Wed, 8 Oct 2003 Dear friends i spent the last years before leaving baghdad in my grand parents house in the rawaf district off al saadoon street few blocks away from al battaween and the Meir tweg synagogue with the one and only aboo elyahou as the hazzan .i escorted my father almost daily to the battaween market sometimes using the ARABANA NORMALLY PULLED BY TWO OLD AND HUNGRY HORSES .i remember fathil aboo el jibn and hussain aboo el sammoon etc.naturally i begged my hosts to take me there first . apparently the area was no longer as safe or as comfortable as it once was and i was advised to choose the right time of the day when it is crowded for safety. once i reached sahat el firdos (el jindi el majhool) with the imposing blue mosque i became very agitated and almost hysterical with excitement . this was my patch ,my territory,my cycling route.as i tried to remember shops and sites sometimes memory and imagination mingle together and i am no longer sure whether the barber shop was the one i used or not.the entire saadoon street and much of that part of baghdad looked tired ,very tired ;neglected;dusty;very dusty.by the time i reached cinema el nasr and findik baghdad (recently occupied almost entirely by american officials and heavily protected ) i insisted on dismounting the car and strode headlong towards our street and our house . i spent sometimes taking pictures;checking the neighbours , buying a Miranda orange fron the kiosk opposite the house. and then suddenly someone came out of the house and asked me why was i taking photos of his house!normally any one of us would freeze to death when challenged but not now ; now every iraqi is tasting a kind of utopian freedom which does not exist even in the west . there are no police;no ammen ;no tax collectors ;no authority no nothing .so we had a conversation ,a pleasant and long one and he invited in! next meir tweg , the shelter and the Battaween market. edwin

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