnis who were disempowered after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

I remember that day in Jan. 2005, when Iraqis voted for local leaders and an interim national assembly, our first general election after decades of Saddam's authoritarian rule. My mother, father and I set out on foot -- travel by car was prohibited that day -- to search for our polling place. We weren't sure where we needed to be, and we ended up in the wrong spot. We walked to a second voting centre -- again wrong.

We became more and more nervous that we might fall victim to a suicide bomber, who often seek out crowds. "If we survived the first and second, we won't survive the third," I anxiously said.But we finally found our polling place, and we cast our votes. I felt I had done something great and patriotic for Iraq.I tried to let the best interests of my country guide my choice rather than selecting a candidate along sectarian lines.

In the provincial elections on Jan. 31 this year, fear is no longer dominating Iraqis' minds. They are too busy deliberating who will be the right person to represent them in provincial councils that are major local power brokers. That is because the sectarian and insurgent bloodshed unleashed by the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, which has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis, has eased.

Car bombs and other attacks are still common, but a semblance of normal life has returned as Iraqi police and army units grow more proficient and prepare to take over from the 140,000 U.S. troops who must leave Iraq by the end of 2011. All this has encouraged people to return to their jobs, to go out shopping, to visit parks and restaurants -- and to think more freely about candidates for public office.

Baghdad is still divided by giant concrete blast walls, but they are now adorned with colourful campaign posters. Some candidates have floated giant balloons with their names. In 2005, candidates were afraid to show their faces, and the campaigning that did occur was muted.

This week I saw four campaign vehicles with music blasting out of the windows, like a wedding ceremony. Candidates are holding rallies in parks. These are refreshing sights. Many Iraqis today are very sceptical about their politicians, whom they blame for the years they have lived without proper services, jobs or security. But when I hear people debating the merits of different candidates, even arguing, I am thrilled. The fear that haunted us is fading.

(Reuters photo: Iraqi security forces check policewomen before they vote in Kerbala/Mushtaq Muhammad)

    Five years ago, the city of Sulaimaniya in the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan was pretty nice, but Baghdad wasn't that bad either.  

    Now, after years of sectarian bloodshed in Baghdad, and comparative peace and stability in Kurdistan, Sulaimaniya has shot ahead, as I saw on a recent reporting visit.

    In the last five years, Sulaimaniya has built tall buildings, cleaned its streets, imported modern cars and attracted foreign companies.

    In the same time, Baghdad has retreated behind blast walls and sand bags, investors are waiting on the sidelines and only a handful of buildings are being built.

    When I went to Sulaimaniya in 2003, just after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, to escape the heat of Baghdad, I thought then that if I spent a month there that would be enough time to allow the authorities in the capital to restore electricity to a city that had sunk into darkness.

    I did not realize that Baghdad would still be in tatters five years later.

    Sulaimaniya, in contrast, feels more prosperous now than the last time I saw it.

    Relative security has allowed foreign companies to crowd into the city, especially Turkish and Iranian firms. Huge hotels have been built on top of the hills overlooking beautiful scenery and adding to the city's elegance.
   

    A lack of security has left Baghdad looking like a vast anchaotic military base, with districts cordoned off by concrete walls and squads of soldiers and police deployed at checkpoints in almost every street.

    In Sulaimaniya, residents look happy and satisfied. One taxi driver wearing traditional Kurdish clothes of baggy trousers and a sash, told me: "We live a comfortable life. What more do we need?"

    That is not the sort of thing you hear from most people in Baghdad.
    The taxi driver continued: "The government provides us with 15 hours of electricity (a day) and for the rest we depend on private generators. Sometimes in summer they (the government) provide us with 22 hours of electricity."
  

    I thought about my situation and that of others who live in Baghdad, where we are lucky to get a few hours of electricity a day to deal with temperatures that average 50 degrees Celsius in the summer. Water, which has to be pumped, only flows when the power is on.
  

    Ask a Baghdad resident his or her opinion on the election win of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, or on any other issue, and they will likely tell you they are too busy worrying about the chronic problem of power and water shortages to think about anything else.
  

    In popular Mawlawi street,  I spent some time on one of my favourite past-times -- shopping.  While standing near a nuts and sweets shop, I met a couple from Baghdad with their three-year-old son. I seized the opportunity to chat with them while they asked the shop keeper to weigh out half a kilo of dried figs.
   

   "We came here three years ago," the man said. "We feel content living here. There is security here."
   

   One other thing that amazed me about Kurdistan was how western the women looked, wearing jeans and tops that would be condemned in other parts of Iraq, where religious passions have been rising during years of sectarian fighting between minority Sunni Arabs and majority Shi'ites.
  

    So I took advantage of the opportunity and slipped on jeans and a Western-style top.
    I strolled past Azadi Park, or Freedom Park, where I was told couples could go to romance each other. There was also a platform on which I was told anybody could climb to have their say, like the famous Speakers' Corner in London's Hyde Park.
   

   Baghdad still suffers daily car bombings and suicide blasts even though the violence is much reduced from two years ago.
   

    I usually spend my annual vacation abroad but this year I think I may go to Kurdistan.

    Five years ago, the city of Sulaimaniya in the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan was pretty nice, but Baghdad wasn't that bad either.

    Now, after years of sectarian bloodshed in Baghdad, and comparative peace and stability in Kurdistan, Sulaimaniya has shot ahead, as I saw on a recent reporting visit.

    In the last five years, Sulaimaniya has built tall buildings, cleaned its streets, imported modern cars and attracted foreign companies.

    In the same time, Baghdad has retreated behind blast walls and sand bags, investors are waiting on the sidelines and only a handful of buildings are being built.

    When I went to Sulaimaniya in 2003, just after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, to escape the heat of Baghdad, I thought then that if I spent a month there that would be enough time to allow the authorities in the capital to restore electricity to a city that had sunk into darkness.

    I did not realize that Baghdad would still be in tatters five years later.

    Sulaimaniya, in contrast, feels more prosperous now than the last time I saw it.

    Relative security has allowed foreign companies to crowd into the city, especially Turkish and Iranian firms. Huge hotels have been built on top of the hills overlooking beautiful scenery and adding to the city's elegance.
   

    A lack of security has left Baghdad looking like a vast anchaotic military base, with districts cordoned off by concrete walls and squads of soldiers and police deployed at checkpoints in almost every street.

    In Sulaimaniya, residents look happy and satisfied. One taxi driver wearing traditional Kurdish clothes of baggy trousers and a sash, told me: "We live a comfortable life. What more do we need?"

    That is not the sort of thing you hear from most people in Baghdad.
    The taxi driver continued: "The government provides us with 15 hours of electricity (a day) and for the rest we depend on private generators. Sometimes in summer they (the government) provide us with 22 hours of electricity."
  

    I thought about my situation and that of others who live in Baghdad, where we are lucky to get a few hours of electricity a day to deal with temperatures that average 50 degrees Celsius in the summer. Water, which has to be pumped, only flows when the power is on.
  

    Ask a Baghdad resident his or her opinion on the election win of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, or on any other issue, and they will likely tell you they are too busy worrying about the chronic problem of power and water shortages to think about
anything else.
  

    In popular Mawlawi street,  I spent some time on one of my favourite past-times -- shopping.  While standing near a nuts and sweets shop, I met a couple from Baghdad with their three-year-old son. I seized the opportunity to chat with them while they asked the shop keeper to weigh out half a kilo of dried figs.
   

   "We came here three years ago," the man said. "We feel content living here. There is security here."
   

   One other thing that amazed me about Kurdistan was how western the women looked, wearing jeans and tops that would be condemned in other parts of Iraq, where religious passions have been rising during years of sectarian fighting between minority
Sunni Arabs and majority Shi'ites.
  

    So I took advantage of the opportunity and slipped on jeans and a Western-style top.
    I strolled past Azadi Park, or Freedom Park, where I was told couples could go to romance each other. There was also a platform on which I was told anybody could climb to have their say, like the famous Speakers' Corner in London's Hyde Park.
   

   Baghdad still suffers daily car bombings and suicide blasts even though the violence is much reduced from two years ago.
   

    I usually spend my annual vacation abroad but this year I think I may go to Kurdistan.

Last week, one of my colleagues asked if I would be
interested in going on a day trip with the U.S. military to
visit an oil refinery north of Baghdad.
In my four years working as an Iraqi reporter with Reuters
in Baghdad, I had never before been "embedded," the process in
which journalists insert themselves into military units and
report on the war under the shield of the U.S. military.
I had seen my foreign colleagues don their flak jackets and
helmets and disappear for days or even weeks at a time,
reappearing looking exhausted, sunburned and filthy.
I agreed immediately, never imagining that what I expected
would be a pleasant afternoon jaunt would turn into a 28-hour
odyssey that was a strange experience for an Iraqi, suddenly
transported to what seemed to be a foreign country within Iraq.
In Baghdad I boarded a U.S. Black Hawk helicopter that took
me and several other journalists to a base near Tikrit in the
north. I was thrilled, imagining how I would tell my father, a
former Iraqi military pilot, about my first helicopter flight.
But once we reached the base, we were informed that the
second leg of the trip to the Baiji refinery was cancelled due
to weather. We would be heading back to Baghdad, they said.
I was disappointed about not seeing Baiji, but it was a good
opportunity to wander around my first U.S. military base. I had
heard so much about the sprawling military cities within walls.
One of the first things I noticed was that, despite my
fluent English, I could barely understand the Americans soldiers
who were escorting us. They used military acronyms nonstop.
The hall where we ate wasn't a "cafeteria". It was a "DFAC",
short for "dining facility". Inside, I saw my first Halloween
decorations and ate wonderful caramel and strawberry ice cream.
The soldiers I met were friendly. One showed me pictures of
his wife. I imagined it must be hard to be so far from his
family. It was hard already for me to be away for just a day,
especially from my eight-year-old son at home with my parents.
As we waited for our flight in a cold tent, a Sylvester
Stallone movie flickering, I shivered in the autumn chill. I was
growing more worried about getting home that night.
Finally, a Chinook helicopter arrived. Trying not to remind
myself of the Chinook crash that killed seven U.S. soldiers a
few months ago, I climbed aboard. After around an hour's flight,
I thought we had finally made it to Baghdad. But when we landed,
one of the pilots welcomed us back to the very same base: we had
been sent back to Tikrit because of bad weather.
It was around 9 p.m., and we shuffled back to the same cold
tent to wait for another flight. Around 1:30 a.m., I awoke from
a troubled doze feeling like a refugee. A soldier told us we
wouldn't be able to return to Baghdad for at least 24 hours.
I was too tired to do anything but be trundled off to a cot
to sleep. The next morning, I woke in woeful need of a shower,
with no change of clothes, no toothbrush, no comb.
Enough of waiting for helicopters: I decided to return by
road. A Reuters reporter based in Samarra picked me up at the
base, and we drove toward Baghdad on a highway that would have
been perilous a year ago but which people said was now safe.
I donned a head scarf so I wouldn't be noticed in the more
conservative rural areas. When we passed Samarra, I tried not to
think about a female journalist who was killed on the same
stretch of road in 2006.
We reached Baghdad and I hugged my son and mother tight. It
was wonderful to be home.
I won't win journalism prizes for reporting on this embed,
but it was a learning experience. I was fascinated by the
extraordinary efficiency on the base, with U.S. soldiers working
like bees with their modern gear and funny acronyms.
I joked with colleagues that it was my first and last embed.
But the ice cream from the DFAC? It might just be worth another.

But this year the chronic shortages of electricity and water supplies that plague the Iraqi capital Baghdad -- combined with Ramadan falling during a very hot summer -- has forced many to abandon the fast at times.

This saddens me but I don't blame them because I also have had to stop fasting on Friday and Saturday, my days off from work, because of frequent power outages at home.

One Friday during this Ramadan my eight-year-old son saw me drinking water during the fasting period. I confessed to him that I was not fasting.

I should have been a symbol of strength for him just like my mother was to me during my childhood.On the first day of Ramadan, my son said he wanted to fast so I encouraged him to do so.

He made it until 1 p.m., when thirst forced him to drink water.

My mother, who I enjoy preparing food and sweets to break the fast with, managed to fast only for the first two days of Ramadan. After that, she had to stop. A friend of mine told me she fainted on the first day and said she would not be able to complete the fasting month. Muslims in Iraq are fasting for around 14 hours, until the fourth prayer of the day at sunset. Like Muslims around the world, they can eat and drink after the sun has set until the next morning's predawn prayer.

One of my colleagues at my office -- where a big generator keeps the power on all day -- described fasting this year as "hard" because of the heat and power cuts and water shortages.

But he said he was determined to keep fasting until Ramadan finishes at the end of September. I wish I could do the same.
 

In Syria, my eight-year old son Hani enjoyed the things that we Iraqis have not been able to do since the war began in 2003: staying out late, spending time in parks and open-air restaurants, visiting historical sites.

When I left Baghdad last year, car bombings scarred the capital almost daily, and people lived fearfully as they crept around a city encased by concrete blast walls and barbed wire.

Before making the long drive to Syria last year, I hid my hair with a scarf, fearing the al-Qaeda militants who once held sway in the towns along the highway through Anbar province.

Because the Sunni Arab militants have targeted journalists, I also hid my press badge.

But after Anbar's tribal leaders turned against al-Qaeda and teamed up with U.S. forces to chase them out, the province has become a relatively safe place.

During the 20-hour bus ride home, my family and I met a young man named Alaa. He had been persuaded by his relatives to return to Baghdad after three years in Syria.

Alaa, one of the 2 million Iraqis who have fled the country since the U.S-led invasion unleashed sectarian killing and indiscriminate bloodshed, left after gunmen kidnapped him. His family paid $20,000 for his release. Now he had decided he could return.

Last year, when I returned to Baghdad from my holiday, even though I had only been away for a few weeks, I had to readjust. I was horrified to see my native city appear as if it had been hit by a nuclear bomb. The streets were covered with wreckage and trash, and whole neighbourhoods were deserted.

Al-Rabia Street, where I used to walk and shop, was pocked by craters and its stores were destroyed. It was almost beyond the point of recognition.

This year, when I came back I was thrilled by signs that Baghdad is being slowly rebuilt, piece by piece.

After the bus dropped my family in western Baghdad, we took a taxi home. We asked the driver to take a shortcut through the Adhamiya neighbourhood. Before the U.S.-Iraqi security drive began in Baghdad in February of 2007, a trip through Adhamiya, a hotbed for Sunni insurgents, would have been unthinkable.

Across the city, I could see street cleaners clearing trash and construction workers paving the sidewalks.

The next day, my neighbours were having a wedding. The entire neighbourhood rang out with sound of musicians. Children from all around came to listen to the music and dance in the street outside.

That would have been impossible a year ago. A friend's wedding in Baghdad I attented in 2007 had no musicians and was conducted in silence.

Hani, as usual, wanted to stay in Syria, where he had developed a love for swimming.

There are not many swimming pools in Baghdad. But I have promised Hani I will take him to one of the two pools I've heard will open here as part of an effort to revive the city's parks and public spaces.

But much more is needed. Officials hope to spend billions of dollars in coming years to repair Baghdad and overhaul its public works, but so far the government has not spent much of  the money earmarked for reconstruction.

Lubna, a Shi'ite friend of mine who owns a stationery shop in a Sunni area in Baghdad, joined me in last year's trip to Syria. She was considering moving there and starting over, fearing the violence targeting Shi'ites in her neighbourhood.

She has scrapped those plans, and is instead trying to expand her business in Baghdad.

Life truly is changing in Baghdad. The place I used to call a 'city of ghosts' is being resurrected.

(Aseel Kami is an Iraqi reporter in the Baghdad bureau of Reuters)