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.