Happy New Years

We've had some great New Year's Eve's in Dubai.

In the early days we would spend a huge amount of money to attend outrageous feasts at The Highland Lodge (the Legendary Lodge: I must blog about it sometime).

In 2000 we stayed in with a friend to watch the collapse of global civilization on CNN (remember the Millennium Bug?).

Subsequently: camping on Jebel Ali Beach.

Three years ago: a mega knees-up at Jebel Ali Club.

Two years ago, not feeling very festive: sitting on top of Jebel Ali and watching distant fireworks.

Last year: at the Amman Kempinski in Jordan.

Tonight: up the hill again, not bothered about partying (boring old f*rts!), hoping to get some great firework shots.

Possibly I wish I was in Jordan at this time - they've been having snow (140 people had to be airlifted from stranded cars) and I haven't seen real snow for yonks.

Anyway folks, whatever your plans for the night: enjoy it and stay safe! Best wishes, peace and prosperity an' all that to you all.

My resolutions for 2007: get fit, get less fat, leave the UAE. Jajaja.

Bye Bye Saddam...

So, almost the end of 2006 and am I glad! What a horrible year it has been - 'Peace On Earth' - yer jokin', aren't ya? And I don't expect 2007 to be any less violent. But at least we are rid of one hideous tyrant, and I am a bit surprised at the reported reaction on the 'Arab street' - 'yes, Saddam may have been a bad guy, but it was a shame to execute him on the first day of Eid Al-Adha', 'yes, he was a criminal, but what about Bush and Blair?', 'it was all an American plot'. Amazing. I doubt that there is one person on the planet that would deny Saddam's atrocities, but somehow it all comes back to the West.

Well, while I do not support the war in Iraq (it would have been far easier and cheaper to have Special Forces go in and take Saddam out), the people who tried Saddam, found him guilty and hanged him were Iraqis. The future of Iraq is in the hands of Iraqis. They can either unite or split, I personally don't care. It seems likely to me that something similar to the anarchy that prevails now would have happened anyway had some other party managed to overthrow Saddam. The point is that modern Iraq was always three blocs (Sunni, Shi'a and Kurd) bolted together as one. Nobody can force them to stay together. If the factions are too blinkered to see their mutual advantage in being one strong country rather than three feeble ones, then why not let them try it out and see how they get on?

Eid Mubarak

The Goose is Cooked

Over a month ago, Dubaibilly and Cher invited us to their place for Christmas Dinner. ‘We’re doing a goose’ they said. It would have been, what’s the word…’churlish’?, nay …’absolutely impossible’ to refuse. I’ve never tasted goose, and neither has BetterArf.

As it happened, all six of the invitees live in Jebel Ali Gardens, and so we arranged to meet at one apartment for some pre-drinkies and then share a people-carrier cab to the venue.

When we got to Bill & Cher’s, gifts and cards were exchanged, cameras were compared* and a bloody fabulous time was had by all. If you ever have a chance to eat some goose, or even cook it yourself, don’t miss it! It was fantastic. B & C also did honey-roast haraminal, sprouts, sprouts with chestnuts, glazed carrots, roast parsnips, roast tatties and bangers wrapped in bacon. Also gravy and a special orange sauce for the meat. Stuffing was served a bit late because someone had forgotten to cook it at the appointed time (but microwaves are marvlious things, aren't they).

This had been preceded by a delicious broccoli and Stilton soup, and was followed by syllabub, Christmas Pudding with custard, assorted cheeses and Port.

Oh, wow. I mean, it was a delicious meal, I actually managed to get to the end of it without falling asleep and without bursting open (although I felt like I might at one point). One of our party totally cracked me up during the cheese course. There was a plate of crackers for the cheese. Not a normal plate with a bit of a rim, this was a flat glass platter. He was looking at me as he swung the platter towards me, holding it at an angle of about 5 degrees towards the floor. I was watching the platter as, one by one, the biscuits fell off. By the time the platter reached me, it was empty. I was giggling hysterically, and John looked at the thing in his hand. ‘Where’s the ****ing biccies?’, he asked. I pointed at the trail of crackers he’d left behind. Jajaja!

A bit later, Billy was attempting to pour himself a glass of Port. The bottle refused to release any of its contents until the cork was removed. I have to confess that half an hour later, I did exactly the same thing – I reckon that Taylor’s Port bottles have a design flaw: they look like they are open even when they are not.

We sang along to a selection of Christmas tunes, playing from Cher’s I-Pod plugged into her Christmas present: a vertical donut full of speakers and a radio: it looked like a shrine to the I-Pod, which in a way it is.

*Cameras. Both Dubaibilly and myself got new cameras today. BetterArf gave me a Sony H2, a replacement for the H1 that I owned for three weeks before some Spanish asshole stole it in Valencia last August. Bliss bliss bliss! Plus a book on how to get the best out of such a machine. Dubaibilly got a top-end Canon digital SLR jobbie from Cher, plus a different book from BetterArf on how to get the best out of such a machine (how she knew this would be useful and appreciated I’ll never know – female intuition I guess). I read most of my book this morning and learnt one very valuable lesson: the thing that buggers up group shots is that somebody will blink. So before you shoot a group, you tell them all to close their eyes, then open them and smile. Then you shoot them, and they all have their eyes open! I tried it and it worked!

We had a very Merry Christmas. I hope you all did too!

A little faith

There was a professor of philosophy who was a deeply committed atheist. His primary goal for one required class was to spend the entire semester attempting to prove that God couldn't exist. His students were always afraid to argue with him because of his impeccable logic. For twenty years, he had taught this class and no one had ever had the courage to go against him.Sure, some had argued in

Sharjah

Regular readers of this blog may have sensed that I have a bit of antipathy towards our northern neighbour, the Emirate of Sharjah. Years ago, it was because whenever I went there I could usually find my destination ok, but I could never, ever, find the way out. Dubai did not feature on the signage system at all. 'snot like Dubai's important or anything. So my early memories of being in Sharjah were closely associated with those of being helplessly lost. And for at least the last five years Sharjah has been associated with being stuck in insane, ridiculous trafic jams.

The last few weeks have been interesting, because our panto rehearsals and peformances have been held at the Dubai Womens' College, which is a stone's throw from the Sharjah border. It's easy to get there on a Friday, fairly easy on a Saturday (weekend for Gubment employees), but a complete pain in the derriere on weekdays. It would take us two to three hours to get to the college from Jebel Ali, and about one hour to get back.

There are two phrases that will induce me to consider a trip to Sharjah...
1) 'Your cheque is ready'
2) 'Come for dinner, I'm doing Beef Wellington'.

Phrase 2 was uttered to me by Grumpy Goat about a week ago. Today was the day, an early Christmas dinner because his beloved has to work on Christmas Day. We were expected to be at Grumpy Goat Towers in Sunny Sharjah at 4pm, so we set off from Jebel Ali at 2.30. Amazingly we were in Sharjah by 3pm, so we jumped out at Al Ta'awon Mall and did a little shopping. Then we walked across the sand (feeling like we were in a foreign country) to arrive at the Towers half an hour early.

A splendid time was had by all. Thanks and Merry Christmas Mr Goat!

Dentist Appointment

A few weeks ago I had an appointment with the dentist for a routine check up. The check up revealed that a tooth of mine needed extensive work doing on it or have it extracted. Faced with a tough decision, my immediate reaction was to avoid having the tooth removed in order to:1, avoid the pain and2, keep as many of my teeth for as long as possible.Having had time to think about the choices

The earliest recorded pidgin - Maridi Arabic?

Some years ago, browsing in a bookstore, I came across a mention of a Mauritanian Arabic-based pidgin recorded by the medieval geographer Al-Bakri. For years since, I have been regretting not having written down the details; even reading through a copy of Al Bakri's description of North Africa brought no joy. Today, I finally found the mention again, and managed to track down the original reference - and understand why I didn't find it before...

Al-Bakri (1014-1097) was a noted geographer and less noted writer from Huelva in modern-day Spain. His description of North Africa was the most detailed since Roman times, and his descriptions of West Africa are among the earliest surviving - despite the fact that he himself never seems to have left Spain, relying instead on travellers' descriptions. Only some twelve manuscripts of his greatest work, al-Masālik wal-Mamālik, survive, none complete. The passage containing the pidgin text, unfortunately, is absent from most printed editions of al-Bakri, including every edition that I could find at SOAS: according to Thomason and Elgibali, "we have found our text only in a printed copy of al-Bakrī located in the national library of Egypt in Cairo; this copy is dated 1943, but we do not know who compiled it or - more importantly - what its manuscript source was."

Without further ado, here is the text, as given by Thomason and Elgibali, who apparently found it somewhere in a section describing Aswan and other Egyptian towns:

Someone told me that a dignitary from the people of Aswan used to travel a lot. One day he reached a small town called Maridi. Upon his return, he said to the prince of the believers: 'Sir, may God give you plenty of good and honour your face, here is my case! Its goal is to preserve and spread the word of God. The Blacks have mutilated our beautiful language and spoiled its eloquency [sic] with their twisted tongues. During my visit, Sir - may God protect you - only God's guidance helped me escape the dangers and understand their miserable Arabic. Sometimes, and may God forgive me if I did wrong, I could only laugh at what they called Arabic; and may God forgive me if I call what they uttered Arabic. Listen, Sir:

[and here I add my entirely conjectural vocalisation; for the original, see below] bī waħid yūm rādūl, Dūmā lū 'isim. damal lū 'ū wa bin lū 'ū. 'umnī dī rūħ 'a`adnī bī maħall. kīk lū 'ūl "ħaram, 'inta barbar, bin mū rūħ, 'inta barbar; 'a`adū!" 'umnī damal fū' 'ū, kīk lū 'ūl "ħaram, 'inta barbar, bin 'a`ad, dūmā rūħ." kīk lū 'ūl ħaram 'inta barbar. Dūmā 'ūl: "kīk mū diyyid mū muhī."

One day there was a man whose name was Jumu`a. He had a camel and a son. They were going to stay in a place. People(?) said to him, "Shame! You are a barbarian! Your son should not walk, you barbarian; seat him!" They were on the camel. People(?) said to him, "Shame! You are a barbarian!" The son sat and Jumu`a walked. ̂People(?) said to him, "Shame! You are a barbarian!" Jumu`a said "People(?) are neither good nor important."

The prince of the believers ordered that his need be met.

The chances of copyists having mangled this bizarre passage are high; the chances that the printers mangled it (or left out whatever vocalisation might have been present) makes the situation even worse. (Certainly De Slane's edition shows instances of both; thus his īħan Yākūš, given as Berber for "God is one", is almost certainly a mistake for ījan Yākūš, by the omission of a dot.) However, it shows some striking features.

The near-absence of morphology, the apparent presence of tense particles, and the simplification of the phonology are all suggestive of a pidgin, and a pidgin is exactly what one would expect given the nature of the trans-Sahara trade. Phonetically, the substitution of ' for qāf is characteristic of lower Egypt and the Levant, but also of several city dialects in the Maghreb and of Maltese; the substitution of d for j is widespread in upper Egypt, but I know of no modern dialect that has both features. The word kīk scarcely looks like Arabic; Thomason & Elgibali suggest a possible interpretation, based on two etymons reportedly widespread in Nilo-Saharan (koi "person", -k "plural"), as "people".

Where was this pidgin spoken? Unfortunately, the text is thoroughly vague on this point, and Maradi's location is unknown. The paragraph after it is a condensed version of a passage elsewhere in al-Bakri describing the Lamtūna tribe of Mauritania, so Thomason and Elgibali suggest that it was spoken in Mauritania; however, Owens notes that both the phonetics of the text and the attribution to a person from Aswan (not to mention the possible presence of a Nilo-Saharan word) suggest a location somewhere in modern-day Sudan.

Of course, until someone finds the manuscript containing this passage, I will be unable to banish a slight suspicion that this whole passage might be an obscure joke by the printers (whoever they might be - the book in Cairo in question does not appear in Thomason and Elgibali's bibliography) on linguists worldwide... However, if authentic (and it scarcely seems likely that the printers would have made it up), this may well be the earliest attested passage in a pidgin, and certainly the earliest Arabic-based pidgin reported. It also provides an illustration of several rather common responses to pidgins and creoles: the half-shocked half-amused contempt for its differences from the lexifier language, the idea that the pidgin itself constitutes an obstacle to learning that needs to be overcome by education in the lexifier language, and the idea that this latter task is the state's responsibility.

PS (23 Dec): In Arabic, this story is more usually told of Juha; it occurs to me that دوما (Dūmā) may well be a misreading/miscopying of دوها (Dūhā), which would be a plausible rendition of Juha, rather than of the rather unusual name Jumu`a.

Arabic: (unfortunately, the portion given starts at "Sir, may God give you plenty of good"; the typeface is also extraordinarily blurry. I have taken the liberty of adding some punctuation.)

مولاي الخليفة جزاك الله خيرا وأكرم وجهك، إليك قضيتي ومحتواها حفظ كلمة الله ونشرها... فإن السود قد قطعوا اوصال لغتنا الجميلة تقطيعا وأفسدوا بيانها بشرير ألسنتهم المعوجة، فأثناء زيارتي (حفظك الله) كان إلهام الله ووحيه المعينين الوحيدين للنجاة من الأخطار وفهم ما أرادوا قوله لي بعربيتهم المزرية، فأحيانا يا مولاي (وسامحني الله إن أخطئت) كنت لا أملك الضحك على عربيتهم - وليسامحني: الله إن أطلقت على ما نطقوا بها اسم العربية، فاسمع يا سيدي:

بي وحد يوم رادول دوما لو اسم دمل لو او وبن لو او امني دي روح اعدي بي محل كيك لو لوب حرم انت بربر بن مو روح انت بربر لو اعدو امني دمل فوء او كيك لو اول حرم انت بربر بن اعد دوما روح كيك لو اول حرم انت بربر دوما اول كيك مو ديد مو مهي

Bibliography:

• Al-Bakri, Description de l'Afrique septentrionale, M. G. De Slane, trans. (Alger, 1913).
  
• Jonathan Owens. "Arabic-based Pidgins and Creoles", in Contact languages: a wider perspective, ed. Sarah G. Thomason. Amsterdam: John Benjamins 1996.
  
• Sarah G. Thomason and Alaa Elgibali. "Before the Lingua Franca: Pidginized Arabic in the Eleventh Century A.D.". Lingua 68 (1986) 317-349.

Shaykh Haji Imdadullah Makki

Shaykh Haji Imdadullah Muhajir Makki (Rahmatullahi Alayhi)[1233 – 1317 AH] (1814 – 1896 AD) Haji Imdadullah Muhajir Makki (Rahmatullahi Alayhi) was such a great personality that the title given to him by his contemporary Ulama was “Sheikhul Mashaikh” which means the leader of leaders.His personality was well respected by the Ulama of the sub continent India and Pakistan and also by the Arab Ulama

Google Games

A lot of people like to play games with Google. For example Googlebombing - where a group of people post identical links on various websites or blogs in order to influence Google's results (eg, getting Google to display Dubya's website as number one for the search term 'miserable failure') or Googlewhacking - where you aim to discover a two-letter phrase that returns exactly one result.

My reason for posting about this is that I've just invented a new one: Googleloner. You invent a word, and a search for that word returns one main result. Try this: haraminal. Of course, this will only work for a day or two until Google picks up this post, and then we'll have two results. No doubt etymologists in the future will be using Google and other search engines to establish when new words come into circulation.

Bye the way, I'm still number one in Google for 'disingenuous tosh'!

Back to Normality. Aharrr!

So we've just finished our manic Panto weekend. A dress rehearsal and two shows on Friday, and two shows today. Our audiences loved it, and so did we. It was extremely tiring, but great fun.

There is nothing on Earth like a British Panto. It's a hugely stylised form of theatre: there are traditional elements such as the Dame (a man dressed as a woman), the Principal Boy (a girl dressed as a boy), audience participation - 'he's behind you!' - 'oh yes it is, oh no it isn't' - random kids being dragged up on stage for a spot of humiliation - throwing sweets at the kids - splitting the audience for a singsong - making them boo and hiss at the baddies, making them all go 'aaah'. Pour in a dash of innuendo for the parents, throw in some local jokes, singing and dancing to popular songs related to the show, over-the-top acting, and, DING-DONG! You have a pantomime.

It surprises me that Pantomime really only exists in the UK - for sure there will be amateur groups of Britpats doing pantos in Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and even Ras Al Khaimah and other far-flung places. In the Dubai Drama Group we have always had a smattering of non-UK actors wondering what the hell was going on. For several years we had a core of Filipino Chorus-boys who never showed up for any other kind of play but were always mad keen to be in the Panto.

If I ever get asked to compile a list of things that define British Culture, it could not be complete without Pantomime.

So now it's all over - I can throw away my script and not worry about it again: all that remains to be said is "Merry Christmas One And All".

No Arabic please, we're American

If you haven't already seen it, the Baker report brought to light a piece of epic stupidity in Iraq:

All of our efforts in Iraq, military and civilian, are handi-
capped by Americans’ lack of language and cultural understanding. Our embassy of 1,000 has 33 Arabic speakers, just six of whom are at the level of fluency. In a conflict that demands effective and efficient communication with Iraqis, we are often at a disadvantage. There are still far too few Arab language–proficient military and civilian officers in Iraq, to the detriment of the U.S. mission.

Why make such an easily fixable mistake? I suspect because they view most of America's large population of fluent Arabic speakers as security risks - although apparently other factors play a role too...

(Hat tip: Aqoul.)

The Uninvited Guest

We are all uninvited guests when we arrive in a foreign country whether we are just visiting or are planning to stay a while. That is not to say "unwelcomed" but it does mean it is on us to conform to the social norms and cultural demands of a given country. One person cannot change a culture. We must bend to culture. Rest assured that no matter which country you choose to live, no matter how close it is, geographically, to your home country there will be culture differences that are both evident and not so evident.

Living in a foreign country is about acceptance. Once realizing what cultural norms we enjoy and what we don't enjoy so much, it's time to decide if we can live with and accept the things we don't enjoy so much. If we can accept the things that are less than appealing about the host country, it's a good sign that we can stay and be happy. If said factors cannot be accepted, more than likely its a good idea to leave.

When I lived in Thailand, for the first months, I was very happy. The people are friendly, the weather is great and the pay is reasonable considering it's south-east Asia. However the minor things that bothered me just a bit at first began to grow until I could no longer avoid my real feelings. The problems I had with culture were related to the lack of expressing personal opinions, true feelings and asking the question,"why"which is similar in many Asian countries. It's something I can never change about the culture but is something I need to have healthy relationships in my life. So ultimately I left for the Western world even though there will always be a special place in my heart for Thailand. Great place to visit, it just isn't the right country for me to live.

Pantomania, me hearties. Aharrr!

I told you a few months ago that Betterarf and I had been cast in the forthcoming Dubai Drama Group production of Treasure Island. And I don't think I've mentioned it since. But we have been rehearsing steadily for the last few months and now we are almost there: there will be four performances next weekend - two on Friday 15th and two on Saturday 16th. It's gonna be great fun for children of all ages (we're talking about panto here so clichés are compulsory). The venue is the Auditorium at Dubai Women's College.

Last weekend and this one we have been rehearsing and set building at the venue. We did a full run in costume tonight and it's really coming together: it is a very funny and entertaining show.

You can buy tickets online at the DDG website or Time Out .

رحلة إجبارية مع مليشيا جيش المهدي (edit)

a new blog, in Arabic, find credit goes to Ms.Tita.
iraqi blogs in arabic hold a dear place in my heart, i cant write much in arabic because i am not eloquent enough!
so, without further ado, i will leave you with Nabeel al Iraqi's own words:


حكايات رجل يعيش في بغداد

ما يحدث في بغداد لا يحدث كثيرا في أماكن أخرى.... سأروي لكم بعض ما حدث ويحدث ولكني لا أعدكم أن كل ما يحدث فيها جميل!!

من أنا: أنا شاب من هذا الوطن..قدري أن أولد هنا..وقدري كبقية العراقيين أن أعاني...ولكن مازالت شعلة الامل فينا لاتنطفئ...وجأت كي أشارككم ما أرى...

EDIT: "People, please check stuff before you write, there are multiple blogs here that are not onBlogspot. -Kid."

Once upon a Pumpkin-Nibbler's life!

Whoops - missed this one! A not so new blogger starting a new blog...

Riot Starter is turning out to be a serial blogger. Since starting university she declares that she has stopped blogging as herself but is now blogging as Pumpkin Nibbler. And her new blog follows the conversations and desires off her group of first-year university students and more. "Life is full of disappointments, and I'm full of life." she says.

IBC Maintenance

I have deleted all nonexistent blogs as well a couple of unrelated blogs, separated the abandoned blogs from ones which are still active, and the result is as you see it. Down from 212 to 110. This was not a methodical business, I have made some mistakes here and there but the error margin could be by the approximity of 1 to 5 blogs.
This is one of several ideas I have for this site, and perhaps the most boring. Expect more in the future.

A Kings Dream

Shaykh Maseehullah rahmatullahi alayh relates,‘Once a king had a dream wherein he observed a very large tray containing many varieties, shapes and sizes of flowers. Suddenly a knife appeared from above and cut these flowers; it would cut both large and small flowers.At this point the king awoke and began to ponder upon the meaning of this strange dream. He related it to his Court Mu’abbirs (

The grammar of talking to yourself

In the Dark Ages, too, linguists sometimes got a little worked up over theoretical differences (if a work of fiction is to be believed):

"Those were times when, to forget an evil world, grammarians took pleasure in abstruse questions. I was told that in that period, for fifteen days and fifteen nights, the rhetoricians Gabundus and Terentius argued on the vocative of 'ego' [I], and in the end they attacked each other, with edged weapons." - Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose

In a sense, one would expect that "I" should really have a vocative - certainly people talk to themselves sometimes - yet Latin's lack of a vocative "I" is paralleled in English. If John (that old linguists' standby) tells himself "John, get up and do some work", the sentence is not grammatically odd; if he tells himself "*I, get up and do some work" or "*Me, get up and do some work", neither sentence is grammatically possible. Note that no such restriction applies to non-vocative uses; it would be equally grammatical for John to tell himself "I'm in luck!" or "You're in luck!" Even resorting in desperation to the archaic English vocative "O" yields nothing: "O I!" is ridiculous, and "Oh me!" is already in use as a rather silly exclamation. So why should the vocative of "I" be so hard to form?

Update: Thanks to Language Hat, I have learned of an interesting post on the very grammarian of whom Eco is writing.

Iraqi Geek

www.iraqigeek.com

As the name suggests, by large technology blog, with useful tutorials as to how to fix your own laptop, it is the sort of thing that would make Salam Adil proud. Sometimes, however, traces of humanity can still be detected, as evidenced by his recent posts. What makes it refreshing is that he doesn't talk about politics that much.

Hanbook for Students of Arabic

Click on the title of this post, or here for a free handbook about learning Arabic for students.

The following is taken from NMELRC.org

Handbook for Students of Arabic

This online handbook is an introduction to strategies and resources that can help you, the student, in your study of the Arabic language. It has been developed under the auspices of the National Middle East Language Resource Center (NMELRC)

This handbook is primarily for the beginning student, but intermediate and advanced students may also profit from this information.

This information is of course not comprehensive or exhaustive. Above all, we hope that you find this information practical and even the bits of “theory” applicable to your needs. This handbook helps fulfill the NMELRC's mission to be "a coordinated concentration of educational research and training resources for improving the capacity to teach and learn foreign languages."

A mind of a 13 year old Iraqi girl

I remember when I was 13. It was a time of mental conflict and intense confusion. What with puberty and discovering girls as something other than annoying aliens for the first time.

I really, really dont want to know what goes on in the mind of a 13 year old. So it is with some trepidation that I approached this blog. But this reminds me of the fun side of being 13. A time of approaching the grown up world without disappointments or inhibitions. Exploring new ideas with a sense of enjoyment.

35 Today!

Today is UAE National Day, ie the 35th anniversary of the formation of the United Arab Emirates. So Happy Birthday UAE, you've come an incredibly long way in a very short time.

It is also the 19th birthday of our very own offspring.

Traditionally in our house we put up the Christmas tree on this day, but there might be a problem today. Having lost the original metal/plastic stand many years ago, we usually stick the (fake) tree in a bucket of sand scavenged from outside. But it has rained continuously through the night, and is still tipping it down at 8am, so any sand we could get would be more like mud. Ho hum.

UPDATE: We've just unpacked the tree, and lo and behold, the plastic stand that has been missing for at least two years was sitting there in the box, looking all smug!

I miss Iraq

A&Eiraqi lived his dreams. He left Iraq months ago to pusue a career in medicine in London. But like many Iraqis he longs for home. And this is what he misses:

A special smile, which expresses thankfulness and a few words with which people pray to Allah asking him to give his mercy to my parents.
Neighbors, who didn’t mind knocking my door even at midnight seeking for help.
Friends who always supported me and I supported them.
The Iraqi poetry which, I recall wherever I go. That sadness which covers every aspect of our life.