Day Five

…Day Five
31 July 2007

I wake up at 0900 and try to stretch through the nasty pain in my back. This hard foam mattress is going to take some getting used to. It's not unbearable or anything but damn it's annoying.

We pick up the techs and head next door to link up with the construction guys who will be setting all the conduit for our new cables. We are met by a small team of workers, and when I say a small team I mean small in stature not numbers. Seriously, it was like being surrounded by blue overall clad umpa lumpas with power tools. Creepy, man. We lead them around from room to room showing them how our lines will be running and where we need the conduit to run.
Now it's time for us to get back to work. The drill is readied and the ladder is acquired for this morning's chaos. Will the walls hold up to the onslaught brought on by the jack hammering super drill?

The question is quickly answered as a shower of plaster and paint chips fly from the wall. Hmm, well, it's still standing! Keep going! As we drill through the general's office there is a loud thunk on the ceiling tiles right above my head. "Whoa! Stop there!" I yell out. And sure enough, when we removed the tile we found that a half drilled brick had been dislodged and hammered right out of the cement! It should be our last drilling session anyway.

Lunch is interesting. I've never had chili-mac made with bbq pulled pork instead of seasoned beef. It was good and all, but kinda weird, too. Along side it is the all too familiar corn and bean mix. Yeah, anyway. Refueled, we get going on the cabling. It's not real difficult, just kinda time consuming. During the process, we meet quite a cast of characters.

There's the PJOC director that has a questionable air about him. Like a friggin cult leader, actually. Then there are the jundee (enlisted soldiers) that are a mixed bag of rowdy, depressed, and hyper. Like the guy who keeps telling me that the sergeant I'm with is an "areel" (Arabic for pussy (literal translation: "big hole"!)). This same guy insists on giving me an Arabic name and, since neither my first or last names translate properly, he settles on Hieder (pronounced hi-der), which is cool with me. Then there are the guards that are just bored. And why wouldn't they be? They just sit in folding chairs outside the offices of officers. That's it. Just sit all damn day. I think that's why they always have the barrels of their AKs pointing up when we come through, just so we can tell them to point the barrels down and they can pretend to not understand us. That's the highlight of their day. Yeah, I'd be bored too!

It's getting late, so we get our shit together and head for the door when all of a sudden, a guy comes out of the JOC and, through some broken English, tells us that the phones are not working. Alright. We take a look and find that it's only one phone and it's bugging out because they've got it hooked up all crazy. It rings but when it's answered it continues to ring! It was pretty funny to watch the guy try to answer the phone in between rings. After untangling the mess we find that it's connector is loose, too. Okay. We put a new end on it and then find out that the problem is actually the phone's port itself being a bit too big for the connector! Shove some friggin paper or something in there, we're hungry, damnit!

After a dinner of what may or may not be General Tso's chicken and spackle (possibly mashed potatoes), we're tasked to go explain what's gonna happen once the equipment gets here to the G6. Yeah the same guy we tried conversing with yesterday. He still doesn't get it and it comes down to the OIC coming in and giving an inspiring performance. "I don't wanna hear it!" "I know it's not what you 'want', and I don't care." "This is what you're getting." "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth." With that last one, he actually made the interpreter attempt to translate that exact phrase (like, literal translation) to this guy! It was amazing. I guess he finally just accepted the fact that he wasn't going to have a say in this and he gave us the smile, nod, and shukran this time! I get the feeling that there will be a lot of this going on throughout the whole project.
By now it's pretty late, but it's okay. I have to stay up to do some commo stuff tonight anyway.

Sleep comes sometime after 0300 and way too soon it's…