Hot, Dirty, and Inconvenient *Edit with Audio*

It’s time for me to update my family with Iraqi going-ons.  Some of this you may have heard me mention, but most you haven’t.  Enjoy!

What day is it again?  Thursday?  I’ve been here in Baghdad long enough now that I have no concept of time.  Weekends are absolutely meaningless, and day and nighttime hours meld seemlessly together.  I don’t sleep much — not because I have trouble sleeping, but because I am determined to maintain some shred of a social life at this camp.  I’ve joined the ranks of my colleagues and become quite the caffeine junkie.  The coffee pot steams twenty-four hours a day, and I’ve made the discovery of a lifetime… Jolt chewing gum.  Two pieces have the same amount of eyelid lifting energy as a cup of joe.  Brilliant.

I’ve made a few new friends since first arriving in Iraq.  We often meet at the twenty-four hour coffee shop across from my hooch for a late night latte.  The boys puff on fine cigars, and Sunny and I take to people watching.  Friday and Saturday nights tend to be especially entertaining.  Last weekend, a group of soldiers sat around a picnic table with a large pad of paper and a marker playing Pictionary.  Two men played basketball with a rock and a metal bucket, and camera flashbulbs light up the night as friends took seemingly happy photos to send home to their families.  A female contractor, dressed to kill and prancing around in red heels, met a charming man at the coffee counter for a blatantly obvious attempt at a first date.

The longer I’m here, the more I also value and enjoy time spent with people I care about.  On more than one occasion, I’ve sat outside in the wee, cooler hours of the morning as a friend played song after song on the accoustic he had shipped from home.  I can’t help but notice how entertaining such a simple gesture has become.  Even when he picks a song he doesn’t know too well and fumbles over the chords, I think I could sit and listen all night.  I don’t think about the TV show I might be missing.  I don’t wonder where my phone is because someone important might call.  I don’t stress about being out too late or think that I should probably be on my way home.  Those things don’t matter out here.  No, out here, I can listen to the strings, watch his fingers play the melody, and really, truly enjoy it.  Out here, I get it.  I now realize how often we all take loved ones, modern conveniences, and life itself for granted.  It’s probably the most valuable lesson I will learn on this trip.

It’s become increasingly hot and dry.  The temperature rises a little more each day.  I liken the feeling of walking outside from an air conditioned trailer to that of sticking your head in a super hot oven to monitor a roasting turkey.  It’s seriously hot enough to melt my mascara and fuse my eyelashes together.  I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut on windy days, as well.  One afternoon of gritty teeth was exciting enough for me.  At the end of particularly hazy, breezy days, I stand outside my room to unroll the cuff of my pants and shake out the dirt and sand that’s accumulated there.  Though the sun had already sank beyond the horizon as I left work last night, the temperature was still in the triple digits.  I caught a ride home rather than walk in the stifling, suffocating heat.  I immediately headed to the latrines for a shower, which I seem to be doing more frequently these days.  It’s so arrid and hot outside that, though I left with it dripping wet, my hair was almost dry by the time I walked through the front door of my room.

The bugs here are horrendous.  I’ve had no choice but to get over my irrational fear of spiders since I’m certain several of the bites covering my legs are from the little, eight-legged monsters.  Military issued insect repellant doesn’t do a damn bit of good, but fortunately, the mosquitoes here are dumb and slow.  I’ve taken an immense amount of pleasure in swatting the annoying pests with our electric flyswatter, which is quite possibly the best thing since sliced bread.  We’ve named our little toy the CIDNE Debugger, CIDNE being the name of our software.  I, at least, know my brother will get that joke.  Sunny and I also, apparently, have a furry friend sneaking into our room late at night.  I keep a box of sealed granola bars on the bottom shelf of my nightstand, and you can imagine my surprise yesterday morning to find one half eaten.

Tomorrow we’re under a forced measure of protection from 1100-1600.  No SUVs are allowed on the streets, and considering that’s all my company owns, I doubt we’ll be travelling anywhere.  It also means that everyone is required to wear body armor, including helmet, when outside.  No one will be permitted into the chow hall without it, and even then, there will be no sit down lunches — to go plates only.  I have a feeling that one of us will be making a Pizza Hut run just before the measure goes into effect.  I asked one coworker the point of the exercise, and he responded, "It’s to remind us that we’re in a war and that war should be hot, dirty, and inconvenient."

Baghdad has recently been a flurry of insurgent activity.  At sun down, flares light up the sky all around the camp, and I can often catch a whiff of gunpowder on my way home.  While visiting a friend on the north side of the camp, two recent, late night explosions were close enough to rattle the building and draw us out into the night air.  We perched ourselves in the middle of the gravel road, inhaling deeply in search of the familiar, burning scent, and other tenants began trickling out of their rooms.  We stood there for a half hour, surveying the clear, star-dusted sky as a blacked out Apache flew overhead.  That same night, as Sunny headed back to our trailer from the latrines, a stray bullet whizzed in front of her.  She stopped in her tracks just as it ricocheted several times before hitting her in the arm.  Of course, it had already lost most of its momentum so it only burned her.  She’s decided it still qualifies as getting shot.

A couple of days ago, I was startled from my work by what sounded like a machine gun followed by what I can only describe as a long string of popping firecrackers multiplied by a hundred.  My coworkers all looked up from their desks, wide-eyed and grinning, and we filed outside.  John climbed on top of the Mitsubishi diesel to survey the sky, and Kevin began laughing and clapping his hands as he pointed out the Predator flying through the trail of white smoke in the air.  For the first time since I’ve been here, the C-RAM (Counter Rocket Artillery and Mortar) phalanx fired.  As the remnants of the incoming mortar disintegrated and fell from the sky, the gathering crowd began punching their fists toward the sky and cheering.  You could hear other engineers chanting, "Whoo-hoo!  That’s our program!"  It’s still hard for me to believe that I’m a part of this, that the work I’m doing here is helping to save lives.

Cheers,
Felina

 *Edit*

After doing a little searching online, I found the journal of a freela

nce reporter named Michael Yon in Iraq.  He recorded an audio clip earlier this month (May 3rd) of a C-RAM phalanx firing.  You can listen to it here.  Turn the volume all the way up, and it’s you still cannot grasp how loud it sounds in person.  The sound that I described as firecrackers popping (at the end of the clip) is the ammunition exploding.  It automatically explodes after a certain amount of time in the air so as not to destroy land if it misses its target.