We had container housing units at Hope Village. You might
not have seen these, but you can picture them: A tractor-trailer, minus the
tractor, divided into a couple of rooms. That’s a container housing unit, or CHU.
Hope Village’s didn’t have any sort of plumbing because we had a separate
trailer for it, but the ones here in Erbil are “wet,” meaning they have a
tiny bathroom in them. But no kitchen or washer and dryer, two things that I
really appreciate for a three-week TDY.
Fortunately, I am not living in a CHU. Instead, I’m in a
giant house that’s designated for female TDYers here. Right now, there are
three of us. The other two are in two of the three upstairs bedrooms, which is
also where the washers and a bathroom are. I’m currently the lone occupant of
the downstairs, which consists of 2-3 bedrooms (really it’s three, but one is
half the size of the others and only contains an iron), a giant kitchen, a bath
and a half, an oversized hallway that’s both longer and wider than some
bedrooms I’ve had, and 2-3 oddly configured sitting room/living room/formal
dining rooms. I think these used to be two separate rooms, because there are two
doors within a two feet of each other that lead to the oversized hallway.
They’re nice digs for a couple of weeks and I’ve really
enjoyed cooking. Since the temporary employees meander in and out, it’s kind of
hostel-like (though absolutely not hostile). There’s a lot of random leftover
ingredients laying around, like pasta, spinach and garlic.
Since basically our compound here is literally a couple of
city blocks, there are little grocery stores (smaller than 7/11s) that sell the
basics, which is perfect for me since I’m a basic kind of person. I got rice,
macaroni (I didn’t know about the cache at first), milk and eggs and then
loaded up with carrots, onions and potatoes when the veggie guy came.
And I got outside! The coordinator sent out an email for a
supply run (my employer would capitalize the “s” and “r” but I refuse to). I
didn’t even know where it was but I signed up. I just wanted to go “outside.”
Oh what fun! The outside world! Iraq! Lovely Erbil, Iraq.
Which, since most cities look very similar, a lot like anyplace in Turkey, Morocco and
Jordan, but who cares, right? I was outside!
Only a few people can go, and since we don’t drive, we all
went together in a motorpool ride. Everything’s coordinated and such, so we
only had an hour, but that was plenty time to hit the grocery store, what since
I didn’t need groceries and all. I did manage to buy these cookies I discovered
in Istanbul that are basically Twix bars, brownie mix (we’re doing a Christmas
potluck), a couple Snickers bars, milk and juice. Oh, and, quite randomly, a
nail file. I’d tried to buy one from both Target and Walmart, but neither would
allow the $1 metal item to be shipped to me. And then I found one in Erbil, go
figure. Also about $1, but most everything else seemed cheaper. I got a heavy
bag of groceries, handed over a $20, and got enough change to go to the coffee
shop next door and have Iraqi tea, which, let’s get real, is the same thing as
Turkish tea. Not a bad thing, of course.
The downside of the whole “outside” trip was me managing to
pull my back getting out of the car, which, since we’re American, was a giant
Suburban or something similar. By bad luck of the draw, I was in the back seat
and, getting out, managed to step out in massive pain. If I had been anywhere else
but on my one shot at being “outside,” I would have gone back to bed. I hurt so
bad and basically eased myself through the whole shopping trip. At one point, I
went for a bag of rice on the bottom shelf and instantly regretted it.
What it is with backs that makes them somehow susceptible to
the silliest movements? I remember two other times when I hurt myself.
One was playing softball, when I reached down to get a ball at the backstop and
couldn’t get up. The other was when I went to play with Kocur, who was more
than delighted that I brought myself down to her level and then couldn’t get
back up. So much more convenient to play with her, right?
Yesterday after the “supply run,” I pretty much loafed
around in pain. I’d gotten up early and ran, so I didn’t feel bad about that,
but I did eat a Snickers, a small bag of malted milk balls (alas, not Whoppers,
but he best I could do) and a Twix-ish cookie, but that was over the course of
a long day, not in a sitting.
With a little of the scrounging thing, I also tracked down
some chicken that clearly had been in the freezer for longer than my two roommates
had been here, so they were fair game. I had baked chicken and rice plus
spinach.
And Star Wars. For some reason, two of the channels here are
playing Star Wars, like all of the way through. They’re different channels,
probably run by the same media conglomerate, but very definitely, Star Wars was
on one channel and The Empire Strikes back on another, so go figure. For
whatever odd reason, they skipped The Force Awakens (though they did Rogue One)
and went directly from Return of the Jedi to The Last Jedi. Han Solo, I guess,
isn’t out on TV yet so it wasn’t in the mix. But was nice having the Force with
me as I spent the day in pain.
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