I went on another mission to Dahuk. That sounds a lot cooler than saying I took a trip to Dahuk. BG Walsh, the commander of the USACE GRD was visiting my office as part of his farewell tour. BG Walsh is my bosses boss. BG Walsh leaves command next month. As part of his visit to my office, I escorted him up to the Dahuk office to visit a couple of projects. In the morning, we looked at two schools that are currently under construction. Then we visited the governor of Dahuk. Actually, BG Walsh and COL Pfenning, the Commander of GRN (my immediate boss) met with the Governor. I waited in the hallway with the security detachment. After that meeting, we went to lunch at the Zheyan Hotel in Dahuk.
Our host for lunch was the Deputy Governor for Dahuk, Gurgis Shlaymun. He is on the left side of the photo below. BG Walsh is in the middle, and on the right of the photo is Engineer Masood, one of the Project Engineers who works in my Dahuk office.
Mr. Shlaymun is an Assyrian Christian. In his conversation with BG Walsh, he made reference to the second coming of Christ. It was very interesting listening to his conversation.
Life outside the wire is very different!
The entire time I resided in Australia, I was on the lookout for snakes. Australians are very fond of their venomous snakes. Abby and Gabe were the only family members to have a close encounter with a snake while we were there. We went to Phillip Island south of Melbourne and took a walk around a koala park while waiting to see the penguin parade that night. We were looking up in the trees at the koalas and not watching the path. Abby and Gabe were leading the way when Abby almost stepped on a giant black snake. The snake jumped straight up in the air 4 feet. Abby screamed and she and Gabe high tailed it back to us. The snake then escaped into the bush. Abby was the subject of much teasing after that. So, she was glad to witness what a ninny her mother was tonight. I was in the kitchen and turned around to see a small dark snake about 10 inches long and as wide around as a pencil slithering across the floor. I certainly had not expected snake encounters in Virginia, especially not in my house. I yelled, “SNAKE!”, and all the kids came to see. I decided to use the whisk broom to sweep the snake up and the dustpan to transport it out of the house. The snake was moving pretty quickly and was a bit hard to sweep into the dustpan. I finally got it and started moving towards the door. Just then, the snake decided to climb up the handle of the dustpan towards my hand. At this point, I screamed and dropped the pan back on the floor. Zeke was now crying hysterically, Abby was trying to comfort him, and Josiah was “back a safe distance” as he justified later. Only Gabe was standing at the ready to continue snake removal operation. Most likely because I stunned it, the snake got really still, so I swept him back into the dustpan and left it on the floor a few seconds. He didn’t move, so I told Gabe to hold open the door for me. After watching me throw a snake, Gabe decided it would be wiser to use the door stop then hold it open for his unpredictable mother. The snake was safely transported outside where everyone could comfortably look at it. It stuck it’s tongue out at us a few times which Zeke found quite amusing. Josiah googled snake pictures until we discovered it was a non venomous yellow bellied water snake. I pushed it off into the grass and am sincerely hoping it does not come back to visit.
While on my recent trip to Dahuk, I visited a project site in the small village of Beshinky. This Kurdish village consists of about 14 families living in mud and thatch houses.
You may notice the television antennas on most of the houses. A recent US Army project by a Civil Affairs unit brought electricity to the village for the first time ever. However, they still don’t have running water. They get all of their water from a stream that runs through the bottom of the valley. The women use buckets to carry water from the stream to their houses. My office in Dahuk is managing a project to dig a well, pump the water to a water tank, and distribute the water to each house through a small distribution network. While visiting the site, I was invited to have chai with the mokhtar (village mayor). He is the one in the picture below with the light blue shirt.
We are sitting in the shade of his grape arbor. If you look closely at the picture, you will see the clusters of grapes hanging down. While waiting for the chai to be prepared, the boy in the picture leaning against the post brought out small glasses of water for each of us. Being the guest of honor, he offered the water to me first, and I gladly took my glass and began sipping. Glenn, a new project engineer, was next and did the same. However, after that, all of the more experienced members of my office politely declined the offer. At that point I remembered all of the warnings against drinking any unbottled water! Oh well. Too late now.
I am happy to report that there were no adverse effects from drinking the water. I guess the spring is relatively clean. When we sat down for chai, we were told it would be about 10 minutes until it was ready. The person telling us this then added “10 Kurdish minutes”. Well, it ended up taking about 1 hour for the chai to be ready. I guess Kurdish minutes are very similar to Brien minutes
Yesterday Josiah put on his glasses for the first time and declared that we all looked different. He was amazed to discover that he could distinguish trees on a hill and that he could read signs far away. I remember when I got my glasses in fourth grade, I was astonished that I could see individual leaves on a tree. It was a complete shock. He kept taking his glasses off and putting them back on and proclaimed that Zeke was no longer fuzzy. I asked him if he was happy that he could now see clearly, and he said that he never wanted glasses because he didn’t want to be a nerd. I told him that since he loved to read and did well in school, he would be classified a nerd with or without glasses. He said, “Well, hopefully, I can at least be a cool nerd.” I am a bit uncertain if there is such a thing as a cool nerd.
I love books and I love to buy books for my children. Therefore, we have a lot of books. However, I do not have a lot of bookcases. I dream of one day having a house full of nice solid wood bookcases instead of the hodgepodge of particle board and unpainted pine shelves that I currently own. I periodically make a pledge to not buy another cheap bookcase. I declare that I will save my money and invest in wooden bookcases that will survive our relentless moving. Then, I move to a new house and have piles of books with no where to put them. I see in the newspaper ads that Big Lots has white particle board book cases for $25 and I think “I could buy a bookcase for each of the kids for less than the price of a nice one.” So, off I go to Big Lots. There are people who love Big Lots, the Dollar Store, and yard sales. I am not one of them. I greatly admire frugal people. They love to search for the best deal and save money. I like to go to the nearest shop and spend too much for an item, because I’m too lazy to look around. I walked into Big Lots and told myself to walk out before I purchased more cheap bookcases, but I couldn’t be stopped. Big Lots is a dangerous place. It convinced me I couldn’t pass up a great deal on a jewelry table and a child’s table with stools. So, I came home to assemble all my various purchases. I had help in assembling. Gabe operated the screwdriver and Zeke helped with the hammer. Zeke has a special knack for hitting my thumb. I successfully assembled the jewelry table and the child’s table with stools and was beginning to feel cocky that I was finally getting the hang of these home improvement tasks. Gabe, Zeke, and I started on the first bookcase and I made sure the unfinished edges were all facing upwards. Gabe worked the screwdriver and Zeke worked the hammer. We screwed the boards together and carefully pounded the nails that held the back on. I then went to put in the shelves and realized that I had connected one side with the peg slots facing out. I let out a frustrated scream and scared Zeke. All my new gained confidence was gone and I was reminded of the two other home improvement fiascoes I had this week. Josiah was out mowing the lawn and came into tell me that the lawnmower had stopped. Assuming that it had run out of gas, I went and got the gas can and filled it up. I went back inside and seconds later Josiah came in to tell me the lawnmower was smoking. I went outside to find the lawnmower coated in oil and smoking. All I could think was that Dale had mentioned to me that the weed eater took an oil, gas mix and I must have filled up the lawnmower with the wrong can. I stood there thinking, “I can’t believe I’ve broken Dale’s brand new lawnmower.” I sent the neighbor kid to bring his dad who concluded that when Josiah checked the gas, he also checked the oil and forgot to screw the oil cap back on. The oil bubbled out onto the engine which resulted in the smoke. I was much relieved. This week I also decided to shock myself by attempting to pull out an old fashioned multiple plug expander from the outlet without turning off the power. I didn’t do so well in electrical engineering at college, but I do remember learning that if you grab a bit of metal connected to a power source, you will get shocked, and get shocked I did. I have had many offers of assistance for home improvement tasks and have finally agreed to accept one, because who knows what I could do next.
