Week 16 - My Week In Iraq

Good morning (or evening – depending upon where you live).

Greetings from Umm Qasr (Umm Qasr, which I believe is Arabic for “Earth, Wind and Fire – not just a 70’s band – but tomorrow’s FORECAST!!”)

And in case you got on Facebook and couldn’t figure out what this is…. this is the water heater to my room. And there is no trick photography…. that is the actual size. Guess how long of a hot shower I can take in the winter? And just realize, in some cases this is “shared” between 8 guys (both showers and sinks.)

Anyway, I hope that you have had a good, fun, and productive week. Over here in the “big sandbox” we have been doing all kinds of fun things. First, the weather has been a nice “balmy” 115-120’s (sometimes, we just use Celsius because 50 degrees sounds way colder than 115.) The great thing is that now, not only has the wind picked up even more - BUT - the humidity is on the rise. One day, it was just a dry heat. Then the next day, it was like living in a sauna – except it doesn’t smell that good… I have literally walked out the door and my shirt has imme-diately stuck to my body with sweat.

That’s the great thing about being in the southern part of Iraq – the weather sucks SO BAD – that even the food in the DFAC doesn’t taste…that…ba…..okay – never mind. Even I can’t be that positive.

Okay, so it has been one of those weeks where I have either sat in the office and “fought the battle of Umm Qasr with the bureaucrats in Baghdad” or I have been out at a Waste Water Treatment Plant that caught fire - trying to get that fixed (long story) – so one of my very good friends back at home suggested that I do a “Day In The Life Of – Mr. Wide”. Now, I can’t completely capture everything – as my day can be as varied as – sit in the office and do designs – or meet with the Minister of Defense - or riding in an MRAP to tour a General or Admiral around– or to stick my head inside a sewer. So I will just hit some of my routines – my living conditions and what my day is like. I hope you enjoy spending the day with me.

First, I like to get up early – so I rise from my bed around 0430, get up, shave, brush my teeth and get dressed. I usually wear my cargo pants and a button-up-the-front, long sleeve shirt – and of course – the gun and “the hat.”

Mr. Wide’s living hootch – from right to left –

my Iraqi easy chair, my desk, the tv, the “cot”

(look closely and you will see the superhero pjs),

the wardrobe  and my little fridge.

All of this is my little slice of Iraqi heaven.

I am lucky that I am a senior civilian (NOT senior CITIZEN….) – and I get my own “hootch” and I have my own private bathroom. Many people live 4 to a room – and have to leave their rooms to take a shower and go potty….plus, I just recently received a new ac unit. I also have satellite tv and computer access (both at my own expense) – but I have it pretty good as far as accommodations. Although I really don’t use the tv that much because I usually spend most of my awake hours in the office. My “commute” is about 100 paces – down a gravelly walkway.

Some things can blossom ANYWHERE!!!

Things I see on my morning commute.

On Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday – I go get my laundry first thing – and drop off the dirty laundry (it takes two days to get the laundry back and of course, Fridays is a “holy day” so they don’t pick up or deliver laundry on that day.)

The laundry used to be thrown in a large bin and

I would need to crawl around to find it.

I changed to shelves – easier to find your laundry….

The “laundry service” is pretty simple – I put the laundry into a bag and it comes back clean and folded. Of course, their version of folded is pretty close to my version of “wadded up into a ball right after it comes out of the dryer – so it has more wrinkles than Phyllis Diller at 85.” But, hey, it is a service. Think of it like the DFAC - it has food. Just not good food.  And we have laundry service. Just not good laundry service. But – like my mother used to tell me - I am sure there are civil servants over in China going without laundry – so I will just smile and be happy.

Notice my dress shirt?  This is the “folding service” that we

pay extra for…..nothing like quality, eh?  

FYI, no underwear was shown in this photo……editor

Now, I usually get into the office about 0530 or 0600 and it is (most of the time) quiet – so I get myself a cup of coffee and slowly go through the emails and read them. About 0800 Myles (Navy Captain Myles Esmele – my “brother from another mother”) comes in and we discuss the day.

Myles was offered a bigger and more comfortable office (and I could then keep this one to myself) – but we both refused. We have a BLAST together. Myles loves the Iraqi people (and they love him) – and all of the interpreters and local engineers love to come and visit us in the morning.

Hopefully, one of the locals will bring in some Samoon (the Iraqi Flatbread). We usually have the (warm and fluffy) flatbread for breakfast. The bread is absolutely cheap over here – so they normally bring us like 10 or so… and of course, we eat it together with the Iraqis - and talk about our day or new projects or our families – or we will try and learn new Arabic words while we are eating (“ana kilish jo-an”… I am very hungry). I like to cut the samoon in half, spread cream cheese or peanut butter and jelly or jam on it – and then fold it back over. This photo shows the samoon with cream cheese and melon jam (out of a can) spread all over it. It is ABSOLUTELY delicious.

And because it is made in Iraq – it has NO CALORIES!! 

So shortly after that, we get on with the day – usually there are meetings with the Iraqis – every Sunday and Thursday we have formal sit-down meetings with the Iraqi leadership. Most of it is in Arabic, so I try and read the slides (I am learning the alphabet) and I try to pick out the words I understand (numbers, other words like “mujare” (sewer) or “karbahay” (electrical) or “my” (water)…things like that). We do have translators, but that is for sissies. C’mon – cowboy up and learn the language.

Part of the “brain trust of Umm Qasr”

Notice Myles standing with his foot on one stair…

he ALWAYS seems to be in the photo….

no wonder he made Captain – they call him “Captain eh- smiley".

After the meetings (I usually drive with Myles to these Command Briefings), we typically take a drive around base – that is important for me – so I can get “eyes on” if there is some problem with the facilities. There are many buildings that have been sitting half-constructed for awhile – these are all projects that the Iraqis have tried to do themselves – and the contractors have gone out of business or gone into default – whatever. But it is important that I know what is going on. We may stop in to chat with some of the local officers (depending upon what happened in the command briefing).

Here is where we met with Captain Lefta and Iraqi Mohandis (engineer) Mohammed at the burnt-out Waste Water Treatment Plant – right after one of our Command Briefings. Just so you know, here it is proper to put the person’s title before their name – so I am “Mohandis Mr. Wade” and I have Mohandis Amjad and Mohandis Fakhri working for me.

So after that, it is typically time to get lunch. Now sometimes, I am lucky enough that I can get the locals to bring me some lunch like timmen wa dejudg (chicken and rice) – but most of the time, I go look for something “pre-packaged” from the DFAC – and if there are leftover samoon – I usually have that for lunch. We also have a large fridge that we keep stocked-up with Gatorade, water, and iced coffees.

After all, we are in Iraq – like the Iraqi people – we like to be generous and offer our “guests” plenty of “love in the form of calories” and let them leave our little office with a full tummy and a happy heart.

Myles and Mr. Wide Jingly Shop LLC – the fridge is stocked full as well. The whole camp is getting to know that we are the place to come for a mid-day snack, cup of tea, and some sound advice from two of the “more experienced” people on the camp

After lunch is the “heat of the day” – and most of the Iraqis are asleep (seriously) – we try and go over there occasionally around 2 or 3 pm and the guards tell us to go away – everyone is asleep. Well, if they ate as much rice and chicken as I typically do, I think it is a good idea that they take a nap – I know I would like to. So then I usually try to take care of designs or do camp stuff in the afternoon – especially if I can stay in the air-conditioned office.

About 4 pm, I will usually break away from the office – and head to the gym and go for a jog. We have to use the treadmill because the sand and wind outside make it very hard to run (and breathe) and the sand gets in your eyes really bad. So I jog on the treadmill for a half hour or so. Then, I go back to the hootch – take a shower (in case I didn’t tell you, we turned off the hot water heaters in May – the cold water is sitting in tanks all day and is warmed by the sun – and that’s how we get hot showers). But I take a nice long 30-second shower – and then I change into shorts and a t-shirt. On Mondays and Fridays, I “skype” with Jeanette for about an hour. On other days, I head back to the office.

About 6 pm, I head off to the DFAC and look for something else “pre-packaged” to eat. (sometimes I feel like the DFAC is run by Larry, Abdul and his other brother Abdul….) If we are lucky, the Iraqi interpreters (or Myles and myself) will host a “dinner” – we have done this 3 or 4 times and it is a hoot. As I have said before, the Iraqis love to laugh and talk and eat…. WHAT IS NOT TO LOVE??? So we have this conference room where we can eat – and learn more Iraqi words – and just create a distraction. 

From right to left (like the Arabic person reads)

Dhiya, Ali, Myles, Mohammed, and your daring adventurer

Look closely and you will see all of that Iraqi bread piled in the middle of the table – notice the chicken ( dejudge), the soup (marug), the torshi (pickled vegetables) and the Kharoof Khabab (sheep kabab) – the chicken was stuffed with timmen (rice - see the photo below). Also you will see below – the large round flat bread called “hobis”. This is similar to a tortilla in texture, but it is sooooo good.

See the chicken – stuffed with rice?
…..ooohhhh what you are missing….

As I said before – there are a lot of “groundhog day” effects – so we are always trying to find distractions to help mark the time.

After dinner, I usually head back to the office and work until 8:30 or 9 pm – so I can finish up the day’s work. Mostly just wrapping up emails or finishing up various items ( this is also when I typically do a lot of my “update” – as I can usually find a funny story or two from the day). Then I head back to the hootch for about ten minutes of television – before falling asleep and starting all over again tomorrow.

The only real variation from the above is my Fridays (again, this is a holy day for the Muslim population) – so most of the time, there is little, if any, work going on. Because of this, Friday is my “down day”. I usually come in, get my Friday cup of coffee (this is the ONE cup of coffee all week long that I put hot chocolate in)…. and I send off my weekly update (usually around 6 am my time). Then I finish up my day in the office around lunch time – and head back to my hootch to watch movies for a couple of hours (maybe take a nap), go for a run around 3 or 4 pm – come back, shower, skype with Jeanette – watch a bit more tv – and get ready to start the week all over again.

One thing I learned when I was in Afghanistan ( and I make zero apologies for it) – is that if you don’t take some down-time during the week (and a lot of folks don’t – which I think is a mistake) – but, if you don’t get that down time – your body can’t refresh – your mind can’t be as creative – and your basic personality starts changing. I have seen it:

Person A walks in: Good Morning Person B! 

Person B: Good morning?? GOOD MORNING??!!?? What do you mean by that??

So I always insist on having at least one afternoon per week to relax and unwind. There you have it…..  I guess it actually sounds a little boring. Maybe you thought it would be like one of those war movies and I would be running from foxhole to foxhole? BTW, there are days when I get to do stuff no civilian would ever typically get to do ( ride in a swift ship, take a ride in an MRAP, fly in a helo, have lunch with a couple of Iraqi Generals, etc.) and believe it or not, those are cool and I try and share those adventures with you – but what I really love is working with the Iraqi Navy and the Iraqi locals. Getting to know them – developing trust and relationships (like any place that I have ever worked) – and let them know that if I say I am going to do something, it will get done, etc. This is my real satisfaction.

So, dear reader and my best friend, that is what “A Day In The Life Of Mr. Wide” is like ( and again, I left out the frantic phone calls, the panic visits, the irritated workers – on and on….). That is my life – has been for the past 15 weeks and probably will be for the next 37 weeks or so. I hope you enjoyed sharing this day with me as much as I have enjoyed sharing it with you. I leave you with just one wish…..
I wish that you could “verb” your day today – no matter where you are. Remember a verb means “action” so – join in the laughter, bask in the good times, smell your clean air, touch your green grass, savor the food you eat, love your family, taste your spouse’s kiss, feel your baby’s tender touch… live your freedoms – all of those things….just “verb” them – especially today…..and then….save the memory for me when next we meet. As those “verbs” are the “nouns” (things) that are most important to me and that I miss the most. So “verb” today with me.
As always……

God Bless America

Wade “Mr. Wide”

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