Word: townes
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...with the Ark (assuming, of course, that it left at all). However, he has a theory as to where they might eventually have converged. Lemba myth venerates a city called Senna. In modern-day Yemen, in an area with people genetically linked to the Lemba, Parfitt found a ghost town by that name. It's possible that the Lemba could have migrated there from Jerusalem by a spice route - and from Senna, via a nearby port, they could have launched the long sail down the African coast. As for the Ark? Before Islam, Arabia contained many Jewish-controlled oases...
...Part of what makes Ankawa a target-rich environment for Cupid's arrows is the relative openness and sophistication of the Christian town, compared to conservative Erbil, the nearby capital of the Kurdish region. Alcohol, mixed company and marriages of choice are all much more socially acceptable among Christians than their Kurdish neighbors, most of whom are Muslims. And Ankawans have strong ties to Lebanon, which has a large Christian population and a reputation as the fashion capital of the Middle East, so they think they know how to throw a wedding in style. ("Our dresses show a little skin...
...Another reason for the town's wedding boom is that matchmaking is a serious business for a minority group trying to preserves its identity in an overwhelmingly Muslim region. Christians have lived in Iraq almost since the beginning of Christianity itself, and though they presumably fell in love and married just like everyone else for centuries, love became something of a cottage industry in Ankawa after the first Gulf war. When the Kurdistan broke away from Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the town became a hub for single Christian men living abroad who could now return in search of a mate...
...Since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, however, the stakes have gotten higher. As a conspicuous (and prosperous) minority group, Christians have made easy targets for all sides of Iraq's sectarian civil war. Because Ankawa is situated in the relative safety of Kurdistan, the town of 20,000 has seen its population jump by a half in just a matter of years as refugees have poured in from violence further south. Osama Thomas, the owner of Love Vision, a store in Ankawa that makes wedding videos, said about 80 percent of his clients were from Baghdad (which he left...
...Besides distributing aid and building homes, local leaders and priests have tried to help find husbands and wives for young newcomers, among other ways by turning the town Internet home page into a dating forum. Many are concerned the very existence of Christians in Iraq is at risk. "There's no light at the end of the tunnel," said a spokesman for the Assyrian Democratic Party, a Christian group. But not all single young exiles appreciate the local efforts at hospitality. "Ankawa is such a small town," said one young woman from Baghdad sitting at the local amusement park with...