American Thanksgiving this year coincided with the Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Adha, the celebration of Ibrahim's (Abraham's) willingness to sacrifice his son Isma'el (Ishmael) to God. Our Iraqi staff had a four-day holiday (plus weekend days, making a full week), so the Basra expat staff decided to vacate the guesthouse and spend the week on the Basra military base.
For me, this meant getting a proper Thanksgiving dinner. Not by Mom's standards, of course, but at least the basics were covered. I ate in one of the big military DFACs (cafeterias) with my colleague Tiana and two of her friends, female Majors in the Army Reserve, from Colorado and Minnesota, respectively. I expected dry, overcooked turkey, but to my surprise, it was quite good. The rest was rather take-it-or-leave-it. Our meal concluded with a guest appearance by the New England Patriots cheerleaders. No photos, unfortunately, but you're basically looking at a bunch of high school girls in shiny red tracksuits.
Following dinner, we headed to a party hosted by the Basra Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT). Fun to be in a non-work social setting for the second time in four months (the other being a concert and barhopping in Paris with a couple of delightful French strangers). It was also FANTASTIC to have a brief return to beer and wine. Having to hand-carry booze into Basrah - which is legal, just hasn't been available for purchase* - meant that hard liquor was the only economical option during comings and goings from Baghdad, Amman, etc. Vodka and bourbon have been delightful companions a few nights a week, but each and every one of you know me as a tiny bit of a wine and beer snob. That said, even Budweiser and too-green Jacob's Creek shiraz-cab managed to hit the spot in a serious way.
Made some fabulous new friends over the course of the week, most of them at the British Consulate located on the base. Conveniently, the Consulate has a bar and is the only legitimate place to procure alcoholic beverages on the base. But, then again, history suggests I do kind of have a knack for knowing the right people ...
Another highlight was scoring some pork. (No, those of you with dirty minds, that wasn't what I meant ... Angela Owen, this means you) The PX on base had a well-stocked freezer section with pork chops and Italian sausage. Amazing!
It was pretty interesting to be inside a working military base for a week. The infrastructure and logistics are incredible, and I only got a glimpse. Basrah is a pretty quiet place these days, but there's still a lot of hustle and bustle. I'm not quite sure for what purpose, as troops are pulled back to US bases, but there are still a lot of guns running around. It looked like seventy-five percent of the soldiers are running around with enormous guns strapped to their backs at all times, although between the lots of perimeter razor wire, concrete walls, massively-armed checkpoints, and myriad other defenses of which I'm completely unaware, not sure who's coming in to need shooting. I've become amazingly desensitized to the presence of sidearms, sniper rifles, Humvee convoys and tanks - pretty much an everyday occurrence, both on base (American) and out in Basrah (Iraqi).
After a nice week's respite from the confines of the Basrah guesthouse - I hadn't left the house once in over a month before we headed to the base - we're back in town again. Now that I've gotten rid of my cabin fever, only two more weeks 'til I'm Portland-bound for the holidays.
* Alhamdullilah! (Thanks be to God) ... the ban on alcohol sales effected in Basrah in August has now been overturned. Seems it was unconstitutional to prevent people from imbibing. Let the soft liquor flow once more.
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