A few shots of Election Day. My little Kurdish friend had "173" (the number assigned to the Kurdish Union Party) painted on his cheeks and got to dip his finger in the ink. His mother was so proud of the fact that we wanted to take a picture of him.
THE GOOD
On January 31, 2009, the provincial elections were held. I was the "Team Leader" (you can't have two people in a room around here unless you give one of them a B.S. title they can lord over the others -- can't stand that crap) of a group of election monitors. We were tasked with going to the polls around the city and in the countryside and checking on what was happening. It was a fantastic experience. The Kurds were so fired up about the elections and excited to be voting. It was a family affair all of the way. Everyone was dressed in their "Sunday best" (but they are Muslim, so actually it was their "Friday best"). Many of them were wearing Kurdish flags signifying their support for the coalition of Kurdish Political Parties that were on the ballot. The kids all accompanied their parents to the voting booth, which was a fantastic message for these little kids about the value of voting in a future Iraq.
To get to the first polling station we had walk about six city blocks without our military security (the U.S. Army had agreed to stay away from the polling sites). We had one personal security detail from the Embassy to escort us into the polling stations. I also had a weapon, but trust me, that made no one feel safer including myself. He was all about protection and he was freaking out about the idea of walking this gauntlet of people that had lined up along the street. It was awesome though. The people of Khanaqin were waving and giving us the thumbs up. Kids on bikes with Kurdish flags were whizzing by us doing stunts to impress us. The women would go inside and bring their children out to greet us as we walked past. They would smile and beg us to take their picture. It was probably one of my favorite experiences yet in Iraq.
We inspected the polls and they were very well run. It was basically what you would expect on election day. People showed their ID card to the person at the door, they were directed to one of the rooms based on an alphabetical assignment of their name, they would go in the room, show ID again, get a ballot, go to the voting booth, fold it up, place it in the ballot box and then dip their finger in the iconic indelible purple ink (to prove they had voted and prevent them from voting again). It took about five minutes to vote and the enthusiasm inside was the same as the enthusiasm outside the polling site. There were observers from other political parties to make sure that everything was legitimate. We were welcomed to talk to anyone we wanted and observe any step of the process. I am prevented from making any public statements as to the legitimacy of the election -- but reading between the lines you can probably figure out my opinion of how it went.
My friend and interpreter Mohammed sitting on his cot in our room. None of us got much sleep in there.
THE BAD
We were staying at COP (no idea what that stands for) Cobra. The living accommodations were spartan to say the least. We were dropped off by the Blackhawks and basically told to go to the rundown structure down a gravel road. The rundown building was an open room with about twenty guys already sleeping on cots in there. There were ten of us, and no more cots. We spent the next hour or so scouring the camp for ten cots. We found some filthy ones, some that had to be propped up by cinder blocks, wooden sticks and boxes. The door would open every few minutes, the military interpreters in the room would listen to Iraqi music all night and more than few of the people in the room snored rather loudly. Oh, and it smelled like body odor and onions.
The DFAC was not much of a DFAC at all. This was kind of like the movies or an episode of M*A*S*H, some private with a ladle spooned out slop onto a cardboard tray. No choices except "do you want food or not?" The food bordered on the inedible. Let's put it this way, the next day I ate some Army MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) which have been much maligned over the years, and they were much better than the food I had the night before at the base's DFAC.
I warned you. Don't even ask what the hell the stick with the towel on the end was for.
THE UGLY
If you have read my past posts I think you must be aware of my biggest fear over here. It is not a suicide bomber, it is not a Vehicle Borne IED (VBIED), not a mortar round landing on my head while I'm sleeping, but rather the Middle Eastern "bathroom experience." Well my friends imagine please my horror when I arrived at COP Cobra to find that there are NO WESTERN STYLE TOILETS on the COP. To say that I was clutched by fear would do a disservice to what I was truly feeling. My first thought was "don't panic, this can't be true. Some colonel must have a port-a-john stashed away somewhere." No such luck. Next I thought "I'll wait it out, I can do three days." Seven hours later I faced my moment of truth. In my head I repeated the phrase "dead man walking" as I headed for the "latrine." I held my breath, for the pungent aroma was not easily overcome. I walked about four doors in and used my elbow to push open the door. I stared in disbelief at what lay before me, a white porcelain hole in the floor surrounded by a sludge of urine, feces and God only knows what else. I retreated. I methodically checked the remaining stalls. Sadly, stall number four was the pick of the litter. I went back there. I slowly closed the door behind me. I stood there paralysed with fear. "Wait I thought, somebody said something about a chair" I looked to my left. There, in the corner, was a gray folding chair (just like you sat on in grade school at an assembly), but this my friend was no ordinary chair. For in the middle of this gray folding chair some inventive soldier had cut a hole with (I presume) tin snips. The hole was just large enough to "handle the situation" as it were. And for added comfort, he had also used duct tape to line the inside of the hole lest someone suffer a cut in the most delicate of locations. I'm not sure which was more disgusting, the chair or that hole in the floor. "Oh, the humanity" I thought to myself (as my mind envisioned a large Zeppelin going down in a New Jersey field). I folded the chair up and ran out of there faster than I thought my thirty-five year old legs could take me.
Now out in the night air I thought to myself "what the f**k is going on here?" Actually, that is a lie, I'm pretty sure I screamed out loud "what the f**k is going on here?" Fortunately, fear had alleviated the situation for a while. I redoubled my efforts. No bran, no caffeine, nothing which could cause any type of issues. Now, it was a race against the clock, and the clock had about a twelve hour head start.
I would like to tell you that through solid will-power I was able to overcome the odds. And it would be quite the story if I could write that a medical miracle had occurred and I was able to avoid that hell-hole for three (almost four) days. But, sadly, I cannot. It happened (twice actually). I'm sure that twenty years from now (or six months) some of you will hear the gory details of what happened inside stall "number four" over a beer at the County Clare, but right now -- I'm just not ready to talk about it. I'm just hoping the Department of Justice has a good therapist on staff.
No comments:
Post a Comment