Today’s bombs were very close – just behind Camp Prosperity which is across the street and west about a kilometre or two. My colleagues working at the Baghdad PRT are based there and came to the DFAC here on the NEC for lunch instead of going back to Prosperity. Tonight things are still burning and the air is heavy with the acrid smoke of god knows what all is being consumed by the conflagration. The fire is so close by that hot winds are blowing the smoke quickly to us before it has a chance to rise up in the air and a 500 metre wide swath across the compound is thick with it – so intense in some parts it made my eyes sting walking through it.
The regular air temperature tonight at 10pm is 99/37. It is a strange feeling to be walking through stinking smoke and have the air as hot as it is when you are standing too close to a campfire or standing in front of the exhaust pipe of a bus on a hot August day in New York City. The sensation is something like I imagine Shadrak, Meshak and Abednego were feeling. If you don’t know those names… they were a couple of blokes in the bible that got thrown into a fiery furnace – big enough to walk around in – and emerged unscathed – indeed un-singed – thanks to God of course.
Diwaniyah is one of the poorer and more conservative provinces in Iraq. All the women wear abaya (the full body black cloaks) when they are in public, and most of the librarians wore it inside during the day long trainings – presumably because there were men in the room. One of the local young women who works at the PRT as an interpreter and translator is a fireball – full of energy and a zest for living that is amazingly American for someone from such a conservative culture. It is hugely dangerous for her to work for us and every morning and every night she takes a couple of cars and taxis to get to us in order to shake the people who frequently follow her and want to harass or kill her or both. But still she comes to work each day. While most women do not wear the full face covering (the boo-shee-ah), our colleague does so that nobody will recognize her. One day while I was there (stuck there for additional three days because dust storms prevented flights) she agreed to dress me in her scarf/hijab, abaya and bushia so that I could understand more accurately what her life was like. Below is a photo essay of the experience:
It was hot and dark and very hard to see. But let it not be said that it was unattractive. Within minutes of my transformation I already had a suitor. 🙂 One of the other translators, Salah, an absolutely delightful man (like so many of the folks at the Diwaniyah PRT), whose heritage is Sudanese I believe, also dressed up and these photos of the two of us are among my most treasured from my time in Iraq thus far.
There are more photos from my Diwaniyah trip in my Facebook account – including photos of the PRT and CHUs and “Hanna’s Cabana” – an area that Hanna decorated in the PRT CHUville, complete with a small pool and fountain! And photos of the librarians we trained and the central library in Diwaniyah, which has so few books it is tragic. But I was impressed with their primitive cataloguing system nevertheless. The first day of the training was tough, with none of the 30+ librarians talking or commenting or asking questions at all. But by the second day, they had loosened up and really got some creative thinking going and I feel like maybe together we generated a little bit of hope for the future. That was way cool, and why I love my job so much.
The best part was on the second day, our military guys took a wrong turn and got stuck going through this narrow market street in their giant humvees. We were going really really slowly because the hummers were too wide and people had to move their tables of fish and fruit and stuff. But it was great to be that close to people (albeit from inside an armored vehicle) and I spent 20 minutes waving to Iraqis who all but a few gave huge smiles in return and waved right back. Apparently the first hummer was not so well received and knocked a few carts and subsequently got some fish thrown at them… But my exchanges were all about the love! 🙂
Oh yeah, and it is getting hotter. I finally got back to Baghdad and all week it has been topping out at about 49-50C/120-122F
Okay, I am officially ten degrees (F) hotter than I have ever been in my entire life. It is 45C/113F. No. Strike that. I am currently five degrees cooler than I have ever been in my life. I just learned that yesterday it was 118F – yes, 118F (47C). I can be forgiven for the error because, well, once you get over 110/44 it all just seems the same – like walking around in an oven, or, as my friend Jackie likes to say about the windy days – like someone turned on about 72,000 hair dryers right next to the compound.
There are no permanent buildings here at the Basrah PRT (Provincial Reconstruction Team) – only CHUs (Container Housing Units) and trailers. And all the offices and CHUs for long-term staff are under hard cover (roof that will withstand bomb) so it is like being underground in a rabbit warren. Here are some photos:
The Public Diplomacy Office
My walk home to my CHU
Have been having a technologically challenged week here in Basrah. In addition to the expected molasses of State department internet when I’m away from my base in Baghdad, I have discovered that for all its joys my Mac does NOT render Arabic properly. This was a HUGE inconvenience which basically meant that I had to do my presentations in English, or without images which made the file too big to email to a Windows PC that has Arabic loaded properly (I couldn’t use a flash drive to get it onto State department computers because we can’t use removable devices on those machines for security reasons), ugh. Oh wait, I started that sentence with “in addition to…” so what else? My Blackberry has been seizing up every day and I have to remove the battery in order to get it synching again. And horror upon horrors… my hair dryer shorted out.
Now let me talk about the hair dryer for a second. Most of you who know me know that I haven’t owned a hair dryer in at least 20 years, if not more. But the fantastic haircut I got in Thailand really inspired me for the first time. When I got back to Baghdad there were no hair dryers at the P/X so I ordered one online. Then Aida reminded me that it would probably be 110 volts and not 220 for Iraq and it would probably blow up when I plugged it in. She had two 220v dryers and so she gave me one of hers.
So for the past two weeks I’ve been looking quite beautiful with my blown dry style. The second day here in Basrah the thing starts sparking and smoking and getting so hot I can’t hold it. I drop it and listen to it sizzle itself to death. I’m totally dismayed. In only two weeks I got used to the new me and now I am devastated. 😦 It’s good though. Very humbling.
Sessions with 30 librarians yesterday and today were really great. I so wish I could bring more Americans here to meet these people and get to know what they are really like. They are so interesting. Especially the women. So lively and energetic and full of hope and humour – at least the ones I have met. Brilliant colors and flash jewelry under their obayas (long black coverings they wear on the streets).
Today we were discussing copyright and getting permissions for materials used in digital libraries. So here they are giving me the thumbs up that it is okay for me to use photos of them on the US Embassy website:
I think that we learned a lot from each other, but I suspect they liked the ice cream in the DFAC most of all! They cleaned us out! Here is me with a couple my colleagues:
Where the Wombats Are 