Good morning (or evening - depending upon where you are...) I hope you had a good week. And greetings from Umm Qasr... (Umm Qasr: which I believe is Arabic for "so hot you can fry an egg on the sidewalk - and probably slow roast a water buffalo over the hood of an old car at the same time")
Okay, every one needs an "off-day" correct? Well, the excellent local contractor that I have working for me had an "off-day". Here is what happened - I asked them to come and demolish this old tank (a BIG one) and it had a LOT of concrete in it. Well, they demolished it - and all of this concrete rubble was put off to the side where they could eventually haul it away. I have an "old" photo of what the tank looked like before they started work.
So, this guy shows up in this little tractor - pulling a little junky trailer. Now remember, we are ENCOURAGING local guys working here.... so this guy shows up and delivers several bags of cement and some sand... okay - and they load him up with rubble. The guy starts up his tractor to take off and "BAM" - his trailer is so overloaded, the axle broke right off of the trailer and the bed hit the wheels.
So, they unload the guy - and he starts working on the trailer - and let me tell you - a couple of times, I had to say, "STOP!" as they have no concept of working safely. So, I was worried someone was going to lose something - like a head or an upper torso.... sheesh.
Anyrate, they finally jerry-rig the trailer and the guy limps out of the compound - at about 3 miles an hour (I think he is still driving home into Umm Qasr as I write this.)
However, I don't want to leave you with the impression that this is how my local guy always works.
So what do you call a CHU that the AC is not working?
A sneeze (Hot-CHU)
What do you call a CHU where you eat?
A train (a Chew CHU)
I have more (kids, you can play this at home as well), but even my grandkids are moaning right now.... so I better stop before I lose you all.
Okay, let me share a quick, funny (funny-weird) thing that happened this week - it kind of illustrates the lunacy of living in a camp with way too many groan (grown) men.
Okay, it is about 8:30 at night - and one of the ‘Terps that works with me, being the nice guy that he is, brings me a falafel for dinner (I love falafels - so I give him a couple of thousand dinari ($2) and he buys them for me over at the Iraqi BX) - so he brings me a couple of falafels but I am done for the night. Okay, no big deal - I will take them over to the fridge in my office (my hootch doesn't have a fridge) and put them in there for tomorrow.
As I said, I am done for the day - so I am in my super hero PJ’s (in case you wanted to know - the super hero pj’s are my favorite and I just got them out of the wash.) So I start walking to the office (proudly - I might add) and I get some "cat-calls" from the British guys (they were being funny - not insulting) but I am sure - seeing a short, bald, overweight guy walking around - in the dark -in his super hero PJ’s - is NOT something you expect to see in a war zone. But, any rate as they make the cat-call - I almost fall over from shock. Let me tell you about the British guys. They LOVE to go up and sunbathe on the top of the CHU’s. I mean, it is well over 100 degrees here - and these guys go up there and lay on a hot tin roof (they bring blankets and lay on those so they don't stick to the roof.)..... but, here is the thing.... the camp management had to ask them to put on clothes - as they were up there in the buff..... uck. So NOW some of them go up there in.... you guessed it..... thongs (double uck!)
Talk about your culture shock.... yech.
What is worse is - when I was doing over-watch of one of the projects - I would have to stand in one of the guard towers to oversee all of the locals working - and I got WAY too much of a view of the "White Cliffs of Dover" - if you know what I mean. (BTW, there were several other "references" I could have used here. But in honor of the "Royal Wedding" I won't use them... but know this..... there were some good ones.) Any rate, back to what I was saying - so these guys have the "nerve/gall/whatever" to cat-call ME for wearing some cool-looking PJ’s???
Please....
And NO... I did NOT take photos of the guys sunbathing.... and if I accidentally did, I would break the camera with a sledge hammer, burn the SD card, mix the remains in with some concrete and throw it to the bottom of the sewer pit..... just in case you were wondering.
As I have (hopefully) mentioned before - I am getting to do some real in-depth-type engineering stuff. I am one of the true "degreed" engineers over in this little part of the country, so I am asked my opinion or to evaluate stuff quite a bit. (Definitely doesn't mean I am smarter than anyone else - it mostly means I can usually come to some type of logical conclusion about something...but we are out here in the boonies of Iraq and so we are on our own quite a bit.) But truthfully, this is probably the most fun I have over here - that and when I get to design stuff.
So any rate, the big guy over here looked at a new pier wall and saw it was rusting. Well, to make a long story short, I have to get on a boat and go look at the rust - and determine if it is a problem or not. Now for me, that is the cool part. So I go talk to the Coast Guard - they have these cool little boats that can get into these small areas and I can look at the rust spots. Sweeeeet.
However.... one little problem. I have to gear up when I get on the boat. That means I will have to wear my flak jacket and helmet (about 50 - 60 lbs. of additional weight) while I am on the boat. It's hard to WALK in that stuff, how am I supposed to swim?? And then, I have to lean out over the boat, touch the rust (yep - ya gotta do that) and try to take a photo.... and do you know how "choppy" that water gets? Well, I didn't tell Jeanette because I didn't want her to worry. But the night before, I met with the USCG to go over their plans for the next day - I told them - I can swim good - but I can't swim in all of that gear. For the first time since I have been here, I was worried.
But you know what happened? One of the Coast Guard guys leans over to me and he says (very calmly), "Don't worry - I got you." So the next day, I am in all my gear - and we get on the boat and they give me this little "floaty" thing.
The guy gets in the boat and asks me if I am ready. I was. Then he says,"I told you.... don't worry...... I got you. Anything happens, I know exactly what to do." Well, the guy was by my side the entire time. We went to the pier wall - and several times, I had to turn around and lean out and touch the wall - and get photos.
He said, "We train to sink to the bottom, take off our gear, and then we would pull you up."
"But the water is like milk - it is so silty and nasty - you can't see through it - how would you know where I was?"
"Any time you moved, I had my hand on you. If you would have fallen towards the water, I am trained to jump in before you. I had my hand on your strap so I always would know where you’re at - even under water. You might have panicked a bit as we were going down, but I would have brought you back up before any thing bad would have happened. I told you.... don't worry..... I got you."
Huh.. How cool is that? Do I really need to say more??
And with that...... my email time once again, dear friend - has come to an end. As always, I love hearing from you - feel free to write anytime about anything. I miss you all - I am trying my best to make a difference, to represent this great country of ours, to make you all proud, and of course, to share my adventure. I hope you are enjoying the trip as much as I am.... and more than anything else - I hope you can hear someone say to you this week, "….don't worry... I got you...."
God Bless America
Wade "Mr. Wide"
مهندس واد بروير
No comments:
Post a Comment