News from Mom today that my sister Beth has arrived safely in Baghdad. Baghdad? Bagdad? Yes. Both. She is part of a small delegation of Dominicans who are visiting their counterparts in Iraq to support them and to understand more fully the impact of the international sanctions against that nation. Earlier this week they flew from Chicago to Dublin to Amman. Then they drove east to Baghdad. According to their website bulletin board, their agenda looked like this:

Thursday March 8
Morning -Meeting with Iraqi Federation of Women
Visit Al Monsour Hospital
Afternoon- Ameriya Shelter
Evening briefing by Michel Nahal, Middle East Council of Churches or NGO's

Friday March 9
Morning - Meeting with Papal Nuncio, Bishop Emmanual Deli and Chaldean Patriarch Bidawid
Visit St. Raphael Hospital/ and or Hyatt Hospital
Afternoon- Abid Al-Khadir Al-Kahalani Mosque
Booksellers Row, Copper Market
Evening with Sisters of the Presentation of St. Catherine of Siena

Mom has passed on this info from today's Dominican Leadership Listserv:

All is well with the delegation members. When they arrived in Bagdad, they had to "sit" for two days because of the religious holiday, the EID. Nothing was open and as Beth said, "People were out of town." Besides that, it rained for two days. The time was well spent becoming acquainted with their surroundings.
 
They have had some delightful visits with the Dominican Sisters and Priests in Bagdad who have been very warm in their welcome. The conversations have been "incredible" according to delegation members. Today, Friday, was a beautiful day and they were able to visit the Mennonite NGO representative who was very helpful in explaining the situation of the people under the sanctions. They also visited with UNICEF, the Sisters of Charity Orphanage and St. Raphael's Hospital (the Dominican Sisters of the Presentation) and the Ameriya Shelter where over 400 people were killed when two "smart bombs" struck it in February, l991.
 
Tomorrow, they expect to meet with a government representative from the Iraqi Federation of Women, who will accompany them for the out of town trips to Mosul (North) and later to Basra (South). They do not know whether or not they'll be allowed to stay overnight with the sisters at their Motherhouse in Mosul (St. Catherine's group). If not, they'll have to stay in a hotel.
 
This will be the last communiqué until Tuesday night since they will travel to Mosul on Sunday and there's no chance for contact there.

This sounds like quite an adventure. Beth is lucky not to have inherited the hate-to-travel genes with which I am cursed/blessed.

Next topic:

It's easy to joke about our tendency, when talking to a person who is evidently not a native English speaker, to speak louder. What is that about? I suppose it is a misguided atempt to speak more carefully and distinctly because we know from experience the incomprehensible speed of, say, Spanish speakers.

This evening for a few moments I had to control myself on that score. I was speaking with Ernest, a guest in our house for the coming weeks. He is from Haiti and is studying ESL at The College of Lake County. Earlier today he asked me if I knew French. I answered that I could read some but speak very little. At dinner tonight I asked him how to say "telephone wire" and he replied "line telephonique". That's not what I had in mind so I explained that in a live version of Leonard Cohen's song "Bird on A Wire," he breaks into a verse of French, beginning with "Comme l'oiseaux sur...something." Oh, he says. It's not "sur...something"; it's "se levera", which brings the line to connote: "As a bird which has been perched all night rises to fly in the morning." This fits and enriches Cohen's context, which is "Like a bird on a wire; like a drunk in midnight choir; I have tried in my way to be free."

We had a very nice conversation about his beautiful suffering native land, his family whom he misses very much, the tough adjustments he has had to make since coming here, the different shape his future here is taking, and music. He likes classical music, says that in Haiti they play it everywhere for Mother's Day and Valentine's Day. Rap is also big in Haiti. I learned that he does not know about The Blues. He smiled when I told him about zydeco and explained it's supposed derivation from "Les haricots sont pas sale" ("The snapbeans are not salty." Go figure.) Needless to say, this boy is going to hear some blues ... and some jumpy zydeco ... before he goes.