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With camera, Iraqi boy celebrates life

The boy angled his camera upward and the jumbled world slid into focus. Giant men lumbered under high brick ceilings. They slouched on padded wooden benches, crossing and uncrossing their legs, nearly knocking him over. The boy steadied himself to take photos of the bustling scene at the century-old Shahbandar Cafe. Kamer Hashim’s head barely […]

Dan Zak report for the Washington Post:

The boy angled his camera upward and the jumbled world slid into focus.

Giant men lumbered under high brick ceilings. They slouched on padded wooden benches, crossing and uncrossing their legs, nearly knocking him over. The boy steadied himself to take photos of the bustling scene at the century-old Shahbandar Cafe.

Kamer Hashim’s head barely reached the waistlines of the poets and intellectuals who strode in and out of the sunny, smoky cafe on Mutanabi Street, the book-selling enclave of the Iraqi capital. Kamer was the youngest there by at least 20 years, the smallest by at least a foot, and the least accustomed to digesting the problems of Iraq.