We knew it anyway, but if confirmation were needed, I today talked with an Iraqi lady who has many family members in Athens. She knew all about the never-ending cycle of red card renewals for asylum seekers there and had even tried to make it to Greece from Turkey on a number of occasions before finally opting for the more expensive route to the UK. She and her husband have been in Scotland for a couple of years now, and like many other Iraqi Christians, she has family members all over the world; Greece, Italy, Canada, America, Sweden.... Iraqi Christians make up a disproportionate number of the increasing Iraqi diaspora and there has been evidence that those remaining in the country are being increasingly singled out for attack by "insurgents".
She spoke to me of life in Baghdad before they fled, and how it remains for the few members of her large extended family who are still there; she told me of armed and masked men breaking into the house in the middle of the night, putting guns to their heads and demanding money and gold. "You are Christians, you must have family in America, give us dollars".
We hope to make a visit to the home of this couple later in the week. Her husband is house-bound at the moment following some surgery and hopefully the novelty of an almost-Arabic speaking Irish will cheer him up a little.

Two weeks ago I found myself at the prize-giving ceremony at a local Catholic school. I was there to accompany one of our new African friends, whose daughter was receiving a prize for Mathematics. This lady does not yet speak a huge amount of English and she had asked for someone to accompany her just to help her confidence. I was delighted to see several of the refugee children receiving prizes for various subjects, and also somewhat amused to see one of the Muslim children from another family singing a Christian song in the Catholic school choir whilst her mother took a quick check on the progress of the sunset before allowing herself to break the fast with a tinfoil wrapped picnic that she produced from her handbag.

- Emma