a woman only gas station in Iraq

[donsu]

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2006/2006-10-06-06.asp

Some Iraqi Women Get a Break at the Pumps


Hour after hour, Barez Qadir sits in her car in the sweltering heat, waiting her turn at the Bakthiar filling station on the outskirts of Sulaimaniyah. Other women manage to escape the blazing temperatures, finding shade under some nearby trees in this northeastern Iraqi city in the Kurdistan Region.

The Bakthiar petrol station is a women only service station introduced by the authorities to spare female drivers the arduous, uncomfortable queuing that car owners have to endure at pumps across the region.

But such is the severity of the fuel crisis gripping Iraq at present that even here at Bakthiar the lines of vehicles waiting their turn sometimes seem endless

-snip-

For the moment, the situation at Bakthiar is calm. Every day, nearly 500 women come to fill their cars - or those of their husbands. While waiting, they get out and chat to pass the two or three hours it takes to be served.

-snip-

Staff at the filling station say they can tell which women have been sent to Bakthiar by their husbands by the cars they're driving - the most obvious cases being those at the wheels of pick-ups and "Monicas," Toyota four-wheel drive land-cruisers - named after Monica Lewinsky because it is so popular with men.

-snip-

Notwithstanding the problems at Bakhtiar, the station's supervisor, Pshtiwan Mahmood, insists that his customers are generally happy with the service. "It is the men who create problems. At their pumps, there are always fights in the queues. This seldom happens here," he said.
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ain't that the truth - "It is the men who create problems."

"Monicas" sigh