Believe it or not there is a cold chill in the air, to the point that I would expect to see frost outside in the morning. I even woke this morning wishing I could have another blanket at night, or at least turn on our in-room-heater to take the edge off. Something you wouldn’t expect from a place that is so hot the rest of the year. (if ever anyone was going to send me chocolate now is the time)

Truly this is a land of diversity and extremes, not only in its people and weather but also in almost every aspect of life here. The people vary in so many ways from their religious affiliation and commitment to what they profess to believe in to their standard of living and physical possessions.

Of course I have witnessed first hand the extremes of the weather here and the geography of this land.

Last night I spent the evening at a Iraqi doctor’s house partaking of his hospitality and abundance of food and possessions (what a fantastic meal it was). He had been to med school in the states, lived in London for many years and now was back to manage the affairs of his aging father. We all had a very delightful evening talking about politics, culture, and business. He was clearly a wealthy man with no apparent physical needs and definitely one of the best cooks that I have experienced.

In contrast the other day as I was driving around the green zone, in an area I don’t usually travel, I pulled the bus up to the side of the road as I saw a few kids playing in a pile of rubble behind some bombed out houses. I had a few toys in the back, as I usually do, in anticipation of seeing children.

My interpreter knew what was going on as she quickly dashed to the back of the bus to grab a few stuffed animals. She was the first one out of the bus handing out the stuffed animals to the little girls that had gathered. Seeing a couple of boys I went back to snag a few toy cars for them.

As I approached the kids I could see that they were extremely poor with their tattered clothes and shoeless feet. Their skin was cracked from the extremes of the weather, their faces dirty obviously from not bathing for a few days, their hair matted against their heads, and their only toy in sight was the broken bricks of the demolished house.

Pulling the toy cars from behind my back, where I had been hiding them, I handed one to the littlest boy in the group. As he looked down at the toy car now in his hands, his eyes opened as big as two silver dollars and his mouth dropped wide open, then a huge smile came across his whole face, responding as if he had never held a toy or a small car.

No words were spoken or necessary, his face fully expressing his appreciation for the moment. My only regret was that I didn’t have my camera to capture the happiness, but I felt it and it made my day. I never feel that these expressions of joy are commonplace, never failing to feel totally satisfied by these experiences.

This would have been otherwise a pretty rough day, due to the nature of the negative things transpiring, which had me somewhat bummed out at the time. Having heard earlier that the other guys arrested during the counterfeiting bust had been released by bought off policemen, I was feeling the pain of falling two steps backward for every step forward.

The Sharing Joys with Toys always boosts me up.