10 Jan

Another long day - as a matter of fact a long week. Up at 7 AM with the last meeting of the day ending at 11:30 PM for the last 8 days. But I guess when you are in a war zone a good night of sleep is not the norm. Wednesday night I was invited to have dinner with the Logistics Manager, pictured in the civilian clothes, and an Iraqi Major. I think this is Iraqi culture lesson # 4. This is how the meal works - you take a finger full of the main course - fish in this case - put it on the "pita" style bread and take a bite. Notice the lack of individual silver/plastic ware - this meal is all about sharing - it give "sharing a meal with a brother" a whole new meaning. For dinner the Iraqi's avoid rice and heavy starch products - they typically go for vegetables, specifically cucumbers and tomatoes. As you can see in the pic cucumbers and tomatoes are prepared three different ways - sliced, chopped, and diced - which do you prefer? Eating the fish is kind of tricky, it is not like the 'fish steak' you get at TGIF, with this fish you need to pull out all the bones prior to taking a bite - this does not always happen so your first few chews need to be soft and careful. Oh well...what I am going to do offend the host and not eat? The small round items on the table are a local delicacy, fried goat ba.. no just kidding they are fried Hummus balls - kind of like hush puppies but a little blander. And lets not forget the dipping sauce located in the white bowl. This particular sauce was tasty - not spice at all - sort of like a mustard sauce - pretty good actually. At the end of the meal we had some hot Chi and 30 minutes later we were in the warehouse counting inventory until 11 PM. Well I think that is enough for Wednesday - see ya tomorrow.