by Kathy Kelly
May 20, 2006
Yesterday, I eagerly awaited a visit from a friend who had just arrived from Iraq.
We greeted each other warmly and marveled over having managed to stay in touch with each other through ten years, this in spite of distance, siege, warfare, occupation and his recent, acute need to maintain a low profile. Then he showed me his passport. Success! In it was a stamp allowing him to travel for six months to another land. “Tomorrow, we go!” he said, his usual upbeat and cheerful derring-do apparently intact.
When I last saw him, in early April, he told me that he had received a letter threatening him with death if he didn’t leave his home. Believing the threat was serious, he quickly moved his family to a village where they could live with in-laws. This was only a temporary solution. His best bet was to build a one room home for his family, adjacent to the home of other relatives living in a more remote village, and then to join the hundreds of Iraqis seeking visas to flee Iraq.
