Eid Mubarak - Happy Easter

Our phone lines are flooded, would you believe, so I haven't been able to email or blog easily for almost a week. In the meantime I've managed to go to 4 Easter services here in Baghdad, one Chaldean, one Roman Catholic, one Anglian and one ecumenical. I've started teaching myself to read arabic, and was able to semi-sing along with some of the hymns (well, at my current speed i managed about 1 word a line, but it's a start!). Hamdullilah that there have been no attacks on churches over Easter. Also the churches are much fuller (I'm told) than last year, indicating that Iraqis are feeling slightly more secure now. Sadly there have been attacks on Christians in Lebanon today, so please pray for them and for all the Lebanese, that the country which had finally begun to recover from the civil war of the 70s and 80s could be spared a relapse into conflict over the issue of Syrian and US interference.

I spend yestarday traveling around US army bases with a sheikh from Mahmoudia, south of Baghdad, who hosted some Marines for breakfast on Thursday (typical Iraqi hospitality) and they repaid him by searching his house and stealing $2600. Anyhow every military base we went to passed the buck onto another base, so no luck so far. Interestingly some Army grunts we talked with agreed that the Marines might have indeed stolen the money. Whereas US Army units tend to be based in a particular area and so are in some sense locally accountable, the Marines will helicopter into areas that are often far from their home bases, and so they are very hard to trace and it's easier for dishonest Marines to steal with impunity. Of course there is rivalry between the Army and Marines, but there is some good logic in this argument and it fits with the numerous testimonies of theft and other abuse CPT has heard from Iraqis.

I'm going down to Kerbala next week for the arba9een, the end of the 40 day period of mourning for Iman Hussein. This is one of the principal Shia festivals, and we've been invited to attend by friends there. All the roads from Baghdad have been packed for the last few days with pilgrims walking the 3 days route to Kerbala. I'll try and post some photos up soon. Anyhow, I have lots of stories to tell you, and even a couple of humourous anecdotes, but I'll wait until tomorrow when, inshallah, I'll have wi-fi broadband installed in my flat!

P.S. Congratulations to my old classmate Acer Nethercott who was coxing the victorious Oxford boat today!