Ok, it's been an eventful few days ... my stomach is still a bit off (which mostly means that in a land that puts Italian mothers to shame, I am constantly refusing food ... no easy task). Anyway, I've had my first two arabic classes with I. She's gonna be great. I sat in on an interview with a political cartoonist. I drove around town with a couple of crazy communists looking for the Iraqi Greenpeace Organization (we didn't find it) and when we offered them some money, they replied, "No, no. We are Communists!" I met an Iraqi man who proceeded to, effectively "chase me around the table" (No, he didn't catch me).... Last night we heard some sustained gunfire that sounded very close (Lorna asked the desk people about it the next day and they said, "Yes, Wild West!").

Then today I went out to Al Jazeera (the town not the TV network) just outside Ar-Ramadi and helped break stones for the building of a house (the owners' previous house was partially destroyed in a military raid ... more on this later). And coming home tonight, as we passed Abu Ghraib prison (One of Saddam's notorious prisons that is now were many coalition detainees are kept), I experienced my first mortar attack (boom, boom, Boom! Someone was attacking the prison). The driver swerved us off the road quickly but it was a blind alley and we had to get right back on it. Anyway, made it home safe and sound.