Cyndi Scarlett in Baghdad

I realize that I haven’t written for a while - for which there is a very good reason.  I got to go home for six days over Thanksgiving and surprise my parents and friends. 

While the trip was surely not long enough, I was also able to attend my home church in Kansas and hear my new pastor preach which was a delight.  I was reminded once again just how much I have to be thankful for - not the least of which is my family and dear, precious friends who are too many to note here but you all know who you are.  All of you have been such a blessing to me, some going back to my childhood - others newer friends but no less precious.  Thank you again for all of your love and prayers when I was sick and during my recovery and now as I work in Iraq. 

When visiting my folks in Oklahoma, I was able to stop by the hospital and see one of the doctors who was instrumental in saving my life on more than one occasion as well as some of the hospital staff that had taken care of me.  Some didn’t recognize me - which felt great.  Unfortunately, I happened to get sick and ended up in the same hospital again on Thanksgiving night.  A CT scan showed I had a pretty serious bowel obstruction - which I could have told them without the CT scan just from the pain.  I guess the ER doctor told my folks that more than likely I’d be headed to surgery, the nursing staff thought I’d be heading to surgery - the radiologist and CT tech thought I’d be heading to surgery - but no one took into account that we know the greatest healer ever!  Lots of prayers were prayed I know that night and by morning, I was almost back to normal.  When they took me to have a follow up CT scan, the radiologist couldn’t believe it.  He showed me the one taken not 12 hours before and said that it didn’t even look like the same belly.  God is so good, isn’t He?

One my way back to Baghdad, I happened to get caught up in the Bush visit to Amman.  I had a booking made at my favorite hotel over a month ago.  What I didn’t know is that it must be Bush’s favorite hotel as well.  I arrived by taxi to a scene that looked like Baghdad - tanks - heavily armed soldiers - road blocks… finally got inside and was met by I don’t know how many secret service agents standing around talking in the lobby.  When I finally got to reception, I found that my reservation had been cancelled by the State Department.  I wasn’t happy.  I asked to speak to the person who had cancelled the reservation.  Apparently, the President’s security detail likes to take over the entire hotel if at all possible to ensure his safety.   But, come to find out, they only do this to US citizens - because they know they can get away with it.  They can’t touch foreign nationals or else there’d be a scandal.  So, go figure - US citizens are now more a security threat than foreign nationals - at least in the eyes of the secret service.  Does this make sense?  No.  I was not the only one by a long shot that had their reservation cancelled.  The State Department did make us reservations elsewhere  - but no one seemed to know where.  I was told to go to one hotel only to get there - find it full and no, I didn’t have a reservation.  Of to the next place - where I did have a reservation.  All is well that end’s well but I must say I am not impressed with the arrogance of our government.  But then I haven’t been impressed for a very long time.   I was on the plane from Paris to Amman with Brian Williams and his team from NBC nightly news.  I did not talk to them as it just didn’t seem appropriate.  He looks a lot older in person though!

So, now I’m back at work.  I owe you a blog on my trip to Babylon - and yes Miguel, there really is a Babylon here.  Ruins and all.  That was a hair raising trip for more than a couple of reasons.  I promise within the next day or two, I’ll write about it.

Blessed, blessed thanksgiving to all of you. 

Several weeks ago I met this woman at a conference who gave me a huge compliment - sort of…

She came marching up to me at the break and asked me, even before introducing herself if anyone has ever told me I look like Marilyn Monroe.  No, I said, no one had ever said that to me.  She couldn’t believe it - telling me that clearly I do - yada, yada, yada - I told her I don’t see it at all when I look in the mirror  - to which she said - “Oh clearly, had Marilyn lived to be your age, you would look exactly alike!”  Thanks a lot! 

Monday, I flew down to Babil (where I’m still located on a job - more about that later).  Knowing I was going to get right off the Blackhawk and go into a meeting, I wore a skirt.  When I got on the copter, the engine was off - no big deal.  A Captain sitting across from me, leaned forward and told me that we’d be stopping to refuel half way down to Babil - that we’d have to get off the bird - and that I was going to have a “real Marilyn Monroe moment on my hands if I wasn’t careful” - I knew immediately what he meant.  Unfortunately, he was right - before I knew it, my skirt was somewhere up over my head as I jumped off the helicopter - in front of oh, about 10 crusty old soldiers - who all got a good laugh.  I’m sure NONE of them had any doubt that I bear no resemblence to our dearly departed Marilyn at that moment.

I am aware that I have not been keeping everyone current on my life here and I do apologize.  Things have been very hectic.  I will try my best to write about my trip here to Babil when I get back to Baghdad later this week.  I have just two days in Baghdad before heading to Amman for a conference - will take just a few days off - and then back into Bahdad in time to host Thanksgiving dinner at my house. 

Blessings to you all!

It’s been an interesting day here today.   We have all been on high alert expecting the worst given the verdict in Saddam’s trial and it hasn’t been as bad as one would have thought.

This morning on my way to church there were road blocks with tanks set up in multiple places - I haven’t seen that in at least a month - not the tanks anyway.  I don’t really know what they were doing there as they let me pass without even asking for my ID. Perhaps they were looking for someone specific, I don’t know.

I was in the kitchen when the verdict came down - and knew it had because all of a sudden horns started honking - and AK 47’s started being fired all over the place (a common way to celebrate here) - sure enough, I turned on the TV in time to see the live coverage of his sentence coming down.  I found his reaction to be defiant on one hand, and yet there was fear there too - perhaps he now knows how the 1,000’s of people he had put to death felt. 

The curfew remains in effect.  I don’t sleep much and heard the tanks rolling out around 30 minutes ago - they usually leave the IZ around 5am so I thought it was time to get up - then found it was only 2:30.   I would imagine we’ll have another day with the curfew.  There did appear to be quite a bit of mortar fire last night.  We could hear it but it didn’t appear to be coming into the IZ.  My security manager said word was the Sunni’s were shelling the Shites  - and the Shites were shelling the Sunni’s (they tend to live in different neighborhoods - which is a relatively new  thing here since 2003, before they were pretty much all integrated).

Folks here don’t seem to think that this appeal process will go on for very long - and that more than likely Saddam will be hung within the next two - three months.   One has to wonder if that will be a public thing.  I can’t imagine being here if/when that happens. I understand from my local colleagues that they are looking forward to Saddam’s death because they believe only once he is dead that he truely will not come back to power.  It’s kind of a weird thing.  They wish on one hand he were BACK in power - because at least there was some type of law - and yet they want him dead.

Blessings to everyone!

As my dear father has gotten older, he seems to have been a bit fixated on being sure that he has enough money to bury he and my mother - he is determined that he’s not going to leave expenses like these for us kids to worry about. I’ve never really understood that - but that’s the kind of Dad he is.

Talking about having money to bury oneself.  Day before yesterday was a rather slow day - I’d been busy, busy making a variety of deadlines, which, by the way, were made - so I told my Assistant that he could go ahead and leave early. 

I noted that he had been on the phone several times during the morning, but he kept working and never said anything. When I told him he could go, he thanked me profusely.  He told me that his brother-in-law had been shot earlier that morning and killed on the way to visit another brother who is handicapped and blind.  He was very thankful that I suggested he leave early as his family was needing him to take care of things.

I was shocked and asked him why he didn’t tell me earlier - he said he didn’t want to miss work.  Can you imagine? I offered my condolences and told him to take as much time as he needed off and he left.

This morning I decided to sleep in a little - I didn’t sleep well last night - had been up at my usual 5am - and decided around 7:30 to go back to bed and read.  So, I did.  I got up about 9am got dressed, went into the office and there sat my assistant working.  Now today is a Friday - the Islamic Sabbath.  I asked him why he was here.  He said that he felt he needed to come to work because he had missed yesterday and he wanted to thank me - and his family thanked me for allowing him the time off.   He is so dedicated. 

I asked him how his family is doing - he said OK - that he has a large extended family and they are all visiting.  I asked him if I could give him some money to help with the expenses.  His reply?  “No, we have everything covered.” Nowadays he said, most Iraqi’s have death insurance because they know it’s likely they’ll die.  Now, this is a young man - he must be in his 30’s no older.  Planning ahead is a good thing - but planning ahead for the reasons they are planning is something else entirely.  In discussing the situation a little more, so much came out about his life - life in Iraq today - the militias - who he says are nothing but terrorists - in fact, he says they are worse than the Bin Laudin terrorists because of how they kill and what they do and how they terrorize people. 

I find all of this devastating to hear quite honestly.  How does one deal with stuff like this?  How can we fix it if the leaders of this country don’t want it fixed.  My assistant says that Iran and Syria are mostly behind all of this - at least he believes so.  Of course that’s nothing new to us.

He doesn’t understand why the US allows this to go on.  I hear this from every Iraqi that I talk to.  Now the US will say that Iraqi’s just don’t want to take responsibility and fix this mess themselves.  But then one has to ask well, who put them in this mess?  My assistant, who is Shia’a, is married to a Suni.  He said that there has never been trouble before about marriages between Suni’s and Shia’a but now, the different religious factions are making an issue of it and he wonders how long it will be before his family is killed because of it.  I just can’t imagine living this way.

I keep t hinking that I’m going to see something positive going on here - and believe me, I do look for the positive.  I’ll be sure to sure to write about it if I see even a glimmer of hope….

Blessings to all

I’m sitting here at the computer and have been listening to the explosions coming from what sounds like the various check points coming into the IZ.  This is an almost every day occurance now.  Homicide bombers have really upped the ante getting into the crush of local people trying to come into the IZ for work and blowing themselves up.  Several of the staff aren’t in yet - and it’s not surprising as when this happens, the military will often end up just closing the check point.

Coming through the check points is so dangerous.  Long, long lines of traffic that doesn’t move too quickly because every vehicle is searched before entering.  I’m fortunate because there are two lines -  because I carry the right piece of  Dept of Defense papers, I - and others like me get to go through the fast lane.  It’s kind of funny to watch as we come up to the checkpoints.  The driver will pick up a cardboard US flag and hold it in the window - then when we get up to the soldiers, they flash my ID and we’re waved through.  I tell you this so that you won’t worry as much about my going in and out of the IZ - it’s a fact of life, I have to go outside of here - but the USG tries to make it as safe as possible for us to get in and out - and my security detail are meticulous in how they operate so I really don’t worry too much.

Even so, this has been a very bad week for security details.  There are multiple companies in here that provide personal security to all of us - because we all have it - have to have it - so you can imagine this has been a real “growth industry” in this part of the world.  There are good companies - excellent in fact - and I’d say mine would certainly be excellent as every single guy has years of hard core service in the armed forces.  Most are ex-paratroopers, ex SAS (supposedly the top of the line in armed forces around the world, they are Brits and train the US Rangers and Special Forces) and ex-special forces.  They know what they’re doing.  Others, for whatever reason, probably due to cost, have less experienced people in their security details people who really have no business being out here.  Anyway, this past week, seven expatriate PSD members have been killed - not from my company but even so, it really sobers everyone up.  I was talking the other night to the head of my mobile team - my South African friend “Dave” - who has been blown up twice here - and shot at more times than he can remember.  These guys believe that if they are here long enough, it’s going to happen - the odds are not in their favor as they spend just about every day all day outside of the IZ providing protection to someone so the odds if you will, are not in their favor.  They rotate duties which is only fair so sometimes they pull “light” duty in that they are in here for us which is a good thing for them.

To add insult to injury, someone - probably what is known as the insurgents but could really be about anyone, has decided to shell the IZ as well.  One has to wonder if these are coordinated attacks or just happenstance.  The helicopters are up -  there’s lots of excitement - I need to go -

Peace to all and especially this country and her people!