My last visit to Iraq was six months ago and as I returned to Baghdad on Saturday for a month-long embed, I wondered if anything had really changed. Sometimes it’s the little things you notice first.  Like the new luggage trolleys in the airport arrivals area, or the long queue of taxis outside waiting for customers, where before there had only been a dusty bus to the main checkpoint. Or the way the security contractors getting off my flight, instead of flashing their DOD badges and strolling past immigration officials like before, now step into a special line next to the visa office and produce sheafs of documents for a thorough pre-entry governmental screening.

Route Irish, the infamously dangerous highway leading from the airport to central Baghdad, was at one time marked by almost daily suicide car bombings.  Today the ride is quiet, the highway almost deserted. Instead of the circuitous route once required by road closures and checkpoint bottlenecks, we now take a more direct path and arrive quickly to Abu Nawas, a broad avenue on the banks of the Tigris River which has been recently been reopened by the government.

The riverfront was once famous for its restaurants serving grilled fish,  which disappeared after the war and the area had become an inhospitable dustbowl, deserted save for few mongrel dogs and the occasional army patrol. But as we drive down the boulevard today I see a few restaurants have returned and children are playing in a freshly scrubbed park.

We arrive at the office and I’m greeted by colleagues and old friends. Through good times and bad times, their wonderful Iraqi hospitality has never wavered. As I talk to the staff, I ask if maybe things are getting better, that maybe the worse is over.  To a person the answer is the same, “Inshallah” - God willing.