Community

Last night some folks at the PRT arranged a cook-out.  The military folks came over from Prosperity and friends from the embassy showed up.  I had a bottle of Thad's homebrew (an Irish stout) that he made in his  bathtub over the holidays and the best BBQ ribs (again Thad's recipe) that I've ever had.  Despite the inappropriate turn of phrase, they were to die for.  Mike made bleu cheese hamburgers and Morris made his famous vortex dip (not to mention telling his infamous duck joke). And I made a couple of new friends (one of which I nodded to on the way to breakfast today).  As the night wore on, I couldn't help but think about the community we have here.Perhaps its common to embassies around the world, or due to the conflict-zone nature of this one, but friends are made quickly here and there is a real sense of community.  A sense of shared sacrifice and of helping others.  It's like a television small town - folks hold doors open for each other, carry some extra luggage for a block or so for a stranger, stop to pick something up that someone has dropped.  And once folks connect, there's always a smile, a nod, a recognition that we are here, together if not time taken to chat whenever paths cross.

The community gets formed in a lot of different ways and at a lot of different locations.  I first met Thad in my PRT training course in DC.  His was the last of 3 weeks of training, mine was the first.  He got here two weeks before I did, but when I walked into the PRT, I knew somebody.  We'd had beers together, told jokes, and knew a bit about each other half way around the world.  Another friend I met in that class was Tom.  I saw Tom this week at the dining facility during breakfast, watching the third quarter of the Oregon Ducks struggle against Auburn for the national title in college football.  Last time I saw Tom it was September before he headed up north.  Now he's located down south.  He was on his way back from R&R, spending a couple of days here before he could catch his ride.  But we saw each other across the dining facility and had to get together to catch up.  I had to catch the shuttle for work, so we parted, sure that we'd see each other the next time he came through Baghdad.

Don returned from R&R this week too.  I met him while waiting to catch the Rhino to the embassy for the first time and have shared quite a few meals with him.  I've loaned him my copy of the Seven Samurai as well as done my best to get him hooked on Zatoichi (not yet totally successful there).  He's got me reading the Seven Pillars of Wisdom and promises to find his copy of Lawrence of Arabia for me (it wasn't on his boat back in Baltimore like he thought).  And last night Stephanie showed up - another person I met waiting for the Rhino back in August - invited by someone else at the PRT.  She's a nurse, here from Germany.  Back in October she let me get my flu shot in off-hours so I wouldn't have to make a special trip back from Prosperity just to get a shot.  And Christian, from Norway, my favorite shuttle driver, always with a positive, up-beat attitude and willing to talk about our dogs.

And then there are the military folks.  From the PRT, they are the ones who run our operations cell.  We're in our second rotation of troops from multiple branches.  Great folks, who don't give us too hard of a time that we can drink and they can't (I didn't have a drink during the BBQ we had on Veteran's day - out of respect for them, but . . . I haven't been so respectful at the other cook-outs).  Others work here at the embassy and perform a range of functions that help us out.  All of us have volunteered, but they didn't necessarily volunteer to be here like we did.  They deserve our respect for their service.  And our friendship because they're all interesting people, and good for a laugh.

Then of course there are the people I work with day in and day out.  Americans, Iraqis, the ones still here, the ones already gone, it doesn't matter.  I've got a great bunch of folks I work with.

Despite generally being a hermit and keeping to myself most of the time, I've had plenty of shared experiences with a lot of great people.  There's a community of friends around me who I can lean on if I need to, and who lean on me as they need.  That's a really good feeling to have in a place like this.  I'm very fortunate.