Simba is lion

My world shrunk. It’s now the size of a tiny college campus and I live in a dorm. Well, I guess most dorms don’t have kitchens and mine does, so maybe it’s an apartment. Although there's nothing in the kitchen except a Twix bar, a tea bag and a packet of microwave popcorn I took from the Marriott in Rosslyn. That's pretty dorm-y.

Whatever the little place is, it’s home until May 2020, inchallah. After a three-day journey that encompassed three planes and a helicopter, I arrived in Baghdad on Thursday. It was a little worrisome getting out, because Florence was still hanging around the DC-NY path, which was my first leg. The flight left about an hour late and I had a tight connection but wound up leaving for Amman from a fairly close gate and even had enough time to grab another bottle of tea before hopping on the 10.5-hour flight.

Since, more or less (mostly less), the flight from Amman-Baghdad was a charter (VERY “less;” this is a pretty generous description but I’m not sure how else to classify it) that leaves in the morning, the itinerary calls for coming in the day before and staying at a hotel (hi, Marriott!) and then turning around the next morning for the last airplane flight and short helicopter ride.

A word about the Marriott: Oh, man. There is a world of difference between a regular Marriott breakfast and a Marriott Residence breakfast. There was so much to choose from! Not a lot of time, since it opened at 6:30 and my ride left at 7, but still. It was fabulous.

The evening before, I was so tired from the overnight flight from JFK that I didn’t bother trying to go out and scrounge food. I ate right at the sports bar in the hotel, Champions. They had several games going on, but I don’t follow “futbol.” I chose a seat in the decidedly American display section, sitting under autographed pictures of Nolan Ryan and Wayne Gretzky, even as the music played “Daydream Believer” by the Monkees. My stay in Amman was short, surreal and sleepless. Totally jet-lagged, I crashed heavily at 9 p.m. but woke up three times between then and midnight and couldn’t get to sleep at all after that.

So, by 1 p.m. the following day, I was nearing zombie-like status but tried to keep up with my sponsor, who showed me around the place.

The post here has been described to me as “a cruise ship that never docks,” a high school or college campus, Communist Russia and a minimum-security prison. I think those last two are because there’s a lot of security, a lot of cameras and we have to wear our ID tags everywhere.

But this place is fantastic. My apartment is laid out nicely, has two TVs with American channels and water I can drink straight out of the faucet. I’m also conveniently located across from the building that houses the smaller (and less intimidating) gym, the pool, post office, little shops and the place that’s called Baghdaddy’s, which is a cross between a bar and a multi-purpose room.

This place is not all Americans and Iraqis. There are contractors here, and they are from, quite literally, all over. Some are TDYers from other embassies and will be here for 3 months to a year or so, and some have resigned from their embassy jobs to take spots here as contractors and have been here for years.

There is food everywhere. This is where the “cruise ship” part comes in. Each meal is served for a number of hours every day, but if you miss that or just want something small, there’s another place to go to grab that, too. And it’s good food. The first night, I had Jamaican chicken and couscous. I split a cinnamon roll with someone this morning and it was fabulous. I also had pancakes, grits and bacon. I had soup and collards last night, mostly because I was stuffed from the spinach, chicken and mashed potatoes I’d had for lunch.

Fortunately, there are two gyms. I missed spin class today because I was either in the wrong gym or the wrong room, but I got back on the elliptical for the first time since leaving Istanbul. So today I hurt, but I earned the half a cinnamon roll.

Since the weekend here is Friday-Saturday (meaning I haven’t gone to work yet), Today (Saturday) is our Sunday. As a result, I had the opportunity to go to church, which is held in Baghdaddy’s. There is a Protestant service and a Catholic service, plus several others for other religions.

I’d gone to a Bible study my first night here (too jet-lagged to remember much) and was expecting a similar crowd, like maybe 10 people or so. Instead, there was a room full of people from all around. It was pretty cool. It was a real church service and not a substitute, which made me happy. We weren’t allowed to go to church in Istanbul.

After three or four contemporary hymns and an intro, a group of black singers came up and sang an African gospel song, in some African language. They had the translation up on the screen and it was the same phrases over and over with different African countries listed. Think “God bless Uganda!” “God bless Botswana!”, etc.

The them was something about a lion, and today I learned that “simba” is “lion” in whatever language it was. While I saw “The Lion King,” I didn’t know the translation was literal.

It looks like I have the potential to learn a lot on this tour, and I’m not counting work. The possibilities here are mind-boggling. So far, I’ve been to Bible study and attempted a spin class (I’ll find it soon). There is a knitting group (Baghdarners, I think it’s called) that I’ve already asked about and today at lunch I sat with some folks who were doing salsa. One was the instructor (an Air Force guy) and one a student. She was an Iraqi-born Michigander who’s back in the country for two years as a contractor doing something in addition to learning salsa, but that’s what we talked about.

They were so enthused about it that I somehow got looped into it. This is definitely going to be a unique tour.