Normality

Someone asked me today what surprised me about Baghdad, and I said "its normality". Anyone looking at Iraq from abroad might assume there are regular shootings on every street corner, and people scamper about looking over their shoulders. But it really isn't like that at all. Sure there are burnt out buildings everywhere. Sure there are Dubaba (tank) and hamar (humvee) patrols with soldiers clinging on to their rashasha (machine guns). Sure there are street kids, in a country which never realy had homeless people before. Sure there is barbed wire around major hotels etc. etc. But people sit on the street and drink tea and as I wander about town I don't get the slit-eye treatment but warm greetings everywhere.

Frustration and delight, and lots of chay

I think my first full day in Baghdad was pretty typical. I'm a wanderer at heart, and there are few places in the world more interesting at the moment. Change and stagnation. Hope and despair. Wealth and poverty. So many juxtapositions.

The day started very slow. Two people were meant to come by my hotel at 9am, and after two and a half hours of very pleasant waiting and chatting with taxi drivers, I decided to take a stroll over to visit my new friends in Bayt Al Bacher. I wandered along the river bank, a couple of hundred meter wide strip of greenery and rubble, next to the beautiful river full of reeds (see picture below). Apart from myself, a few stray dogs and some kids swimming among the reeds, there was no one about - on the Baghdad equivalent of the South Bank of the Thames. I imagined the rubble being cleared and the gardens replanted - a faint echo of Eden still hangs around despite all blood that has been spilt.



I took an hour to make a ten minute trip, stopping to accept the welcome of the many people who greeted me. One old man recalled when he was a boy in the 1940s and a British soldier gave him some oranges and cigarettes - Camel, he even remembered the brand! I discussed the idea of elections with another guy, who explained "For 30 years under Saddam we had no options, and now people are saying we have to choose a leader. It's too early, we don't recognise any of the names (of the people in the political parties), we need maybe two years to get to know them before choosing." This was interesting because my gut response had tended to be that elections should happen soon rather than later, but I can see his point.

With my stomach's perfect sense of timing I managed to time my arrival at Bayt Al Bacher with lunch, and after some classic American style chicken soup started out on my project with Hathan Salam, a lovely English student who's missing a year of university because of the war, and is using it to write for newspapers and guide NGOs. We've had a really hilarious day together and got a surprising amount done, given that we only started at about 2pm, after most politicians in Iraq go home for the day. We had a meeting with the Assyrian Democratic Movement, learning a few words of Aramaic in the process, and fixed meetings with the two main Communist parties (ICP, IWCP), the Independent Democrats and the Union of the Unemployed. We drove around a large part of central Baghdad, including the wealth Mansour area, beside the giant unfinished mosque (straight out of Star Wars) which Saddam was building to get an entry in the Guiness Book of Records.

In the evening we met up with Christian Peacemaker Teams, who gave us some good contacts with Iraqi human rights groups and the major Baghdad religious leaders. Last week they'd helped marshall a pilgrimage of maybe a million or more people to a Shia shrine in northern Baghdad, to diffuse potential tensions between the US forces and the pilgrims. Their other main work is to help families get information about relatives who have been detained and argue the cases of those who have been treated unjustly.

So many other little conversations, observations and thoughts today. But it’s late and I need to sleep, and you probably do too, so “tisbah ala Khayr.”

Baghdad with a bump

The cabin pressure was increasing more quickly than the 20 seater plane could compensate as it pitched up on it’s side and dropped 6000 feet in a minute, spiralling until just a few meters from the ground when it straightened both vertically and horizontally and touch down with only a tiny bump. My first combat landing, intended to evade missiles I assume. I’m ashamed to admit I was laughing out loud during the manoeuvre. We clapped the pilot who, appropriately for the situation, was a Brit with a “chocks-away” accent straight out of World War 1.

Less fun was waiting for 4 hours in the arrivals room. There had been a bomb found in a car at the entrance to the airport, and hence none of the drivers were allowed in to pick us up. In the end I hitched a lift with Medicine San Frontier as I was already 2 hours late to meet the Iraqis from Al Muajaha newspaper and the internationals from Voices in the Wilderness who share the same building. So unfortunately I failed to meet my old Iraqi flatmate Jamil, who must have been stuck at the checkpoint – unable to come or go – for hours, hopefully we’ll hook up tomorrow. As soon as I got to the Voices house in Karada I felt at home, as I chatted with new friends. Time was moving on, so Kathy from Voices took me to the Al-Fanar hotel, a lovely little place by the river in the shadow of the giant Palastine Meridan and Istar Sheraton hotels. The gave me a good room (with English plug sockets!) for $20 a night which is spot on. I check in and rushed out immediately to an appointment where I hear a surprising story:

A British employee of the UN got carjacked a few days ago on the road from Baghdad to Falluja. The Ali Babas took all his money and equipment, tore his clothes, beat him up and dumped him by the roadside. It was the middle of the day and about 45 degrees centigrade.

Soon after a convoy of US Humvees came along the road and spotted the guy. But there were only 10 soldiers in the convoy, and the rules require more for a rescue operations in those kind if conditions when there might be a danger of ambush, so the convoy moved over to the other side of the road and accelerated back to Baghdad. A little later an NGO food distribution truck came along, but it was late with it’s delivery of bread and so swerved around the guy on the ground and drove on.

The sun was beating down hard and the flies gathering and the UN guy was pretty near death by now. Finally a car stopped and picked him up. He was just about conscious and managed to drink a little water as he was laid on the back seat. The car sped off at high speed, and he as he swooned on the back seat he overhead the guys who picked him up talking. He’d picked up quite a bit of Arabic and was very worried as he heard them reminisce about how much better it had been under Saddam, and discuss plans for attacking the Coalition troops at Ramadi. These guys were Ba’athists or resistance or something like that. The UN guy assumed he was going to be tortured and held hostage now and wished he’d just died out in the sun. Next time he came round he was in a soft bed with a wet towel on his head, he sat up a little and saw that this wounds were bandaged and he seemed to be in a hotel room. Then a man came in and said “Allah yisalmak” (God give you health). He was told that yesterday some men had dropped him off at this hotel (in Falluja) and paid for a nurse to come around and tend to his injuries and for a room until he was recovered enough to return to Baghdad.

Surprised. Well, maybe you’ve noticed something familiar is you’ve ever hear a story about a certain Samaritan on the road from Jericho to Jerusalam. I was at the Anglican church for the 5.30 service in the shattered building (windows shaken out by nearby bombs and interior wrecked by looters). There were about 200 people in the church, which has only been open for a few weeks now, about a third of them children. Before telling the story of the Good Ba’athist, the American pastor (apparently the CPA chaplain) had given a talk to the children, shown in the picture below.

I’d seen the Anglican church two years ago, as I’d stayed in the Al Mansour Milia hotel over the road, and it was wonderful to see the church so full of life, I couldn’t understand much of the service, but had a huge grin on my face throughout. Afterwards all the kids came over to say hello and my favourite was the caretakers little 2 year old daughter Marian who made me give her aeroplane rides until I was too hot and dizzy to continue! The Iraqi pastor gave me a lift back to the hotel, as I was dark by now. As we drove, he explained than until 1994 he’d been a Mandean, a small Iraqi sect which follows John the Baptist but not Jesus, hence his son was called YahYah (Arabic version of John). It’s always to amazing to meet people from very different backgrounds who also know and love Jesus.



I’m sitting in my hotel room typing this all up. We just had a power cut (my first) for about 10mins, during which I was just sitting in the glow of my laptop. I’m going to go and get some dinner now and try to upload this entry onto the net through the hotel computer – an unexpected luxury!

Jordan - old friends and new

Its wonderful to be back in Jordan after over 2 years (I lived here for a few months in 2001). I’ve been walking around with a big stupid smile on my face as I recognise old haunts, and even people. The Egyptian guy at the falafel stand near my old flat remembered my name, I was so chuffed. A good thing I caught him, as he’s now made enough money to get married and he’s return to Egypt for good next month to do just that. Did my emails at Books@Cafe, a real Jordanian institution. The internet connection is pretty dire, but it’s a fun trendy place with nice seating, food and drinks and second hand English books. I bumped into a guy who was studying Arabic when I was here last, and has stuck about., so caught up on the news about old friends.

I had a few conversations with people on the street and in shops, including a classic, depressing discussion about Palestine. One guy got very excited about Leeds United, but I couldn’t really make out most of what he was saying. The sun is quite exhausting, and I haven’t eaten much. Was up early to do an interview on BBC Radio 5. I think it went well, but I hate to think how much the roaming bill will be on my mobile. I Hope to bump into an Iraqi friend Evan from London, who’s now working in southern Iraq and has come to Jordan today to collect his wife from the airport, but annoyingly he was delayed at the border so we couldn’t meet this morning as planned.

It’s been wonderful walking around Amman, I feel I know the city better than London, and certainly feel more at home here. I’ve just got back from a typically surprising dinner. I’d left my hotel to look for food at about 7pm, and passed a group of men stilling outside some shops drinking tea and chatting. One of them spotted my “Free Palestine” badge, and immediately I was doubly welcome. I would have been welcome without it of course, and indeed the man told me a wonderful story: a few years ago when he was returning from the West Bank, he met some Israelis who were going to Jordan. It was the first time they’d left Israel by land, and he gave them a lift from the border, took them out for a meal and fixed them up in a hotel with a discount. They were overwhelmed to hear that he was a Palestinian (as are about 60% of Jordanians who were ejecting from Palestine in 1948 and 1967) and they exchanged emails for a few years afterwards. After some chatting I was invited out to dinner and we drove to a nearby restaurant and I was given half a chicken to eat (the vegetarianism goes on hold the minute I enter the Middle East!) and told I must eat it all. While we were eating a guy came over whom I recognised. His name is Yad, and he’s an Assyrian from Iraq who I’d met two years previously. A very intelligent guy who’d suffered a lot. He had been imprisoned and tortured by the Ba’athists for being too fervent about his Christian faith (the Assyrians were some of the first Christians, and last time I was in Iraq I visit the site of a 1st century church, possibly founded by St. Thomas on route to India).

Back at the hotel I’ve just been watching some Saudi TV – all American films and TV series, and I was amazing by the content of some of the adverts – I’d thought the Saudi censors were quite meticulous.

Askurallah!

I just had a wonderful answer to prayer. I called Jamil, the Iraqi I lived with in Jordan two years ago, and found that he'd given his phone to someone and returned to Iraq, and no one had a contact number for his there. It would have been great to see him when i passed though Jordan, but even better to spend time together in Iraq. So i prayed with a friend last night, and this morning i had an email from him with his contact number in Sadr City!

I'm going to try and post undates from Iraq here, and possibly some photos. So check back next week and there might be something interesting to read. I may also post onto the Jubilee Iraq news page.

Small things matter

Apologies to friends and passersby for not posting for a while. My lame excuse is busyness. Ironically I’m at the peak of that busyness now – tying up loose ends at work while preparing to go to Iraq on Friday – and yet for some reason I felt the urge to blog. Maybe it’s a moment of calm in the centre of the Hurricane, as friends over in the US recently experienced.

Things are beginning to come together for the Iraq trip. I’ve got a pile of phone numbers for people in Baghdad, but often one dials 10 times without getting a connection, because the tiny network over there is really overstretched. But I have got through to some lovely people who’ve agreed to meet me at the airport, put me up and guide me around. I suspect the trip (consulting Iraqis on their views on the debt for Jubilee Iraq) is going to require a lot of patience, probably knocking on lots of doors and waiting for hours to meet people. That will be quite a change from the hectic pitch of London life, which might actually be refreshing, though I suspect I’ll be fighting frustration. Please do pray that I have wisdom and tact, and make maximum use of the little time I have in Iraq.

Anyhow, what I really wanted to talk about in this post is: what is important? That’s a pretty huge and vague question, but I’ve been thinking about it because of a fairly mundane experience. We need a little background to set the scene for this. I rent a room in a quite an unusual flat in London. My landlord and flatmate, Paedar, is a elderly man who has struggled with mental illness – schizophrenia and depression principally – for much of his life. I’d expected that living with Paedar would be quite emotionally draining and would involve quite a lot of giving on my part, and it can be like that sometimes. But actually I’ve received a lot of support in return from him, and learnt some quite profound lessons.

Paedar likes to pray together regularly, which is good in itself as I’m often rushing around and forget to put aside “quality” time for God. We have very different concerns. As you can guess by now, I’m very focused on Iraq, and so there are things such as the dreadful bombing outside the Iman Ali mosque in Najaf, or a forthcoming Jubilee Iraq meeting with the British Treasury on my mind. Paedar’s concerns are more mundane. He finds it a great effort to do many of the simple chores of life, and can get very worried about them. So he might ask me to pray about the plumber coming around to fix a dripping tap, or that he’s able to arrange dinner with a friend tomorrow night. Sometimes I fight to keep a straight face because the requests can seem ludicrous, for example yesterday he asked me to pray that he remembers to pay a cheque for the electricity bill tomorrow (when the bill only arrived today, and he really has weeks to pay it, and he has no problem with money because of a large inheritance).

However, on reflection, Paedar’s concerns are not so ludicrous. In particular they are not ludicrous to God, and so they should be ludicrous to me. What I have learnt profoundly from Paedar is that God cares deeply about the smallest detail of our lives as well as issues of global significance. Jesus told his disciples “even the very hairs of your head are all numbered” and King David sang “Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.”

God loves us so deeply that he is concerned about anything which concerns us, even unnecessairies worries about an electricity bill. Human beings have to prioritise their concerns, because we are finite beings. But God is infinite and able to know, care and respond to a car bombing at Najaf while at the same time comforting Paedar in his worries about his daily routine. We need never be embarrased to bring a concern to God because we think it too small.