Iraqi Fruit Bowl

And then my cellphone vibrates. As a general rule, I don't check text messages in class. Sets a bad example for the students. Out here in Baghdad though, text messages are not casually sent or serve in most cases as the predecessor to a real (or otherwise imagined - but in either case unpleasant) urgency. Either that or a coveted invite to infamous pizza party at the Italian embassy.

"OK class. You have five minutes to finish this activity. If you are already finished, please check your answers with a partner." Group work offers teacher adequate subterfuge for a quick check of the cell phone. A message from Valentina. Signs point to pizza party. Let's see..

---------------------------

Hello Wells! I'm 

looking for a 

volunteer to

come this 

evening to ili

and help install

the language

lab. Let me

know. 

---------------------------

Dammit. Not a pizza party. And I'm not terribly interested in volunteering for anything at the moment - particularly for language or lab or installation. My entire life stinks of NGO, except, of course that I'm getting paid around $10K by a certain Federal GO.  The ili bit is short-hand for Iraqi language institute, that much I know, but where ili is exactly, I'm not sure. .could this mean a road trip?.

"Class, please continue working on the next activity! Gentlemen! No Arabic in the classroom, please!" I still haven't figured out this Nokia yet. I respond.  

----------------------------------------

"Ok... When?"

----------------------------------------

The reply is instantaneous. There is no attempt to conceal the phone at this point. 

----------------------------------------

"Meet at dfac

with install 

team at 1900.

Will be taking ice cream 

truck, so bring vest."

----------------------------------------

Ice cream truck is an armored transport service for travel throughout the IZ and beyond. And true to name it resembles an ice cream truck. Vest means kevlar and kevlar means one thing...road trip!    

        

Babylon

In the cradle of

Mesopotamia Babylon to Baghdad

Ancient ruins between rivers
flows the Tigris and Euphrates
all you've heard

your whole life stirred by Hades

but to see it here now

with your own eyes

for the first time

at the banks of
a distant history
filling the footsteps
of an ancient future

authoring by my own hand
passages of a living encyclopedia.

Home on the Range

In honor of today's repeal of the don't ask, don't tell law, Special Forces scheduled some trigger time at the gun range. Here is the picture - a dozen US Special Forces soldier, Green Berets - trained in non-conventional warfare, survival techniques,  interrogation, and four Iraqi Generals - one of them a 3-star who served previously under the regime of Saddam Hussein and then there's me wearing a suit and tie - all standing in a line firing automatic M-16s, M-4s, MP-6 sub-machine guns, Beretas Glok-9s, 12-gauges, all united by the universal urge to do some "man shit".... 

So lunch time comes and I have to get back to class - so we left together - 3 of us in an armored Suburban and head out...and on the way there was this unusual checkpoint - and so we pull up - and this Iraqi military orders us to stop - so we stop - then he tells us to open the doors - the driver (SF Sargent - the lowest man on the totem pole) says NO - there are maybe 100 Iraqi guys all over the place - some with automatic weapons - several humvees mounted with machine guns...the guy motions again for us to open the door and be searched...the driver says NO - the Iraqi calls over more guys - the guys come over and they start ordering us out of the car...the driver refuses...they grab onto the outside door handle and try to open it...the drivers presses the gas and advances forward. The Iraqi guys come jumping in the way and draw their weapons so the driver stops...and picks up his cell phone...just then another SUV pulls up behind us and stops. There is some commotion and then everyone lowers their weapons. The SUV pulls up beside us and there sits the 3-star general riding shot-gun. We salute him, he salutes us back, he motions for us to move forward, the soldiers move to the side, and we continue on our way. 

just another day in Baghdad....         

LT COL ABBAS

Lt. Colonel Abbas unfolds his wire-framed glasses from their tiny case and sets them lightly upon the bridge of his nose. With the addition of this simple accessory he feels himself quite suddenly transformed into a college lecturer. He is a large, monolithic man, and patrols the classroom with broad, heavy paces. As if one of the pillars of Stonehenge had sprouted mighty legs and simply walked off. He keeps his hands clasped behind him, locked at the fingers and with each step his towering torso catapults forward into an exaggerated bow, hips hinged, head dipping forward,  like a mechanical bobbing bird. With each step the torso bobs forward dragged by the ballast of a mighty forehead. He pauses, reflects, adjusts his glasses, and looking down his nose he pauses over a savory bit of knowledge which none in his classroom could ever hope to divine. He was all capital letters. 

MWR FOB Union III

It's Hip-hop dancing in the Rec Center 18:00 - 20:00  followed by Karaoke from 20:00 - 23:00. 

I'm not much of a dancer, but I have, on occasion,  been overcome by an urge to shake a leg - particularly when urged on by a cocktail or two and for the general purpose of getting girls. 

In the flashing, intimate dance-space of a night club, compelled by the spell of a proper beat, when groove and gregarious moods merge I have known my conscious-self to become seduced and recede and for a moment my unconscious self is allowed its escape - the flesh fades to reveal unchained soul - then every so often, and suddenly in the midst of this magical moment, my thoughts ever-overcast by the self-conscious cloud - I imagine in my mind's eye that suddenly the music mutes, bright lights glare on, the walls are whisked away and I grin to myself on these awkward imagined moments at the vision of the frenetic flesh bodies in noon's naked light writhing together in silly silence. 

That fleeting moment of self-consciousness is the closest I can come to explaining to you what Hip-hop dancing looks like at the MWR this Friday night. Fifteen days no cigarettes or alcohol. A mere two weeks have never felt so long. Of the original 14 contractors that arrived 14 days ago at Ft. Benning like newborns the morning after Thanksgiving, the final six of us language specialists who survived received permanent placement today. The final exodus. Rendezvous tomorrow at 15:00 - a pair of Black Hawks are taking 3 to the airforce academy in Taji and from there 2 more continue on to Sadaam's hometown of Tikrit. After tomorrow I alone will remain in the IZ - an army of one - something in my file had caught the Colonel's eye and I was selected for a special assignment - to shadow an Iraqi / US combined Special Ops, Anti-Terrorist Task Force and teach them the language of "taking out bad guys". Colonel's orders. I will be issued an armored escort through the red zone back and forth to where these guys are stationed.  

Hip- hop hour is over and the mood in the Rec Room is shifting now. From here in the basement of the former Ba'ath party headquarters a line of US soldiers in camouflage line up to sing Karaoke. Somehow, if only for tonight, this all makes perfect sense.