25 Feb - Sunday

As with any new group comes new and exciting adventures. Our new visitors were to arrive at 2 AM; but they showed up on our doorstep at 7:30 AM. The entire reception team were up at 1:30 AM preparing for their arrival and since there was not sign of the convoy - we would have seen their lights about 5 miles prior to our front gate - and in order to take advantage of the time difference between the US and Iraqi I took this opportunity to touch base with my family. After a lengthy call I made the decision not to go back to bed because as luck always has it - as soon as I would have taken off my boots our guests would have arrived. Or worst yet, I would have fallen into a deep sleep and despite the radio being next to my ear I could have easily slept through the numerous calls for my presence as our guests waited at the front gate. With no sign of our guests by 6:20 I decided to get some breakfast and at 7:25 I was off to bed. As you can already tell I never made it bed, so with our guests approaching I grabbed some coffee and headed out to do my job. When I meet up with our new guest I encounter our first obstacle - they do not speak Arabic or English - they speak a Kurdish dialect. Therefore, I spoke in English, my translator spoke to their translator in Arabic and their translator spoke to the person I was really "talking-to" in Kurdish...man talk about the message getting "lost in translation" - this would be the perfect example. As you can guess all our conversations were three times as long compared to the "twice-as-long" conversations I have become come to accept. We had one big issue that took over 5 hours to resolve, but once we reached a solution soldiers and vehicles began to move. By 6 PM, yes eleven hours after their arrival the last vehicle was parked and all the soldiers were in their quarters. This left us just enough time to have some dinner and get to bed because the next group is schedule to arrive in 10 hours, 4 AM. However, we were up until about midnight having meetings and making final arrangements with our new guest to ensure tomorrows training was ready to go. Have a good night.