Bad Blogger

I'm a bad blogger, but I promise to get better in the future. I have just been offered a new position to continue working out here, but at the same time, have been told that our funding on our current program is being cut, and that I will probably be the first one out. I guess timing is good - now I don't feel so guilty about leaving the program early, but the situation is sad, as I'm beginning to realise that this may be my last few days in Baghdad for a while.

See my new position is 50% Jordan, 50% Iraq. Which is a great split. Just enough Sushi and Wine, to counter the food poisoning and general sense of insecurity. However, the 50% Iraq likely means 100% Erbil. It's expensive to pay for people to come to Baghdad, particularly if I will no longer be a US Government contractor, and cannot get on those handy-dandy free flights and buses between the IZ and the airport.

Now many of my fellow lefty-liberal, NGO/Think-Tank working friends would likely question my sadness. I am blatantly part of a war-machine whilst I'm down here. I'm fully immersed in the hyper-militarised environment of the IZ, living on a PSD FOB (Private Security Detail, Forward Operating Base) and across from a Military FOB I've gotten use to blackhwaks continuously flying over head, firing ranges flanking my "pod" - aka bungalo of reinforced concrete and sandbags , convoys after convoys of MRAPS (Mine resistant ambush protected) armoured vehicles and humvees, having to wear PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) whenever I leave for the "red zone" (read: anything that is not the IZ or an Army FOB), and eating bad, freeze dried and less than fresh food from the DFAC's (I'm not sure what that acronym is for - but it's where we eat - it's also called a GEM sometimes...) on site. I'll miss getting to see the sights of Baghdad and experiencing a war-effort that is truly sureal and I will (hopefully) never see again in my lifetime. I have been both fully appalled and amazed at the obnoxiousness of the occupation - but while I am the first to complain and want to distance myself from it, I am still glad I got to witness it. It is Weird. It is the only way to describe it. And you cannot understand unless you see and experience it. I digress. What I will miss most is good friends that I have met here. I'm coming to realise that with the restrictions still in place in Baghdad, and the nature of some of their work, it is a possibilty that I may not run into them again in the near future.

But such is the life of an Aid Worker. Flitting from one place to the next. And the more I stay in this work, the more I realize the world gets smaller and smaller.

I shouldn't be too sad, I am moving on to much bigger and better things. Seriously. Much. Bigger. And. Better. Things.

My Iraqi DCOP says that Baghdad needs 5 years, then I will be fine to walk on Abu Nawas street and eat Masgoof and go to a bar... Maybe I will see you in 5 years Baghdad... (Although I kind of hope I'm not in the Middle East by then). For now, Erbil is fine, and Amman is better.