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We are in turn the rugs over mode as my parents are scheduled to arrive tomorrow. I started the kids cleaning their rooms over the Presidents Day 3 day weekend. Josiah cleaned his room quickly and efficiently. Abby, who loves a mess, cleaned her room quickly because I allowed her to sleep over at her friends house. Awhile ago, I had helped Abby clean her room and put everything away in its proper sorted order. When we were done I said, “See, doesn’t your room look much better?” To which she replied, “No. It doesn’t feel very homey to me.” Zeke cleaned his room with a little help from Mom. Gabe, well, it’s actually painful for me to watch Gabe clean his room. How Gabe plays and how Gabe cleans has such a randomness to it that it can not be comprehended by his right handed Mother. I have cleaned along beside him and instructed him in how to break down a large task (clean your room) into smaller tasks (put away stuffed animals, put away costumes, put away legos, etc). Instead, Gabe picks up one lego, looks at it for awhile, attaches it to another lego piece, puts it away, picks up one stuffed animal, looks at it awhile, finds a costume dresses it up, and puts it away, picks up one dirty sock, runs to the laundry chute, puts it in. The other possible cleaning method of picking up every piece of dirty laundry, so that you only have to make one trip to the laundry chute completely escapes him. He was not allowed to watch tv, play the computer, ds or wii until his room was cleaned. It took him all 3 days. When he was done, nothing was actually put away neatly in the myriad of assorted bins that I have given him. It was a hodge podge of unique creations piled on his shelves. Part way through this cleaning attempt, I called my left handed friend for a consultation. “Can you perform a single task to completion before starting something else?” “Rarely,” was the answer. She told me that when the deadline arrived, he would be done. On Monday night he was done. All I then needed to do was accept a left handed standard.

This morning I went on a site visit to an Iraqi Army (IA) compound on the west side of Mosul. One of the local Military Transition Teams (MiTTs) requested some engineering assistance. A MiTT is a team of US Army advisors assigned to work with an IA unit. Periodically we oversee construction projects to renovate IA facilities. So the MiTT asked if I could have a couple of Engineers take a look at the Combat Outpost (COP) occupied by their newly assigned IA unit. I tasked Alda and Mo to visit the site with the MiTT, and then I decided to tag along.

We rode with the MiTT in their up-armored HMMWVs (humvees). Two of my security team members also came along to get a look at the compound for future visits. A picture is worth a thousand words.

Unfortunately, things got much worse as we took a closer look. The IA Battalion Commander was very excited to have us assess his compound in the hopes of getting some assistance in fixing it up! He walked us through his unit area pointing out his key concerns. The biggest issue is that the septic system is completely backed up. But that’s enough bad news. He was very proud to show us his battalion store.

It makes me appreciate the PX on Diamondback that much more! Of course, we ended the visit just like we started the visit, sipping a cup of chai in the commander’s office.

Once again, the TV was never turned off.

For some reason, Mugs seems to think everyone is bored with my FOB Life postings! I have been out and about, but I knew you would all much rather read about my new CHU. I guess I’ll change it up today and post about today’s site visit to the Gogjalee neighborhood of Mosul. The Iraqis get a huge kick out of hearing me try to pronounce the names of Iraqi towns, so I won’t bother with a phonetic description of Gogjalee.

After passing over the Tigris River heading east, we drove through one of the gates of Ninevah. Remember Jonah 1:2? “Arise, go to Ninevah, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.” (The Message) The picture below is actually us heading back through the gates on our return to the FOB, but I wanted to include it first!

At the pump station, there is a family living in the operator’s building. When we arrived the women and one of the sons came out to talk to us. The father and the other sons were away, but we saw them returning as we were leaving.

I was finally prepared for the boy. I bought a pouch for my body armor to hold a stash of goodies. So I was able to give this boy a dum dum sucker and a tiger finger puppet.

After the site visits were complete, I kept my camera ready to take a picture of a particular mosque I had seen on the way out. This is the Nebi Yunus mosque, or in English, the Prophet Jonah mosque. Reportedly, in one of the rooms is a shrine to Jonah complete with whale bones.

The trip itself was very uneventful, thanks to the soldiers of the 3rd ACR. Chris Johnson’s unit, 1-8 Infantry Battalion, is part of 3rd ACR. In my trips outside the wire lately, I’ve noticed a much increased presence of US troops throughout the city. Over the last couple of days, we experienced a huge blast that leveled a three-story building followed the next day by a suicide attack that killed the Mosul Chief of Police. The Governor of Ninewa put a curfew in place, so there were no civilian cars on the road at all today. He must have seen the news reports on the TV in his office!

Having spent two years in Hawaii and two years in Australia, my children have been informing me that we are well and truly behind in keeping up with American fads. Quite a bit is based on tv programs and movies they have not watched. They have been asking to watch one of the latest shows that I haven’t gotten around to previewing. In my defense, I declared that I let them watch Keenen and Kel. Josiah then informed me, “Mom, that’s from the 90′s!” Oh those 90′s, now so out of date. I decided to further defend myself with the declaration that there must be some kid in Josiah’s class whose parents don’t let him watch all this stuff. He replied, “Ya, I’m him.” Somehow, I’ve become the most conservative parent. So, in an attempt to catch up with the culture, we watched high school musical I & II. Zeke found these shows most interesting. Zeke watched Christmas Cantatas at church throughout the month of December and occasionally joined in uninvited with the singing. On Christmas Eve his encore version of a woman’s solo sent his cousins into fits of giggles. Over the last month and a half, he would periodically find the piano book with “Go Tell it on the Mountain” in it and hold it up, stand straight and bellow the song forth. He even sang it to the preschool principal when he went in for his evaluation. When Gabe told him that Christmas and the time for singing “Go Tell it on the Mountain” was over, he got his Oh My Oh MY Oh Dinosaurs book, opened up to the page where the dinosaurs are singing and burst forth with “Our God is an Awesome God”. At church, when the worship team finishes a song he likes, he will declare “That was a good one!” loud enough for everyone in the church to hear. Last summer, he filled our days singing show tunes he had learned watching the Muppets. Well, high school musical fascinated him. A world where people periodically break out in song and dance seemed wonderful to him. At one point in the show, the sad breakup duet was sung and Zeke was especially moved by this song. He got up off the couch, walked into the kitchen, stood in front of the pantry and looked at the giant box of goldfish crackers. He then began his own sad song which had a mournful tune and lines such as “My goldfish ran away down my shirt.”

*** Update 28 Jan 07 ***

For your listening pleasure, here is Zeke singing a medley of old favorites:

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As part of the preparations for an upcoming construction project, we conducted a partnering meeting. In addition to USACE personnel, the participants included representatives from the Ninewa Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), the construction company, the governor’s office, and the appropriate directorate from the provincial council. I can’t go into any specifics about the project due to security concerns. The meeting was held in the Provincial Hall in downtown Mosul.

The highlight of the meeting actually happened before the meeting began. While we were standing around engaged in small talk, one of the Iraqi aides came into the meeting room and handed me a small porcelain coffee cup. He then proceeded to pour about 1 finger of the thickest coffee I had ever seen into the cup. I’ve had Turkish coffee before, and this coffee makes Turkish coffee seem like a nice cup of tea. Anyway, after he poured my shot of coffee, the aide just stood there looking at me. So I drank the coffee in 1 gulp and handed the cup back to him. He then took the same cup, handed it to the next person, poured the coffee, and stood there. The aide repeated this process with the same cup for each person in the meeting.

The following day, we had a meeting with the Governor of Ninewa, Mr Duraid Kashmoula. He had been unable to attend the partnering meeting, so we shared with him the outcomes of the meeting. Once again, we got treated to the same coffee ceremony from the previous day. However, this aide was not as patient as the earlier one. He used 2 cups to get done twice as quickly. The strangest thing was that throughout our meeting, the Governor never turned off the TV. At one point, he did turn the sound down a little, but that’s it. It felt very familiar to me!