The "Mission"

Arabs in general are very social people. They place a great deal of value on social interaction and time spent with family and friends. Col Abbas is very much that way with us. Any time I go into his office he stands for me and says "have you seat, my brother", and immediately yells at his house boy to "jeeb chai", which means bring tea. During one of my first visits he also served watermelon. I mentioned that I really like watermelon. From that point forward, every time I went into his office it was "jeeb chia, jeeb regee". "Regee", as you probably guessed, is watermelon. I ate a lot of very good watermelon this summer.

Upon my arrival I learned that one of my official duties was dinner with the Col. every night. Yikes!! I don't even like having dinner wtih myself every night, I thought, much less some Iraqi I just met who also smokes Gauliouse cigarettes like a chimney. And it was at 7:30. Much later than I cared for. But I didn't want to offend him so I pressed forward.

Somehow this evening meal came to be known as "the mission". It includes all of the senior Coalition staff.

One cardinal rule of Arab culture is to never let your guest be hungry. Consequently, the mission features copious quanities of chow, every meal. After about two weeks of this nightly gorging, we couldn't take it anymore. I went to Col Abbas and said we've got to cut this back to a couple nights a week. He was very gracious, but a little hurt I think. A small price to pay to avoid gaining 30 pounds. He is the single biggest fan of the US in Iraq and wants to do everything in his power to make sure we're happy and safe. He loves America and what we've done for his country. I wish you could spend a little time with him and get a sense of how much he appreciates what we've done for him, his family, his soldiers and his country.

During the summer months, we would take our fruit and chai and repair to the veranda (some plastic tables set up outside) to enjoy the spectacular night sky and some fresh air. It also allowed Col Abbas to smoke his Gauloises with abandon.

Here's a picture of our most recent mission. The table is always, literally, piled with food. We quickly figured out the cleaning our plates was mission impossiblej (no pun intended). We also figured out that the guards at the checkpoint nearby eat pretty well on mission nights.





















One of the local delicacies is a fish call "booknee". That's how I pronounce it anyway. I'm not much of fish eater, but "booknee" surprisingly good. Booknee is prepared by splitting the fish from lips to tail fin, cleaning out the innards and throwing him in the oven. It arrives on the table with head, gills, and fins intact. A bit disturbing at first, I confess. But after a while I got over it.

Col Abbas always wants to insure that we are well taken care of and are comfortable. He's very quick to offer Iraqi remedies. Early on I was having a touch of what we call the "Besmaya Blues", a stomach flu. Col Abbas was very excited to offer me an Iraqi remedy to settle my stomach. He couldn't quite get the English word (he speaks good English) for what he wanted to give me. After some back and forth I was able to discern that it had something to do with a camel. Rest assured, at that moment, chicken soup was a stretch for my tender tummy. ANY camel byproduct was not in the cards. After some further discussion we figured out that he was trying to offer me camel's buttermilk. "It's so good for you, my brother". Needless to say I passed.

I did, in fact, try the camels buttermilk at a later date. I don't like buttermilk anyway some I'm not a good judge. It wasn't awful, but it was very sour. We know have a running joke about camels buttermilk.

The Mission has become a source of great fun and camaraderie for us. We watch a little Arabic MTV (some pretty racy videos, I might add) and chat about lots stuff. At the end of each meal, we have more chai and visit a while longer. It's a nice way to end the day.