The Quest for Fire (or at least heat)

A big evening at Warhorse

I made it back to Warhorse about a week ago. It is nice to be "home," but I quickly fell back into the same routine as before I left. I guess I didn't realize how boring things are here until I had a little taste of being back in the States. Since my return, it has also become significantly cooler. In fact, it is downright freezing at night in my trailer. With no insulation and being made out of aluminum, it cools down quite quickly. My heater does not work. I had the KBR (contractors) guys come and look at it. They were able, in the afternoon, to get a decent amount of heat from the unit, not a lot, but enough to say that there was "no problem." Of course they said this despite the fact that in order to get a decent amount of heat you have to turn the dial to the furthest point of cool (the opposite of where it should be). What they refuse to understand is that at night, when it is cooler, the thermostat in the heater refuses to click on, thus, it only blows cool air. I complained again and asked for further maintenance. They came out a few days later in the afternoon, got a decent amount of heat, and said I was wrong and it was working fine. They have been out three times now, each time refusing to do anything other than say that it has heat (in the afternoon). It figures that with all the billions of dollars they have spent on this war, they would draw the line at buying me a new $200 heater. My friend Gene left yesterday for an assignment in Milan, I'm, uh, "borrowing" the heating unit out of his trailer tonight.

This past week is the second most holy holiday for Muslims, Eid al-Adha, so there has not been much to do around here except crank out paperwork and mind-numbing reports for the Embassy. We have had a few evening fires mainly because there is not much to do and it gets us out of our trailers. The wood collection process is interesting, we pretty much drive around until we see something that might burn and then throw it in the back of the SUV. There is not much that cannot or will not find its way into the fire at some point. Before Gene left he contributed about three hours (burning time) worth of boxes, documents and reports. Gene works for the State Dept. so it didn't seem to phase him that he had probably spent hours writing these reports for no other purpose than placing them in a drawer and then burning them approximately a year later.

There was a bit of good news this week. One of Diyala's most overcrowded detention facilities is now only 309 people over capacity. I guess that is some form of progress.