I just caught myself getting a little weepy in an email to my dad. Here's what I had to say:
I love Americans all of a sudden. I almost cried today at the food court here in Atlanta airport. I listened to not fewer than 3 people talk about how much they'd like to help this or that other random person or cause. I heard one woman saddened by the plight of an African boy her son had met abroad. I listened to a lady talk for two hours on a bus about how much she loved her children and how hard it was to teach them to be respectful and responsible human beings. I had no less than 20 people help me without asking what was in it for them or saying that it wasn't their job. The people of the United States are beautiful, giving people, full of warmth and generosity. If they have one flaw, it's their naivete. It's what makes us such good suckers for the few among us who are bad guys I guess. Maybe I'm really tired. Maybe I'm just relieved to be out of the Middle East where everything seemed so oppressive and hopeless. Maybe it's because these apple martinis are just going to my head. I've only had two, but it's been so long... It's been so long since I've really had much concentrated time around my countrymen.
I love Americans. America - all the more beautiful for every one of you.
Monday, September 15, 2008
My America
I love America. This is such a gorgeous country.
I am finally here, though I still have a ways to go before I can really relax. Another couple of days and I'll be with my husband and kitty again. I will get to hang out with Benjaneer and Linda (my two pals that we went to Jordan with) for a while before heading north.
I can't stop staring at the seething ocean of tree tops as my plane comes in for a landing or the gently swaying grass between the lanes of the freeway. A man held a door for me today and gestured for me to take a place in front of him in a line.
America the beautiful, indeed.
I am finally here, though I still have a ways to go before I can really relax. Another couple of days and I'll be with my husband and kitty again. I will get to hang out with Benjaneer and Linda (my two pals that we went to Jordan with) for a while before heading north.
I can't stop staring at the seething ocean of tree tops as my plane comes in for a landing or the gently swaying grass between the lanes of the freeway. A man held a door for me today and gestured for me to take a place in front of him in a line.
America the beautiful, indeed.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
For Good Behavior
This is my last post from Kuwait. I will be leaving the villa in about 3 or 4 hours to head to the airport. Tom has already left with Picric and managed to get his flight changed so that he was flying into Dallas instead of Houston, avoiding Hurricane Ike. How he'll get to El Paso from there, who knows? Everyone out there send him some positive stuff because he'll probably need it. I myself am not looking forward to the flight, but I'm really really looking forward to leaving Kuwait a great deal. I have written a few posts about Kuwait, but have been holding off actually publishing them until I leave. Kuwait is just one of those places that it's probably far better to say anything negative after you're safely out.
Tom and I thought we would stay here for about 5 years. There didn't seem to be much to impede the plan when we first got here. I just passed my 2 year anniversary and it feels like we've been here for a million. Many religions believe in a place of holding for those not bad enough to go to a "hell" when they die, but not good enough to go to "heaven" either. Many Christian sects call this "Purgatory" and that's the best way I can describe what my time here has been like.
I've met a few like-minded, intelligent, good people, but they were most certainly in the minority. Most of the people here have been sub par in just about every respect, including morally, mentally, and in just about every other way I can think of. Luckily for me, most of the people that don't fall into that category here, I got to work with. I was surrounded for 12 hours a day with about 1/3 of the people in my immediate areas that were really cool, smart, funny, well insulated from the bull shit and that I would consider having future contact with. Some I will actively stalk if they don't get back to me fast enough. :)
Tom on the other hand, ended up working with the dregs of even Kuwaiti society with the exception of one Lt. Fallah. The rest were all lazy, arrogant and ignorant and did nothing but make a job that should have been exciting and relatively simple a complete agony. Sure, he really only worked about 6 hours a day, but he spent those hours in a vacuous hell that I'm not sure I could stomach for as long as he did.
The other 2/3 of the people I worked with were the lowest type of lazy and arrogant. I've worked on a few other overseas contracts, but I have to say that I've never seen such a badly managed contract in my life. Many of the decisions made by some of the people in my chain had such a bad effect that I was surprised daily that the whole thing wasn't just one big practical joke. And it's definitely not just the contractors.
I come from a military family. My father, brother and husband all served in the Army and I respect all of them immensely. Many other members of my family served in various branches of the armed forces and I've always deeply respected the sacrifice our men and women in uniform make to keep us all safe, so I'm hoping that the group on the base on which I worked was just a bad batch. I'm not talking about all of them. MAJ G. and the Fishers were really amazing people and there were others like Jeremy and Cornelia that I hope to consider family for the rest of my life. These are what soldiers should be. They were intelligent, ambitious, hard working and respectful. They were also outnumbered.
Let me tell you a story. We got a new NCO. We'll call her SGT S. She came to the group and seemed to have a hard time getting into the swing of the job. We have one dear lady on our team, Theresa, who knows she's not the most technical person on the team, so she makes up for it with copious amounts of notes and a great work ethic all bundled up with a sweet demeanor and a can-do attitude. Well Theresa tried to show SGT S. some of the routine things we do on a day-to-day basis. She wanted to make sure that the new SGT was up to speed before there was a large gaping hole in our night-shift schedule. SGT S. did all but tell her that she didn't care and that Theresa was too stupid to teach her anything.
Seating has always been a problem in our department. There just isn't enough space in the "temporary" warehouse they put us in about 4 years ago for the number of bodies on the team. It's always been a first-come-first-served situation and if you were late for your shift, you generally had to go beg for a seat in one of the other areas in the warehouse. SGT S. had a problem with this arrangement since she was typically among the last to show up, so she pulled "rank." One of the analysts I work with was at one of the main terminals that monitored all the systems we had responsibility for. She insisted he move when she got there a half hour after he did. He suggested politely that she choose another station, since there were 4 other open still. She raised her voice and said that he'd better not "smart" her or she'd have his job and again insisted that he move.
At this point, I leaned around the monitor I was working behind and as the only other person on shift, asked if there was a problem. She told me in very rude, not at all uncertain terms that she was in charge and that the other analyst had better do what she said by the time she got back. She then stormed off to get some food.
I went to talk to our military director, Chief W. who actually had the gall to back her up. He told me that since she was military, we automatically had to do whatever she said. I told him that I understood that the military was the customer, but that her request had been unreasonably and rude. I'd never heard an NCO speak to a civilian like that before. He said to just tell the other analyst to move. My management could do nothing about it.
Contrast this with a male NCO who we'll call SGT J. This young man is bright, ambitious and gets along well with everyone in the shop. He was taken to task by a cabal of other NCOs because he was working with an officer to do research for a technical white paper, to be published in a scholarly trade magazine. Apparently, doing PHD-level research is far too "uppity." He was singled out and punished informally, but there was no doubt as to why he was being taken to task. Much of it had to do with the fact that he wasn't one of their cronies and that he got along equally with officers, other NCOs and enlisted in the building and unfortunately for him, contractors and civilians.
These patterns have been repeated over and over all over the base I worked on. Incompetence and laziness on the part of military and contractor and civilian alike. Add that to the general disgust I have for the misogynistic realities of Kuwait and especially Kuwaiti male youths and this whole thing has felt more like a prison sentence than a job or home.
I feel jipped. I feel like a coward for not fighting harder or longer. I feel like I should have more to show for the pain and suffering that is living and working in Kuwait. But you know what? I also feel as though when Tom and I made the decision to leave after two years, it was simply time off the sentence for the good behavior of maintaining my ethics and my soul.
Tom and I thought we would stay here for about 5 years. There didn't seem to be much to impede the plan when we first got here. I just passed my 2 year anniversary and it feels like we've been here for a million. Many religions believe in a place of holding for those not bad enough to go to a "hell" when they die, but not good enough to go to "heaven" either. Many Christian sects call this "Purgatory" and that's the best way I can describe what my time here has been like.
I've met a few like-minded, intelligent, good people, but they were most certainly in the minority. Most of the people here have been sub par in just about every respect, including morally, mentally, and in just about every other way I can think of. Luckily for me, most of the people that don't fall into that category here, I got to work with. I was surrounded for 12 hours a day with about 1/3 of the people in my immediate areas that were really cool, smart, funny, well insulated from the bull shit and that I would consider having future contact with. Some I will actively stalk if they don't get back to me fast enough. :)
Tom on the other hand, ended up working with the dregs of even Kuwaiti society with the exception of one Lt. Fallah. The rest were all lazy, arrogant and ignorant and did nothing but make a job that should have been exciting and relatively simple a complete agony. Sure, he really only worked about 6 hours a day, but he spent those hours in a vacuous hell that I'm not sure I could stomach for as long as he did.
The other 2/3 of the people I worked with were the lowest type of lazy and arrogant. I've worked on a few other overseas contracts, but I have to say that I've never seen such a badly managed contract in my life. Many of the decisions made by some of the people in my chain had such a bad effect that I was surprised daily that the whole thing wasn't just one big practical joke. And it's definitely not just the contractors.
I come from a military family. My father, brother and husband all served in the Army and I respect all of them immensely. Many other members of my family served in various branches of the armed forces and I've always deeply respected the sacrifice our men and women in uniform make to keep us all safe, so I'm hoping that the group on the base on which I worked was just a bad batch. I'm not talking about all of them. MAJ G. and the Fishers were really amazing people and there were others like Jeremy and Cornelia that I hope to consider family for the rest of my life. These are what soldiers should be. They were intelligent, ambitious, hard working and respectful. They were also outnumbered.
Let me tell you a story. We got a new NCO. We'll call her SGT S. She came to the group and seemed to have a hard time getting into the swing of the job. We have one dear lady on our team, Theresa, who knows she's not the most technical person on the team, so she makes up for it with copious amounts of notes and a great work ethic all bundled up with a sweet demeanor and a can-do attitude. Well Theresa tried to show SGT S. some of the routine things we do on a day-to-day basis. She wanted to make sure that the new SGT was up to speed before there was a large gaping hole in our night-shift schedule. SGT S. did all but tell her that she didn't care and that Theresa was too stupid to teach her anything.
Seating has always been a problem in our department. There just isn't enough space in the "temporary" warehouse they put us in about 4 years ago for the number of bodies on the team. It's always been a first-come-first-served situation and if you were late for your shift, you generally had to go beg for a seat in one of the other areas in the warehouse. SGT S. had a problem with this arrangement since she was typically among the last to show up, so she pulled "rank." One of the analysts I work with was at one of the main terminals that monitored all the systems we had responsibility for. She insisted he move when she got there a half hour after he did. He suggested politely that she choose another station, since there were 4 other open still. She raised her voice and said that he'd better not "smart" her or she'd have his job and again insisted that he move.
At this point, I leaned around the monitor I was working behind and as the only other person on shift, asked if there was a problem. She told me in very rude, not at all uncertain terms that she was in charge and that the other analyst had better do what she said by the time she got back. She then stormed off to get some food.
I went to talk to our military director, Chief W. who actually had the gall to back her up. He told me that since she was military, we automatically had to do whatever she said. I told him that I understood that the military was the customer, but that her request had been unreasonably and rude. I'd never heard an NCO speak to a civilian like that before. He said to just tell the other analyst to move. My management could do nothing about it.
Contrast this with a male NCO who we'll call SGT J. This young man is bright, ambitious and gets along well with everyone in the shop. He was taken to task by a cabal of other NCOs because he was working with an officer to do research for a technical white paper, to be published in a scholarly trade magazine. Apparently, doing PHD-level research is far too "uppity." He was singled out and punished informally, but there was no doubt as to why he was being taken to task. Much of it had to do with the fact that he wasn't one of their cronies and that he got along equally with officers, other NCOs and enlisted in the building and unfortunately for him, contractors and civilians.
These patterns have been repeated over and over all over the base I worked on. Incompetence and laziness on the part of military and contractor and civilian alike. Add that to the general disgust I have for the misogynistic realities of Kuwait and especially Kuwaiti male youths and this whole thing has felt more like a prison sentence than a job or home.
I feel jipped. I feel like a coward for not fighting harder or longer. I feel like I should have more to show for the pain and suffering that is living and working in Kuwait. But you know what? I also feel as though when Tom and I made the decision to leave after two years, it was simply time off the sentence for the good behavior of maintaining my ethics and my soul.
Monday, September 08, 2008
T minus
5.41 days
129.96 hours
7,797.58 minutes
467,855 seconds
43 hours of projected sleep
32 hours of actual sleep
16 meals
129.96 hours
7,797.58 minutes
467,855 seconds
43 hours of projected sleep
32 hours of actual sleep
16 meals
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