January 10, 2020 Try as I did, I found it impossible to send New Year’s greetings to friends in Iraq given the unthinkable and shameless actions of Trump and his regime in the last weeks.Continue reading
Author: Cathy Breen
Sleepwalking Toward Disaster – Cathy Breen
Photo copyright: Cecile Massie www.cecilemassie.com July 4, 2018 New York — A few days ago I received a copy of the Plough (Quarterly Summer issue), a publication of the Bruderhof Community, cherished and known toContinue reading
Who Calls Anyone “Civilized?” – Cathy Breen
Photo: Building in Mosul decimated by bombing, March 2018. Abu Mohammed. March 31, 2018 Naomi Shihab Nye is a poet and professor of Creative Writing at Texas State. Her father was Palestinian and a refugeeContinue reading
Teaching English in Najaf
Najaf, Iraq, October 25 2017 Each day in the English conversation class we focus on a different theme. We have been going from easier topics, like greetings, directions, food shopping and cooking to more difficultContinue reading
The Shoe Thrower, Revisited – News from Najaf
We share one of Voices co-coordinator Cathy Breen’s “Dear Friends” letters from Najaf, in Iraq. October 15, 2017 Dear Friends, We are two weeks into the conversational English class. The participants are growing in self-confidenceContinue reading
Najaf, Iraq
January 3, 2017 Najaf, Iraq “ ISIS is not just with guns, but with ideas inside our minds” I almost feel as if this trip has been a set up. Set up to give meContinue reading
What will Baghdad face in 2017?
January 2, 2017 Being stuck in traffic is a daily fare in Baghdad. While checkpoints have been dramatically reduced in recent times, and the number of concrete walls appear markedly decreased, traffic jams still defyContinue reading
Christmas in Karbala
Dec. 25, 2016 Karbala, Iraq–It is Christmas day, and I am in Karbala with dear friends. We awoke to a second day of rain, and pictures of flooding, especially in Baghdad, are being shown onContinue reading
“Today Is One of the Heaviest Days of My Life.”
On multiple occasions I have written about Mohammed and use his words in a first person narrative, more recently about their desperate life-threatening journey over a year ago. They went to Finland with the hope thatContinue reading
Arriving in Erbil and Wondering: What Lies Ahead
Erbil, Kurdistan–Wherever I look, tall, unfinished concrete buildings, accompanied by construction cranes, loom over the city. It is somewhat eerie because I see no movement inside or around any of the buildings, none whatsoever. IContinue reading