Post 11 - Trenching to China (April 2009)

"If you can't make it better, you can laugh at it." - Erma Bombeck

...

While the tagline situation was happening over at the housing project, I had another adventure to deal with over at the hanger project. Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for Mike, that this next tale will be only on my watch for a few days before I’ll be placed on Housing only (and then eventually I’ll get moved again to Iraqi Police stations projects). Mike, on the other hand, will be with the radio and comm. Building and hanger projects until the end of his tour in Iraq… And this story I’m about to tell, well, reoccurred until the very end for him.

A few posts back, I excitedly went on about working on the Iraqi Air Force base, I said it was nice to be “off” Victory, even though I was technically still on base. I said that being on the Iraqi Air Force base really meant absolutely nothing, but I could still pretend.

I was wrong.

Very wrong.

Being on the Iraqi Air Force base DID mean something. It meant we were on Iraqi soil and Iraqi rules—or lack of rules – applied. It meant, no dig permits were required before a contractor stuck his excavator into the ground. It meant, and means, a headache…
On this particular day, I had started my morning over at the hanger project, and so it was about midday before I arrived on site at the radio and communication buildings. It was a sunny day, not a cloud in the sky, and a perfect 98 degrees (funny, it was the same weather yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that…).

I got out of the truck and saw before me, what appeared to be the work of a giant, drunk groundhog that had failed miserably at walking the line. Which meant that either the groundhog from Caddyshack was in Iraq or English Hyder and I were about to have some words.

The former would have been preferred.

English Hyder had started on the trenching for the communication, electric and water lines, as planned. But the lines he was trenching along was NOT as planned. Instead of a neat, straight line with a 90 degree bends where needed, the line went straight, then left, then right, then left again, then cut 45 degrees across the road, then right again… apparently he hit an underground concrete conduit box he couldn’t go through, and so instead of shifting the entire line, he zig-zagged around it. Then, decided to take a 45 degree shortcut to……? Why? I have absolutely no clue.

And then I looked into the hole, not only did it dance all around site, but he managed to hit and cut through existing cable lines, and PVC piping in FOUR locations!!!!

I should note, drawings were available to the contractor to show where existing lines laid, the contractor just never looked at them. Not today, or tomorrow, or in 4 weeks from now. The contractor, rightfully so, argued that the drawings were out of date and did not show all existing utilities, but that doesn’t mean taking a glance wouldn’t have at least given an idea of what he was digging into...

Alas, no matter how many times Mike would try to tell English Hyder that he needs to scrape lightly in areas he’s unsure of instead of just trying to attack China with every strike of the backhoe, it never happened. The contractor found it a waste of time, and found it much more efficient to just splice back together every cable they hit. And so, English Hyder went on to hit 5 or 6 more electrical and communication cables. One would think that after he hit a water line—one that had no shut off valve so they just had to wait for the water to drain completely out and flood all around the project and the neighboring Housing project before commencing work, THAT would have gotten his attention. Nope. Backhoe continued to strike his mighty blows, and breaking every electrical, communication, water, sewer and who knows what else along the way.

On the bright side, once the contractor gets done with this project, that ole utility map will surely be up to date, thanks to Hyder and his crew’s elite trenching work.

Post 10 - Al-Faw Palace

Al Faw Palace -- former "hunting lodge" for Hussein



chillin on the throne


There was a “ground show” at the Iraqi Air Force base today. The Air Force has been working hard the past few days to get all their planes spit shining for the presentation. Apparently, important Generals will be attending. Therefore, as a security measure, all work on the housing and hanger projects have been shut down for the day and only those attending the ground show may be on the premises. Ya know what this means?

For the first time since I've been here, I have a day off!

Now, some people got friends in low places. I just happen to have friends in high places -- Al Faw PALACE, that is. Well, ok, I have friends who have friends in high places, I didn’t actually know the Al-Faw Palace contact until Mike introduced us today, but that’s not the point of my story. The point is, I will be getting a private, behind the scenes tour of Al-Faw Palace --Saddam Hussein's "hunting lodge” that is in rankings with Buckingham Palace in terms of size.



Friends in high places pay off -- "The Chief" hooks us up with a private tour.




At first glance, it’s impressively massive and glamorous with its marble floors and columns, extravagant chandeliers, and gold trimmings.











Suddam put his signature on everything -- seen here on the top of the exterior columns

However, I stand corrected after my friend’s friend in high places, commonly known as “The Chief,” gave me the tour.

Hussein’s hunting lodge was for his own “zoo” located in a different area of the former resort. This was essentially a fenced in, personal safari; full of exotic animals so he could go hunting when it pleased him. Across the way, there’s actually a marble house that is appropriately dubbed the “Lion’s Den” because that’s where Hussein kept a lion – just because. Imagine, a zebra in the desert of Iraq, drinking out of the man-made canal, and a hippo lounging in the man-made lake. (it should also be noted, the canal and lake system here on base – which is connected to the Tigris River and Euphrates River—was filled using nearly all of Baghdad’s potable drinking water. Hussein told his people that the clean water supply was in short and he could not provide any more than one source, when the truth was that he was a germ-a-phobe and used the city’s clean water supply to fill his own lakes and canals (but even the potable water here isn't clean so I guess the joke was on him!)

Anyways, despite the exotic animals, the impressively clean canal water (or so he THOUGHT) and the shear massiveness of the structure, Al-Faw Palace was similar to the man who built it – pathetic.

• Marble floors and walls – a thin, cheap façade – covering up a poor concrete and brick job.
• Marble columns – thin, cheap façade. The inside of the columns were filled with broken pieces of the same brittle yellow brick used on the housing, mixed with mortar and smoothed to be a round column and then covered with a thin layer of marble.
• The chandelier – plastic! (and only held up by the electrical wiring that lights it—I avoided standing directly below the big one in the entrance hall)
• Stain glass windows – also plastic!
• Gold trimmings – painted aluminum.

The size is the only thing that’s real, oh, that and the fact that Hussein’s initial are practically everywhere. The trimmings, the marble floors, the walls, I mean EVERYWHERE.

Pretty pathetic for a tyrant, eh? At least, that’s what my opinion is.

When I left the palace, I was still excited about the day’s enlightenment, and then I ran into Waleed, the project engineer for housing and hanger. He asked me, “Why did you not come to the ground show today? The General (of the Iraqi Air Force Base and also Saddam’s former private pilot) asked where you were (ok, so I do have at least ONE friend in high places. In fact, me and ole General Kareem have even had tea a few times together. That’s right, we’re tight) … Minister of Defense was at the show and the General wanted to introduce you to him.” Whoops.

Podium Barrack Obama gave his speech on when he stopped by a few days before.

Interior of the palace

Chandelier from the top -- did I mention-- PLASTIC!

Post 9 – There may be hope… (tagline story continued…)

A miracle happened on site today. I can go home tomorrow and say, “I made a difference in Iraq.”

It’s been a day or two since the tagline incident and for those few days, the tagline was utilized on the pallet when lifting the bricks, I had had a chat with the crane operator and the swinging was reduced, and they were even the bricks by creating an assembly line of workers to instead of just flipping them out and breaking half of them. But that work was done by the Nepalese and Iraqis.

Today, no bricks had arrived yet but the framework for a concrete placement was in the making. Concrete and all things related was the job of the subcontractors – the Turks… my best friends…

I returned to site after lunch to find the crane lifting a load of framework to the upper story, no tagline and one of the men teetering on the edge of the 8-9 inch wide brick wall of the second story without any fall protection. He was balancing 30ft up in the air and simultaneously trying to steady the crane lift as it came closer.

Again, I will emphasize that ALL a tagline is, is a rope dangling from the load so that you can grab it and help control the load. It is a safety pre-caution that actually makes life EASIER. But they refuse to use it!

Of course, Ahmed (the Safety Officer on site) and Bassam (The turkish subs –77 Company—safety officer) were out to lunch – not that they would have stopped them anyways.

As Mike and I pull up and see the scene unravel, I say, “How did this just happen?” Mike responds, “No, this IS happening.” With that, we get out of the truck and I march over.

First I tell the Turk that is balancing on the edge to put on a fall protection harness. To my surprise, he said, “Ok,” and put it on. Weird. He points to the rebar that he has hooked his harness to, gives a tugging motion and throws his hands up in defeat – this is Turkish sign language for “my movements are now restricted and I can’t do my work.” Well, that’s what I assumed he was saying. None of the Turkish speak English and I can’t say more than merdivan --“ladder” and terazi -- “level” in Turkish. I attempted to explain back that he’s only steadying the crane and doesn’t need to walk around. Though, due to my lack of Turkish and his lack of English, he probably thought I said “tough shit.”

Well, at least he’s not going to fall while I’m on site—he’ll take it off as soon as I leave.

Right, Turkish dude will not fall to his death in my presence – check. Next mission– crane and tagline. Hm, there’s a second crane today, one which I’ve never seen before, and with it, a new operator. This is now more than just a tagline situation.

Step 1 – I stop the crane load and make the workers to put on a tagline.

Step 2 – As they busy themselves with this, I make a quick inspection of the crane.

Cables don’t look frayed. Looks oiled (but tough to tell with crane still up), and out-riggers are on a level surface and in good condition.

(The cable snapped yesterday on a neighboring site, sending a trailer to a devastating final crash. Fortunately, no one got hurt, but I’m now paranoid because we use a crane every day.)

Step 3 – Figure out how to find out if this new guy is certified or at least has experience (anyone with a driver’s license can legally operate a crane in Iraq so I’d like to at least know this isn’t his first time behind the controls). The difficulty is that I can’t just ask. First, he doesn’t speak English. Two, if I just ask he’ll lie to keep his job and then Andalus (the company) will probably just make up paperwork to show he is certified and the crane has been inspected and I’ll have no way to prove the documentation isn’t real.

I have absolutely no clue how to approach this situation. Mike is next door at the communication and radio project, so I’m on my own. I decide the best course of action is to wing it.

So, the work continues with the new crane. I watch it for a bit and then work my way over to Kareem—the usual crane operator who is now just standing around since his crane isn’t being used at the moment. Kareem and I get along well and he loves to talk to me when he gets a chance. Unfortunately, he only knows about 5 words in English. (Whenever I want to give him instructions, there’s a lot of drawings involved.) I try to ask him about his job as casually as I can. It’s important that he sees my questions as curiosity, and not in any way threatening. How long has he been operating cranes? I ask him. Big cranes? Little cranes? (I know that Kareem is a good operator, I’m not worried about him but you’ll see my point in a moment). Turns out Kareem is licensed to operate big cranes and he’s worked in the US and in Tokyo! He very proudly shows me his license. (I’m on my way to success).

I ask about the new guy – “What about him? Good? Does he have a license like you too?” Kareem, tilts his head from side to side and shrugs his shoulders. After a LOT of hand gestures, I find out that New Guy does have a license. He’s been doing it for a few years and is pretty good, but he swings too quickly with it, and isn’t as experienced as Kareem. Besides, he’s only worked in Iraq, Kareem points out, and definitely does not have the skills to work in Tokyo or the US. I nod my head in agreement.

I compliment Kareem on his skills and experience. I bring up the tagline and explain how he understands how important it is and the he knows the correct way to operate a crane.

Yes, it may seem that I am patronizing the man, but I’m not—everyone deserves a compliment when they do well. But, yes, I will admit I am taking advantage of the situation to extract information, wouldn’t you?

I spend most of my day telling the QC, Safety officer and the workers what they are doing wrong. If this is all I did, they would grow weary of me very quickly and would only make progress more difficult. And so, I do my best to say something positive before I comment on something that is wrong (unless what they’re doing is really bad – like dangling off edges with no fall protection and a swinging crane is inches away).

All the workers pretty much assume every word out of my mouth will be comment intended to correct them, and they see most of these corrections as slowing the work down. I.e. not throwing the bricks so half of them break – is seen to them as a drawn out process that makes unloading take twice as long. They don’t see the big picture, that even though it may take longer to unload the bricks, they won’t need as many truck loads if all the bricks stayed intact. But now we’re talking about a difference in culture and way of thinking – I’ll leave this for another day, another blog.

The tagline started out as another one of those hindrances, UNTIL young crane operator showed up today. The exterior brick walls were now finished up to a height of 6 feet high, and the columns, spaced about 10 feet apart are also 10 feet high. This meant the load had to come up over the wall and between the small spaces between the columns, leaving very little room for error. New Guy was swinging stuff all over the place and making it near impossible for the workers to settle the load to get it over the brick walls and between the columns.

Now, keep in mind the tagline IS being utilized at this point because I’m on site watching. After a few loads with New Guy going nuts with the crane, they workers bringing the load in caught on, and it was like watching a miracle – they realized that rope in hand was helping to steady the load made it a lot easier and actually FASTER. That tagline suddenly became very useful. In fact, it became SO useful that about an hour later Kareem found me and proudly presented me with the new and improved tagline. It no longer was just a rope, it was a rope with a spit-shining new D hook on the end, safety latch and all.

At that moment, a trailer was about to get moved and before I could even say something, Kareem ran over, shouted at the workers (I have no clue what he said, but they all seem to listen when he gets worked up—Arabic sounds very angry all of the time), and used the hook to latch the tagline to the trailer. Honestly, this man was BEAMING with pride. Ahmed, the Safety Officer, later came to me and said he’d like to use TWO ropes on the pallets because he thinks it’d be easier. I smile at him, and say he can use 10 if wants, whatever makes the job easiest.

In the days following, Kareem will claim the tagline as his and keep it with his crane. It took a few more reminders, but a few days after this incident, I was over at communication and radio building, looked out across the way, and there it was. It was a site for sore eyes…I hadn’t stopped by Housing yet, and they didn’t know I was in the area, and yet, a load of bricks was up in the air, and there was a beautiful rope hanging down…

Post 8 – Getting tired…

Bricks on the truck -- notice how neatly they start out...



but then they get dumped...


And tossed from the pallet....



On this occassion, Harry and I were able to convince them to STACK the bricks!

No English Hyder and I

My new partner in crime and I in front of an Iraqi Helicopter (perks of working on their airbase)


I arrived at site the other day just as a crane was lifting a pallet full of bricks to the second level of the housing project. The pallet was lifted from a chain hooked to each corner of the basket and came together in the center to connect to the crane hook. The bricks were emptied by disconnecting two of the 4 hooks from the crane and then in one swift motion, lifted the two connected ends, raising the pallet a few feet off the 2nd floor slab so that all the bricks could fall out onto the slab and then swinging the crane around and lowering the pallet back down to ground level. So of course, the quantity of useable bricks halved as most of them broke into smaller pieces from the fall (these aren’t the bricks you find in the US. They are about double the size, yellow and are almost guaranteed to break if dropped).

Perhaps I should degress for a moment to provide for you the full journey of the bricks. The bricks come very neatly stacked on a flatbed or dump truck. There are about 10,000 bricks in one load. As I mentioned previously, these bricks are not as sturdy, and much more brittle than the smaller red bricks we are accustomed to. The typical method of unloading the already fragile bricks is to raise the bed and let all the bricks crumble down to the ground (see photo). Then, the Nepalese, in their blue jumpsuits, scurry over and begin loading the pallet by tossing the bricks one by one into the pallet. It is not long before there are 5 or 6 Nepalese at work, creating a shower of bricks directed into the same pallet. If you can imagine this, then it is not hard to imagine how many of those bricks are broken before they even reach the 2nd level of the barracks where they are intended to go.

Next, they are dumped onto the second level floor slab in the manor I’ve already addressed—using the crane and pallet. From here, the Nepalese take over again. The shower of bricks comes alive again as the now, mostly broken, bricks get tossed into a wheel barrel, brought over to one of the bricklayers, and just as with the dump truck and pallet, the wheel barrel is tipped forward to allow the bricks to roll over one another as they arrive at their final destination, by their brick layers feet.

If you could not imagine the mess before, I hope that now it is not hard to envision how many usable bricks are left from the once neat stack of bricks that has now been dumped from a height, tossed, dumped from a height, tossed and dumped from a small height.

This is an argument had with No English Hyder during every truck delivery. “Bring the bricks already on a pallet and therefore no dumping or tossing is needed! You can lift the bricks directly from the truck to the second level with the crane.” Harry and I have both been saying for weeks now. On some occasions, we do get them to at least stack the bricks between each process instead of tossing them into a heap. This success story usually lasts a few days and then it goes back to dumping and tossing. And the suggestion of a pallet already under the bricks on the truck seems to be a lost cause.

Alas, one must pick and choose one’s battles. And today, this is not the battle I which to take on. Today the focus is the crane.

And so I end my tangent here and return to my initial conversation—the bricks have just been dumped from the crane in one swift motion of releasing two sides of the pallet and lifting the load…
As with the bricks, this was not a graceful process either. The motion of lifting the load up quickly to unload the bricks and swinging the crane around and down to the ground gives the empty pallet just enough momentum to swing wildly in the air the whole trip. To add to the scene, there was no tagline (which is simply a rope hanging off the load or pallet so you have something to grab and control it by). This is the 5th or 6th day in a row that there has been no tagline and as a result the brick filled pallet and empty aftermath have danced freely in the air, daring anyone who got too close.

This is the battle I have chosen to fight—the tagline.

I recognize I’m complaining about a rope. But it makes crane work a HELL of a lot easier and safer, and on top of that, it’s the fact that it shouldn’t be an issue at all; this is merely because the QC (No English Hyder) is being lazy and thinking if he just ignores me, I’ll eventually give up.

I’ve grown weary, but of patience, not the desire to give up.

So when I addressed the lack of a tagline that day, he told me, unfortunately, something that I have heard many times before, “Tomorrow, I promise.” It was a Thursday, which means they are off tomorrow. I say, “You will have a tagline by Saturday or there will be a letter written to your company recommending you stop work for non-compliance.”

So, when I showed up today (Saturday) and the first thing I see was the pallet dangling from two hooks again and no tagline, I was annoyed, to say the least (but not surprised).

I head directly to No English Hyder, my stride revealing my mood, and before I could say anything he spits out, “the truck with materials is at the gate, and the rope.”

“Good, so if I come back after lunch there will be a tagline on that pallet.”

“Yes, yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, yes, I promise.”

“Today? Because I’ve heard this before.”

Hyder closes his eyes, bows his head slightly, and cups his hands together as he says, “Yes, but I promise this time, and when I promise, I promise-- it is true.” To add emphasis, Hyder shakes his cupped hands towards me each time he uses the word, “promise.” To be honest, I’m impressed he didn’t end with “en shala.” (If God Willing).

“Ok, when I come back from lunch, I expect to see a tagline. If I there isn’t, then I’m reporting to my boss, he will stop the work and there will be a letter of non-compliance written to your company.”

“Well, you see, the rope, maybe not coming today. I am not sure, but tomorrow, yes.”

“So…you lied to me, Hyder. The rope is not coming.”

“Yes, but tomorrow, I PROMISE.”

“No, not tomorrow, today.”

“But you see, not sure, maybe difficult to get—“

“It’s a rope, Hyder. No, it’s not difficult. You have a truck, and there’s a True Value on base. There’s a Home Depot on base. Andalus (the contractor) has a camp with supplies ON BASE. Go to any of those and I promise you, you will find rope for a tagline.”

“Yes, yes.”

“Don’t “yes me” – go get a rope.”




I also had men standing on barrels instead of ladders as another issue today, but I won’t go into that.

After lunch, Mike (my new truck buddy—he just came back from R&R and is helping out while Harry is gone) takes me into the PX and buys rope. It may appear that I am not helping the situation by buying the rope they should provide themselves. However, according to Mike, showing up with a rope will HIGHLY embarrass the managers on site – Ahmed (Safety Officer), No-English Hyder and Abu Ali (the site engineer).

Mike was absolutely correct. Abu Ali is actually angry. It is taken as an insult. By providing them rope, I have just said, “I got this because you have failed and are not capable of doing it yourself.” Mike says they’ll have a rope the next day due to embarrassment. Especially since a 25 yr old FEMALE provided them the rope.

…

Again, Mike was absolutely right (I really hope he’s not reading this—or stimulating Mike’s already confident head is not my intention here!) I arrived on site Sunday before the workers and waited for them to show. When the bus pulled up, Ahmed got off and had a bag full of colorful webbing. “Gift from Hyder,” he said. AND he also had a HUGE rope for a tagline!

I showed Ahmed what to do with it and watched the workers successfully use the rope for the rest of the day.

I was absolutely GIDDY. As small as this may seem, this was a breakthrough! When I got back to the office, I told Rob (one of my co-workers) the story. He smiled at me, congratulated me, and then asked, if the crane was certified, was it set correctly and on level ground when in use, is the operator certified, is it hydraulic of friction…etc…? I had zero answers.

… Yeah, I’m still a sucky QA. But a sucky QA that now has a colorful bag of webbing and workers that use a tagline! WAHOO!!!

Post 7--- Escape from the Prison!!

AEGIS security letting the locals check out his gone


Gabe talking with our "fluent" site engineer.



My attempt at taking a picture of the greenery through the window

The man who makes it all happen!!

Our ride...

I’ve been itching to leave the base since I’ve been here. Granted, ma and pa like me just where I am, but I want to see Iraq, gosh darn it! Today is a Friday – which is my half day, and I was just about to pack up and head back to my CHU for an afternoon nap when the one and only Gabe Marrero – the military man who makes things happen – says to me, “Betsy, there’s a movement planned at 1330 today to see two project sites but the project engineers for that site are off today” (We have Local Nationals – Iraqis – that work for the Corps, but Friday is the weekend and their religious holiday so they have the day off). “I need an engineer to come with me on the site visit – you busy?”



Hellllllllllllllllllllllll no, I’m not busy!!! Let’s go!!!



So I make a dash for my CHU, throw on my uniform, take my IBA (body army, vest, helmet, etc.) out of the plastic wrapping for the first time and lay it all out to put it on.

Then, it hits me – I have NO CLUE HOW to put this stuff on. I mean, I got a vest, I got side pieces, I got a neck thingy, a helmet, shoulder covers, gloves, and even a pectoral shield for a “woohoo” which females don’t have…
And it has to weigh at least 40 lbs.
And...at least before I messed with it, it was all neatly in wrapping-- together. Now I’m staring at a bed littered with pieces that I don’t what goes where, let alone which way is up and which way is down for each. Well, it’s 1326, I don’t have time to figure it out. So I stack all 7 pieces as best as I can and waddle back to the meeting point, and literally drop it all at Gabes feet, let out a sigh and give a pityfull “help” look.

Good thing he’s a military dude with a sense of humor. He gets down on his knees and start unsnapping, weaving and re-snapping until it’s all one piece again, stands it up and presents the IBA to me.

There’s one more problem.
I cant lift it.


I’m too weak to pick it up and swing it around my shoulders to put it on…


Gabe saves me again and helps me put it on. It’s not fitted well and most of the weight is on my shoulders instead of my back due to lack of time to properly adjust it, but whatever. I’m leaving this joint and gettin' out!!! Wahoo!!!!!!…

While all this is happening, AEGIS (I have no idea what it stands for, so don’t ask), our British security team, was getting my information (allergies, blood type, social etc) and briefing me on the movement – where we’re going, what’s the intended route, which vehicle I’ll be in, procedure on what to do under different situations, etc. They take their job very seriously and I trust every one of them with my life.
So don’t worry mom, I’ll be ok.

When they take us out we’re usually in Light Armored SUVs or Reebas (which looks like an SUV version of the hummer). Today we took the reebas. There’s commonly 3 or 4 cars on the movement – minimum of 3—Alpha, Beta and Charlie. I’ll always be in the middle vehicle – Beta. Up to 5 folks can go on a movement plus the AEGIS team – which is anywhere between 9 and 12 or more. Today there’s 9, 3 in each vehicle. 7 protectors and 3 armored vehicles with big guns for Gabe and me – not a bad ratio!
We finally hit the road and start heading out. It’s a bit toasty in the reeba—AC is really only blowing hot air onto us– but that’s ok, I’m going outside!!

We get to the gate, stop for a moment for the team and Gabe to load up their guns and off we go!

As we leave the security of the t-walls, I couldn’t believe my eyes…. It’s GREEN out here! I mean, full blown vegetation, farmland GREEN. It can take 30-40 minutes with no traffic to drive from one side of Victory Base Compound to the other and in all that space, I’ve never seen a SPECK of green. There was something very comforting about this discovery--and so I was trying very hard to not grin from ear to ear when everyone else around me had a super serious look about them.

…
Eventually we turned off the main road and continued into town on a smaller street. After spending time in Kenya, I didn’t see anything I didn’t expect, but it still amazes me to realize how over 50% of the world population is living--and it's right down the street. There were less sheet metal lean-to’s than I saw in Kenya (though, they were still there) and more actual buildings/shacks. The building looked as if they were made of clay, but I know better from working the housing project – it’s a poor yellow brick job that shatter when you drop it (not close to the quality of brick we’re used to seeing), with mortar only placed horizontally between layers and not on the sides of the bricks. There aren’t any corner bricks or anything to connect wall 1 with the it’s perpendicular component. I cant see any of this because it’s covered with plaster and a stucco paint, but I’ll bet any dollar that’s what it is. I’ll also bet any money that very few—if any—of these houses are more than two rooms or have more than a whole in the ground for a toilet, if they even have that. (many probably just go down to the same river they bath, drink and wash clothes in). Most of Iraq does not have a public water sewage system or water system and if they have grid power in the area for electricity, it’s not always reliable. The better off have generator’s, but from the looks of it, that’s not the kind of neighborhood I'm in right now.

It took about 30 minutes to get to the first site. The time was primarily due to the fact that there’s check points every few miles in Iraq. Granted, we usually get through them pretty easily, but we still have to stop at them. And every once in a while, but fortunately not today, you get an Iraqi Army guard that just wants to flex his muscles and holds you at the check point for a good amount of time just to be difficult.


Can you imagine: living in a country that you can’t even get to work without being stopped half a dozen times on the way? It a concrete reminder that we’re still in a war zone.



We got to the first site, in the city of Mahymoudiya, and well – it was nice to get out of the increasingly uncomfortable reeba, but there wasn’t much there. The project was building a bridge to connect two towns so they didn’t have to drive miles and miles to come along, except nothing more than grading had been done and it was Friday--their holiday-- so there weren’t workers on site either.

As I took photos and walked the site, the AEGIS team goes with me. They situate themselves around Gabe and I so that all angles are covered and one is always right next to us. Mahymoudiya has been a safe area for a while now, so there was not really anything to worry about. Kids came out of the woodworks when they saw us come with the three vehicles. One of the AEGIS guys lowered his gun so that the kids could look through it, and it may have made their day.

We didn’t stay long since there wasn’t much to see. This was fine with me. The weight of the IBA was starting to get to me and I was ready to get back onto the smoldering hot steel seats of the vehicle just to give my shoulders a break.



Site two wasn’t much either – it will be an Iraqi Police station (and ironically, will become one of my projects in about a month or two after this visit), but for now all that’s going on is surveying. There actually were workers on site. We tried talking to the one in a dress shirt – who obviously was the QC or project engineer. He didn’t really speak English and was very hesitant to give any information. The conversation went something like this:

“Is this your project?”
“Yes”
“Are you the engineer?”
“Yes, I engineer.”
“Can you tell us about the project and what you’re working on right now?”
“Not my project, I don’t know”
“This isn’t your project?”
“No”
“Is there a site engineer we can talk to?”
“I am site engineer”
Oh boy…

… “Do you have drawings we could look at?”
“Yes”
(Excellent)
“Are these the most recent drawings?”
“Yes you can have drawings”
(Ok, let’s try a different question)
“Do you have a contact number? Email? Card?”
“No, no.”
“Do you have a cell phone”
“Phone, yes”
…

I think you get the picture. Granted, I don’t know more than “thank you, you're welcome, hello, good morning and counting 1-6, so I will be the last person to criticize someone’s English. We are in THEIR country, after all.
I didn't know it at the time, but I will meet this man again – in about two months from now I’ll see him in a meeting and find out that he’s the “fluent” Quality Control manager on site…
While all this was happening, the weight of the IBA and heat of the trailer we were standing in – which had to be about 20 degrees warmer than outside desert—was starting to make me nauseous. This was not my project, there wasn’t much to see and this guy clearly didn’t have any drawings, plans or specs that he was building by anyways. It was time to go.
The novelty had worn off – time to go back to the safe t-walls where I am free of 40lbs of weight crushing my shoulders and Kevlar helmets pressing into my head causing a larger and larger migraine by the second.

On our way out, the old man who had been standing with us the whole time but not saying anything (we thought he didn’t speak English), goes to me, “You civil engineer?”

“Yes, I’m civil engineer.”

“No, no you Cutie Engineer.”

Oh boy…some things don’t change regardless of country, religion, language, and education…

Men.

Post 6 - Just another day in paradise...

(28 March 2009)

The weather was perfect today – 75 and sunny skies. Work production wasn’t exactly booming though. At the hanger, all they were doing was wetting the burlap cloths covering the fresh concrete slab (just placed the other day). Nothing new on the taxi-way—just a dozen or so Nepalese sawing and jack hammering out the spalled areas to repair. Harry and I had to, again, tell the workers to stop sitting down in front of the 12 inch blade, legs sprawled, and pulling the saw toward some very important body parts and that the handles on the machine are there so they saw could be pushed from a standing position.

But, I guess we really can’t complain too much. At least we finally got the QC to get string and paint to create a STRAIGHT line for the workers to cut along. Up until now, the Nepalese have been “eyeballing” the area around the damaged spalls they need to cut out and the line looks like they were done by a very incoherent individual…. It’s taken about a week of arguing and making them re-cut crooked lines, but we’re getting there. Now, we’re working on getting them use straight pieces of wood for formwork so the contraction joints stop looking like they also were laid by a drunk/jacked up on Iraqi tea person—which apparently is loaded with enough sugar to keep you going for days. Harry has made them jack hammer out the same section of freshly placed concrete two days in a row now due to the poor quality. Maybe tomorrow will be our luck day…. (See photos). One step at a time, I keep telling myself. It’s safe to assume most of these workers have very little education. And I’m not even talking about academics. I’m talking about the task at hand – construction. These guys are told to do a job, but no one explains why it needs to be done—or even how it seems.

At the housing, they erected the formwork for 14 columns, so they’re ready for concrete placement. However, there’s 40+ columns and they only have 14 forms, which means they can only place 14 a day. The QC for the housing project – No English Hyder – says concrete truck will be here “maybe tomorrow, I am not sure” which can be taken as “no.” (The QC for the communication and radio buildings is also named Hyder, but his English is pretty good while housing Hyder’s English is….well, bad. So they’ve been renamed “English Hyder” and “No English Hyder” to keep them straight.)

You wanna know why concrete isn’t coming today? Even though, 77 Company (the Turkish sub contractor doing all the concrete work) lives on base and their batch plant, also located on base, is 10 minutes down the road. Because there is probably another project somewhere down the road that is very behind and needs to place a lot of concrete that day or they’re in trouble. So the prime contractor (or maybe even the subs themselves – who knows over here!) pulled all their workers from their jobs, including ours, and concentrated on getting concrete placed on the job in the red.

There will be a day that this project will be even further behind than it already is, and the corps will say “you need to have the formwork done and the slab placed in X many days or you will get a letter of concern followed by termination.” Then, magically, workers will appear from the wood work and get the job done – but I guarantee you another job is suffering due to our threat.

Housing was also supposed to have a sample door on site today to show the Colonel for the Iraqi Air Force, but that didn’t show up today either—maybe tomorrow, No English Hyder has reported. At least he didn’t say “enshala” (if God willing) – if he had said that then I would KNOW to not expect a sample door for at least a week.

All is well though, the Colonel didn’t seem too bothered when the door was a no-show, so I’m not. He then invited Harry and me into his office for some “chai” (tea).

What are the chances?!? I’ve been hearing about Iraqi tea since my first day at pre-deployment in Virginia. Despite the warnings, I was not prepared for what was to come. I have not had a sip of alcohol since I left Virginia, but if it’s possible to get drunk off of sugar, Iraqi chai is the way forward! The glass was about the size of a double shot glass, but there must have been at least 6 cubes of sugar in this puppy. I mean, the chai was actually thickened to a near syrupy substance! Whew!! If this is the stuff the Nepalese are drinking before they start saw cutting and placing concrete everyday, that explains a LOT…

Post 5 – What am I doing here? Part II (My day to day)

full depth concrete repair on the taxiway -- in a dust storm


No dry wall here! All walls are bricks...they'll get covered with plaster and paint later



B02 - Housing for the Iraqi Airforce -- There are 2 buildings of just rooms and a 3rd smaller building in between that will be the latrines/showers




Conquering my fear of heights, one step at a time...

Harry and I, my new bff

On my 3rd day in Iraq, I was finally put to work, and will continue to work 7 days a week, 10-12 hr days for the next six months.

My day began with an introduction to my new BFF – Harry. I’ll be shadowing Harry for the first few weeks and then look after his projects when he goes on R&R. Harry is a 50 some typical “biker” – long pony-tail that reaches to his waist (though it’s always neatly tucked under his shirt so you wouldn’t know it), goatee/beard that hasn’t been trimmed in at least 3 or 4 months, slightly overweight – but working on fixing that – and always sporting a Harley Davidson t-shirt and hat when the hardhat isn’t on his head.

But what is most prominent about Harry is not his stereotypical “Harley look” but his personality. He can strike up a conversation with just about anyone, but he doesn’t bullshit. He tells it like it is. He gives respect to those who deserve it, but he’s not going to kiss up to you because of your title, and he’s not going to treat you like dirt because you’re lacking a title or social class.

This is important because Harry’s (and now my) job is “Quality Assurance” – aka construction rep. The great part of this job is that we’re on site and out of the office most of the day. The not so great part (aside from the heat) is that, well… we’re in Iraq. This is a developing country with a different mindset, education, work ethic. This often results in “babysitting” the contractor instead of just spot checking his work, as it would be in the US.

Each contractor has a quality control manager (QC), site engineer, and Safety manager on site. As a QA, my job is supposed to be to just make sure the contractor’s people are doing their job.

Supposed to be, being the operative phrase.

As I said before, since it’s not safe for the Americans to QA the projects outside the wire, my projects are within Victory Base Compound – sort of.

It’s actually located on the Iraqi Air Force Base (which is inside of Victory). The projects include building housing for their air force, adding an extension to their hanger, repairing the taxiway, fixing their generators (since they can’t rely on the grid because power is not dependable from it), and building radio and communication facilities to help them function a little better.

These projects are not in any way, glamorous, but I like them because they’re for the Iraqis. When I first got here and found out that the Local Nationals (LNs) do most of the work outside the wire, I was disappointed. Yes, Mama and Papa Hall prefer me inside, and I respect the reasons for this security, but it would be nice to have a project that’s for the people of Iraq. So my housing and hanger extension projects, as basic as they are, make me happy. The Iraqi soldiers will be able to get out of the temporary housing they are currently in—with 10-15/room and find a new “home” in these facilities.

I also like to work on the Iraqi Air Force base because I pretend that the base is considered outside Victory Base Compound—just to keep Island fever at bay. And technically it is, even if Victory is all around it. Once I enter through the air force base security I’m technically on Iraqi soil.

You know what this means? …

Absolutely nothing.

But a girl can pretend, right?