BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 5 - The gardenias are blooming in Baghdad, but Hala is not allowed out in the garden to cut them. A 16-year-old high school student, Hala was kidnapped for a day in the middle of April and has not set foot outside her house since.
In the violence and chaos that has smashed so many lives across Iraq in recent weeks, there are quieter stories of people coping with the relentless barrage of car bombs and kidnappings that have become so much a part of the daily rhythm of life: the man who grows anxious in his car, after his wife was shot to death in traffic; the schoolchildren who no longer play hopscotch in a neighborhood frequently hit by suicide bombings; the young kidnapping victim no longer permitted a life outside her home.
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