Giddyup

A month into Nepali language training, and the steep incline of learning has abruptly flattened to a plateau. That first month was great. I absorbed every drop the teachers threw at me. Learning a language full-time is much easier the second time around; I was miserable for most of Romanian language training.

I am the only student in my class. This is good for a few reasons. Namely, I'm only in the classroom 4 hours a day (but there's plenty of homework) and my teachers can customize the instruction to fit my pace and fluency. The other edge of that sword is that there's nobody else to take the heat for a while. It's all me all the time. And it would be nice sometimes to have another native English speaker in the class to help understand the grammatical explanations given by the non-native English speaking instructor. ("Did you understand when to use 'maa' in the post position and when not to?")

The other downside is that by the last hour of class on Friday my brain is slush. It just shuts down, like a stubborn mule that refuses to budge no matter how hard you kick it.

So now my stubborn mule brain and I have scaled the initial steep climb and have leveled off. I can see up ahead the rocky path of complicated conjugations, illogical verb tenses, and frustrating sentence structures. I'll need some sharp spurs in the next 9 months.

The Circle of Strife

FSI Day 1

Me: I'd like to request access to my OpenNet account and get my FSI INET account password.

IT guy: It looks like Baghdad hasn't transferred your account yet. You'll have to send them an email and ask that they transfer the account.

Me: Um, how can I send them an email if I can't log on?

IT guy: Try logging on to the NEASA server. It might take a while the first time.

Me: Ok. And my FSI INET account?

IT guy: Here's your password. You should be all set.

Day 2

Me: I tried logging on to my FSI INET account but it says it's disabled and to see the network administrator.

IT guy: Huh. Let me try something... Ok it should work now.

Day 3

Me: After 40 minutes, I was able to log on to OpenNet through the NEASA server yesterday and sent an email to Baghdad to have them transfer the account. But today I logged on but couldn't get anything done. Before the system crashed for the fourth (and final) time, I saw that someone in Baghdad had replied to my email, but I couldn't read it.

IT guy: Oh. Go see Oliver, he'll have to help you. But it looks like he's pretty busy with someone else right now.

Me: You're telling me that out of all the people at the IT Help Desk, only Oliver can assist me, and out of all the people at the IT Help Desk, only Oliver is unavailable right now?

IT guy: Yeah. Do you wanna wait?


On the next episode of The Circle of Strife - payroll & voucher bureaucracy.

Bye Bye Baghdad

As my departure from Baghdad approaches, I've been thinking about the past year. Here's what I will miss and what I will not miss about Baghdad.

What I won't miss:

Stepping outside and getting sandblasted by 115 degree wind and dirt
Iranian-made rockets
Action memos and 8-page cables

Baked fish and steamed vegetables
Personal Protective Equipment (aka kevlar vest & helmet)

Acronyms

T-walls

What I will miss:

Some incredible people
Flying in helicopters
Free all-you-can-eat ice cream
Girls night
Big guys with guns opening the door for me
The DFAC when it's decorated for holidays

Kurdistan Elections

At the end of July, the Kurdistan Regional Government (a semi-autonomous area in northern Iraq) held elections for their parliament and president. I was part of a small team from the embassy that travelled to Erbil for a week to help monitor the voting and ballot counting.

The election monitoring teams were split up, and I travelled to Sulaymania and Dohuk. Each location is about a 3 hour drive from our base in Erbil. Kurdistan is very safe compared to the rest of Iraq; in fact, the Kurds like to boast that not a single American has been killed in the region (I guess that’s true of you don’t count certain cities in disputed areas along the border with the rest of Iraq).

Despite the safer environment, our security was tight. Our convoy included 5 armored Suburbans and 11 armed bodyguards. Our driver was a “banged up” former Special Forces soldier from Georgia who addressed everyone as Sir or Ma’am. We wore our body armor in the car. This was not a low profile movement.

The first day in Sulaymania I observed the special needs voting for the KRG soldiers, called the Peshmerga. The second day in Dohuk I observed the general voting. Our main job was to observe the actual voting process to make sure everything went according to the regulations. But the part I enjoyed the most was talking to the Kurds. Most seemed very happy to answer my questions (through an interpreter), although it’s likely they were just interested in a pleasant distraction from waiting in line in the extraordinary heat.

I was happy to see their enthusiasm and their confidence that this would be a free and fair election. I saw a surprising number of elderly people, but also young people. Some voting centers were more orderly than others, but standing in the heat for a couple hours would make anyone cranky.

As it turned out, the elections had a large turnout and the new opposition party, the Change party, won nearly twice as many parliament seats as expected. It was a historic election and I’m glad I got to see it up close.