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!