part 2 of what seemed like forever

I found this old draft that I never got to post in May 2006. I never finished it, but here it is, Part 2 of what seemed like forever.

Chris and I passed more time comparing our slick field adaptation for a towel. I had used my pillowcase and he had found a roll of paper towels. He told me that luckily he had found an extra pair of socks in his back pack so he was able to change those out; simple pleasures.

Here's me on a C-17. It might have been 3 am, but I love traveling like this. We basically only had to share the plane with 8 other folks. VIP!

account of my journey home, part 1 of what seemed forever

I just typed this on my blackberry so I could send it to Michael for him to post since I don’t have internet access right now. Unfortunately, I was too quick on my blackberry trigger finger and accidentally deleted this...so this is from memory and I hope I captured everything I initially wrote. This is just par for the course for how the last 24 hours have gone...keep reading.......

Our journey home seems never-ending and we haven’t even made it half way. Last night (Wednesday) Chris and I reported to the passenger terminal at our base in Iraq to catch a flight to Kuwait. The rest of the team had already left earlier Wednesday morning so it was just the two of us sitting on a wooden bench outside the holding tent along with a flurry of military personnel walking around waiting for their outgoing flights. It started raining a little at first and then it got a bit windy with larger raindrops. After waiting about 2 hours and seeing the lightning we heard the weather was to the point that outgoing flights were grounded. A couple of hours later our flight was given the okay and we grabbed our luggage and made our way onto one of 4 buses taking passengers to the aircraft ramp. We boarded a C-17 with over 100 other military personnel. Less than an hour into the flight, the message on the loudspeaker informed us that the plane was being diverted to Al Udeid, Qatar because of the poor visibility in Kuwait. Apparently Chris had slept through this announcement so when the plane landed and people started standing up, he asked someone if this was the Kuwait stop (the plane was supposed to continue on after stopping in Kuwait).
Not much after 3 am, we arrived in Qatar and dumped our luggage in a holding tent waiting to hear the fate of our night. We learned that we could get onto a flight before lunch....we would spend the next few hours in a crowded passenger terminal on non-ergonomic rows of metal chairs. We went across the street to the grab-and-go trailer where we were each issued a brown paper bag and allowed to choose 2 sandwiches, 2 drinks, 2 snacks, 1 bag of chips, and 1 piece of fruit. We returned to the pax terminal and wedged ourselves into some of those uncomfortable metal seats. A couple of hours later, we heard a message over the loudspeaker announcing that the flight would be delayed until after dinnertime because of the weather. Ugh. Unwilling to stay here for another 12 hours, we called a couple of our co-workers who are assigned to Al Udeid. Audrey and Tom (from my February Iraq trip) came and picked us up and drove us over to transient housing. It was so good to see familiar faces through our exhausted eyes. They dropped us off and we checked in where we were each assigned a tent and bunk number. At this point we were hot, sticky, exhausted and just wanted a place to sleep horizontally. Unfortunately all we had with us was our computer backpacks, our helmets and our vests. Since we were originally supposed to leave earlier in the day, we had already turned in our baggage to be palletized. This was a blessing because we didn’t have to keep track of it and haul it around, but it meant that we didn’t have access to any of our clean clothing or toiletries. I couldn’t think of a shower now anyway, I just wanted to lie down.
It is so bright here that it is blinding when you enter or exit a building. I was blinded by the dark contrast of the dim lights inside the female tent. It took me a minute to make out the numbers on the bunks. I walked all the way to the back right and found I had a top bunk. I put my bags down, removed my shoes and crawled up. Oh, the construction I had seen upon arriving at the transient tents....just happened to be right outside the back of my tent. It was tough to get any kind of uninterrupted sleep. I remember waking up once, actually paying attention to the loudness and wondering how in the heck I had actually been able to fall asleep to begin with. It’s crazy what your brain allows when you’re exhausted. After falling asleep and waking up a couple of more times I finally decided to wake up at 3pm. I got up, put my shoes on, got my toothbrush and toothpaste, pillowcase and walked to the “Cadillac” (latrine). The tent was cooler than the outside, but it was still warm so that I was still sticky and sweaty. I brushed my teeth and took a rinse shower (no soap, no shampoo), dried off with the pillowcase and put my old clothes back on. I surprisingly felt better at least being able to get rid off of the top layer of ick.

Chris and I met up and walked to the dining facility. It was so hot that neither of us felt much like eating. I mostly ate my salad and downed a couple of cold drinks. Speaking of cold drinks, Al Udeid is an R&R facility for the military in the Middle East so there is a pool here and personnel are allowed to have 2 alcoholic drinks per day. Issuing the drinks is highly controlled and the rules are very strict. When you arrive, you are issued a drink card which is stamped when you get a drink and pay for it. So, after dinner Chris and I thought we’d each get a drink and chill out. I haven’t had a drink since New Year’s Eve so I actually didn’t even want one; I was worried that even a single beer would affect me given the heat and probable dehydrated state I was in. My worries were quenched when we got the door of the club and saw that it was closed from 4:30 to 5:30 for cleaning. It was 4:57. This place is open 24/7. Would you believe that it is closed for 1 hour per day and that is exactly when we showed up? Did I mention par for the course? We wouldn’t have time to wait until 5:30 and then have time to get back to the pax terminal to check in for our flight. We hung our heads, got our bags, boarded the crowded bus and are now sitting on those darn metal chairs again watching ESPN. I don’t really watch ESPN so it’s just on in the background. Chris found a couple of books to read. Well, actually, he found one book to read and another one was a prop for a picture (which i accidentally deleted...or Chris purposefully deleted)...a cheesy romance novel with a pink cover and a Fabio look-alike on the cover. It’s funny to think that this book is in a military passenger terminal...I guess to some folks, this kind of reading makes the time pass quicker. It’s been about an hour so far and we’re still sitting here hoping that our flight will actually leave tonight.

Sorry, no pictures to post with this one....pretty miserable so not feeling as hammy as usual for the camera.

Erika is on her way home

She has had one helluva time getting where she needs to go these past few days due to events that may or may not have included sandstorms and runway lighting failures and nearly two days worth of waiting to get on a flight to get to the right country, but she should finally be home this weekend. Oh, and she was just hanging out with JP at whatever place they may be that I can't say that's on the other side of the world and is very hot. Such a small world! Of course, he's on his way to fight for the next year and she's on her way home (for a few weeks at least), but how neat for good friends who live right down the street from each other to be able to cross paths on the other side of the world and spend some time together.

May 2006 Sunday, continued

this is old...from May 2006 and it's part 2 of the blog called Sunday. It's not that interesting, but sometimes work in Iraq is just that, work.

We had another tour of a big airfield hangar still here from when the base was built 25 years ago. Pretty cool. Then, we had Taco Bell for lunch. Yep, there's one of those here, believe it or not. Although, they are out of lettuce so all the soft taco supremes were missing the whitish-green shredded lettuce they typically have; no big deal, I don't think that adds much nutritional value anyway. We've been sticking in the conference room working most of the afternoon and evening and the rest of the team left to go eat dinner while I stayed behind to get some work done....and type this on the blog. Before dinner we took a few minutes of respite and Mylinka wowed us with a couple of card magic tricks and we shot some photos. I think we realized that we had a lot of pictures of things, but not many of us actually being here. So, here are a couple pics of us.

Sunday Morning

Here is our team: bright and early on a Sunday morning...well, not early really, but very bright.

Take care of your Mom's and grandma's today and make them feel extra special. We have 2 mom's on our team here and although we can't take them out for a fancy dinner here, I think we may go to the Turkish Restaurant on base.

Happy Mothers Day, Mom!

Saturday 12 May 2007

Not much going on for us this Saturday night. We had more meetings and site visits today. We met some really good people today handling some of the operations. It's really good to meet people who are really trying hard and want to do a good job (and are not here just because "it's good money").



There was just the noise of the fighter jet thrusts overhead for the last minute as I'm typing this. It is so cool to hear them, but maybe if I lived here longer it would get old. However, I am pretty fascinated by them and I don't know if I would ever get tired of seeing them in the skies.



I forgot my camera in my room otherwise I would post a picture from today, instead here is a picture of Al Faw Palace in Baghdad that I took about 1.5 weeks ago.

11 May 2007

Last night I went to bed pretty late (early in the morning). I creeped into the room I'm sharing with my two team mates, changed in the dark and pulled myself like a cat up to the top bunk. Luckily it's a wooden bunk bed so it doesn't creek and squeak. I crawled under the covers so exhausted and as soon as I did all I could hear was deep, loud jet blast overhead. It seemed like it lasted for a few minutes, but my exhaustion blurred my sense of time. I think it only lasted a few seconds and was then followed by a second one. In that foggy state of mind I couldn't distinguish if the sound was of a fighter taking off or of a projectile overhead. I remember moving closer to the edge of my bunk and surveying the floor below planning my landing stance if I had to take cover. What a crazy thing to have to think about, but when you're over here, you have to be aware of the possibility.

We had more meetings today. This morning Mylinka and I tried to get some coffee and Grean Bean and we were denied when we walked in and were told the power was out and the coffee machines couldn't function. What a shame.

It actually rained a little bit today and it was cooler than usual, although somewhat windy and overcast. What this means is that it was probably only 100 degrees today instead of the 110+ degrees that it has been. We welcomed the respite from the pounding sun rays...especially when we ride in the back of the pick up truck.

On another note, our living trailers are pretty nice. We have to walk through gravel about 200 feet to the shower trailer and pretty much the same distance to the toilet trailer. Although it's cumbersome at first, you get used to having to get dressed just to get to the shower. You also get used to showering with flip flops on, not shaving, getting dust on your flip-flopped feet as you walk back from the shower, and just simplyifing your morning routine. It's all about function and time efficiency. There's no room for excess over here, and one finds a much higher priority in sleeping a couple of extra minutes than performing non-essential grooming. It's always a culture shock to go from this mode of operations back to the corporate life in Atlanta; wearing high heels, putting make up on, and walking through a stone-tiled office building to arrive at my cube. I like both, but can only take so much of either at a time.

Wed 9 May

We had a brief today which went well. The team got to check out the air traffic control tower and see a few fighters take off along with a few cargo planes land and take off. The control tower visit is always a highlight when the runway is active.

We were invited to have dinner at the facilities of a Turkish contractor on base. They had quite a spread for us. The menu was chicken kebab and lamb with flat breat and two tomato accents for the meat. Although I'm not much of a lamb eater, it was quite delicious. We had Turkish Baklava and chai tea for dessert. Delicious. (That's me on the left in the blue shirt.)

The young man waiting on us looked so young and was very efficient and on top of his game. I wondered where he was from and if this was just a temporary job and if he would be able to go back to his home country and go to college. I was very impressed with him and my impression of him was that he was very quiet, smart and did his job well. You could just see his desire to do well in every way he performed his job; he was just so meticulous. His uniform was starched white and it looked like he had just gotten his hair trimmed. I wondered what he would be doing now if he had been born into a family in the States. I doubt that he would be in Iraq serving food in a Turkish dining room to foreign contractors like me. Sometimes I focus on people who would normally fall into the background of daily life. I mean that I don't know if anyone at that table was wondering about this young man or really could even describe what he looked like. For some reason, I just got to thinking about how different our lives are.

On the way back to the office we thought we were going to be able to see some Jackals, which I guess are kind of like a cross between a fox and a dog...well, i don't know what they are really other than they are considered a pest. Anyway, I can't describe what they are since we didn't see anything.

Tuesday 8 May

More meetings and more hot weather. It feels like we eat every 2 hours because we always seem to be at the DFAC. I think that the days just go by quickly with meetings. Well, that and b/c we're at the DFAC probably every 4 hours, which is actually prett often. THere's not much to do out here other than work so an outing to the DFAC proves to be a nice excursion and a diversion from the day.

I've heard several people over here say they felt the same way about mealtimes....that it's something to do and somewhere to go so it becomes something by which you truly plan your day. I think about how many meals I've skipped and how many I just work through back home during a normal workday. Back home it sometimes becomes a nuisance and here it is such an event. It's the little things like that that I guess make the time pass quicker.

The helicopter pad at the hospital it near us so we hear the choppers go overhead several times per day. Every time I hear them it makes me stop and think...I hope that they are just doing exercise runs and not actually going out to pick someone up. Seeing the medical choppers (especially land at a hospital) really makes you stop any conversation and pause.

Monday 7 May

Well, I think I took my last load of laundry out of the dryer at 2:44 a.m. Chris fell asleep sitting up in the tv area and I fell asleep with my head down on a table by the dryers. I woke up just before the last dryer cycle finished.

We had a cool airfield tour this morning. This is typically my favorite part of my work. I got to see some fighters take off, which is always so exciting to me. It never gets old.

In the past hour we've had three announcements over the loud speaker about receiving Indirect Fire Attacks, all clear, all clear, all clear. We're just sitting here in the conference room working away on our wireless internet connections and then we hear "all clear." Crazy.

We are all well other than being a little dusty and hot.

Bunker tour

Friday 4 May, continued
Chris and I ended up sitting in a terminal at BIAP for a few hours into the early hours of the morning. Would you believe that there was wireless computer access! Crazy. It's hard to get wireless at most of the bases we've been to, but at the terminal they have it. The purpose of this trip was to meet 3 of our co-workers (Mylinka, Karen and Heyward), and our client escort at another Iraq base. All 3 team members are from our Atlanta office so it was nice to see some familiar faces.

Saturday 5 May.
Chris and I arrived at the new base at about 4:30 in the morning, then about an hour later we found transient tents to stay in until about 8:30 when we woke up. At that point we rolled out of cots to go find the team who had arrived just a couple of hours before we had. The weather is also very hot and dry here (about 100 degrees). We acquainted ourselves with another dining facility at lunch. The food is pretty much the same at every DFAC in Iraq.
After lunch we went back to the office and got our first introduction to the inside of a bunker. We were working away in the office when we heard the warning over the loud speaker and all scurried outside underneath the concrete “C” bunker. It was pretty crazy to have to react to this kind of situation. Unfortunately, as we found out from our bunker roommates (some officers from the base hospital), this is pretty standard operating procedure. A few minutes later, we heard the “all clear” and about 10 of us emerged from the bunker into daylight. About an hour later we were all in the pick up truck driving around (Chris and I were in the back of the pick up), when we heard another warning over the speaker system. Our driver had not yet stopped the car fully when Mylinka opened the door and jumped out and Chris and I literally jumped off of the back of the truck to find cover. I ran to my left behind some concrete barriers with Mylinka a few steps behind, while the rest of the team ran to the right behind a sand bag wall. Mylinka and I were sitting next to each other and at that exact point I quickly became overwhelmed with emotion and my eyes started tearing up. I didn’t cry, the moment was just intense for me and lots of thoughts were running through my head. I just couldn’t’ believe what my team and I just had to react to, that we had to literally “take cover” just in case. It is so different from my world back home...so foreign to have to react to this. A few minutes later we were back in the truck and people were walking around conducting normal business without even flinching. I flinched. I flinched and wondered why people were threatening the base on a daily basis, why it had to become normal operating procedure to identify close-by bunkers and duck under cover, why I had to jump behind a bunker. I don’t know the answer, but the folks who live and work here seem used to it. They’re not complacent; they are just used to it. It was a dose of reality for us who had newly arrived.
We continued the afternoon with a meeting, a short driving tour and a stop at the Green Bean to get some coffee. Here’s a photo op we took advantage of; from Right to Left you’ll see Chris, Heyward, Mylinka, me, Karen, and then 2 client representatives.
Going on less than 3 hours of sleep we wrapped up the day at midnight eating dinner (pizza hut). We went back to our trailers and I got on my top bunk. Mylinka was on the bottom bunk and Karen and our client shared the 2nd bunk bed in the room. Right after we turned the lights out I mentioned that I felt like I was at summer camp. It’s been a long while since I’ve shared a room with other girls on bunk beds. Well, I take that back, the lodging here in Iraq has included various tents filled with bunk beds or cots shared with numerous women. Maybe it’s just that I knew these women and that made it like camp because we talked and interacted instead of sharing a room with a bunch of strangers.

Sunday 6 May. We started our day with a meeting, ate lunch, had another meeting, went back to the office and had another meeting, ate dinner, went back and worked and then brewed some coffee with bugs in it. No, Mylinka made a fresh cup of coffee at about 10 pm and a bug flew in it right after. Chris posed for this picture. We took a short field trip to the Base Exchange where Chris ambushed me and sprayed me with about 3 good sprays of Jovan Musk for Men. Don’t ask me why he thought that would be fun to do. My nose is still burning from the potent scent on my clothes. I had to do laundry anyway so now I’m sitting in the self-help laundromat doing laundry at 1:15 am. I hope the clothes dry soon so I can get to bed.

Here’s a picture of Mylinka and me today. We were sitting in the back of the pick up as we drove back to our CHUs...the dust billowing out from the back of the tires.

Relocated office

Friday 4 May.
It is so hot over here. It feels kind of like an oven, although there is typically a very slight breeze that you can count on every few minutes which mitigates the burning. I can’t bear the thought that it gets even hotter.

While at Victory, we are squatting in a meeting area so we have to vacate every once in a while when someone actually has a meeting to run. Here’s a picture of us in our relocated, temporary office...a picnic table just outside the building. Thank goodness it had overhead cover and protection from the sun. One thing I’ll say about our teams doing this kind of work over here: I have been very impressed by our ability to adapt and work around unconventional challenges. It definitely takes a certain kind of personality to be able to handle the challenges of working over here and keep on keeping on...and still maintain a positive attitude. I think this is something Chris and I have learned from our boss, Mike G, who takes challenges in stride and tackles them with a smile.

Late night jog

On Monday, Chris H. and I saw Chuck and Chris K. off for their long journey home. I was kind of sad to see them go, but happy that it meant going home to comfortable beds and sand-free air to breathe. So, now it was down to two of us...the partners in crime.

Tuesday we mapped out our way forward for the next week and had a day to just do some work instead of going to meetings.

Wednesday we worked more and ended up going to get coffee in the middle of the afternoon. We wisely got iced coffees so as not to add to the outdoor radiant temperature of about 100 degrees. We had a good conversation about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. On a side note pertaining to the heat, the folks at the Dept of Public Works here have been really great to us to allow us to use some of their air conditioned work space, so we only suffer when we're doing important stuff like walking to the dining facility or to get coffee or to pick up our laundry.

Thursday, today, I had no idea what day it was until I asked Chris. It 's weird how you feel like you're in a time vaccuum over here because every day is a work day and there are no things like days off or holidays. We got coffee again in the afternoon and then made a phone call to our good friend and co-worker, Wazza, who's working nearby and happens to be a Kiwi. Here's a tip on the term Kiwi: In case you have never been corrected by a New Zealander, a Kiwi is a reference to a person. If you want to discuss the brown fruit with a green inside, you have to refer to that as a kiwi fruit. I'm just forewarning all of you. Wazza is a super guy and we're lucky to have him on our team.

Later in the day, Chris bugged me enough that he convinced me to go work out. I was on a roll at working and really didn't want to go, but I finally gave up. Chris is a former West Point Army Ranger, Diver, Sapper, Airborne Captain (I'm sure I forgot something else), so he can be pretty stubborn about completing his mission...in this case it was getting me to work out. Anyway, we did a little jog/walk around the Al Faw Lake. Realistically I would say I set the pace at a granny-shuffle most of the way. Chris graciously stayed with me, however I think he tried to make me flinch as he led me to this road that ended up smelling like vomit. No, he didn't do it on purpose...or at least he acted surprised about the stink. When I started sniffing the air and mentioned it reminded me of vomit, Chris coined it Vomit Alley Road. I had to stop I was giggling so hard. He had no idea what the smell was, but noted that we were probably runnning through an industrial area and that we couldn't be picky about our jogging trail.

After this rough patch, we came to the lake. It looked really, really pretty at night with the dim lights reflecting on the calm waters. Every so often we'd here gun fire echoing in the distance and I'd ask Chris if that was real, already knowing what the answer would be, but hoping he'd say it was from training or something. We also saw some pretty cool views of helicopters flying across the sky; their silhouettes contrasting well with the night sky glowing from the full moon. The reflecting water was so pretty, but the choppers clearly reminded me of where we were. There are some interesting sights to see here and we're so busy when we're here that often I don't consciously think of where I am. Quite often I have to remind myself that I am in Baghdad...in Iraq. It's important not to forget that.

After the granny-shuffle jog we went to the gym and did some upper body weightlifting. We followed that off with a stop at the Dining Facility to catch something to eat at midnight chow; 24/7 operations over here, so there's chow in the middle of the night.

The last couple of days haven't been as hectic as usual and that has really been a blessing.

wastewater portrait and ham

Saturday 28 April 2007. We took a driving tour of the base and didn’t see too many exciting things. However, when we saw this wastewater pond under construction we asked our tour guide to halt the brakes so we could jump out, take a closer look and snap some photos. Yeah, our day-to-day lives and our work over here changes our perspective of what “cool” and “exciting” is. This especially struck me when I was thinking what to write about; I thought to myself “Oh man, this is pretty bad.” Then I thought, I’ll throw in a picture to make it more exciting....yeah, I’m just kidding, the picture won’t really help, but I’m including it anyway since I was glad I got a good shot.

Sunday 29 April, 2007. We are back at Victory Base Complex in Baghdad and met up with 2 more of our team members: Chris K. and Chris H, who both work with me in Atlanta. It was good to see them again and to add more folks to our dinner conversations. It was pretty sandy and overcast today so when we took Chuck around I felt bad that he wasn’t getting the best views of the Al Faw Palace and the lakes. Chuck was just happy that he got his photo taken on “the chair” in the Al Faw Palace; his mission was complete. Check out this very hammy picture of him. He’s a really fun guy, a good planner, has a kindred coffee addiction like mine, and has a contagious laugh. Getting to know him better has been a really good perk from this trip.

Monday 30 April, 2007. The weather cleared up a lot from Sunday and it got pretty hot, about 94 degrees. We had a good briefing today. Afterwards we went to the roof of the Palace and took a couple of pics. Here’s a pretty fun one of us that starts to show the relief after having completed another milestone for the trip (L to R: Chuck, Chris H, me, Chris K). This work has been made 100 times better by having truly great people to work with (many of whom weren't on this trip, but were on the first trip in February.) We worked a bit more and then went to the edge of the lake to watch the sun set and talk a little bit. When I closed my eyes and listened to the water it kind of felt a little bit like I was on a pier in [insert any place other than Iraq]. Of course, that feeling is short-lived when you pay attention to the other sounds around.

More: Sat 28 April

We were given a tour of some of the gardens in Camp F. Apparently the geese in the ponds are quite friendly and will talk to you in their goose language if you speak to them first. I was very surprised that the base was very jungle-like with palm trees and flowering bushes. It was still pretty dusty, but the scenery was pretty nice.

Here's another picture of me with Chuck. Chris Hurst (my coworker said I should add it to my portfolio for my future career in the State Department.)