We're closing down another day in Iraq. Ofcourse we started at the usual time with our show. Now that we've been here for a week everyone is starting to feel pretty 'brotherly' towards each other. The marines played a cool joke on us while we were on the air. Mics were hot and all of a sudden we heard two explosions and sirens followed by three marines in full battle dress busting into our tent. They proceeded to kidnap Arend, our news guy. Hillarious and a great radio-bit.
After the show the CO (the big boss on campus) took us to a visit with a local sheik, Salam Fidhalah a'bayyes who's tribe consists of 450 people and is a subset of a tribe that encompasses 30% of the entire region. This was a major experience. We got a first hand look at the incredible diplomatic skills of the CO. The sheik wants everything to move quicker, and the topic of conversation quickly turned to money. "No problem, show us your plans and they'll be taken into consideration. The system really works, the dutch marines are constantly encouraaging the population to learn how to help themselves. It would be easy for these dutch civil engineers to stay here indefinitely and keep everything under their control. But that wouldn't be any better than it was. Top down just won't swing. Sure it's going to take years, maybe 15 to get to a place that provides an acceptable environemtn to live in. But it will happen, with enough perserverance.
Lots of customs and traditions to follow during this high-level meeting.We all sat with our legs folded and never ever made the mistake of pointing our feet toward anyone in the room, a major insult. We were served tea in small shot glasses filled halfway with sugar, followed by tiny cups of coffee goop. Unless you politely tipped your cup from left to right the brew would keep on comin. I was able to stomach two cups. Hardcore stuff.
After we said all our 'salaams' it was off to the downtown area. The CO then invited me to tatse some real local culture by getting a haircut at the loacl barbershop. Yep, my man hacked away with great pride. Funny that he was able to recognize my 'david beckham' style. He really knew what he was doing and it turned out just fine :) The barber also removed my facial hair. Even though I had a good three-bladed shave this morning the barber removed all kinds of mini-hairs by crossing a thin thread between his hand and using one end between his teeth. By bobbing his head back and forth the miniscule hairs were removed quickly and quite painfully. Never saw this before. Felt like tiny bee stings, but the face is a smooth as a baby's butt.
We just got back from our 'Disco Show' here at the camp, the three of us spun records from 8:30 to midnight and despite the alcohol free beer and extremely unfavourable male/female ratio everyone had a great time and we all forgot the war and sand and how much everyone misses home. We leave saturday and I'm pretty sure I'll need a good week to post-process the massive amounts of foreign input of experiences and emotions. Some sleep will help, last show tomorrow morning!
11:56:26 PM
