And how was your day?

It was easily the most cheerful moment of my time here so far. For a moment.

I was pecking away at the keyboard -- heaving lifting, this foreign correspondency -- and a face popped into my room.

"Scott, how are you?" (You'll have to imagine the accent, I don't do dialiects.)

Hamad had gone home to Fallujah for a week. Getting there was dangerous. Being there was dicey. People would ask what he was doing now? Who is he talking to on his cell phone. Being found out as a guy working for Westerners could be a death sentence.

Seeing his smile was a great relief.

How was he?

"Fine. Fine." Except there had been a bombing of a recruiting station just today that killed at least two dozen people. The roads had been shut down. And, it turned out, the cousin he had grown up with had been taken hostage. The kidnappers want $50,000, that the family didn't have.

"Yes, it's bad," he said. "But, you know, this is Iraq."