Home

A much lighter blog today as I'm in England for my R&R. Beyond getting to see wonderful family and friends, here are some of the things I love about coming home:

1. Flushing toilet paper down the loo rather than putting it in a bin.
2. Not having to deal with a bin of dirty toilet paper.
3. Green. You have no idea just how green England is compared to much of the world.
4. Wall to wall carpet.
5. Having a bath.
6. The total lack of guns.
7. Not seeing military personnel all over the place.
8. All sorts of food - pork, prawns, fresh fish.
9. Late sunsets.
10. Being allowed to go where-ever I want when-ever I want.
11. Not automatically doing currency conversions in my head every time I'm in a shop.
12. The beach.
13. Flowers.
14. Weather - all the seasons in one day. 
15. Drivers who use indicators and generally follow road markings.
16. Using credit cards anywhere rather than having to remember cash.
17. No check points.
18. How quickly traffic lights change.
19. People saying things like 'I'll just have a quick wee love'.
20. BBC iplayer.

Uncertain Future

I have no idea what you're hearing in the west about Iraq at the moment. I don't manage to keep up that well with other news except what I get from reading The Week. But here, the battle for Mosul continues. ISIS still control a handful of neighbourhoods in Western Mosul, in the old part of the city. These are densely populated areas and it's estimated that over 100,000 people are still trapped. Both sides have shored up their defences, and it looks like this could be a grim slog to free the last areas. The battle progressed pretty fast until this point, but now it's almost at a standstill. The army are literally fighting metre by metre. The number of people managing to escape has shrunk to a trickle and the stories they can tell are harrowing. ISIS are using people as human shields in many areas, and I won't repeat here what we hear about other atrocities. Just know that the more desperate ISIS get, the more horrendous their crimes.

As they are battling in Mosul, ISIS are also ramping up attacks elsewhere in Iraq. Our teams in Baghdad are under tighter security restrictions as the number of car bombs has spiked. I have had to put an entire new programming area to the west of Hawiga off limits as ISIS have started to use drones to drop explosives, and over this weekend launched an assault on the area - there were at least 30 suicide bombers detonating themselves on Saturday.

I know I've said it before, but the battle for Mosul really isn't the end here. This country is facing a lot of uncertainty ahead. This kind of ideology doesn't disappear with geographical boundaries. It just goes underground and hides. It leaves it's legacy behind in traumatised people who live in fear. It leaves widows and children who are shunned by their communities, because of what their husbands and fathers have done. It contributes to a society where weapons are normal, and solving problems through violence is standard. And then, as it goes underground, we are left with the same issues from before, the same sectarian divides, the same power plays, the same economic mismanagement. We have to find other ways to fight this at it's roots. If you pray, please continue to pray for the Middle East, particularly Iraq and Syria.

Mourn with those who mourn

This week a close friend here lost one of her team in a car accident At the same time a close friend at home lost an aunt suddenly, just a couple of weeks after another close friend had lost her aunt unexpectedly. Add to that my staff member who has just come back to work after an absence he took to mourn his wife and child who died from burns sustained from an exploding gas bottle. Another staff member who had to fly back to Denmark to bury his father. Then Manchester and London. The multiple times a day my phone pings to tell me about another attack in Iraq. The massive attack in Baghdad a week ago, and one in Kabul. The old Iraq house-mate who is working with Operation Mercy and part of their team responding to the attack on their Kabul office where staff were killed and abducted. This morning I heard about 15 families who arrived at our camp last night with multiple injuries, including a child who was hit by a sniper. Sometimes the bad news just feels a bit unrelenting.

In this part of the world this level of tragedy is just part of life. It's so normal to everyone. And maybe that's why they are actually good at mourning with those who mourn. There's no awkwardness. There's no ignoring what's happened. There's no empty platitudes. There's a lot of tears. There's a commitment to visiting bereaved family and friends and entering in to their sadness with them. There's an openness about grief, it doesn't get hidden away like something awkward.

And of course if you know how to mourn with those who mourn, you probably also know how to rejoice with those who rejoice. My Mum, whom none of my staff have met, has a birthday in May and so suddenly at the May birthday celebration her name is on the cake, along with another expat's new baby who is back in Holland with his mum. It's why we all eat baklava every time someone gets engaged and celebrate with them. It's why when you get married you invite everyone you know, and everyone they know.

As a Brit (we are an awkward species), I can learn a lot from my friends here in this respect. Mourning with those who mourn and rejoicing with those who rejoice is actually about loving that person first and putting their news, their needs above your own. It's about not caring that it's uncomfortable to sit with friends who are grieving, struggling with depression or disappointment, because somehow your presence shows your love for them even if you have no words to offer. It's about rejoicing with friends who have wonderful news, even if what they are celebrating is something that you yourself have longed for. If necessary you put a mask on to rejoice with them, because in their moment of happiness it needs to be about exactly that. (Then you go home and have a good cry if you need to). It's always about putting others before yourself. If my time here in this corner of the world helps me to grow in that respect then it will be worth every sacrifice it has cost in other ways.