"I just go online and see whoever is there -- there is usually someone," he said with a grin.
Mobile phone merchant Karim is adamant he won't be leaving violent Baghdad, even though the demand for his phones is decreasing by the week and the struggle to survive is growing more and more demanding.
"The wealthier people are the ones who are leaving. A year ago I used to sell three or four phones a day, now I sell only that many in a week," he said.
But he feels a moral obligation to stay on -- he is the sole member of his family left in Baghdad and believes it would be wrong to leave.
Because of his fluency in German he did apply last year for a German visa but was rejected.
He has also proposed to his girlfriend but her parents refused the match -- mainly, he says, because of his determination to stay in war-wracked Iraq.
His mother, meanwhile, is nagging him to come to Abu Dhabi.
"Every time I speak with her she cries and begs me to join her and my brothers. It is difficult. Sometimes I prefer not to chat," he said.
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