Snowbirds
This week we had some satellite issues that affected our phones and slowed internet access. Somehow Ken got his pictures to upload, see his link a few frames down, but mine would not go. Ken and I lead twin lives here with different but sometimes interchangeable jobs going on in adjacent provinces. This week he took my seat on a field trip to "my" water plant when my Italian friends took me out to assess three police station rebuilds. We are done rebuilding Iraq until we finish building our database which was woefully out of date. Yuck, I tell kids I play on computers all day and talk to my friends on the phone for a living, but this week I did enough bonding with my computer to last a long time.
Some highlights this week - I received Lynn C's cookies, THANK YOU they were delicious, the crew left me few crumbs. The main office back home talked about chipping in for a bike helmet for me, but mine arrived from home just in time. The school supplies are also in the mail from back home, many thanks to Troop 273 for working on that project and helping to make a difference here for a few lucky kids!
We go out with pencils or candy in our pockets whenever we go into the field or to the visitor contact center in case we stumble on kids. Our interpreter brought his son in this week to see the Italian doctor, who wrote his prognosis out in Italian... which we sent to Naples to be translated into English then into Arabic. I think what it recommended was more tests, just like back home.
Language is a problem for us, but the culture is wildly different causing more problems. The Iraqis are clever at getting things to work when bypassing the problem will get whatever is broken to limp along. They do not do preventative maintenance as a rule. Menial labor of any sort is beneath the educated class, to the point where I'm sure they think I'm nuts for picking up the empty soda cans after a meeting and tossing them. I fear that much of what we do will not last long without maintenance. Iraqis feel rebuilding is a waste of money and everything we build should be new. Lots of meeting time is wrapped around that one. Nobody picks up trash.
The laborer class works very hard, mostly with simple tools for long hours, but not when it rains. Work will stop for any number of reasons, or no reason at all. Suddenly your active worksite is empty for days or weeks at a time. When it rains they huddle in a dry corner of the construction site or don't show up at all. Rain here is treated like snowstorms in New England. Iraqis stay in when they can, and maybe that's smart considering the incredibly sticky mud.
We are working on a hospital rehab where the contractor is trying to redesign a western flat roof to meet low maintenance needs. Everything else from medical gases and air conditioning to elevators is scrutinized by their consultant for the lowest possible maintenance design. Patient rooms occupied only a week before our contractors started demolition work had huge holes in the walls where rolling beds banged into them for lack of bumpers. Central medical gas distribution was abandoned long ago for oxygen tanks in the rooms. The broken sewage treatment plant was abandoned and raw sewage pours out every overflow onto the surrounding grounds, including waste from the surgical suite drains. Imams use the hospitals for their own political purposes and have posters up everywhere. I hope nobody I ever come to know will have to stay in an Iraqi hospital.
Iraqi roofs are amazingly heavy, made of layers of soil over arched brick and capped with meter square concrete tiles that are sealed with a tar they call mastic. Many buildings have staircases to the roof which serves as an open patio, or more commonly, a defensive high ground. Most of the police stations we are rebuilding get corner guard towers and are fortified with 2 or 3 meter high walls. Function over form with warzone considerations over-riding almost every other consideration. I had the dubious honor of being escorted by a Chief of Police through a jail cell occupied by half a dozen very nervous prisoners so I could take room measurements and pictures. The prisoners slept on the concrete floor with blankets and food provided by their families.
We cringed reviewing landscaping requirements put into a recent draft scope of work. This is a "no tolerance for turf" zone, with three ornamentals for the landscape architect to choose from - date palms, tamarisk and willow. The new army bases do have turf parade fields planned, complete with sprinkler systems, but it will be the only grass within 100 miles that is not camel food. Ok, maybe they will graze sheep on it.
I make it out to look for birds at the irrigation pond or at the perpetually burning dump every day I can. Today there were some large killdeer-looking birds at the pond, along with blackwinged stilts, collared doves and crested larks. I expect to see flocks of birds winging north from Africa to Europe soon in their annual migration. Starling flocks blackened the sky this week, but nothing more exotic yet. It has been warming up and soon we'll go from our lovely spring weather to the heat of summer. Don B. tells people he winters in Iraq. I guess that makes us snowbirds.
Some highlights this week - I received Lynn C's cookies, THANK YOU they were delicious, the crew left me few crumbs. The main office back home talked about chipping in for a bike helmet for me, but mine arrived from home just in time. The school supplies are also in the mail from back home, many thanks to Troop 273 for working on that project and helping to make a difference here for a few lucky kids!
We go out with pencils or candy in our pockets whenever we go into the field or to the visitor contact center in case we stumble on kids. Our interpreter brought his son in this week to see the Italian doctor, who wrote his prognosis out in Italian... which we sent to Naples to be translated into English then into Arabic. I think what it recommended was more tests, just like back home.
Language is a problem for us, but the culture is wildly different causing more problems. The Iraqis are clever at getting things to work when bypassing the problem will get whatever is broken to limp along. They do not do preventative maintenance as a rule. Menial labor of any sort is beneath the educated class, to the point where I'm sure they think I'm nuts for picking up the empty soda cans after a meeting and tossing them. I fear that much of what we do will not last long without maintenance. Iraqis feel rebuilding is a waste of money and everything we build should be new. Lots of meeting time is wrapped around that one. Nobody picks up trash.
The laborer class works very hard, mostly with simple tools for long hours, but not when it rains. Work will stop for any number of reasons, or no reason at all. Suddenly your active worksite is empty for days or weeks at a time. When it rains they huddle in a dry corner of the construction site or don't show up at all. Rain here is treated like snowstorms in New England. Iraqis stay in when they can, and maybe that's smart considering the incredibly sticky mud.
We are working on a hospital rehab where the contractor is trying to redesign a western flat roof to meet low maintenance needs. Everything else from medical gases and air conditioning to elevators is scrutinized by their consultant for the lowest possible maintenance design. Patient rooms occupied only a week before our contractors started demolition work had huge holes in the walls where rolling beds banged into them for lack of bumpers. Central medical gas distribution was abandoned long ago for oxygen tanks in the rooms. The broken sewage treatment plant was abandoned and raw sewage pours out every overflow onto the surrounding grounds, including waste from the surgical suite drains. Imams use the hospitals for their own political purposes and have posters up everywhere. I hope nobody I ever come to know will have to stay in an Iraqi hospital.
Iraqi roofs are amazingly heavy, made of layers of soil over arched brick and capped with meter square concrete tiles that are sealed with a tar they call mastic. Many buildings have staircases to the roof which serves as an open patio, or more commonly, a defensive high ground. Most of the police stations we are rebuilding get corner guard towers and are fortified with 2 or 3 meter high walls. Function over form with warzone considerations over-riding almost every other consideration. I had the dubious honor of being escorted by a Chief of Police through a jail cell occupied by half a dozen very nervous prisoners so I could take room measurements and pictures. The prisoners slept on the concrete floor with blankets and food provided by their families.
We cringed reviewing landscaping requirements put into a recent draft scope of work. This is a "no tolerance for turf" zone, with three ornamentals for the landscape architect to choose from - date palms, tamarisk and willow. The new army bases do have turf parade fields planned, complete with sprinkler systems, but it will be the only grass within 100 miles that is not camel food. Ok, maybe they will graze sheep on it.
I make it out to look for birds at the irrigation pond or at the perpetually burning dump every day I can. Today there were some large killdeer-looking birds at the pond, along with blackwinged stilts, collared doves and crested larks. I expect to see flocks of birds winging north from Africa to Europe soon in their annual migration. Starling flocks blackened the sky this week, but nothing more exotic yet. It has been warming up and soon we'll go from our lovely spring weather to the heat of summer. Don B. tells people he winters in Iraq. I guess that makes us snowbirds.
posted by Bob at 11:08 AM
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