I'm baaacckkkkkkk

It's been quite a while since I posted...I'm fine, no worries....just the internet is soooo slow here it is difficult to get anything done workwise muchless personally.

It has been a frustrating few weeks for me...maybe it has only been a week, maybe two or more...i don't know...it is groundhog day here and every day bleeds into the previous and the next. I was in Baghdad for some training (which was a waste of time to begin with) and then could not get back to my base. Some people would jump at the chance to be back in "civilization" for 6 days and a mini-R&R in Baghdad but it was no fun. Every day i'd get up and pack all my stuff (which was A LOT of stuff...whenever you go to Baghdad you get requests for all kinds of things to bring back with you..so i was laden down with printer cartridges, various personal items and enough alcohol to get stock any dive bar). I'd get up, check out of my room, find my ride, get a ride to the helo pad, sit there for anywhere from 2 to 7 hours just to be told the helos weren't flying due to weather (although it looked perfetly clear to me most days). So reverse the whole process...and eventually get checked back into my room to do it all over again early the next morning. No fun.

Once I did get back to base I had been gone so long (6 days was like an eternity!) that I was off the schedule...we have to schedule any trip we do off the base at least 48 hours ahead of time so i wasn't scheduled for anything for my first few days back. Then for a few days the base was hosting a medical training at a local hospital...by all accounts is was very successful. A bunch of army docs and nurses went over to the hospital and presented lectures and also trailed a group of Iraqi doctors for the day and gave advice and pointers throughout the day. There was a 32 year old woman in the hospital who had been in a severe accident when she was 2 years old and was missing most of her jaw bone and, thus, couldnt open her mouth. She was extremely malnourished as she could only take liquids due to her jaw immobility...and she had lived like that for 30 years. The reason she had not undergone surgery is because the doctors did not know how to perform a nasal intubation and, obviously, couldnt tube her in the standard way through her mouth....so she suffered in that condition for 30 years. The American docs instructed the Iraqi docs on the nasal intubation and surgery was performed to reconstruct the woman's jaw and restore functionality. According to all reports, this was a huge success for the PRT - lots of good PR, good relationship building, good transfer of knowledge and capacity building. Unfortunately, this was a big event here on the PRT and took most of our translators and BBAs (Bilingual, Bicultural Advisors) to the hospital for the week and left me with noone to schedule any meetings for me. On top of that, the internet has slowed to a crawl so any research I have wanted to do became more than my patience could bear.

I'm back on schedule now..I have missions (trips off the base) lined up for every day for the next 10 days or so so that's good...hopefully I'll get back in the swing of things. I've spent this "down time" resting...I'm still sick with this chest cough that i'm sure is caused by the dust that saturates the air. I've also made friends with some of the soldiers and joined their games of spades, horseshoes, and anything else we can find to pass time here. That's fun, but totally unsatisfying. Makes me almost dread going on vacation...if it was so hard to get back into work after just 6 days in Baghdad it will certainly be worse after being abroad for a month...

Tomorrow I'm going on a "community walk"...just trying to get our friendly faces out into the neighborhood we're located in to meet and greet...so that's not much of a mission, but it is a trip off the base. In the coming week I'm meeting with the chief judge again, meeting with the a representative from the ministry of human rights, going to inspect a few rural courthouses, visiting a few ngos....just getting out and about and assessing.

The one thing i did get done in the past week is having my first meeting of the Karbala Women's Lawyers Association...more to come on that.