i promised you a while ago to tell you a bit about my relation to iraq. so i found some old pics today to make this entry a little more exciting (maybe)...

this is me in iraq:

and what was i doing in iraq in 1985 as a baby?! see...my parents worked down there for the danish embassy. my mum as a nurse and my dad as chef in the kitchen at the same hospital as my mum worked at. they worked down there from 1983-85. every year at the queen of denmark's birthday, they had this tradition going to a party at the danish embassy drinking too much scotch, watching the queen's new years speech and touch glasses. here's a picture of my mum and the other danes entering the danish embassy:

this is from a dedication of a new portrait of "s�ren hansen" (as my parents called him in iraq so the arab's didn't understand) in front of the hospital where my parents worked...

my dad on a camel on the country in iraq.

a proud grandmother showing her family. a proper title to this picture would be "generations".

here's my mum and aunt shopping for groceries at a local market. my mum is the one in the dress.

the men with the funny trousers are kurdish. the trousers is ironically called kurdish trousers. they wear them because they believe that a man is going to get birth to muhammad. so to prevent muhammad from hitting his head when he gets born, the trousers are big enough to hold a baby.

speaking of babies...my mum became pregnant in late 84. so she decided to travel home to denmark and give birth to me. in may 1985 i came into the world. and about three months later, she and i went down to iraq again. we stayed down there for a couple of months until we got kicked out of the country because of the war between iraq and iran was intensifying.

because of the years my parents were down there, we've always had a different kind of view on the arabs in our family than the media are making. we've often discussed the situation down in iraq at the dinner table. my mum has even promised us a trip down there if it ever gets more peaceful. it could be cool.