22 Dec

By the time it got dark yesterday the workers were able to put together all 23 TV stands - some had a few broken pieces but nonetheless they were all together.
Day two with Iraqi workers. Today started off with more "issues" to overcome. First, there were no screws for the 250 school desks that needed to be assembled, each desk needs 6 screws, let us see how they will fix this problem! Second, it took them all day to put together 22 of 50 desks and there is still another 400 pieces of furniture to assemble plus move the furniture to the correct rooms. I think as the day went on the workers realized the task that was in front of them. After jumping through some hoops during the afternoon, I was able to get one of the small generators turned-on, a back-up generator, which supplied enough power to run only one specific building. As darkness was approaching and the temperature began to drop the workers agreed to move into the "working" building and continue to build desks. They agreed to work late into the night - they quit working at 7 PM...if its not one excuse its another. I keep reminding myself Rome was not built in one day. To top all this off I was sick the entire day; I had "Saddam's revenge"...a distant relative of Montezuma...from Tijuana, Mexico; I had some bad water and I will leave it at that. Hopefully tomorrow will be more productive.