Traveling in the North of Iraq

Thanks to the kindness of Fr.Bashar Warda CssR, I was able to visit some old monasteries, villages and ruins in the North of Iraq, during the summer season 2008.
Alqosh
1) First the jubilee celebration of the foundation of the monks of Saint Hormizd in the year 1808, by the martyr monk Gabriel Danbo, in the monastery, founded by Rabban Hormizd in the VIIth c.  This occasion allowed us to visit the old monastery on the mountain, and the more recent one (XIXth c.), Deir es-Saida in the valley. There I saw Br.Makarios, who was reading the Glories of Mary (St.Alphonse) in Chaldean, handwritten by Bishop Yousif Audo.
2) About 15 km to the North in the mountains, is a ruin, Beskin, which served as a shelter for the monks who had to work there, in the fruitful valley, for a certain period, far from the monastery. On the way to that remote place, one passes by Guppe d-Maya and the mazar of Sahdona, on the mountain, North of Alqosh.
3) About 20 km to the right of Alqosh, along the mountain chain, are several Yezidiye villages. The biggest one is called Ba’adhra (the house of the Virgin). Previously (more than 200 years ago) there were Christian villages to the NW. Remains of two churches, rests of houses and the graveyard with Syriac and Arabic inscriptions on the tombs.
4) The village of Alqosh itself has old houses and churches: a double church Mar Giwargis and Maryam Adhra (in its present shape:MA), Mar Mikha (probably older, with relics of the prophet Nahoum), Mar Qardah (recent). The Jewish sanctuary of Nahoum is in very bad state.