Theme song

As I was sitting down this morning for a hard-boiled egg while my Iraqi colleagues drank their tea, I noticed them looking wistfully at the TV while a music video played. It was a song old, dear and bittersweet to them.

Jenan sang along with the TV softly through the chorus ... "Shadi, Shadi."

"The singer is Lebanese," volunteered Hamad. "She's singing about civil war. It's a girl singing about a boy she knew when she was a child."

The singer is one of the most popular in the Arab world, known simply as Fairuz. Hamad said her voice makes him think of angels. He began to translate.

His name was Shadi, Shadi, and I used to play in the snow ...
The world was smothered with fire some people began fighting against other people and the fighting spread to our hills. Shadi ran to watch ... I never saw him again. Shadi was lost forever. Snow fell and melted away for twenty times I grew up and Shadi remained the boy I knew, playing in the snow.

"It's a sad song," said Hussein.

"Now," said Jenan, "there are too many Shadis here."