My name is Podrigotumma and when I was 19 I was the cook and a camp for young people

from all across Ireland.

There was 200 young people and one night what we cooked clearly wasn't to their liking.

Most of them just jumped their food into a bin.

Myself and another guy, a total stranger to me, were assigned to take everything from

the bin and to move it away.

And it was disgusting and it took us a couple of hours to empty these bins filled with

slops of food.

When me and that fella became friends and we're still friends, I played the guitar

it is wedding and our friendship has lasted for so long.

I keep on looking back to the humble beginnings of what has been a lovely lifelong friendship.

Eva, whose shadow was a swan by Dunya Mikhail.

The day we met in Babylon for me to interpret her, Eva found a pocket stone.

She'd later add to her collection of stones from different cities she kept in a glass

bowl.

We strolled road sides, piled with rocks blasted from bridges and buildings now bent and

cratered.

Yet, I like to think that stone might have predated the fall of Babylon when people spoke

one language.

I liked Eva's musical tone.

She said, I am from Stockholm, home to no war for 200 years.

I am from Baghdad, I replied, a city we call the home of peace though war has lived in

...