Baghdad Bacon & Eggs

Slob log 15081 - a boredom so spectacular

2010-10-09T22:27:00.000+03:00

Remy used a couple of my old blog posts as regular feature in a literary magazine he published in Canada two years ago. A couple of nights ago, we met down in Hamra street and went to the bar on the other side of the hotel. Hamra street is a bit surreal, while Remy expressed his worries about the future near future of the country, the street was packed with students and young professionals out to fill the new bars and cafes that have cropped out of the dark alleys surrounding the street.

Baghdad's buzzing too. The streets are now full of traffic during the day and the night as well. The temperature still reaches 40 Celsius centigrade. Despite of everything, I can see with my own eyes that families are going out for dinners, a sign that sign that means to me that they're not as afraid to go out as before and that they want to and are enjoying their lives even if for the span of a meal in a nice restaurant.

Here in Bath however, it's cold. My mum decided to visit Baghdad just before I arrived here. It's surprising that this is the first time I have to take care of the house. I'm keeping up with the dishes, but still haven't figured out how to use the recycle bins. It's nice here, so peaceful. I'm hungry so I'm going to make myself something to eat.... I have no idea how long I'll be staying here but I'll be trying to make the most of it.

You might be wondering what's going on with some of the people that I've mentioned throughout my blog. Od's still in Baghdad waiting for his marriage immigration papers to finalize to move to America. Maz got engaged. K had a baby boy. Kiki's still stuck in Malaysia and India in Sweden. Sav along with his mates are opening a Turkish franchise ice-cream shop in Baghdad. Nahida and Fozzy have been taking care of the plantation ever since I left it.

This is my last post. It doesn't make sense for me to go on with it since I'm hoping to settle down outside Iraq for a while. I want to thank the people who enjoyed reading it and those who left comments (I tried making a list, but it was too long). You readers have been the best.

To everyone else that's reading this blog for the first time: I hope you enjoy it.

My Iraq Rant

2010-07-03T13:11:00.000+03:00

I've got a big white board in my room. On it I write my to-do list. Right now it's got things like "Sell Car (pending Nahida's return from Shamiya)" and "Buy/Get a Padlock" (for my luggage). and then there's one that says "End Log" (which means: end this blog).

It feels as though the story of this blog is coming to a close. My life here in Iraq is nearly over. I've given up on this country. Never mind the security situation, the economic situation is in an even worse state and it's not just an infrastructure problem and I don't think society is inherently at fault either. The problems lay in the corrupt institutions of state, mostly because it's still trying to deliver a socialist system to the people in a free-market world, which ultimately puts everyone in a framework where in to get by you have to do a crooked job out of anything you want to do and honest work is unrewarded.

In Iraq, there are two sets of rules. The first set which are stated by the state and the second set which are the real rules that are formed as a result of the first set all of which involve stealing the rights of others, cheating, using bribes and incentives to deliver inferior products. For example, red tape is designed so that you have to personally visit as many civil servants that can block or delay your paperwork and pay them off in bribes and thus spreading the wealth.

Another abusive use of red-tape was described to me a few days ago by Sav. Him and his friends are opening a men's clothing store. They were hoping to open in time for Eid but another shop a few steps along the street had officials sent to him saying that the refurbishment license he had would not do and that he needed a construction license. Sav bribed the officials to go away, but then came some others and the shop was pad-locked for two months until they got the construction license. Now Sav and his friends are behind schedule and won't make it in time for Eid (the commercial equivalent of Christmas) to establish themselves in the market.

It haunts me that during last year's drought, I was growing water-intensive rice whilst people further south were dying of thirst. Not only that, but I sold the rice to the state at heavily subsidized prices. Those subsidies could of gone to much better use to feed the poorest people.

Things may turn around here. Maybe the spread of satellite TV and the internet may save the country through some kind of enlightenment. I'm not totally pessimistic about this country's future, but evil states have existed in the past and will continue to exist for a long time. Unluckily for Iraq, few lands are more fertile for corruption.

Iraq is an evil state, evil towards itself before all else. It's evil because it's incompetent.

On a more personal level, one of the big reasons I've given up on living in Iraq is that I've been here for eight years and haven't found a girl I truly like. I have however recently come to the realization that I'd obsess or preoccupy myself about a girl for a year and then after a year passes I would switch to another. There was that medicine girl that looked great in pictures but awful on the two or three occasions I saw her in person. Before her there was that girl at university who I met online and whose identity was a mystery until I caught her at university with a cold and got her to give me the clues to confirm who she was over the phone.

There was also another girl, that I don't think I ever mentioned in my blog. Her name's Soona, we've kept in touch for about four years now. Last night, she sneaked out of the house and I met her at her gate. I gave her a gift that I brought her from England and she gave me a kiss on the cheek. She looked good too, she had black straight hair and eyes wide open looking out for any people in the street. She was dressed in a hat may have been a black and white floral body-top (I don't know what they're called exactly) and jeans. Unfortunately she's not my type, she studies English and she keeps trying to get me to do her homework for her.

I think I have an idea of what kind of girl I should be looking out for now and I know for sure that I'm not going to find her in Iraq.

The power just went out again. Impressively, it stayed on for about two hours this time.

It's a bit sad knowing I'm going to end this blog.

The next post will be the last.

From Beirut

2010-06-28T21:02:00.001+03:00

Od and I arrived in Beirut a few days ago and will be leaving back to Baghdad tomorrow. We've met up with some old friends and have had the best time we possibly could here. Right now, I'm sitting in the lobby waiting for the guys to come down for the hotel room so that we get ourselves on our way to spend a night in town. We've been going out to drink and eat, we've gone jet-skiing a few times times. It's been a great holiday. Here they are... I'm dreading going back to Baghdad.

[the latter was added on the 3rd of July from Baghdad]

Later that night, we went to a rooftop restaurant/bar above the Hard Rock Cafe. I keep forgetting the name. C-Lounge perhaps. Remy (who sometimes shows up in the comments sections) came and I was so glad to see to him that on the other end of the table, people were laughing at how they hadn't seen me so lively during the past few days as when I was talking to Remy. We had been friends in our days in AUB and we both dropped out from there. We've kept in touch on and off. It might have been nine years since we've seen each other. We reminisced about our days in AUB. Going through our morning routine which involved him being dropped early to university by his dad and handing me a manousheh through the little window by my bed to wake me up and open the door and then he'd open the drawer and start rolling up a joint and never making it to that first class.

Where To Go?

2010-06-20T00:44:00.000+03:00

I spent last night in Falluja with Od at the hospital he's been working in this year. Falluja's not such a bad looking place as compared to other cities I've seen. At least they have famous kebab restaurants one of which I insisted we go to and where because some sheikh recognized one of Od's doctor friends, we had a free meal.

A few days after arriving in Baghdad, I'm finally spending a night at home. I had to stay at Od's because the electricity from the neighbourhood generator supplier wasn't working my little air-conditioner. It's been ages since I've had enough peace of mind to sit down to type. I've been high most of the time.

In England, I discovered that I could probably pull off a career as an accountant. I didn't apply for any jobs, not even temping. It didn't make sense to knowing that I was planning to come back here. Over there I decided that I've been missing out on too much and that life here in Iraq is a lot worse than I had realised.

Also, it turns out that one of my brother's son is somewhat autistic. One of my sister's sons is also autistic but in a bad way. Discussing it with my brother and his wife, it might be the case that my brother and I are a bit on the autistic spectrum too. It does help make sense of some things if it were true.

I still haven't quite figured out what I'm going to do as soon as I sell my car here. I do want to go back to England but the truth is that my brother's a bad influence on me, he smokes more than I do and when we're together it's all gets too much. Which for him is fine since he's content on tugging along doing the minimum in his life.

A couple days after I arrived here I got sent an application form through the Iraqi government's scholarship program office for a scholarship to do a master's degree in agri-economics or something like that paid for by the US government. I need to e-mail them about the conditions after completion of the degree.

A scholarship is a great opportunity to travel to America and get a master's degree, but why does it feel like fate keeps trying to drag me back to Shamiya or to Iraq. What am I to do with a degree in agri-economics. It might be expected that I become some kind of powerless government expert later down the line or maybe perhaps I'd get to work for a multi-national in which case that would be great.

If all works out I'm off to Lebanon with Od in a week to meet up with people from school. Finger's crossed on that. Od and I still haven't bought tickets. Power cut!

Before the Munchies

2010-05-08T21:24:00.000+03:00

I haven't been making much sense of anything lately. My idea of cutting down on cigarettes has got me smoking other stuff. It's been five weeks since I've moved to my mum's place in Bath.

I was going to vote for the general elections here. I registered and got a polling card through the mail. Then on the day of the elections my brother kept me from voting as part of a prank. It didn't matter the guy I wasn't going to vote for won anyway, but not the case for my brother's wife who wanted to vote for another. I'll do it by mail next time.It's ridiculous the amount of mail people have to go through here. The Baghdad comparison is a bad joke.

I need to change my address, living with mum's unbearable in that it puts me in such a familiar comfort zone of childhood sloth and gluttony. I'm in bad shape. About two weeks after arriving here I started getting migraines and then they went away and got replaced with piles last week and that got better and then I got a cold which I'm now recovering from.

I'm stuck on the CV. Last week or the week before I went to see a career counselor about how to go about choosing and getting a job. She took a look at my CV and told me that I needed to fill in it with stuff about my personality, my skills and my tasks at the plantation. I'm struggling to get it done, I got myself involved in personality tests trying to make sense of my personality and potential skills. Finding equivalents of the tasks that I performed at the plantation is challenging.

I think the piles are back, and I'm a bit worried that it doesn't itch as much as it usually does. I hope it gets better on its own, because the chemist said to use the medicine for no more than a number of days. What number? How many days did I use it? I don't know!

It's time for some snacks... mum got back from the supermarket, so there are lots about the house now. Salt & Vinegar crisps. It's already time for dinner, I really ought to plan my meals better.

Doing This

2010-05-03T06:23:00.000+03:00

I've been lazy. Very lazy. I've stuck myself into a comfort zone. I should be looking for a job. I will look for a job right after I finish fixing my CV like the career counselor suggested and check all the websites she told me to.

It's been a month that I'm here, so it is important I make some notes of how I'm doing. Piles, or the early signs of one at least. I noticed some pain yesterday and got mum to fetch me something from the pharmacy.

A doctor told me that the estrodiol thing was nonsense and that my issues are part of my personality. While going through sites looking for tips on how to pick a job, I found that I might just be an introvert.

Having piles is a sure sign that I'm eating too much and spending too much time being very stationary. I'm aware that I need to start moving now. Yesterday, I spent over an hour walking and today I did half an hour. It's too early for me to run at this stage.

The good thing about having piles is that I'm only doing number 2 once a day now as compared to five times a day for the past month. My butt deserves the break.

I'm smoking a lot of skunk. I've got three small different batches right now. Got to cut down on that. I'm getting slowly accustomed to not smoking cigarettes for several hours which for me is a new skill.

Last weekend, I went to London to visit my ex-neighbour. There he showed me why London is so much better than Bath. There's lots of fun people, lots of yummy food, a heavenly bidet and a nightclub you can smoke in.

Got to stop being lazy, I'm getting better, I did type this.

Back in Bath

2010-03-30T22:29:00.000+03:00

I've made it back to Bath. It's been four years since I've been here on a visit. Mum convinced me to come here after the new manager at the company I was hoping to work at decided to stop hiring new people. My dad's paying for my visit so that I get some therapy because I'm so angry around him.

The idea was that I go stay in my dad's apartment, but he's changed his mind about that and my brother's pointed out that it's too far from town anyway. My dad also suggested he give me a 150 pound allowance a week but that's dropped to 80 from which 30 will go to my mum for food.

It's my brother's birthday today, which makes my arrival good timing. We're probably going to go to a nightclub tonight. He loves the cheap thrill of rubbing against all the girls at the clubs. His two kids have grown up. The elder one's smart and not as materialistic as I remember him last. The younger one's still a little attention seeking devil but is smart and kind-hearted if he wasn't so naughty.

It's a shock being here, but so far everyone's treating me like a good old rural boy from some foreign land, which I guess is what I've become. As soon as we arrived mum wanted me to chat up a girl standing by us while we were waiting for my brother to pick us up. I don't know how to chat up girls. There might have been a time when I could do it without trying but I know I've totally lost whatever game I had ages ago.

I'm hoping to try to find a job here somehow, but as my brother explains to me, the prospects of getting anything other than manual labour are very slim. I'll just try doing as many different avenues as possible. Hopefully temping will work out for me somehow. I don't want to stay idle, so I'll try giving volunteer work a go too in the likely-hood that I won't get a job. Also having failed to fully integrate in Iraq, I want to prove to myself that I can do so here.

On the bright side, it's raining here and it's bleeding hot in Baghdad from what I hear.

Fwd: On The Coach

2010-03-27T20:31:00.002+03:00

I'm on the coach with my mum heading to Syria right now. Wish I had bought a cheap mp3 player or brought that ancient walkman that
appeared a few days ago.
Oh good, it's only been over an hour since we've been on the road and the urge to pee is slight and I'm getting sleepy. Maybe I should have brought a pillow with me.
Earlier today, together with nahida and mum went out for a drive to pick up some documents from the car showroom and to visit grandma one
more time. But on the way they saw a big commotion outside Allawi's
headquarters and insisted they go congratulate him.
Mum and got me to do a radio yay Allawi thing before entering (I
regret not mentioning more freedom for the people and press). We then
sat waiting in a hall for a press conference in which he was to
appear. It all seemed to be going normal until the drum guys appeared
and did their anthems. By the time Allawi arrived, nearly everyone was
singing or clapping to the songs and half the room was standing on the
tables. Nahida disappeared past the crowd while my mum stayed behind
seated with me with our views with people and press that wouldn't get
off the tables and we weren't able to hear anything that was said
because the drumming and the singing was still going on behind us.
After the event we found nahida all happy that she got to speak to
allawi after he got off the stage. She even gave him a kiss. Both her and my mum then went to look for some guy so that they could write letters for a favour from Allawi. Nahida asked for a job for her sister and my mum one for me.
Damn no smoking coach. I know I'm supposed to quit but we're still in Iraq! I think my mum's lying about the no smoking rule and about the
man smoking behind me.
It's been four years since I've left Iraq. I've completely forgotten
how troublesome travelling is. It's only been four hours since we've
been on the road, sorry two hours that feel like four. It's a ten hour
drive according to mum. Will my phone survive the way to the borders?
I'm going to try to nap till the next stop.

High Estrodil

2010-03-22T03:19:00.000+03:00

I popped the zit in my ear, but it's not draining! Why? I was going to talk about how fear is the root of all evil and if you ask what the cause of something bad in the world is enought times by asking "why?" enough times that it'll eventually come down to simple fear. But why isn't the zit draining? Maybe the zit isn't evil, or maybe the acme's afraid to come out.

Looking back on these 'philosophies' of mine. It looks like they tend to be very Buddhist-like thoughts. I'm not convinced of the whole re-incarnation thing (are they vegetarian too?), but otherwise I've always found Buddhism the most attractive of religions. I once went to a local Buddhist club thing in Bath which was cool. There were only four or five of us there, but during the chants one of them made the most unworldly sounds.

My lab results came back in. Turns out I've got too much estrodil which I think indicates I've got too much estrogen. The jokes on that keep rolling in. I've been taking medication for a few days, and haven't noticed much of a difference except for a better boner or maybe that's because of the sweet porno I downloaded the other day. Oh and I think I had a wet dream the first night I took the medicine too. What was crazy about it is that I woke up in the dream and then I woke up for real. I thought that kind of thing only happens in movies.

I'm at the farm again and going back to Baghdad tomorrow. I finally did the thing that I've been wanting to do for ages and that's give the local deaf kid a laptop. Hopefully, he'll figure it out, get a net connection and maybe then I could communicate with him and also if he learns how to use Microsoft Excel he could help me out with the farm records in the future. I'm counting a lot on the fact that he's probably a lot smarter than most since he's deaf.

Oh no, Nahida went to sleep and I wanted her to make me some tea. Fozzy and her are obligated to help out my dad with the plantation and the rice mill now that I've withdrawn myself from it all. I wonder if he'll put some new people in charge to help out when he gets here in a couple of weeks. I never did check what the difference between what arrived in our store rooms which is about 370 tonnes of rice and how much we ended up selling to the government. There usually is a difference because of moisture, filth and theft. I think anything above 5-6% is considered moisture maybe and the rest is theft.

I know what I want to do next year, I want to on one of those Buddhist vacations to the far east. Remy might be up for that, he did kung-fu and he buys into the meditation thing in a big way. He did say the hard part was not masturbating though. It is something to look forward to however and I think it's worthy to be on my list of things I would say I wanted to do before I die.

What's up with my dealer? I wanted to take a break from getting high, but it's been over a month he hasn't been able to hook Od and I up with some stash.

All That's Down There

2010-03-16T01:05:00.001+03:00

Baghdad's hot again! It didn't take long. I've got the air conditioning running in the car and in my room when electricity permits. We're in mid-March, you'd think that would be a bit too early for hot sweaty weather. It's going to be a hot summer this year from the looks of it.

Grooming's always been one of those things I'm no good at. I was the last one in high school to figure out that the deodorant can that I had bought in England just before coming to Iraq wasn't something to be used only on occasion. The majority of Iraqis at the times seemed not to use deodorant during those sanction days and the most horrible thing about going to a busy government office was putting up with the smell of armpits.

A while back, my friend and I got a couple of prostitutes. I keep telling myself that it'll be the last time. It always ends up being a bad experience. This one oddly insisted that I join her in the shower before going to sleep, not a pretty site. But before that, in the bedroom, the girl told me that I should shave my pubic hair, showing off her own private area which to me looked like a whole lot of stubble. I personally think that porn stars look best when they have their pubic hair neatly trimmed. Totally hairless, is of course better, but that stubble's going to re-appear after the movie's over isn't.

The thought of shaving my pubic hair stuck in my mind. Maybe it's those things that everyone does. I remember one of my religious friends told me it was the Islamic thing to do. Islam's big on being clean, shame they don't preach more about it and on how to keep your city clean. At home, mum mentioned how men use hair removal products to rid themselves of their body hair these days. So bored at my Nais's house, I did a quick search about it, didn't find much material. One article mentioned using a clipper to remove armpit hair. Never tried removing my arm pit hair either. The article said it keeps the body cooler and saves on deodorant.

So I gave it a shot, I used a clipper to remove my arm pit and pubic hairs. First thing I noticed was that the skin folding under my armpits was a bit sticky, quickly solved with a t-shirt, and then I realised that shaving one's pubic hair takes out all the fun out of putting one's hand down his pants. There was also a sense of emptiness down there too, the cushioning fluff was gone. I'm not totally convinced that I'm going to save on deodorant however, I think I'm using more now as a result.

It took me a while to get used to having my pubic hair gone in the sense that I didn't masturbate for a while. I'm over that now and I'm downloading some porn with lots of shaved pussy. There's also No More Heroes 2 to play too.

The Glorious TGV

2010-03-14T00:29:00.003+03:00

This morning, I went to take a blood test. I thought it might be a good idea to make sure that all my hormones are in order and not the cause of some mental unease.

Later in the day, I went to visit a woman relative's house, her husband the director general of one of the state companies and is some kind of a genius. I might have mentioned my last visit to their house because of their very cute daughter. Didn't get a chance to play Wii with her this time unfortunately, but her eldest sister was there. Her eldest sister's looking good, and she has a two and a half year old son that's adorably living in his own world. I had only planned to go there for an hour or so to drop off some Wii discs, but their dad kept me talking.

Then when I got back home, I felt down. I'm not sure why maybe because the guy there expressed how he too wished for me to maintain a presence at the farm (a lot of people keep doing that to me). So after mucking around with my classic guitar for a while, I poured myself a good old TGV with the Tequila that Maz brought over, the often missing gin that I bought last night as well as the bottle of Smirnoff that Od brought over last night. The TGV, in case you don't know is Shaggy's trademark drink, followed with a beer provides the most perfect intoxication.

Sitting in my room drinking with my TGV, I could hear my mum recount my early childhood to Nahida. How when I was eight she had left England and went to Iraq for a reason that I couldn't make out and during which my father maneuvered his lawyer to take custody over me and then moved me with him to Paris where after a couple of years he left me in the care of a nanny and then with my brother and then my sister and then a Morrocan guy. I used to fly planes on my own between England and France when I was younger than twelve years old.

Followed by a couple years living in Baghdad, came the time I spent in Lebanon where my father left me in a desolate mountain hotel to finish my last two years of high school. The last year of which I spent broke in a dormitory because my money got stolen twice and I was too ashamed to tell my dad who in turn punished me by cutting my allowance because of my apparent mismanagement of money.

In the end, I think it might be foolish of me to think that my hormones are the cause of the mess in my head and that it all just comes down to the messed up childhood I had.

Of Heaven and Hell

2010-03-04T02:23:00.001+03:00

Continuing with my personal philosophies of life and stuff. Today it's going to be my version of what heaven and hell means to me.

To me, an afterlife doesn't exist. A heaven and hell in the afterlife is a good way to try to keep the masses from doing evil and to encourage them to be good, but I don't think it's so effective in making people do good or make people encourage others to do good. To be good would be to not to do anything bad. To do good would be to help others for example. To encourage others to do good, that would be to encourage other people to do good things for others.

That's not to say that I don't believe that heaven and hell exist at all. For me, heaven and hell exist in the now, within us and maybe around us. I expect good people to be happier and that good things may come to them easier or at least the ability to appreciate things would be greater, ultimately they're happier. Bad people, even though they may not consciously bear any feelings of guilt will feel unhappy.

That's not a very elaborate description of the idea, but that's all there is to it. The simpler the better.

To Want

2010-03-01T16:33:00.000+03:00

Yeah so, this blogging thing is getting pretty lame now. A few days ago, I came across this option to get a soft cover print copy of it and it came out to over 400 pages long and would cost me about 150 dollars, there's a file version for 7 dollars which is very tempting. I've been packing up all my stuff for the past month. Now, I'm considering giving this blog a wrap, not that it's the first time I think of it. Before I do though, I'm thinking that it would be nice to put down my philosophies of life here.

I remember one thing from Disney's animated version of Alladin, the last animated Disney movie I enjoyed. The part I remember is that of the genie explaining the rules of the three wishes to Alladin and one of those rules was that he couldn't get anyone to love him.

I believe that if I want anything enough, that I can get it. Of course, to get what I want, I'd have to put the required effort and time. For example, if I wanted to become a doctor, I could. It would just require me to spend so many years to become one. If I wanted to get rid of my belly enough, I'd do sit-ups until it's gone, but I'm too lazy.

There are other constraints too, if all I wanted was just one thing then I could probably achieve it, but I don't want just one thing. I can't become a doctor and back pack Asia at the same time. I can't make 30,000 dollars in a year working a government job or get a decent university degree and get high off the finest skunk everyday.

Just like in the story, wishes can backfire. One of the reasons that I left Iraq and moved to Lebanon was because the girl I had a crush on was moving there. The other reason was that everybody seemed to want to leave Iraq, and when offered the chance I took it. It was just my luck that she ended up going back to Iraq and I ended up getting stuck there in Lebanon.

The best part of all this is that in retrospect, it's easier this way to blame yourself and only yourself for everything in your life and even the things that are larger than yourself because it's futile to blame others. Sometimes you might want something but not want to admit it to yourself or just simply to ignorant to know better. I can blame myself for the invasion of Iraq. When 9/11 happened, I was working in my brother's grocery shop in Bath and a friendly customer who had come to live with her English husband came in with her eyes full of tears and I didn't have it in me to tell her that I was sorry.

There is just one thing that drives me crazy and that disproves this whole philosophy for me, is that for years I've been trying to learn how to play the guitar, but it's impossible. I can't get my head around it, no matter how much I try but I still do even though I'm tone-deaf and have no sense of rhythm.

one last joint

2010-02-26T02:54:00.004+03:00

but it's never the last. mum's visiting. i've been tentatively packing my stuff because i'm supposed to get a job outside of baghdad some time in the coming weeks. it seems i'll be around for the elections. this time around, i should make my mind up ahead of time. so why not go over this now.

1. maliki and the state of law coalition. my dad's cousin is in this party and i don't like him. when people in shamiya ask me for a favour from him i tell them that when i was living alone as a teenager in lebanon he was my only relative in the country and he never even called to ask how i was doing. as far as achievements go, even though they've brought upon a relative improvement to the security situation, which i think they bear some responsibility of causing in the first place, there's not much else to show for.

2. sciiri (Iraqi National Movement). their leader's dead. what i've heard and from more than one source is that al-hakim's offices have not been allowing people to sell their properties in karada and offering to buy them at a discounted price. and where the hell are they getting their money? that's something that pisses me off about iraqis, they don't seem to ask where the money comes from, they do sometimes wonder where some of it went however. my personal opinion is that the state shouldn't give any money to the clerics and that the clerics should be able to support themselves on donations or in exchange for services such as readings.

3. the kurdish parties (Kurdistani List). i honestly do like these guys. talabani looks like a barrel of love doesn't he? sure they seem to operate like mafia families trying to go legal up there in kurdistan. a little shady here and there, but on the whole, i believe they've succeeded in making the people of kurdistan pround and happy. but i'm not going to vote for them even though that their behaviour has a lot of positive energy they don't really do anything for the people south of their border. they just keep to themselves.

4. sunni parties(Iraqi Accord Front and Iraqi Unity). they used to have a funny shaky guy with a cool hat. i haven't really had any interaction with them or any of their influence. i do however get the impression that they've kept things running smoother and operate a lot more competently in their areas than the others have with the exception of the kurds. they're pissed off all the time, and in all fairness i think they've got the right to be pissed off and they deserve to be listened to. the problem with them is that they've got themselves so involved in getting angry that they seem to have lost any kind of vision for the country.

there are more parties aren't there... trying to remember them...

5. allawi's (Iraqi National Movement). they have nice campaign billboards with nice smiles that brighten up your day. that party is a big bunch of really nice people and allawi's was dead cool when he went out there into the street right where a bunch of car bombs had just gone off to see things for himself when he was acting prime-minister or something. but they seem to have no grassroots support. their lack of support i believe is their distance to the people, they don't want to get their dirty. i don't think any of them are really up to the job. a lot of them have been living in abroad in england or wherever for a very long time and i think they've lost touch with today's iraq and its people.

oh another came to mind a moment ago...shouldn't there be a bbc list...

6. the commies. these guys are always good for a laugh. a bunch of geezers that pretend that communism doesn't include atheism. these guys have good hearts, in denial that communism failed and that no one's going to buy it anymore. they're the least corrupt of them all, it would be hard to imagine these guys stealing money from the state or doing anything dodgy. but on the other hand, they're so out-dated, all of their policies would fail and the country would starve itself to death. these old guys are just hanging around, keeping themselves busy in their retirement who of course have pockets of support everywhere among all the other over aged pensioners.

this is taking forever! there's a bunch of other guys but i'm not sure... wow! i found a wikipedia article! it's got the names of the parties that i'll put in brackets... oh i finished! i thought there were more. there was no mention of the commies in the article. i think the best thing to do is to just vote for a minority's party.

Post continued five days later...

I spoke to a Christian classmate to ask him who he was voting for so that I vote with him, but he was encouraging at all telling me to pick the hottest one, who according to the posters is a Fairuz Hatim. But after a google image search it turns out she's very fat. He told me to give him word if I saw anyone else that's cute. I also tried to dig out some info on the Christian parties and the candidates don't seem to be in any way spectacular. They get provisional seats anyway.

Another friend recommended the Ahrar party, a party led by a rather young guy that was previously with the Allawi list. My friend tells me that even though he's got a cleric's turban, the guy's very keen to make the most of help from abroad in the form of foreign advisors as well as foreign companies.

The party didn't get mentioned in the Wikipedia article I had read, so that qualifies them for that underdog quality and today I saw a poster for one member who is third on the list. Her name's Qortaba, she's got a degree in political science from Germany and looks cute enough.

And the post is continued on the day of the vote...

Sorry Qortaba, I'm not voting for someone that doesn't return a single Google result other than the one on her party's website especially if she's supposed to have studied in Germany because that's plain dodgy. Neither do I want to get a puzzled look when I tell people who I voted for. I'm succumbing to peer pressure and choose to vote for Allawi's list.

A couple days later...

I voted for Allawi :) No regrets so far. Did feel bad for not voting for the Ahrar party, I hope they do well and do better next time around. There's something that does get on my nerves. There are loads of people that didn't vote and if they didn't complain or care about the past four years about the country then that's fine but those that did, those that went on complaining about the state of things, they tick me off.

The way I see it, most of the people that didn't vote (about 40% of the electorate maybe) are those that are the most unhappy with the way things are whilst the guys that are voting for the punks that are pissing the unhappy abstainers as well me off are having fun knowing they're going to win.

Do Love a Good Steak

2010-02-18T02:36:00.000+03:00

I spent the day trying to sort out my online existence because I can't seem to get the hang of social networking. Today's a been a try to get things in order, but so far it just looks like a bigger mess. I now have 5 e-mail addresses. The idea is that one e-mail address will be used for my blog and to communicate with friends on facebook and another for formal and family with another facebook account. Oh and of course there'll still be a need one for signing up to forums and other sites.

I was losing weight during the month of January, somehow my weight has bounced back up this month. Something I wouldn't know had I hadn't been playing Wii Fit. I ate so much when trying to quit cigarettes. I'm still upset that trip to the plantation messed that all up. There are still things that need to be taken care of there, such as getting all the socks that can't be found when in Baghdad.

My blog's pictures might disappear. Having changed the e-mail address to sign in with, if the other one is deleted the pictures might go along with the account. Not to worry, the pictures are backed up but it'll be a hassle to get them back on in the right places. Facebook, Picasa and Blogger are awfully hard to understand how to get to work together. There's a rising suspicion within me that they simply don't work together.

Went to Erbil with Od for a couple of nights and came back the day before yesterday. It was fun road tripping to there. We smoked up all the way up the highway to there. We'd wait till we pass checkpoints to spark up and several time we came up to another one before the joint was done. We stayed at my cousins', those two cousins are two big bags of crazy.

Od didn't get to see much of the town on this first visit of his, we spent our whole time in four places, the Speedway Center, Ain Kawa, Bakery & More and my cousins'. He liked the place a lot and during a brain storming session at Bakery & More we made a flowchart with his choices for the future ahead of him until he gets his immigration papers to move to the United States where his dear fiance is waiting for him. He's now considering moving up there to get a job.

My stash is nearly done and hopefully won't be replenished. Yes it's sad that it looks like it's coming to an end. but it's time for us to go our separate paths again and to long for the day that we meet again. It's the time apart that makes you realise you want it.

Today's Maz's birthday! That guy's been foaming on me since yesterday when he dragged me with him to the tire market. He took us to the airport to a little cabin restaurant run by an American. The food was good. Nais had a good steak, like the one Od had at the Speedway Center in Erbil. Iraqi restaurants are terrible at steaks, they're always too dry and taste like cardboard.

The weather's been great these past few days. It feels as though there's a gentle warm peace in the air which might be because it's a bit humid rather than the usual dry. It's only February however, and that can only mean that it's going to get hot even sooner this year.

I'm now going to go roll myself some of the stash that I had kept in a bottle of vodka to see if there's any goodness left in it after most of it should have been absorbed by the booze.

At The Farm Again!

2010-02-07T23:40:00.002+03:00

I'm here at the farm again. Hopefully this will be the last time for a long time. I've brought my new camera with me too. So hopefully, there'll be lots of pictures to post.

I was certain that I had things to mention here on this blog, but nothing's coming to mind right now. It's also been about two hours that I've had this page open to type something in it.

My visit here is limited to tying up some loose-ends that I've left behind and then I'll take back Nahida and Fozzy to Baghdad. I'll get Nahida to help me out sort out my junk.

Cigarettes are so boring. I should have brought my stash with me. I'm trying to quit smoking and so far I've doing pretty well, getting myself stuck at home without any lying around. Except that today, I find myself with a stockpile of cigarettes from my last visit.

My health's not doing so great. The other day, I took a generic Viagra gel thing and got myself a proper boner and not the half hearted kind that I have been getting of late. That was fun. Quitting cigarettes should help achieve the same effect. On the other hand, I've been eating like a pig and should watch out for diabetes.

Mentally, I'm doing alright. I'm not sure if I've got the patience to deal with farmer complaints tomorrow but hopefully I'll be able to deal with them using the repertoire developed over the time dealing with them.

I was supposed to figure out why I'm afraid to go back to the U.K.. In summary, the reasons are that I worry that I might not survive there, that my life there will be lonelier than the life I have here and that I probably will find it hard to secure a career considering my lack of skills and experience.

It's getting late and my phone's about to die.

Jobs In Baghdad

2010-02-07T23:22:00.006+03:00

So I've been looking for a job and I've found a few links to job postings that might be useful to other Iraqis that have a good working knowledge in English and fluent Arabic (what I don't have).

American Embassy They seem to come up with new stuff every week. Busy people!

USAID: Assistance for Iraq Probably also worth checking regularly.

British Embassy in Baghdad... I haven't seen anything posted here, but who knows maybe someday.

International Organization for Migration

International Relief & Development

If I come across others I'll try to remember posting them up and if anyone has any suggestions feel free to leave them in the comments section.

Karada Market

2010-01-31T12:00:00.005+03:00

Waking up in the middle day, that's a luxury! I just woke up and had my dump with a cigarette. Fixed up my Zippo, the one that my friends in Lebanon gave me about ten years ago for my Birthday.

A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that I hadn't many pictures taken in 2009. So I bought a new camera. Taking pictures is hard or something, because most of the ones I take come out bad. I also keep messing around with the settings which is my fault.

A few days ago, Od and I went to Karada and I brought the camera with me to take pictures. We were both uncomfortable about carrying a camera and taking pictures in the street with it. People might think that we're planning a terrorist attack or something and it can't be helped that there are soldiers nearly everywhere. Fortunately, nobody gave us any trouble. What I do want to do is go take photos with my uncle whose house is a museum. Maybe I could learn a trick or two from him.

Looking at my pictures however, made me realize how bad my body looks. It looks as though I've got man-titties. I must get back to playing tennis, which I can do since I'm no longer waking up so late in the afternoon as I have been doing the past couple of weeks.

Oh crap! I just realised that I have a couple of errands to do before I go to the plantation tomorrow for the very last time. I'll make sure I get as many pictures as possible, and maybe with the 10x zoom on this new camera, I'll finally get a good picture of those colourful birds that hang around the plantation.

Here are the pics that didn't come out blurry...

400 Posts or Why I'm Afraid To Go Back To The UK

2010-01-28T05:11:00.004+03:00

Having a British passport and staying in Iraq is one of those things that people find strange in Iraq. Nearly everyone's asked me why do I stay. I've come up with a million different excuses to tell people some maybe true, most of them probably not. I'm not even sure which ones are true anymore.

The matter does come up now since I have very little to keep me in Iraq anymore, which for the past were college and then the running of the plantation.

I just spent spent the last 10 minutes making a table mapping what I've been doing since moving back to Baghdad in 2002. I've been here for 8 years. Things have changed in the world and so have I.

I really can't keep up with all the messed up reasons why I'm so afraid to go back. Typing this post is hard. Hard to choose one to start off with. I'll try doing a meditation breathing exercise for a minute.

Oh no! I just gave myself a head-rush. I figure out how to do the breathing exercise on the Wii Fit: that I must clench my tummy when exhaling and relaxing my belly when inhaling. Doing the opposite that I'm accustomed to: sucking in my tummy to inhale and relaxing to exhale might be good sometimes too, (smoking cigarettes might have encouraged this way of breathing).

Perhaps I need to make a mind map. I'm not going to get to the bottom of this matter in this post. I've given up already. The truth is that I don't know why I'm afraid to go back. I need to answer myself first which is another great thing to-do to put on my white board.

In a few hours, I'm supposed to head to a bank's share-holders meeting, but I've left my stock certificates back in the plantation. So I'm not even sure if I'm going to be let in or allowed to vote.

Laptop batteries are about to die.

Get a Job?

2010-01-16T02:23:00.000+03:00

My dad let me have some money, not much compared to what I was expecting from our agreement that he's chosen to ignore. As a result, I don't feel myself obligated to the plantation any longer. And so, I'm supposed to be looking for a job now and a whole bunch of other things such as, the trouble is that I'm high. Right now I am.

I've never really taken the initiative to get a job. It's also the kind of thing I've always (and still do) imagined would just work itself somehow when the time comes. I'm not struggling or worrying too much about it thinking that the time will come when it will somehow sort itself out. But it's not going to happen like that, I'll start getting serious about it soon.

For the meantime, I'm making an effort to enjoy myself. Nahida got left behind at the plantation which is a bonus too. I wake up to a calm house that stays calm. My days start with a simple breakfast: some butter on toast with some tea and a joint. I try to stay at home quite a deal. My Ramadan stockpile of beer got finished by my friends. But I still have a small variety of spirits as well as a little bottle of green dragon (but mine's gold) that's waiting to be tried out.

I've also been trying to get a bit more serious with getting healthy. I've made a couple of salads and with some help they're coming out alright. I'm making it a point to play more Wii Fit as well, which I think has helped me avoid back pains. Occasionally, I get to play tennis, but then pain in my wrist sets in after half an hour of playing and I have to give up for a couple of days. I'm also hoping to go swimming soon too.

My sexual frustration has been taken care of too. She wasn't that pretty, but all in all it was a surprisingly better experience than I've had the last couple of times. The sex wasn't much fun, but to be relieved of pent up sexual frustration is something to be enjoyed.

Sav gave me the number of a pimp and I did all the rest all on my own, which is something I'm proud of. Some things did go wrong with the pick-up. The guard of a building that I'm acquainted with smiled at me as I walked past him and off with the girl to my car. I had made it so obvious what was going on that everyone on the street knew what was going on.

It's odd but I get the impression that there's something wrong with my perception of what it is that I can do as well as those things that I have achieved. I think I successfully managed the plantation, increasing production and making it more profitable, I made a big effort and I spent a whole big deal of my time but yet I feel I didn't do anything and achieved nothing for myself. In the end, I don't see myself as being any much more able a person.

I'm an able person however, I made salad. I'm slowly tidying up my home too. I'm noticing that there's a lot of junk in the house that's managed to blend into the house. It's difficult getting rid of junk simply because it's been there for so long, and so I'm doing it very slowly and it's making a difference. Having less junk cluttering up home is nice and I'm slowly adding things that are worth having around. Such as a vegetable peeler and curtains for my room. I didn't imagine they'd make such a big difference to the room's atmosphere.

So for now, I just want to keep reminding myself to enjoy myself something that I didn't feel I could do when I had to burden responsibilities back at the plantation. I want to focus more on enjoying myself for a while longer rather than getting a job. And if I make getting a job fun then all the better.

Happy New Year!

2009-12-31T23:55:00.000+03:00

The club was fun. I saw women! I also popped into the bar every other moment to grab a drink. Later hanged out with Od and Zaif. We took a drive around and got a bite to eat. Poor Od's got to go to work in the hospital tomorrow.

The curfew tonight's still midnight. One would of thought that they'd make an exception on New Year's! So here I am back home, it's midnight... Happy New Year!

Getting Close to Number 400

2009-12-31T16:57:00.000+03:00

The sun's about to set on this last day. Keeping it going with the nostalgia, I've got my old laptop playing old songs that I haven't heard in a long time. A lot of which I listened to while smoking up copiously such as I did ten years ago and that I'm now. The speakers on this old thing are so much nicer to that that I've been accustomed to. I've barely done any work ever since ending the harvest and I've been getting high instead. I must take down a notch the getting high act, but for now I'll leave that till next year. Maz just called, we're going to go to the local social club. Might see women there! Haven't seen them for a while.

Something To Work On

2009-12-31T00:09:00.000+03:00

Got some stuff to fry up for a meal. It's been a struggle to feed since I'm in Baghdad and Nahida's still at the plantation. Nostalgia's good. I'm working my old laptop now. Most of my blog has been done on this little one. It's hard disk growls these days, angry that it's been woken up. I hate my other laptop that I've been using for the past year and so. It's got Vista. It's also larger, heavier and has bad speakers.

I wonder what I would have blogged ten years ago. My life seemed like a big mess around about back then, and it's funny to see after all this time, I'm suddenly finding myself in a big mess again with no idea what to do with myself. I know I'm going to do something silly over the next four months or so. But for now, I've turned myself back into a glorious sloth again.

The electricity is back and it's time to start frying food...

Still no improvement on my puff pastry frying skills. The pastries nearly look burned on the outside but there's a big layer of pastry on the inside that isn't getting cooked.

I Love My Dad

2009-12-23T06:23:00.003+03:00

I can't sleep. But looking at this page is having is starting to make me a little sleepier. It could also be because I just smoked some hash I carefully scrapped from an asthma inhaler that was not big enough to hide some hash and had some bits still stuck on the inside. Yes I've run out of hash for the first time in over a month and I might be feeling some withdrawal.

Had the most annoying phone conversation with my brother; annoying, because the line kept dropping. I've mentioned that I had made an agreement with my father for 30% of the plantation profits. Now my father, is backpedaling on the deal. That's not unexpected of my dad, even my brother told me to make sure I get the cash.

My brother is now acting as an intermediary between my father and I, and we spoke today. The conversation was filled with some very good jokes. Such as dad's carrot on a stick or his offer of either a dick in your mouth or a dick in your ass. My brother added a hand job from a leper as an another alternative.

In each of their prolonged NEET-ish lives my siblings have ultimately been disowned by my father. The best thing to happen to them I think. My brother for example, was promised it all, a house, a new car, financial support and then ended up marrying the girl he loved penniless. Sure enough I've been hearing the same promises and now, he's offering ten million dinars instead of the instead of 30% of the profits for the work I've done for the past year or to take a hike.

The sun's come up. Sleep will set in soon.

Beans

2009-12-16T06:19:00.002+03:00

It was a long harvest, 30 days long. Thankfully, heavy rains didn't come pouring down till the night of the day we finished. Sure enough, I was on my way back to Baghdad the next day. After doing some quick sums, it looks like our sales of our crops are going to double this year.

Coming back to Baghdad after such a long time at the plantation made me notice a few changes. Such as the traffic is now even more horrendous than before I left. It took me over an hour to drive into my own neighbourhood and to my house the day I arrived.

Od arrived from Lebanon the same day as me to hear that one of his classmates got shot while riding with someone else who seemed to be the target. He also got engaged to what seems as like someone that can cut through his bullshit which is a good thing. Every guy needs a woman like that.

It's very early in the morning now, I'm hungry and I think that Qaddori's opens at 6:30 AM. So I better hurry up this post to get there and eat some beans. One other change that's taken place in Baghdad is the popping up of small take away pizza places. There might be two or three in my neighbourhood. Up until now, nearly all burger/pizza restaurants have had sit-in areas. They still have a lot of room for improvement when it comes to the pizza however.

Ever since coming back, I've kept myself busy. During the day I've been getting things done. The first thing I did was go to the phone company to pay my phone bill which for last month was about 160 bucks chargeable to the plantation. The girl that prints out the bill is so cute. She looks like she's in perpetual mourning because she's been wearing black for the three months since I started with my billed line. She was also not wearing any make-up and she doesn't need to because she has pouty lips and rosie cheeks which is something somewhat rare here. She was the first pretty woman I got to see for over a month.

There's something wrong with the SIM cards we get. They've got no theft protection at all. You might know that if you type in the wrong PIN number several times that it'll then stop asking for the PIN number and won't work unless you type in the PUK number. I've learned that the PUK of all 078 numbers is eight zeros, thereby defeating the purpose of the PIN number and there's no way to change the PUK number either.

For a change, I'm not feeling bored. Instead, after coming back, I got swept by a big sensation of loneliness. I guess I've been lonely most of my life and that most of the time I'm just used to it. I'm thinking that as soon as I've cleared up all immediate work related to wrapping up the rice season that I might go take a vacation and see my family back in England.

I'm getting too hungry to continue this post. I'm going to roll myself a joint and go get me some beans.

Ba Ba Bored

2009-12-08T22:12:00.000+03:00

The harvest is nearly over, we're on the last stretch, about 25 hectares of partially collapsed rice to harvest. The rice collapsed because of its heavy load being blow down by strong winds. No cool crop circles here unfortunately.

Going out to the harvest has become a routine affair. I wake up, get me a bite to eat from Nahida. Call up my advisor and head off to the fields. If the day starts early I come back home for lunch. The day ends after sunset and I drive back home. I watch the movies, animes and series that Nais has loaded onto my portable hard drive, have my dinner and after a couple of joints go to sleep.

That's not to say that it's all routine. A couple of days ago, a farmer protested against letting a second combine harvester into his land. A couple of his relatives then came in and shot at one of my agents. When things go awfully wrong I've got several numbers to call on: my cousin the sheikh, the dude that's in charge of all the government offices in town, his assistant and my dad. But I couldn't get through to any of them.

I took my agent in my car and we headed to the police station who sent us to the court house that then sent us back to the police station with some. We then had to go back to the court house but we needed witnesses to testify. We called on my other agent and the driver of the combine harvester and they didn't come fearful of any repercussions. It was around this time that my cousin got through to me. He told me that I could go back to the harvest, that he'll get the cops to hurry up and that he's sending a guy we know and who is a relative of the shooter and the farmer to the harvest and who he wants me to put on the line when I see him.

I left my agent at his house and went onto the harvest met up with the guy and we were about to listen to the farmer's side of the story but I had to tell him to get rid of the automatic rifle he had slung on his shoulder (My dad once told me that a farmer must not bear arms during the harvest). After we heard his story, I told him off a little more. We held onto his share of the harvest as instructed by my cousin, the purpose of which was to get him to hurry up with resolving the matter.

By the evening of the same day, I visited my cousin to explain to me what will happen. He explained to me that it was agreed that the next day the farmer and members of his family will apologize to the agent as well as myself in each of our homes and pay somekind of compensation fee of nine-hundred thousand dinars to my agent for the bullet shot and six-hundred thousand to me for messing with an agent of mine whilst doing his job, but that it wouldn't be appropriate to take the sum owed to me. My cousin told me that it was important that such things be dealt with as fast as possible and that they'll come to me even though he wouldn't be able to come. I told him I had no clue what the heck to do, so he agreed to postpone their apology to me to the day after so he could attend.

And so today, at ten minutes to two in the afternoon he came to my guest hall and told me about some website on the net to check the weather on and a couple of minutes later the guest hall was filled with about thirty or forty guys as if they had just come off of a bus. My cousin called for tea and explained the actions he took and some other things I didn't understand and then called on the farmer to say hello or 'peace onto you' which he did and was followed by a bunch of the elders some of which I was well acquainted with, others I had just seen around. The whole thing was over within twenty minutes.

That was pretty much the highlight of this year's rice harvest. The rest of it has been well boring. Especially these nights when I get back home.

Bad Luck Tapping

2009-11-24T19:17:00.003+03:00

Seems as though this time of year can be just plain bad luck for me. Something I'll check by reviewing previous posts.

Last night, somebody tried to get passed the PIN protection on my dad's phone and screwed it up. For no good reason at all, I tried sliding in the my dad's SIM card into my Sony Ericsson phone. Turned on my phone and nothing came on except for a little blink from the infrared thing.

This morning I woke up with a wet dream. The last time that happened it wasn't a wet dream, it was chlamydia. But I haven't slept with any prostitutes in a long time, so there's no chance of that. It's still a nuisance. The strange thing about a wet dream, is that I usually get a chance to wake myself up before it climaxes. This morning I chose not to wake up.

I had to go to Diwaniya this morning. I thought that perhaps there I'd find myself a replacement battery and that would do the job. But there was not a single Sony Ericsson phone in sight. I need a phone for work and I'm not going back to Baghdad for another couple of weeks, so I bought a new Nokia. I don't like Nokias, I don't know how to setup the internet on it and I can't find the blog function.

Driving back to the plantation, I drove over a dirt bump that's supposed to keep people from driving through. They didn't quite make it high enough to stop cars from going over it and I drove over it on my way earlier in the morning. On the way back however, I must've been driving too fast because it hit the car from underneath and when I got home some guys took a look and handed me a piece of plastic telling me this must have fallen off.

It was mid day by then and realising that my luck so far has been very bad, I reluctantly went out to the harvest. Surprisingly, everything went smoothly until we got to the last farmer of the day. That's when my scientific calculator which I've set constants to calculate my share of the harvest.

24 hours have passed now and I should be safe now.

Drugs on the farm?

2009-11-19T10:05:00.001+03:00

I've been hearing about a flower that people plant for its nice smell and that is also a drug. This is the first one I've seen. There's a story of a little girl that ate some of these flowers and died. The farmer's could also be pulling my leg.

A Day at the Harvest

2009-11-18T12:45:00.001+03:00

Why do the people look so small in the picture? There are a lot of these women dressed in black, about thirteen in sight right now. They come and collect the stalks with rice that the combine harvester misses. They collect the stalks in a bag and beat the bag with a stick to thrash the paddy from the stalks.
A few also come to ask for some of the paddy that the combine dumps that the farmer and I split. So we give then about fifteen kilograms from each pile.
There are alot more than there were last year. I thought it was because we had poor crops last year, but I'm told that there women that come from far away places have gathered here because this here is one of the few places that managed to cultivate in spite of the drought.
There was one guy that had been following us since the first day and would walk off at the end of each day with a big bag. It's good to see he's not here today. He got me wondering how much is enough.
Oh no, it's started to rain again. We didn't harvest yesterday because of the rain. It's also started to get cold. I might now need to switch my white summer dishdasha for a winter one.

Harvest will Start

2009-11-12T00:43:00.005+03:00

The harvest starts tomorrow. I'm nearly ready and will make an effort to blog from my phone during the harvest. I hope it's not as exciting as the last harvest. I also hope that the farmers don't have much to complain about either. The thing they annoyed me the most about last time regarded getting a 'shovel' (big yellow vehicle with a big scooper in the front). A lot of them got that taken care of after the last harvest. Some will complain that I'm compensating a little less than they expected for the 'shovels'.

After this harvest is through, I'm going to have to start thinking of how I'm going to spend my first twenty million. It's going to totally change the way I think of spending my money. No longer will it be worth my while to spend money on expensive restaurants and the occasionally nasty prostitute. I could try saving my money and travel instead. I'll try to get a job too, but I definitely have to travel even it's to piss in a foreign country and fly right back.

No orn

2009-11-12T00:40:00.000+03:00

I haven't wanked in a long time. Having my dad around has made me feel uncomfortable about doing, his room is just across the corridor from mine. He's taken over my room at the plantation and now I'm sleeping the living room and I think it's time I move that bottle of vodka out of sight it's been lying around on a drawer in the corner for a week. I should not be leaving that around for my dad to see. It is a half-bottle of absolute, maybe it doesn't look so suspicious. Let's see, (thinking about wanking) I do need a shower too.

I might as well drink the vodka, there's not much left in it anyway. Never mind, I don't have anymore but I've got plenty to keep me high. Getting high so much is beginning to make me feel I've lost my focus on controlling my life. The good news is that I'm still making the changes I decided I need to make before feeling that I've lost my focus on controlling my life. Maybe I could say that I was in 'boss me' mode and that I'm now in 'do-er me' mode now. Drank the vodka, and the result is that I had so little there's no effect.

This laptop doesn't have any video porn! They got accidentally deleted a while back and I haven't copied anything new. Maybe that's why I haven't been wanking. But back in Baghdad, I've found a bunch of stuff on my old laptop some of which I didn't even know I had. Should have copied some. Porn sites have also lost a great deal of their appeal these days too. I'm definitely wanking tonight no matter what.

I did get turned heavily turned on last weekend though, my dad and I visited some family. That was the most fun I ever had during a family visit, because they Wii at their house. And I got so horny after coming back from their house. They had a very cute sixteen year old daughter. Yes, it's wrong. Fortunately however, she was off my mind the next day and thinking about her now isn't doing anything to me.

Getting a Cut

2009-11-12T00:30:00.000+03:00

Autumn started the day of my last post. Ever since the weather hasn't climbed over forty Centigrade. The weather's been lovely ever since. There was one rainy and windy day in the plantation when I was in Baghdad. That day was my birthday. When I came back, portions of the crop had been knocked down by the wind which was a sore sight.

I had a bunch of issues to go through with my dad. One thing that he caught onto quickly enough was that he should play down his authoritarian attitude with me about how things should be done. He now understands that I like to do things differently and that it works. A few days ago, my dad agreed to giving me a portion of the profits. We haggled until we agreed that I get 30% of the profits. That's about 20 million dinars ($16,000) for the last wheat season. I'll also be responsible for paying for my own expenses in Baghdad. The most annoying thing about having my dad around is that he keeps waking me up early in the morning.

Both my father and I are doing better now that we agreed on a cut for myself. He was very apprehensive of the idea at first, but we finally sat down to talk about it he quickly become more receptive. He couldn't sleep that night and the next day after a bad night's sleep he did accuse me of trying to weasel as much money as possible. But after a good rest, he switched to a good mood and now I'm a bit worried that maybe he's figured that he got himself a good deal and that I got ripped off.

Kiki's thinking of coming back. He's still in Malaysia and finally got a job that was passed down to him after the friend he went to Malaysia with flew off to America. He asked if he could stay at my place which of course he's always welcomed to. It would be really nice having him back. It would bring back the spirit of the old times. He was always the one that I was sure to find when I used to visit during summer break when I was living in Lebanon. My ex-neighbour's been here for a month, and Kiki asked if he was staying at his old house. But ex-neighbour is cooped up in grandma's, I told Kiki that he did think about moving back into his old house. It would be great to see the old gang grow back.

Wine from a Tea Pot

2009-10-22T21:49:00.002+03:00

Woke up with a slight sore throat. Must have not covered myself well last night as well as smoked too much. Yesterday, was my birthday.

After a morning going round the local offices with my dad to distribute gifts, Nahida popped out the cake she had prepared the night before. Dad remarked by the time he was twenty-eight he was already into his second marriage.

From there I drove back to Baghdad, bought some wine and went over to my ex-neighbour's place. Another friend from school showed up a little later and we went out for dinner where we were served wine in cups out of a tea pot!

Clarification on a Point in Previous Post

2009-10-15T23:19:00.004+03:00

In my last post I started off with:

How do these people tolerate their miserable lives in this country? Why does it feel like I'm the only one who is so unhappy with things and in other words why can't I find myself a normal girl to sleep with. It's not just that really, but then again it might be just that.

But to clarify, what it is that bothers me is that people men and women don't socialize in public. It's alright for a guy and a girl to phone each other now that there's no risk of any of the parents picking up the phone or chat on the internet. As long as it's out of sight of the judging eye of society.

Why is it that if people see a guy and a girl out together that they have to come to the conclusion that they're dating. It would be nice if I could someday go to a classmate's house, say hi to her parents and go have some lunch or dinner.

What I'm trying to get to is why can't guys hang out with girls just like guys hang out with guys. If a guy sleeps over at another's house it doesn't mean they're going to bum fuck each other, so why shouldn't it be the same when a girl sleeps over. That is an extreme analogy, but it gets to the point.

I don't think it's just society and its judgmental attitude that's to blame. The guys and the girls are to blame too somehow. Guys here in general have a disrespectful attitude towards girls. Girls on the other hand think of themselves as so precious. So precious, that she would only go out with a guy if she was indeed on a date with him, which ultimately supports society's view of a guy and a girl out together.

In the end, you end up with two halves of society that don't take the chance to get to know each other so that they may respect each other on a personal level and not necessarily thing of each other as something to sleep with or marry.

Since I'm a guy, I should defend my camp. It's so hard to have a personal relationship with a girl that when one does finally get to do so with a girl, that girl gets the focus of his urge to procreate. As for the girls, I'd like to see them explain themselves without blaming us guys.

The Things That Bother Me With My Life

2009-10-14T23:52:00.003+03:00

How do these people tolerate their miserable lives in this country? Why does it feel like I'm the only one who is so unhappy with things and in other words why can't I find myself a normal girl to sleep with. It's not just that really, but then again it might be just that.

My dad's coming in just a few more days. I'm very angry and I'm going to direct most of it at him. Usually he's the one that gets angry at me, but I've got so much anger piled up that I'm not even going to give him the chance to have a go at me. I'll admit there's only myself to blame for letting my life lead me to where I am.

I've never felt so much anger within me. Except for a certain time and that was because I was drugged up. Anger can be utilized as a good motivator.

Ever smelled the wonderful scent of a dead rat? It is horrible! It's worse than the smell of a few days old corpse. That's what the kitchen and the corridor here at my place at the plantation smells of right now. I'm surprised the smell is never followed by that of vomit. That smell is like a bad memory, I mean just remembering it smells bad.

I'm also angry at the government. They make my job so much harder because of their incompetence and bureaucracy and their idiotic methods to stifle fraud. Every single farmer as well as I feel that the government is trying its best to make things harder on us.

For example today, I had to go through about eleven people to get a government document permitting me to purchase new wheat seeds from a mixed sector seed company.

Will continue this later...maybe

Don't Like Sleeping Pills

2009-10-11T02:33:00.002+03:00

Spoke to dad today, just to ask him about his visit's itinerary (he's coming next week). I haven't been speaking to him ever since the wheat harvest. Last month, I spoke to him twice both times ending with me getting very angry and hanging up in his face. Whilst discussing collecting rent for our storage rooms my dad pointed out that our financial status isn't good. This coming from a man that's spent his life saving pennies to accumulate a lump of savings with he prides himself.

The truth is that since I'm in a position to be well aware of what our finances look like. We didn't ride any post-war gravy train like most people. My dad kept doing things like he knows how, making sure he's got a good rate on his saving's account. But the last year or so has been bad. The mill was a failure and he had bought some property in the nineties that it now turns out were sold with forged documents and upon which we had built and another part of sold.

My father's very old and it must be very disappointing for him to see his fortune just slip away towards the twilight of his life. It does however seem that he's taking it quite well. My brother told me he's going to go on a cruise in the Caribbean and to not say he told me. I do feel I have reason to be pissed off at my father for that, considering I had an argument with him the last time he came when I asked for a vacation in Europe and he told me that all we could afford for me was a two-week vacation in a cheap hotel in Lebanon or some other neighbouring country. Then again, it's his money and he's entitled to do whatever he wishes with it.

All my life I've more or less followed what my dad told me to do, except for the many years which I spent getting high at university abroad and he's been covering all my expenses for most of my life and the past year hasn't been an exception. But after working for over a year on the plantation, I've pocketed nothing yet except the nice car he gave me as a 'graduation present' but more for the sake of helping me do my work. If it was up to me, I'd charge the car on the plantation. Actually, that's a good idea. But now my dad's ship is sinking, I think it's time for me to jump off.

I'm going to have to try to have a proper sit down with him and hope he takes me seriously for a change. He should also be aware that I'm ready to start taking care of myself and should have some idea of what he can offer me. I do however, want to clear out a lot of nonsense between us, layout a new framework for our relationship and discuss with him the way I perceive things.

Tomorrow I want to go visit a bunch of government offices, it's past three in the morning now and I haven't slept yet. This is very annoying.

It's Complicated, Lots of Factors into Play

2009-10-04T03:33:00.000+03:00

Earlier I took a Ritalin pill and smoked the last of my hash. My stash ran out a long time ago, but Od's been passing me bits from his share. How long has it been since I've started smoking up regularly again? Maybe six to nine months. I didn't think I'd stay smoking for this long. I wonder if it's affecting me and my life negatively. Maybe it's been good, maybe I needed it. My life has become a great deal more stressful since I graduated from college during which I didn't smoke up. Over the past few months, I've been to a urologist, a dermatologist and a guy dressed up as a cleric that does hijama (blood letting using a vacuum technique), and they all told me I need to chill out.

The plantation's doing well. I'm a bit behind on the accounts which is holding me back from focusing on doing some fixes. One of my two guards who is also a farmer on the lands (and not a good one at that) walked into the living room today with the biggest and stupidest smile. In his hand he was carrying a black plastic bag with some long green leaves sticking out. He pulled out the leaves to display the stalks of rice loaded with grains he picked on his way to show them to me. I guess that it's a very good sign when such stalks of rice appear so early.

I just had a farm idea. And I've jotted it down so I could carry it out later. Just to give an example of what my work is sometimes like I'm going to explain it. First off, we have irrigation canals, which weeds can clog. Therefore during the water intensive rice season we need to keep cleaning the weeds out of the canals. Previously on my plantation, it is expected that each farmer cleans the canals that are adjacent to his plot. My farmers however, don't. So I end up paying for workers to come and do it and then when harvest time comes I'll take grain from the farmer's share in compensation. There are however, segments of the canals that are not adjacent to the plots of any farmers and previously we've paying the bill for those segments ourselves without any compensation from the farmers. This year however, my cousin the local tribal sheikh said that the farmers should bear the cost of these segments too.

Today, I was sitting with the guys that do the cleaning to help me distribute accordingly, the costs of all the irrigation canals on the farmer's list on my super duper excel worksheet. And it has just occurred to me, that I've had to distribute the cost of a long segment of canal cleaning to a relatively small handful of farmers in one area that aren't doing so well (some of them are lousy farmers and their new water pump got installed late). I'm thinking it's not very fair on them to pay so much, so what the new 'farm idea' is to make them pay no more than the highest average for any other area and I'll accept to pay the remainder. I just need to see how the numbers look when I get around to it.

Anyway, I'm fed up with the plantation. I've been spending so much time scheming lately on ways to get out of here. It's like my own little quagmire and I need to work on my exit strategy. I need to get this plantation performing properly as well as give my life a new direction all of which seems unfathomably complicated right now.

Nearly Everyone Else's Eid

2009-09-20T23:24:00.007+03:00

I woke up very early this morning, opened up Facebook and everyone was Happy Eiding everyone else. I was so happy, all I had to do was take a shower, shave and get ready for the arrival of a bunch of kids to come to the mudheef and to hand them out candy. And then around lunchtime I'd make my getaway to Baghdad and enjoy some festivities.

Come seven in the morning, and the date evaluators are in the mudheef waiting on me to come out so that we can finish off the date evaluation of each farmer which we had planned to finish after Eid if Eid was tomorrow. So while nearly everyone else is celebrating, the guys down here are celebrating it tomorrow. Which means that I'm down here for an extra day and I'm missing out on another day of Eid.

Yesterday, we went to Karbala for dinner. It was cloudy, maybe it will rain this winter which would be so good as long as it doesn't rain during the harvest which isn't for another couple of months. When we got to the restaurant, Durra al Nasrawi (or something like that), which was quite good the guy at the door recognized Fozzy and Nahida. It turned out he was the guy that lived and guarded the house opposite our own. It was surprising so much affection exchanged between the two at this random encounter considering I think they found him annoying at the time he used to live on our street. But in retrospect he was a lot simpler than the new people that moved in.

I'm quite fed up with my workload at the plantation. The amount of accounts that I have to do is ridiculous. Data inputting what each of over 150 farmers has received in terms of seeds, fertilizers, plastic pipes (which they end up tossing away anyway), cost of land repairs, cost of canal cleaning (the last two of which I haven't done yet). Then there's categorizing all the costs of which there are plenty such as operating, fixing the water pumps, diesel, handling the seeds, costs of selling the yield, administrative costs, fixing things such as step-down transformers.

There's also the adding up all the rehabilitation projects, such as building a bridge or installing a new water pump, of which I have to pay back my dad a third from the profits I make from the land I'm supposedly renting from my uncle and from which I have yet to pocket anything. But I do spend freely from my dad's money. I think my dad's going to try to cut me off next time he visits and so I'm trying my best to spend as much money as possible while I still can.

I'm going to get a Visa debit card to buy myself a Blackberry. But unluckily, Iraq's government has decided to impose duties on imports as well as on stuff that's sent through DHL and the likes. They're even trying to take duties on books from people arriving at the airport.

From what I hear the government's trying its best to mess with the work of parcel courier businesses. Something about trying to get a state enterprise to monopolize the handling of all stuff flying in and out of the country, so for example, I go to DHL give them a parcel, they then have to hand it to the state enterprise that will then fly it off to a neighbouring country from which DHL will then take back the parcel and take it where it's supposed to go. As inefficient and ineffective as state enterprises are, you can only imagine how bad it can get and how late and how lost your stuff will get.

So right now, I'm hoping a friend of mine who would also like to buy a Blackberry to see if his boss will allow him to use his APO (US military) mailing address to circumvent the whole problem. Leaving me to hope his boss doesn't take them for himself. (Quick edit: Just checked and online shops don't mail electronics to APO addresses, not only them, but Play.com (UK) don't mail electronics abroad either, for security reasons! That leaves me only one option: Western Union some money to mum and have her buy it online for me because the high street only sells them on contracts.)

I read the preview section of a book about Iraq's economy in the thirties through to the fifties on Google the other day. It looks like a good read, but for $190 bucks, I'm not so sure. It does a great job describing British attempts to control the economy and how hopeless the Iraqis are at running things on their own. I've got to get myself these history books one day. It really does help make sense of everything of what is going on today. Because at the end of the day it all begins to seem like one big re-run, leaving one to wonder if it can all work out right this time.

Od and I were hoping that things will get better by the time we graduate, and in some aspects they have such as in security and the availability of prostitutes. Though I'm still trying to regain the stupidity of giving it another go after my previous bad experiences with them. I told Od that next time we have to insist on some quality. Then there's the availability of hash which is good too, it certainly does help. But I much prefer grass. Hash satisifies the urge but isn't so pleasurable.

But on the other hand, it seems that the more the government gains its own say on the way things should be run, the more likely it is to screw up. The aforementioned parcel service nonsense or the big idea to censor the internet 'for state security' for example. Sounds like you'll soon get in jail for saying 'down with the government'. With their attempts to practice censorship, they step right into the scenario where moderate reformists are silenced and radical extremist's wills are strengthened, something which should be obvious. But then again, it's all good for those in power even though the people will suffer.

I don't know why I'm becoming pessimistic all of a sudden. I've always thought that as long as some democracy existed there will be hope for things to get better, but it does seem that those in power are trying to burn the bridge for change...

I had a good idea of exactly what I wanted to say next but Nahida brought me dinner. It was something like: Why can't this country gain sovereignty without shooting itself in the foot?

I know it's not me to talk of politics but does anyone see any sign of improvement in writing? I've been practicing.

Oohh Humbug

2009-08-25T02:01:00.004+03:00

It's Ramadan again. I just noticed that the visitors to my blog have doubled. Seems that if you google: "i hate ramadan", my post with the same title is the first result on the list. I read that post today and I ought to make one correction: when I go to a restaurant with my friends who are fasting, I get the impression that I'm the hungriest one among them.

This year is completely different from last year's however. Where as last year people were smoking, drinking and even eating at restaurants on the sidewalk. This year the government has done a 360, making all the above outlawed.

Not everybody fasts! These days the weather is very hot. There plenty of old people that don't. There are also those that are sick. What's a person coming from a province and needs to do some kind of medical test supposed to do when the doctor tells him or her that he or she needs to drink or eat something.

Restaurants aren't allowed to serve food during daylight hours and they can't even give out take-aways till after three in the afternoon according to a friend of mine who was desperate for some lunch. Before the war, it wasn't allowed to do so and so in public too, but at least the restaurants were allowed to stay open as long as people on the street can't see the customers eat.

It's as though the government is imitating the Taliban. The government also wants to block internet porn too. It's not going well at all. On the bright side, the government does seem a great deal whimsical and Ramadan next year will probably be a different deal altogether again.

Why does it seem like I'm the only one hating Ramadan on the net? I don't mind if the whole world went fasting on Ramadan honestly, it might be a little inconvenient but there's no reason why I or anyone else should have to starve too.

---added later---

I wrote this post without actually seeing with everything with my own eyes. Now I'm back from Baghdad and most of it is kind of true. I later found a neighbourhood with a bunch of restaurants open. So it seems the rules have been applied more leniently in some parts. When buying Kanafa from one of the local sweet shops, I was told that the least I can order is half a kilo until futoor and that otherwise it would create a hassle for the shop.

Big Plan

2009-08-24T02:17:00.003+03:00

Need to learn to write faster and where else to do it but here on my blog. I ought to plan that which I want to write. Skipping that stage this time, or maybe I could come up with something to talk about.

I've been extremely lazy today. I didn't even go out of the house. I'm having trouble with the 'E' key on my keyboard. It's driving me nuts. I just slipped a tiny piece of cardboard paper under the letter and it now works well. Good things do happen after all.

I've got enough hash to make one last joint. Will smoke it as soon as I'm done with this post. Was supposed to go back to Baghdad today. Perhaps I'll go tomorrow. I need to take Nahida back there to get food.

I should've signed out my messengers before starting this.

Life's been quite good of late. Not very sure why, but I get the impression that it has been. I'm very behind on work, but I'm beginning to have some perspective on my life. I'm still getting my act together, and I'm making progress. My actions are goal-orientated now.

I'm not sure if I've gone over this already or not, but the big plan for me is that in a year. The time required of me at the plantation should be so minimal that I'd have the free time to get a job. I have no idea what kind of job, but a job is what I want.

To not be here at the plantation full-time. I'd first have to set up a well-structured management. Put to practice the things I learned at college. But before all that can happen I still need to sort myself out, which I'm doing at my own pace.

Music for the Death

2009-08-10T14:59:00.001+03:00

'I WANT TO SEE YOU BLEEEEED!!!'

I'm at a death metal concert. I don't listen to this stuff. Still fun.

The Bloody Pincher

2009-08-08T04:17:00.002+03:00

This is my toilet at the plantation. There was a crack on the seat that used to pinch my bum as i'd try to get up. I then fixed it by stuffing in tissues. Eventually we got it replaced (it's the one in the pic, see the crack?). It took less than a week to crack too. Ended up stuffing tissues again. A few days ago, i realized that I hadn't been stuffing tissues and haven't been getting pinched either. Until today, it pinched my buttcheek so hard I bled.

4:35 AM

2009-07-30T04:35:00.002+03:00

It's rather nice being so awake at night, as well as a little high. I'm going back to Baghdad tomorrow, in a couple of hours actually. I've been sleeping throughout the mornings these days, a great way to avoid people. I have toured the plantation a few times in the evenings. Spending my time listening to everyone and giving some words of encouragement. I'm no longer getting myself caught up in all the little details and it's working out. Sometimes things don't work-out quite right but I'm learning to keep my cool about it.

I've been reading up on how to get organized and it's going well. I bought a bunch of files and sorted about half of the paperwork I have scattered on my desk and in my cupboard and briefcase. I'm still being productive. Fozzy and me did a rough draft of the profit and loss of the rice mill that my dad insisted on setting up last year. It turned a loss of about nine million dinars and that's not including the massive cost of setting it up.

We finally got checks for the sale of wheat. It's only half of the sum and is at least a month overdue during which time the plantation has accumulated a lot of debts. When Fozzy went to cash them at the bank, the bank manager said told him that there's a new rule that said only the person whose name is on the wheat check can cash it in. Our checks have my dad's name on them and he's not coming till autumn.

The rule, a result of a guy with his check who walked in with his son to withdraw the cash. The son took the cash and the dad then came back later asking for his money. A bank employee had to be fired too. The banking system has a long way to go.

So after catching up on what's going on with the crops, I've realised that we need to get the water pumps working as much as possible these days which means getting diesel which for me is a very good reason to head back to Baghdad to pick up some cash from the bank and come back the next day. Then Fozzy and Nahida brought it to my attention that if I don't wait till Sunday I'd lose out on a million and a half dinars of interest. I'm still going tomorrow (about 2 hours from now).

2009-07-24T16:12:00.002+03:00

It's been five weeks since I ran away from the plantation and now I'm back. I haven't yet seen a single farmer nor I have dressed up in my dishdasha and head gear yet. I can't imagine having arrived without anyone noticing so I suspect that some farmers will be coming in an hour or two.

Fozzy and Nahida have been here in charge of things all this time. A month without Nahida has been great. They seem quite well. Fozzy didn't get sick this whole time which is a miracle. The crops they tell me are looking good. Fozzy told me that the farmers have been asking him in whispers when will I return.

Fozzy and Nahida are giving me the impression that all's well. But I'm finding that hard to believe. I'm still trying to expect the worst. This now is supposed to be the least busiest of times of year for the plantation. So whatever went wrong went wrong and that's that.

what was i thinking?

2009-07-19T01:14:00.005+03:00

hello me! i do from time to time read my own blog and often find things i've forgotten. i've moved my 32" LCD television to my room and have hooked up my laptop to it to watch movies and cartoons since my bedroom is the only air-conditioned room in the house.

i should be excited, i've had enough of living in baghdad and being with the plantation. inside i feel i'm ready to move on. what i need to do is sort out a whole bunch of things over the year ahead and get myself a new life. i've put off the idea of getting married for three or four years. i should be excited but right now, i don't feel at all excited.

tv in the room is cool.

2009-07-06T13:19:00.002+03:00

I'm in Erbil again. Drove here with my car. It was the longest drive of my life, I was told it takes five hours to get here but it ended up taking eight hours because of the dust storm. The weather was alright until we got onto the highway and just before entering Erbil the weather cleared up again.

The roads here are quite different from those in Baghdad, I don't think I've seen a single pot hole yet. I'm trying to learn my way around since I have my car with me, luckily it's not such a big city and they have a few circular roads which means you'll end up where you want to get to eventually.

Everytime I come here, I think of how nice it would be to move here. Over the past two weeks I've been trying to think of a farm exit strategy. I can't go on working and living on the plantation forever. It seems like it isn't too hard to find a job here or perhaps I could continue my studies.

So far I'm thinking that I need to delegate the day to day work and go see them every weekend. That leaves me to focus on the more fundamental issue of sorting out ownership of the land which is a mess, the land is composed of many plots and ownerships of each plot is shared between my uncles and aunts. Sorting the legal side and then physically re-organizing the land will take a long time.

Truth is that I've had it with the plantation. It's a horrible horrible place to be. Ever since I left it two or three weeks ago, I've been avoiding all calls from the there leaving Fozzy and Nahida to take care of everything over there.

As soon as I get to Baghdad I'm going to finish smoking whatever hash I have left and go back to the plantation and start shaking things up or fall flat on my face.

Sports are Unhealthy

2009-06-26T21:18:00.001+03:00

The tennis ball hit my eye and I wasn't high.

--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com

Half an Hour

2009-06-17T03:16:00.002+03:00

3:20 AM... still awake. Slept too much today, paying the cost with boring night hours. Here at the farm I'm feeling a great deal clueless. Everything seems to be taken care of and is going just a little behind schedule. The only serious problem we're facing is a lack of liquidity. I think the wheat prices are out and are as were hoped.

Would very much like to go back to Baghdad and see Smoky. Tomorrow I've got to go plastic pipes to distribute to the farmers to regulate their irrigation. See the farmers to show some support for the guys whose responsibility is the irrigation management. Should also resolve some issue with a cranky farmer that wants to remove some excess dirt from his borders.

Why are the widths of the pipes in inches and the lengths in meters?

Looking at the quantities we've moved to the government silos and the announced prices, I should be expecting sales of a little less than two hundred million dinars. That sounds like a lot. Last rice season's sales were about a hundred and fifty million and profits only came up to a fraction of that. Wheat should be better since it incurs less expenses. That said, I've spent so much money on fixing up the farm and added an electric generator, that it looks like I've yet to see the day I get to pocket some profit.

Dad's still expecting me to do the accounts for the work we've done with the rice mill. I'm seeing myself as unable to do them here at the farm because of all the distractions, where as in Baghdad I'd be stoned and I can never get anything done stoned. But right now, I think I'm better off going to Baghdad to do them.

I was sick before going to Baghdad and then I got high and then well and then I came back and now I'm sick again with a sore throat, a bit of a cold and feeling like poo.

Hickey

2009-06-14T21:15:00.003+03:00

I got back to the farm today. My three days of getting high are over, I left the stuff at home in Baghdad. Od's squirming since I didn't leave him any. He finally got himself a residence somewhere outside of Baghdad. He's just going to have to hope that we meet up in Baghdad some day soon.

Yesterday, Nahida's nephew took us to some guy that sucks out blood from one's back. It's supposed to be a very old sort of alternative healing called 'hijama'. Nahida went in saying I had back pains, which I don't really have these days, but it's true that I can't touch my toes. Need to stretch. High as I was, I just went along. The guy, who we'd call 'Sheikh' (as in a religious cleric), asked me where the pain was on a poster of the human body and I pointed at the lower back region. He lied me down on my side and shaved the area he was going to work on (I got a hairy back). He then pricked the area that he was going to suck from with a needle and placed a cup on the area all whilst reciting prayers and blowing on the area. From what I know is that they usually have put inside a candle or something to create a vacuum to suck the blood out, this guy however had a plunger thing with his cup with which he could just pull and create his vacuum at will.

Nahida wasn't at all impressed with the cleric and showed it which led the cleric to go through all sorts of nonsense to convince her. For example, that like women who menstruate their bad blood, men too have bad blood that needs to be ridden of and that it accumulates in the back. He'd show us the blood after it had been extracted and it'd look like a big lump though it was sucked out of the little pin pricks that he had made. Oh and after we were done with everything Nahida who is uncomfortable with me smoking up asked him if he could help chilling me out. So the guy told me to stare into his eye and then he grabbed my head for a moment and said I was okay. I was high.

My dad just called asking for the accounts. He's worse than the tax man. Well I'm now left with a big round hickey in the middle of my lower back and tomorrow I'm going to get myself working again.

Got it :)

2009-06-12T23:24:00.002+03:00

(there was a picture here of some hash, rizlas and Smoky)

Yesterday afternoon I realised that I wasn't feeling so well and that my presence at the farm wasn't vital. So i drove back up to Baghdad. And today I've scored some stuff. I feel so much better now. My friend that got me the stuff even made me a sweet pipe and that by pure coincidence has Smoky printed on it.

Still About-ish

2009-06-08T00:57:00.004+03:00

Just over a month has passed since my last post. Seems the posts are getting further and further apart. Got myself my one bottle of beer here at the farm. Having trouble sleeping, so I guessed I might as well slap me a post up on here.

I finished the wheat harvest a couple of weeks ago. Just like the rice harvest it involves visiting every single farmer and splitting each share. Even though it took less than the rice harvest it was still quite an ordeal to get through. On some days I'd get back home at one in the morning.

Starting from the left in this picture we've got my adviser and the guy that calculates how to split my share from the farmer's share, he's not to be trusted and often doesn't give me the full story on things. Then behind him we have the local alcoholic that puts his whole family to shame. Then there's this annoying guy, he thinks he knows his thing and I thought that perhaps he did, that's until I saw him mix two varieties of rice in the same field. And then there's the old timer who is always asking for a new dishdasha, this season he made the most wheat per area, which was really cool.

All in all it was a good harvest. It was a good season for all, my lands however, weren't as great as others which was my fault because I didn't time the fertilizer distribution early enough. I had to admit my mistake to all the farmers and they in turn were quite forgiving.

One day during the harvest there was a big fire in the agrarian reform lands in land. That day was the worst of all. I was sitting with my bunch and we could see the smoke and hear the bullets signaling, but everyone around me seemed all cool about it until about an hour later somebody pointed out that it wasn't so far from my land.

The better pictures of the fire got corrupted somehow.

The thing about wheat is that it burns and spreads very quickly. All the land that had caught on fire had been harvested but it could have spread onto my unharvested lands had the people and firemen not have made a huge concerted effort to stop it. And most important and fortunate of all nobody got hurt.

One day, I had to finally confront the scariest of all my farmers "the professional criminal". I hadn't had to deal with this guy up until now simply because he was in jail ever since I came to take over the farm. That day, he seemed all ready for a confrontation carrying a gun in a holster regarding some expenses before my arrival that he felt that I should share the burden of. Within seconds, I got him to chill out, eventually met him half way on the expenses and now I'm his friend. Here's him with his grandson.

Up until the harvest my own morale was pretty low, but I was surprised to find the farmers encouraging me and telling me that I've been doing a good job. I had a chat with one of the best farmers I have and from our conversation he told me that he in the time I've been here I've come to understand as much as my uncle and my dad took years to learn.

And talking to one of the guys that is in charge of tilling the land today, I'm told that the farmers are paying more attention to the tilling than usual suggesting that they too are more enthusiastic about the season to come.

There remains one massive gloomy cloud hanging over the parade though, and that's the country's massive water shortage. The government's giving no guarantees that they'll get the water flowing. Chatting to a guy today, it seems to hang on whether the government will be willing to give Turkey a cut of the oil in exchange for water. I don't know for sure if that's the truth but if it is I hope that they concede. Otherwise, it would be really stupid of the government to keep all the farmers holding their breath and spending money on the hope that there'll be enough water for water-thirsty rice instead of just calling the rice season off this year at the appropriate time which has more or less already passed.

That's pretty much, I've typed more than I had planned to. Aside from the farm and the accounts that are still piling up that's not much left to my life. When I went to Baghdad for the a few days after the harvest, I got a little depressed because there was nothing there for me to do. Even my buddies all seemed to be too busy to hang out.

I ended up spending a couple of late afternoons at a family funeral getting to know some relatives, one of which keeps stressing to me that it's great to be working at the farm but not to waste away my life there. One night I took a cousin of mine out to one of those dodgy nightclubs which was pretty fun, I danced a little with the prostitutes and ended up leaving when the cops arrived but I didn't understand what the deal was up with that. On the way back home it turned out there was a midnight curfew but I still managed to get home.

Shepherd people come to the land during the harvest to let their animals feed off the land after it has been harvested and I got a picture with a camel that belongs to one that I'm so happy about. It was the first time I ever came up close with one and it was so cool. The camel was really friendly and was playing around with my headgear whilst I was trying to get one of the workers to operate my camera phone. I'll try to upload some pics of the harvest sometime soon. There got it!

I really should get to sleep now, the workers are coming in four hours to load up the wheat into the truck to be taken to the government silo which is purchasing wheat this year without declaring the price at which it will buy. I'm loving this government.

I got to stop sleeping during the afternoons, staying up so late is not good.

2009-05-03T00:01:00.001+03:00

This toilet here smells bad, this particular one not as bad as most. My own method to deal with the stink is to breathe through a lit cigarette.

The OverFlusher

2009-04-19T12:48:00.002+03:00

Here we go with the first toilet. The missing seat is something that's quite common. I've used this toilet on a couple of occasions before to take a pee. It's all good until I flush and the water just flows out in such force that it just slightly overflows over the edges. Now that's not so bad when all one's done is take a leak, but it would be scary scary if one's to take a dump.

Toilets

2009-04-19T12:05:00.003+03:00

India once pointed out that Iraqis have no love for their toilets and it's so true. I'm going to start taking pictures of toilets with my mobile phone to document their dire state. Much better than photos of booze.

Footie

2009-04-17T21:51:00.007+03:00

Wow, I haven't felt so free to feel so lazy in a long time. This is kind of nice. I still haven't started doing the accounts and I don't really care right now.

Work in the farm's getting a little fun. I had personally dealt with my first tiny conflict resolution, if that's the right term. A bunch of teenagers that were playing in an uncultivated plot of land and were told to piss off by the farmer living near the plot. So the kids came to me asking for my permission to play there. I told them that I don't see any problem with it and that they should be allowed to play. The next day I headed over there, found the kids all gathered up on the road complaining that the farmer living by hadn't let them play and that they were cursed at. That they were cursed at I told them is no big deal since they're kids and that the matter at hand was whether they should be allowed to play or not.

Accompanied by the adviser that my dad had assigned to me, I went to the plot and was greeted courteously by the farmer that hadn't been letting the kids play. They explained to me that the women of the household couldn't hang around the house at their ease because of the presence of the boys playing football. Women here hide whenever there are men around, it does get a bit silly if you're not used to the idea, but here it's a fair argument. We drank tea and then left them and insisted that they not follow us to the street where the boys were at. On the way to the street, my adviser explained to me that that family were they themselves troublemakers.

Back to the boys, my adviser explained to them that for the sake of avoiding any trouble that it they weren't allowed to play there and that there was another field that they could play in by the river. Then I told them off for not telling me about the inconvenience for the women of the household and that I'll try to find them another place to play.

Today, I think I came up with a good idea, but I've still got to present to my dad and hope he accepts. There's a plot next to my rice mill that at one time was supposed to be an orchard, but everything but all that's left are a bunch of scattered palm trees. If I could turn that into a full-sized football pitch and set up a little kiosk to sell soft drinks next to it. I could get the guy working the kiosk to collect 10,000 dinars (8 bucks) from the kids for 2 hours use of the football pitch. If they were to play just once a day for a month that would make over 300 bucks a month. I would make enough money to cover whatever expenses in a matter of months and then with the remaining profits I could set up lighting and pocket a bunch of cash.

My adviser told me that my dad had once wanted to make a football pitch for the kids once too but that the local elders were against saying it would cause trouble. But perhaps my dad might be convinced by the prospect of profits. In the meantime, I've had kids come to me asking me for a place to play football and I'm telling them I'm looking into it but it seems there's a rumor that I'm going to make one according to Nahida who spoke to one of them.

Eating Lots of Halloumi

2009-04-16T22:05:00.002+03:00

I've been having trouble with my internet connections which is why I haven't been able to post (that and simple procrastination). At home in Baghdad, my wireless access point stopped working so I went out and bought another one which then after a week broke down too. My internet here at the farm isn't doing so great either, virtually impossible to load a page of porn.

My dad finally left a few days ago which is a relief. He has managed to leave me with an incredible mess to deal with. I've got about 3 months of accounts that I need to start working on and it's still just piling on. Got a couple of brothers that have built themselves fancy homes on our land that I must either get them to agree to sign a rent contract or otherwise we'll have to take them to court. Right now, I'm now in the middle of re-routing a bunch of irrigation canals which is costing plenty.

I did go back to the doctor after finishing my prescription and after some persistence on my behalf I got him to tell me what the heck was wrong with me... Yes! I am stupid to have had unprotected sex with a prostitute... I contracted chlamydia from the woman. The doctor gave me a bunch more antibiotics, some pills to treat the 'sand' in my pee (an early sign of kidney stones) and told me not to worry and to come back in a month. I've got to insist on getting a culture test next time to make sure it's gone.

Come to think of it, my life's getting extremely boring. Work's keeping me occupied, but there's no fun to be had. On Fridays I usually head back to Baghdad and catch up with Od, we get drunk and go out in search for food hoping for something new but end up with the usual pizza or burger. I think I've played a part into turning him into an alcoholic. He didn't used to drink until I left that stash of booze at his house during my dad's last visit.

One day, Od got his hands on a tiny bit of hash the other day. We smoked a joint from it on his roof. The sun was quite warm that afternoon and the hash was rather good. There's definitely something nice about getting high in the sun and it's strange how I feel more comfortable with myself when I'm high and I'm not so grumpy either (something my dad thinks is a result of sexual frustration). If only I could get things done whilst high, but I can't.

Prostate's Good

2009-03-28T22:41:00.002+03:00

Last night, I spoke to my dad's friend who has a hospital and asked him for a urologist. He told me to go to his hospital today. I got there at nine in the morning and he had already left. Over the phone the doctor told me to come to his clinic on the other side of Baghdad but a couple hours later I figured that I didn't have the time to go all the way over there. So I headed to a local street where lots of doctors are to be found and picked the first urologist I found. His sign was new, so I guessed that he probably was a doctor that returned as a result of the improved situation. In his office he still hadn't finished hanging all his plaques.

I explained to him that my penis was leaking something watery and he asked me if I had been 'naughty'. I told him I had 7 weeks ago. He then got me on the bed, felt around my tummy, took a look at my willy and gave it a painful squeeze. Then he told me to turn over, so I lied down on my tummy but he wanted me to lift myself on my elbows. That's when I saw him put some cream on his glove. He told me to look forward and he inserted his finger into my bum. He asked me if I felt something was pushing out and yes it did feel so. My prostate's good he said. He then gave me a piece of paper to take to the lab to get a urine test and if necessary cultures.

Walking down from his office I spotted a friend from college. He asked me how I was doing, I told him I got fingered! It then turns out that the doctor was his dad who had been abroad and was suffering from cancer, but is now nearly recovered. I did my pipi test and didn't end up having to do any cultures. The doctor prescribed me some antibiotics and told me to come back in ten days. And I've got no idea what's wrong with me.

Oh no! I'm on antibiotics which means I can't drink up anymore! Good thing I got well wasted last night.

Later this evening, my dad took me to that 'lady of society' that I've mentioned before. She had found me a 'suitable' woman and we were all invited at her house. The girl was not especially pretty and certainly didn't know how to do her hair nor how to dress in this century. I spoke to the lady outside and told her that she looks a bit heavy to which she responded with you can't have it all good to which I replied that I worry about my back. It went pretty well, dad kept his cool for once and didn't bring up the 'marriage' subject out loud. The evening passed and I didn't exchange a single word with her, but I still had fun conversing with everyone else present.

On the way back home, dad insisted on giving his opinion and that included the fact that the girl was nearly two years older than me which I guess explained why he didn't jump the gun this time. I'm ready to give up on my dad's help now. I'm thinking I'm better off focusing on my work for the mean time and then make a drastic life change so I can meet more women.

In abu nawas

2009-03-27T21:07:00.001+03:00

Arrived in Baghdad a few hours ago and now sitting with od in an abu nawas 'cabaret' thing: has an iraqi band with the speakers playing very loud, an all-male clientele and a small bunch of female iraqi dancers.
I just had the most excruciating whizz of my life by the river. The pain from my kidneys was incredible. I've been having trouble with my willy for the past couple of days, it's constantly leaking. I didn't find any labs open earlier with od but tomorrow i'm going to see if i can find a willy doctor at my dad's friend's hospital.
Od says it sucks for the iraqis not in iraq.

No Power and maybe No Water

2009-03-24T19:02:00.003+03:00

Hello! It's been a long time since I've done this. Not much point in starting since I don't have much battery charge left in the laptop and the generator here in Shamiya isn't working. Both generators don't work actually. The house generator and the rice mill generator. Should get a new mill generator tomorrow but still need to shop for one for the house.

My dad's still here in Iraq, but yesterday I left him behind in Baghdad since he had some work to do there. It's the first time I'm away from him since he arrived and I slept so well last night. I dreamed of a blond with the most amazing naked body asking me why was I having trouble getting it up.

Whilst working on some paper work, my dad introduced me to the niece of the managing director of the government office we were at. That was about ten days ago, and up until a couple of days the girl would insist that we talk every night on the phone. I'd be barely awake and talk with her for a rather boring hour. [power cut..] Just spoke to her now though. Now I told dad that after speaking to her that she's not right for me, and he told me that I have to break it off with her, but I just don't know how to without hurting her feelings. I know, it's better to deal with it sooner than later, but I do keep throwing suggestions that I'm not interested.

I'm a little wasted on Tequila now, and have just had some dinner: a chicken stuffed pastry thing and some imported Turkish doner kebab. There's a severe water shortage apparently, and because of it we might not be allowed to grow rice in the next season. Fozzy tells me heard that Iraq might strike a deal with Turkey for water in exchange for 5% of Iraq's oil production. My dad tells me that the Turk's argument for not giving us more water is that as long as water is flowing from Iraq into the sea that Iraq then has no right to ask for more water.

That's it, I'm going to hit the sack.

Radio

2009-02-27T00:01:00.003+03:00

Dad arrived a week ago, and mum's on her way tomorrow. Dad and I are traveling to the farm tomorrow. I don't know what's come over me, I'm feeling very anti-social these days. I don't have that urge to call anyone in moments of boredom. My dad brought me an iTrip and whilst I was trying to figure how it works with my old radio I discovered that I can pick up the British Forces FM radio channel which is great. I've been listening to it in the car and in my bedroom. I threw the iTrip in my backpack and haven't used it yet. No BFBS radio at the farm though, maybe I should make an FM radio station with my iPod there.

Dad's surprisingly calmer than his usual self and is making me look like the one with the temper. But to be true, my temper has been awful of late. It's been pissing me off so much that every time I bring up the subject of a holiday, my dad comes up with lines suggesting me to forget about it. He's happy with the work I've done, but still is super critical of everything I do. He won't stop correcting my Arabic which is so annoying when he does it. He disapproves of my use of words like 'Okay' when talking to the folks at the farm and was surprised to hear it from a farmer over the phone and figures that the farmer must have learned it from me.

Dad's looking forward to cutting off my umbilical cord. It's the beginning of the end for me. Before I know it, I won't be able to dig my hands for cash into dad's big pockets. I might have to watch my spending. Haven't done that since I was fourteen. No point in worrying about it now. I just hope that I manage to make this plantation turn a proper profit and sustain it. I'm expecting it'll take me two or three more years to get it in order. The strange thing is that the years are passing by faster and faster.

I had doner kebab imported from Turkey for dinner today. It was quite nice, but really heavy on the tummy. Earlier, I was with dad at a woman's house in Zayouna. The woman is some sort of old school high society lady, and she's going to help my dad find me a wife. She was a very nice lady, and she seems to know how it works very well. She told dad that all the 'girls' from the 'good' families have left the country. For a definition of what 'good' family means as far as my dad is concerned, it generally means any family that was considered upper crust back in the day of the kingdom of Iraq. After she said that, I just kept going: "I told you so" to my dad. She also re-iterated the obvious, that any girl abroad would not consider coming back. She said she'll still do her best anyway.

Towards the end of our afternoon with the lady, she mentioned a girl in Dubai that might be suitable and asked whether if it were possible that I come to Dubai for a week, dad said sure. I needed to get up to pee or slip out for a smoke and as I walking out of the room, the lady told my dad that the girl had ditched the last guy because it turned out he was a pothead.

I need to go to sleep, otherwise, I'll be extra cranky tomorrow.

Sasoush and Nanoush

2009-02-17T20:34:00.006+03:00

Got two things to do: type in some mill accounts and write this post. The power went out so I'm writing the post while I still have some battery charge left. I think I need to buy a new laptop battery or perhaps a new laptop altogether, but I bought this one only six or seven months ago.

Last week, I told Nahida that I was going to bring some prostitutes over to the house one night so that she tidies up the house. Surprisingly she didn't make too much of a fuss about it. So I then called up Sid to arrange them. We shopped for booze and snacks whilst waiting for them. They arrived in a car with a driver, which we followed into a street off the main road for them to get in. I was paranoid that a checkpoint might stop us on the way to my house and ask us what the girls were to us.

They looked alright, were well dressed by local standards. By local standards I would imagine they were great. A little overweight for my taste. We sat ourselves down in the living room, the Nanoush and Sasoush drank their whiskey whilst Sid and I drank vodka. Earlier in the day I had made the mistake of getting drunk at the club whilst waiting for something to happen and wasn't very much in the mood to get wasted anymore. Sid had been drinking vodka the night before and had the runs but managed to hold it in the whole night. Nanoush sat beside me and we cuddled and watched Iraqi music videos on the tellie whilst Sasoush and Sid conversed about stuff that I didn't understand.

Sasoush was in matter of fact the 'madame' and she had just recently come back from Syria and was talking of being back in the business. She's also a professional dancer and brings her girls over to parties. And looking at those Iraqi music videos with guys singing surrounded by ten girls dancing that it somehow made sense that the world depicted in these music videos weren't so unreal and that they did in fact exist and that Sasoush was part of it.

Sasoush was indeed a character, she had a lot of self-esteem and confidence but later on in the night (at around three in the morning) she did speak of her biggest weakness that of love. How to deal with love in her business was not easy. Should she fall in love with one of her customers, she wouldn't be able to charge him and she herself would be distracted from work; all for some guy that probably doesn't love her back. I think that was general idea.

Nanoush, on the other hand, wasn't so talkative, luckily for me because I'm not much the conversationalist. She didn't seem to have the flair that Sasoush had and seemed to rely on the cute and funny persona, which was all the better for me. When I got into bed with her I spotted a scar on her tummy and she explained to me that it was a casearian. Both Sasoush and Nanoush had kids and were divorced.

Coucher aver Nanoush etait une mauvais experience, chaque des trois fois que j'ai dormi avec elle j'ai fini en quelques minutes. La permiere fois je me suis pas rends condu que sa chatte etait seche, la deuxieme et troisieme fois cela m'etait tres evident. Comment faire mouille une pute, j'y sais pas. Elle etait plus lourde que j'y avais imagine et j'ai foutu mon dos. Jusqu'a ce jour ca me fais mal. Note a moi-meme: la prochaine fois, ne me jete pas au sex et apprends comment entrer mon bit.

It wasn't until four in the morning that Sasoush finally went into bed with Sid at which point I went to sleep. I don't know if she kept talking or if they actually did do it or not. They claim they did the next morning. Nanoush took all the remaining snacks with her and we dropped them off on the main street. Sid had foretold me that the girls would try to get my number and whatever to keep us as customers because we paid well, but after doing it with Nanoush she completely gave up and I don't know if I should be relieved or not.

All in all, it was a lousy experience, but an experience none the less, better than everyday life. I was considering making this a regular thing before that night, but that morning I was just so relieve to be getting rid of them. Maybe it's just like wanking, you nearly always regret it after doing it and you end up doing it again anyway. Sid did explain that a lot of guys that get whores don't actually get them for the sex but for the company and I can see the sense of that now.

Use It and Lose It

2009-02-04T01:08:00.002+03:00

One in the morning tequila drinking must bring out the best of one. Having a wonderful day, started the day alright. Fozzy found dad's savings book to take to the bank. Drove out of the garage, forgot to take some cash in my pocket, so drove back through the driveway and picked cash up. Back on the street, crowds of people, mostly women wearing their black abayas walking towards town. Had to drive ever so slowly till at some point Fozzy explained that they were visiting a local imam's grave and another driver told us the road was blocked off ahead so I had to drive back home and delay everything till tomorrow. Later dad calls, asking me what had I done and so on. I explained that the road was blocked off, he responds by saying: "you could walk to town"... I just drew a blank and tried not to say anything, except that the government offices are probably closed too.

So I spent the day at home, with nothing much to do except enjoy an overwhelming sensation of laziness overcome me. I did however manage to get some expenses typed into the computer and plan out my second distribution of fertilizers for this season's wheat crop.

Had spaghetti and meatballs. Nahida screwed up by bringing the jar of pizza sauce instead of the jar of pasta sauce. Why doesn't she read the labels on the jars is beyond me.

Whilst online, Suzy told me she hated me. She, by the way, is in Turkey applying for immigration to Australia. In her defence, I have been somewhat of a dick lately. Soona, the girl I've been talking to late at night nearly every night for the past year or so was surprisingly nice to me today by trying to cheer me up. And that girl that I made a quick mention about in my last post, the one that I thought I really liked, talking to her a couple of hours ago, and well she did mention from the start that she was spoken for, but I didn't get the sense that she was comitting herself. But after she went on and on about him for about half an hour, I realized that she has and that Od was right about medical girls... that they only seek to marry medical boys. On one hand I come out thinking that maybe I could have feelings for a girl, and on the other hand I'm thinking to myself that I'm hopeless.

And Sexy Sara is online, she claims to show her boobs on her webcam in exchange for moblie phone top-up cards. I just never have a top-up card on me whenever she shows up which is why she disappears so quickly after showing up.

Need munchies!

That's All?!

2009-02-01T17:18:00.003+03:00

The weather's nice. It'd be nice to sit outside I guess, but I've already settled my behind in the living room. Popped open a bottle of beer and the curtains behind me at least. I've been spending the past few days in Baghdad to finish the rice season accounts. Surprisingly enough it did turn a profit, nothing great though about ten or fifteen thousand dollars perhaps. It is evident however, that improvements can be made to boost that figure in future years.

I'm still wondering if it's worth my while. Dad wants to expand and I want to reduce the size of our operation to make a better profit margin and so that I may be able to keep up with everything. My biggest complaint is a lack of an effective administration, funny, that's what the farmers say too. At this stage, since I'm learning, it's not necessarily a bad thing for me to watch over every tiny little thing, but at some stage I do want to delegate some of the work. Trouble is that it seems that I can't find anyone capable.

The new management at my local ISP has changed, and the new guys are such dicks that I've switched to another that allows one to download torrents for now. I've spent an hour or two staring at the demonoid website looking for some music to download but nothing much is catching my eye. Which reminds me that I bought a pack of blank CDs and ought to start burning some CDs for the car. I should plan the playlist this time.

I participated in yesterday's provincial elections. The election organizers gave us the round around. Nahida and I walked to the polling station we went to last where we had voted no on the constitution. They then sent us to another polling station at another school which was quite a walk away. Then when we get there they tell us that we're at another school at which point the car curfew was removed so we walked back home and picked up the car and then spent another half hour looking for our polling station. Eventually we found it and were left very ticked off that they had sent us to a polling station on the opposite edge of the neighbourhood from our home whilst there were at least two that were within a moderate range.

Choosing to vote was kind of a last minute decision for me. I did kind of screw up by not checking out the candidates that were on the list that I was voting for. But I don't think anyone on that list is going to get a seat anyway. What's bothering me more than that is that whilst walking from one polling station to another I noticed a sign suggesting that a bank is going to be built over a public park that's in the middle of a residential area. The park is a mess right now, but it has so much potential, because unlike most other parks it's not in the middle of nowhere or bordered by busy streets. It's also the place where I got high the very first time.

If Iraqis import bananas, why don't they import iceberg lettuce?

Baghdad's more fun... a couple of old Arasat restaurants have re-opened: Reef and Captain (though now it's called Coral Beach I think). Went to Coral Beach with Od and his wife today. It would make a great place to booze up, but they don't serve any. Reef, however, does the best pizza in Baghdad and serves wine too (much much better than Saj-al-Reef). It's now safe to say that you can get a decent pizza in Baghdad. Who knows when it'll be safe to say you can get a decent pepperoni pizza though.

As far as work is concerned, I still some have paperwork to do before we start running the rice mill. I have no idea how long it'll be till we can start operation the mill. I'm expecting a whole load of 'we should've had done that sooner' stuff when it does start. I don't quite see when it is that I'll be able to take a vacation.

I'm boring myself with this blog... I need to do something about it. It feels like I'm talking about the same boring stuff everytime I post. It's tempting to start commenting about politics, but that's just too easy. No it's not easy, but it's not my thing is it. Got to do something to make filling in my blog interesting to me. There are some interesting things going on in my life, for example there's a girl that I'm talking to now that I may sincerely like, but she's showing any mutual feelings towards me. Perhaps I just need to be patient. It feels like I'm not offering her anything. Well I've spoken about that now, so that's done.

Complaining about little things was fun. Lots of channels such as MTV and CNN on my satellite receiver aren't working anymore. So the other night I got online and spent an hour trying to figure out how to update the hacks on my satellite receiver, I then realized that all the updates I was installing were over a year old and that no new ones were being made for the model that I bought back in 2003. Now I need a new receiver.

It's one in the morning now, and the generator line went off. Oh but lucky me the national grid is back on. I ought to brush my teeth and go to bed now because I got to drive back to the plantation tomorrow.

Tassweek Time Coming Up

2009-01-07T21:00:00.002+03:00

Yeee... it's cold. My feet are cold, my nose is getting cold too. Tomorrow is going to be a big day. We're going to start moving all the rice paddy to the government silos. Hopefully, we'll move it all over the next four days and then all that would be left would be to put aside the seeds for next season and the rice season will be finally over. Of course, I'll still have to finish doing the accounts to figure out how profit was made. I can't wait to find out how much it is. To finally know what all my effort has been worth.

It's been seven days since my New Year's and I still haven't put into practise my new year's resolution which is to read. I don't think I read anything last year except for The Alchemist which I had already read before. My dad wants me to read the book he made about grandpa, but it's in Arabic. Before working, I thought I would have so much more time to improve myself. I imagined farm life would've been pretty laid back, but it hasn't been so. I'm barely keeping up with all that needs to be done.

I spent a week in Baghdad before coming back to the farm on Sunday. It was such a great week. Even though I had some work to do and I didn't get around to visiting a dentist or seeing a doctor about my bad back, I did get the chance to relax and beat off plenty. My dad would call and ask me to work on the accounts but I didn't even give them a look, instead I took the time to see some friends and eat out. Found a place that makes some alright pizzas and sells booze too albeit expensive though.

I was hoping to try to see some of the girls that I chat to online that I had never met before, but that didn't work out simply because the days they had university I had to go out and do paperwork. But I really need to go see a dentist before meeting any of them becaues my teeth are filthy. I'm a bit scared too, because the other day I took Od and his wife to the restaurant and at a checkpoint a soldier asked what the girl was to me. That was strange because they're not supposed to ask that kind of question.

I have to be honest though, one big reason why I had a good time in Baghdad was because I was getting high. I somehow got my hands on some really lame weed. But it was so nice because it was just like the weed I had when I first started smoking when I was thirteen or fourteen in Baghdad. Certainly the best way to end and start a year. Undoubtedly the best thing I've done in a long time. What surprises me now is how relaxed I feel now as opposed to how I was before going back to Baghdad.

The only bad thing about getting high at home was that I was often paranoid that Nahida was going to catch me and make a big deal out of it. She did catch me, she walked into my room just after I had finished blazing one and she picked up all the roaches that I had poorly hid on the window sill. Thankfully she did not make a big deal out of it. Maybe she did appreciate how stressed out I was as Od had suggested to me.

The experience has however convinced me that when I do go on holiday abroad the first thing I have to do is get high.

I think I still have half a joint's worth left, but it's in Baghdad and I'm here at the farm. I'm just going to have to settle for one glass of tequila for now.

2008-12-31T17:08:00.001+03:00

Its almost 5 pm and we are still on the road.checkpoint wasnt US.

2008-12-31T16:09:00.001+03:00

Still on the same street, haven't reached any checkpoints yet. We're checking out middle aged government employees in a minivan. The jam is pretty much at a stand still. What a crap way to spend the day.

2008-12-31T15:20:00.001+03:00

We've been in a traffic jam for 2h n we just want to get home for 1 reason only.all bcuz of a US checkpoint!mind u its new years eve.reporting live 4m Baghdad Oday.

Feeling Exquisitly Lazy

2008-12-28T20:21:00.003+03:00

I got back from the plantation yesterday. I was so looking forward to coming here and I'm so glad to be back at home here. Lately, work's been wearing me out and this is the first time I find home empty without the presence of my father and my brother who each took their turns consequently to come and visit. I've been starving for some peace and comfort as well as other things (some of which I still long for). This right now isn't that bad at all though.

I'm sitting on the floor of my bedroom with my back against the wall, sitting underneath the split air-conditioner I had installed during this year's finals. I'm so glad that college is out of the way, but I'm still not sure how glad I am with where I am. I'm glad, I'm getting some great work experience at the plantation and other benefits I've yet to realise but work there is a bitch. What it falls down for me now is whether the profit's worth it and I don't know that yet because I haven't yet finished getting the accounts done.

My room appears to be the cleanest room in the house. I don't ever spend any time in here except to get dressed and sleep. I've got a no smoking rule in it but I've thrown out the rule for the first time ever tonight.

My butt is so numb, my back's been knackered for two weeks. I'm going to try to stretch. I can touch my toes if I bend my knees a little. That feels a little better. Take a deep breath to pause my thoughts.

The Spade is Here

2008-12-25T16:19:00.001+03:00

This is taking a while.

Car's Stuck

2008-12-25T16:04:00.001+03:00

My car's stuck on the big bump. 4x4 driving is wonderful. I'm waiting for a couple of spades now.

Harvesting

2008-11-16T21:39:00.004+03:00

I'm now spending my days harvesting the rice crops. It involves going out to the little plots watching a bunch of guys weigh a pile or rice paddy left behind by a combine harvester, then calculating how much is to be left for the farmer and finally following the cart carrying my paddy to the mill factory where the paddy is dried.

My first harvest with the weighing workers and the combine harvesters was a good experience, everyone around me tried to pull off every trick in the book to rip me off. And what's worse was that the guy who is supposed to manage the harvest and who my dad made my number one adviser let every trick pass. That was two days ago, today however went much smoother.

My dad left about a week ago. But before that he did get me to wear the traditional local tribal dress and on the first day that I wore the dress I saw a wild hawk as I was driving out of the farm. I'm told that now that I've put them on, I can no longer take them off. I can still take the dress off when I go back to Baghdad and beyond fortunately. I guess I'm coping with it quite well. I've never had to wear the dishdasha before and my biggest complaint about it is that I can't take full strides when walking with it. As for the head gear, it stays on most of the time unlike the abaya which keeps falling off whenever I get out of the car.

The other thing my dad tried to do for me before leaving was finding me a wife. After a couple of no's. He found a distant relative of mine which as far as he was concerned was good enough. We went to their house for lunch. The girl popped into the living room to show herself, she was so shy and then left shortly. After she left my dad without any consideration for my opinion brought up the subject of an engagement period for the two of us to get to know each other. When we got home, I had a talk with him telling him that I wasn't interested in her, but he asked me to give the girl a chance for his sake so I went along with it.

What my dad didn't realize was that a failed engagement was a very serious issue for a girl's reputation, something that I myself didn't know until I told my friends about what had happened, but then again my dad doesn't always care for social conventions. When a week later, the family came over for lunch at our house the dad took me to the side to ask me to give him some assurance from me that I was truly interested in marrying the girl after I sit with her alone.

So the girl and I sat on the swing in the garden and asked each other questions about each other. I think the silliest question she had for me was whether her skirt which was mid-shin length was too short for my taste. I asked her if she read books, and I understood from her that the only books she reads are books about Islam. And then she somehow is convinced that she's open-minded and modern. I'm not saying that a person that reads books about Islam is necessarily not open-minded, but that's all she reads! She must be comparing herself and her family to some super-orthodox Muslims. Then we went inside, and my dad was now talking about buying the engagement rings the next day and doing the engagement ceremony a few days after that.

Later that evening after they had left, I called the dad to delicately say that I wasn't interested saying that I couldn't make my mind up after just talking with her for an hour or so, but I failed at delicacy when I told him that I wanted a wife that would go to a nudist beach with me. I didn't know that this guy was going to repeat everything I said to his family, which made it quite awkward when I later spoke to his daughter much later in the night. His daughter wanted to understand the situation from me. She herself was reluctant to get engaged so quickly and didn't say anything much different from what the father had to say except that at the end of the call she asked me what if we would delay the engagement to which I responded with a long pause and then a no.

After all the calls ended, I went downstairs to find my dad awake and told him of what had happened. My father had been so excited about the whole affair and after hearing the news he looked so disappointed. He understood that the father had unfairly cornered me into giving a decision which I guess is cool because that means as far as my dad's concerned I did give it a try. To that my dad added that I don't want a head-scarfed girl. I responded to that by saying that some head-scarfed girls are quite cool, which is true. But generally speaking he's right and I wish he'd had figured that out sooner.

He concluded by saying that he can't find another girl that he she was the only one left and that it's up to me to find one but insisted that he approves of her family. I don't think he's really given up yet. Now though, he's changed his tune, saying that I'm too busy with work to deal with marriage.

I hope my harvest is more successful. What sucks about this harvest is that it takes over three weeks to go through and throughout this whole time I'm stuck here and can't go back to Baghdad. I wonder if the paper work for my new car is ready. It wasn't the last time I was there, but there's not much point in calling them unless it rains in which case the harvest stops and I can go back to Baghdad to pick it up.

My First Harvest

2008-11-15T22:15:00.002+03:00

This cheerful chap is the first farmer I met on my first harvest a couple of days ago. I can't remember his name and I forgot to write down how much he harvested by hand. I think he counted 60 bowls each of which are supposed to be 12.5 kg. Amazingly Fozzy does remember me telling him about it, and he remembers the guy's name and the total harvested: 61 bowls one of which I told the farmer to keep. The 60 then gets split evenly between the two of us.

Train Station (Fixed)

2008-10-30T16:20:00.003+03:00

On the way back from a government office, dad and I toured the main train station that was built in the fifties. They have a line running down to Basra. It's an impressive building compared to more recent constructions. It's nice to imagine it what it would've been like back then. Something's wrong with the light meter in my mobile's camera.

(The following was appended later in the day)

I just spotted this article in the International Herald Tribune, and it talks about a new service running through Baghdad starting from the station I went to today. While my dad and I were there, my dad asked a couple of guys strolling past the platforms (neither were officials or of the sort) what services were running, one didn't know anything and the other mentioned the Baghdad - Basra line that includes bunkers but didn't mention the Baghdad service mentioned in the article. You'd think there ought to be some kind of big sign alerting people of a new route. But then again, with my poor Arabic skills, I only read things if I focus really hard.

Train Station

2008-10-30T12:58:00.001+03:00

Morning Jam

2008-10-26T09:22:00.000+03:00

Drunk on the River

2008-10-24T19:25:00.003+03:00

At a restaurant, literally sitting on the river with Od and my dad's friend who hasn't been in iraq for half a century. The old man had me drink nearly half a bottle of whiskey earlier, way more than my low tolerence to alcohol can handle.

Birthday Dinner

2008-10-22T21:39:00.001+03:00

And that's going to be our dinner tonight.

Shopped for Booze

2008-10-22T18:48:00.001+03:00

I just escaped from home, bought some 70 bucks worth of booze, and arrived at Od's house. We're going to drink the Smirnoff Black. It's not often Od would drink. But first we got to go shop for stuff.

Happy Birthday Me

2008-10-22T00:01:00.002+03:00

First thing I'm going to do is take a look at some previous birthday posts. Last year I was boozeless. I've got a glass of tequila next to me now. Cheers. I got the new laptop and car that I was moaning about last year too. Three years ago I was whining about not having K here to do the barbecue and no he's not here damn it. I also spoke of frozen Orange juice and amazingly enough I've got frozen juice in the freezer. But I've now learned to just put the frozen stuff in a bowl and to eat it.

2008-10-21T23:56:00.000+03:00

Here's a creepy looking thing I spotted outside the plantation house.

Test

2008-10-19T22:15:00.003+03:00

I got a new Sony Ericsson phone (K800i) and it's got this mobile blogging feature and amazingly it works!

Must Sleep Earlier

2008-10-18T21:17:00.002+03:00

It's been a long time since I've posted hasn't it. These days, I don't get much to myself. My dad came for a visit a couple of weeks ago and he's been doing my head in. Every few minutes he'd call me either to fix something up for him or to have me listen to one of his lectures. Some of his lecture are however quite useful. He talks to me about how I should run the farm and how I should act in front of others. The most recent note was to not suck my own blood in front of the people at the plantation because it's considered filthy and religiously forbidden.

I've been watching how he deals with farmers that don't do as they're supposed to. He uses a technique that involves gathering a bunch of farmers together intimidating the one at fault, having the others agree he is wrong and then have that one admit he is. And then dad would take some kind of decision that could involve receiving assurances from the elder farmers or forgiveness in light that the one has admitted he is at fault.

Some things don't change, even though I'm waking up at around eight in the morning my dad still complains that I wake up too late.

Back from Erbil

2008-09-24T19:21:00.003+03:00

And I'm back home. I've been more or less stuck in front of the television ever since. Not much good on either. I really need to think about finding a solution to this couch of mine, it really isn't that comfortable.

Erbil was a good break. Everyday I'd wake up and then struggle to wake up my even lazier cousin Shin (that means blue in Kurdish and not his real name) to start a quest for breakfast. We'd usually end up going to a Lebanese fast food place and one time we went to a Lebanese restaurant and got drunk on home-made Arak. Afterwards we'd sometimes go play billiards because he likes it so much. He'd also beat me at it. I had a snooker table in my house, he shouldn't be able to beat me.

His mum and sister Zard would then come back from work. Zard's friend would then come pick us up and we'd go out to restaurants and I'd stuff myself with so much food. There were days when my belly was protroduing way too far out. It was a challenge for me to stuff myself with all the foods that I've missed. Sadly though, they didn't always get the orders right. At one place I ordered a milkshake and got some balls of icecream with some syrup at the bottom. At the end of the one week I spent there, the winner of the best dish there was the crab salad at Bakery And More.

We went bowling a couple of times, the first time I lost miserably to my cousin Zard who was blessed with beginner's luck. We also went karting a couple of times and in the last couple of races were beaten by a girl that had taken lessons. The karting was amazing fun though. Except that the second time I went I was a bit drunk and that kind of spoilt the fun for me.

I paid a visit to one of my relatives that had moved to Erbil because of the security situation and because he got some good rent off of his house here in Baghdad. He's an old guy and it was good to see him in good spirits. He was a horse racing addict and now the old guy tells me he spends his time making bets online. He tells me that everything's really nice in Erbil and that the people most of all are very nice. The only complaint he had was that of greedy and dodgy doctors. A lot of doctors had moved from Baghdad to there, and I guess they no longer worry so much about their reputation and care more for the money.

It's quite unimaginable to imagine you're still in Iraq over there. There is so much business happening there. The government's leasing and selling off big plots of land to real estate developers for cheap and in so doing so are creating many jobs. And unlike in the rest of Iraq, there is a sense of political stability in as there are two major established political parties.

I met a Kiwi woman there that works as an education consultant for the Kurdish government and she's got a programme that involves getting children with special needs around the region into mainstream schools by putting special teachers along with them in the school. To think that the government there is actually going so far as to seek foreign expertise is wonderful.

It might feel that the parties are like some kind of modern day mafias that get a cut out of every big business deal and not always operating as fair as it should be, but on the other hand it's being done in such a manner that people's lives are improving and the people do feel optimistic.

I was expecting to get license plates for my new car as soon as I get back. Now the showroom is telling me that it's going to take much longer than thought and that there's no way I'd get it before Eid and not in time for my dad's arrival because the paperwork is taking more time than expected. My dad's going to be very disappointed not to ride the new car in front of the folks at the plantation.

In Erbil

2008-09-18T19:49:00.003+03:00

I'm in Erbil, Kurdistan... taking a week long break from it all. Having a good time, going to restaurants that don't serve just what I expect what I ordered. Yesterday, went karting, the best fun I've had so far. Getting a bit drunk every day. One day it was Lebanese home made Arak over lunch with raw kubba, today it's little bottles of red wine. Need to go pee perhaps...

Very Hot September

2008-09-07T19:47:00.002+03:00

Yesterday, Fozzy, Nahida and I headed out to the plantation in the new car. But halfway there, a traffic police guy told us that we weren't allowed to drive the car without plates on a Friday or a Saturday because I'm only allowed to drive the car to go to government offices to get plates. Government offices aren't open on Fridays and Saturdays. Nahida and Fozzy had checked with the traffic police in Baghdad whether it was okay to drive and they were told that it was okay. But Fozzy and I didn't want to risk it considering that different provinces may interpret the laws differently and that other traffic police won't be so forgiving.

So we on the road again today. It was a sweet and air conditioned ride the whole way. It felt a lot quicker than when going by cab. It took about 3 hours, 40 litres of petrol and 200 Kilometers to make the trip. I remember nearly finishing a whole tank with my old Mercedes. It was also the first time I made use of cruise control. Cruise control is amazing. Press a button and lift your foot off the gas. Brake at a checkpoint. Pass the checkpoint and then press a button to bring you back to your cruising speed. It's wonderful.

The most surprising thing about the trip was the change in attitude at the checkpoints. When riding in taxis they're really mean and suspicious, but when driving in my new car they all acted much nicer to me.

I don't know what's up with the weather now. When I was in Baghdad it was very hot, hotter than any other time this summer. I was looking forward to coming back to the farm because the weather here is maybe five degrees cooler. But it's gotten hotter here too but still a little cooler than Baghdad. The heat's not supposed to peak in September! I usually don't complain so much about the heat, but it's really getting bad. Nahida tells me everyone's complaining. A girl from college on facebook set her status as "موت حار" (don't know how to translate it, literally it might mean "death heat") yesterday. The forecast for Baghdad today was 48 Centegrade (that's nearly 120 Farenheit).

Now, I've got to think of how I'm going to make use of the few days to come. Because I have to drive the car back on Thursday which will be the last day I'm allowed to drive the car until I get number plates.

Soaked in Sweat

2008-09-04T01:45:00.003+03:00

I've been having trouble getting to sleep lately. Could be that that's what Baghdad does to someone. It's hot and the fan's noisy. Everytime I wake up, I find myself soaked in sweat, very unpleasant. I tried getting myself drunk to fall asleep earlier in the evening. It worked until the power went out and then again I woke up soaked in sweat. Maybe I should've drank myself another beer and knocked myself back to sleep again. It's too late now that I've sobered up.

Tomorrow morning, I'm planning on going to college. Most of them have a re-test tomorrow and therefore it's going to be my last chance to see most of them together. I'm going to take my new license plate free car with me. It's a long way to college, and there'll be plenty of traffic wardens on the way. It's going to take me quite a while to get there.

Today and Yesterday, have been unbearably boring. I've been pretty much stuck at home with nothing to do. I wish I had some interest in playing with my Wii, but I just don't. What in the world is wrong with me? Why can't I get myself to play video games all of a sudden?

I thought that with the improved security situation that Baghdad might become a bit more lively at night during Ramadan. But I get the feeling that I was wrong. Od suggested we have futoor together with one of his mates before I go back to the plantation, so I'll find out for sure then.

Right now I'm thinking I don't have that much work to do this month. There really isn't anything urgent that requires my personal attention. I think I could go on a vacation if I like. It would have to be somewhere nearby and preferably somewhere with weed. It's just my luck that it's Ramadan now, and that has the potential of making any destination in the Middle East that much more boring. Besides, I really can't make up my mind on where to go, so I'll probably just end up staying here.

Oh no! I've hit rock bottom here. I started watching the "Sex and the City" movie.

Happy Ramadan... Have a Beer

2008-09-02T22:29:00.003+03:00

Yesterday, I drove Od with his fiancee and their mums to the new courthouse for them to do their marriage contract. I had the honour of being one of the witnesses as well as the witness to the marriage of another couple who I didn't know. Od too was a witness to someone else's marriage. People just don't bother bringing their own witnesses it seems. It was the first time I met Od's fiancee now wife. She's quite nice, speaks English well and perhaps a bit goofy or something.

Later that day, I got caught by a traffic warden for driving my car without plates. I was told I can't drive with the car after three in the afternoon. But I hadn't realised that the ones I was supposed to avoid were the traffic wardens. Good thing I had Od with me. Od knew how to talk to the guy. And after a little chat, Wissam the traffic warden let us go after pocketing ten thousand dinars (about seven dollars). Od had suggested I give five thousand, but I'm still surprised that the dude even settled for the ten I gave him.

Today, I've stayed home all day and done nothing except to walk out to pay my subscription to my nearby internet provider. I've been watching the movies my anime friends gave me the other day: Hancock, Don't Mess With Zohan, Harold and Kumar 2 and Wanted. The only movie I've got left to watch on my laptop tonight is 'Sex and the City' but I don't think I'm going to be bored enough to watch it here in Baghdad.

It's nearly five in the morning now. A little earlier, I caught Mos online and the punk told me he was leaving in a few hours. "I'm not good at good byes" he said. In exchange, Sav's coming tomorrow. I spoke to him today, and he told me he's saved a joint for me. I'm betting that joint will get smoked before it reaches here.

Got a New Ride

2008-08-31T00:08:00.003+03:00

Daddy bought me a new Mitsubishi Pajero with the twelve speaker sound system. It's my first car, up until now I've been driving my dad's old Mercedes. The new car has got most of the bits and bobs mentioned in the instruction manual except for the ASTC traction control thing, DVD player and oddly enough it's missing the floor mats. The bigger bummer is that I've got to wait about a month for the license plates. I'm not sure yet how I'm allowed to drive it until I get those.

Dad tells me that with this car I represent him and his status among the people at the plantation. Today, he had a serious talk with me about how I must get dressed up in a dishdasha with a towel and turd on my head. We agreed that I will when he comes over to visit next month.

The final episode of Noor just finished airing on tv. It's an Arabic dubbed Turkish soap that Nahida as well as most of the girls here have been hooked on for the past month. I no longer have to share my tv at ten in the evening and I no longer have to think twice when calling girls.

My cousin who helped my pick out my car just called. He's leaving to Amman at four in the morning by car and invited me to come with him reminding me that I've got a British passport and therefore can get a visa at the borders and that also Iraqna lines operate in Jordan with no extra roaming fees which means that dad can call me and not know that I've left Baghdad. It's so tempting. He'll go check out how much the floor mats over there cost.

Ramadhan's getting close. That means it's a rush to the booze shop to get supplies that will last a month. Friday afternoon realizing how dangerously close I was to the deadline, I headed onto the main street to hook myself up, but with no luck. The booze shops were closed in my neighbourhood and the guy that sells nuts next to two of them told me they're not going to open till the end of Ramadhan. Obviously, at that point I was very very worried.

Later in the evening, my cousin showed up and with him I took my first ride with my new car along with my three Anime friends (Mos, Miz and the other one) in the back. We went to the other side of town and got a box of Corona beer and a bottle of Tequila. Didn't get stopped once on the way, got stopped twice on the way back and yet didn't have to show the car papers. Actually, the guys at the checkpoints were really friendly. The first one told me to hurry up after he asked what the box in the back was. At the second one, my cousin jokingly offered the beer that was in my cup holder.

Mos, by the way, will be leaving to Syria in a couple of day and then off to Toronto I believe. His family applied for immigration eight years ago and it's finally time for him to piss off. Good for him. That makes last night the last time he'll be sleeping over at my house. Now, I'm a bit worried about how I'll be getting my hands on some anime without him, or the motivation to play the Wii.

I've got a new problem with work. New government requirements state that the paddy seperators in our rice mill need to be switched from the crappy locally made ones to the newer Chinese made ones. That's going to involve over hauling the whole production line and I'm not understanding much about it. Right now, we've got two installers the local one who is dodgy and is offering a relatively cheap solution and the other that Nahida and Fozzy met today who comes highly recommended and even showed off a great mill to them, unfortunately I didn't come along. The second guy would make us dig deeper into our pockets and wants us to decide whether or not we want him by tomorrow.

Ideally, I would be wanting to make a financial feasibility study or something. Not sure I know how to do one of those in the first place. I don't think doing a shoddy job of over hauling is an option. So that leaves the options of not operating this year or going all the way. Trouble is my dad would probably chose to do it on the cheap.

I'm getting hungry, got to see what I can find in the fridge.

Good To Be Back In Baghdad

2008-08-22T20:32:00.005+03:00

And I'm back from another record breaking stay at the plantation, I stayed there two weeks! I was not planning to stay that long, but I didn't want to leave without finalizing the distribution of fertilizers. That's having a sense of responsibility isn't it.

I was told that some crops in one area have died from lack of water. That's not the best of news. I've yet to check it out myself. I've yet to make up my mind about it. From what I understand there are plenty of reasons why they didn't succeed to grow. There's a nation-wide water shortage from what I hear, the government isn't supplying us with subsidized diesel fuel to run the water pumps. And that specific area has its own issues such as troublesome farmers.

It seems the mosquitoes get a kick of leaving me alone during my whole stay there until the night before I leave. I got one on the hand, one on my elbow, one on my leg and three on my neck one of which is massively bulging out from the side.

First thing I did when I got here was have myself a chicken shawerma. And then when I got home, I called my friends to tell them that I'm back. Ennie later called and I met up with him where he was with his uncle who was attending a lecture about assisting typhoid treatement with fruits and veg. I thought it might be interesting considering that typhoid isn't rare where the plantation is.

On my way back home, I thought of getting some lahma bi ajeen on my way back home, but since I saw one of the guy's from my internet provider chilling at the newly opened narguila cafe. Sat with him and had myself some two apples flavoured narguila and a lemon and banana flavoured juice. There were plenty of people crowded around the lahma bi ajeen place and the wait half an hour long. No worries though, tomorrow some of my classmates might come over so I may help them out for the re-tests and we'll go have lunch there.

It's getting harder to blog. I'm not slobbing about as much as I used to and that's affecting my blogging juices. I also feel my English is beginning to suffer. I ought to get some novels and start reading again.

2008-08-09T22:52:00.002+03:00

Have spent the past week in Baghdad during which my uncle's ex-wife and her two kids stayed over and tomorrow I'll be on my way back to the plantation. During my stay here in Baghdad, it been quite amazing to see the changes and the new optimism in the air. There's a new lahma bi ajeen restaurant near my home and I got Nahida to bring me some over for dinner today, and it wasn't bad. Yesterday, Miz and I bought some booze after sunset. Od and I had hoped that things would start getting better as soon as we graduated, and it's looking like that things are turning out just as we had hoped. Miz and his friend however, see that things are going to flare up after the next big election.

Right now, I'm drinking some Lebanese wine, eating some Turkish pickles from a jar, and watching some documentary on a French language satellite channel about tunnel building. I"m losing interest in the documentary, let's see what's on MTV: 100 best French rock videos.

Nahida also got me some hummous. I'm now trying to choose between another glass of wine or digging into the hummous.

Went To Karbala

2008-08-02T00:35:00.003+03:00

I've been postponing my return to Baghdad for the past two days. What's strange is that I don't mind.I actually feel myself settling in here at the plantation. All I'm missing is a car really, that way I wouldn't have to rely on others to get out of the house.

Yesterday evening, I went to Karbala with my two distant cousins. That place is something else. There was some kind of pilgrimage going on there and there were loads of people trying to get into the city. To get into the city everyone needs to be searched the city entrance and as you approach the big mosque inside the city you have to get frisked a few times again.

Two things surprised me about the place. There seems to be quite some wealth there, there are plenty of shops there and some of them actually look quite nice and clean. After touring the outlying area of the mosque we went to a new fast food restaurant flashier than anything in Baghdad today. It was a tad weird to see someone roll out a prayer mat and to begin praying in the middle of the restaurant though.

The other thing that I noticed there, is the surprising amount of women there. About three quarters of the people on the street were women. All wearing that black gown from their head to the ground but without covering their faces. Some girls don't do their eyebrows at all and that always startles when I look at one. One of my cousins tells me there are hot chicks there, and somehow he actually checks them out even though they're wearing black from head to toe. He must have some well-trained eye to do that.

Tomorrow, I'm finally going to go home back to Baghdad after spending over a whole week here. When I get there, I'll go buy some soda water and give the Iskanjabeel drink thing I bought from Karbala a try.

I'm Online At The Plantation

2008-07-29T23:17:00.002+03:00

Over the past month, my friends know whether I'm at home or at the plantation according to my online status... but no more! For now I have a GPRS connection here at the plantation. It's so nice.

It was on my way here last Wednesday that I got the SMS message from Iraqna (but which is now called Zain) saying that the GPRS service is now available and to call to activate it. I called and requested they activate it the next day and they told me to wait 48 hours... well it's been five days that I've been waiting but it finally works after I figured out that I have to include the modem initialization command into my laptop because I kept getting Error 734 PPP link something.

Everything's going fairly smooth over here at the farm. Still not on top of things and I've got a few problems here and there. I've got a cousin that owes me a hundred bucks and that I feel might be avoiding me because of it. There's a lady at the land registry office that won't process my request for land certificates unless I bribe her. I'm going to call dad to see what to do about her.

After the kidnapping and murder of that distant cousin of mine, the city has a lot more cops. Apparently the family sheikh told off the security forces. Today the city was rather empty and all the shops were shut. Everyone's gone off to some pilgramige to Baghdad. Meanwhile, I'm here waiting for some of them to come back so I can pay them money I owe them for tilling the land.

Crap, I've spent maybe an hour online and I just got an SMS saying that I've got less than three bucks of credit on my mobile left. That's about eight buck for an hour. That does sting. I need to figure out how to minimize my laptop's connection activity. I'm paying a cent for every ten kilobytes here.

Got a Summer Cold

2008-07-22T23:53:00.002+03:00

This is nuts! How in the world did I manage to get a cold in July? Great timing too, I've got to go to the plantation tomorrow. And I'm finally going to have to start working in earnest on the bleeding accounts.

Bleeding Finger

2008-07-21T19:49:00.002+03:00

Ouch my finger hurts. I should perhaps pop out some more booze. Check the ice tray... it's just been loaded. Got myself a beer. Must numb the pain coming from my finger. I'm in such a bad mood these days. Reason to worry. Hope it doesn't become chronic.

It's the 21st today, I was planning to start doing the accounts yesterday. But Nahida is doing some important paperwork here in Baghdad, and hopefully it'll be done tomorrow and the day after we'd head back to the plantation.

I went to the Hyundai showroom today. I saw a nice car there yesterday. But today, I went with Nahida's brother, who my dad told me must be with me when I buy a car, it was made clear that if I were to buy a car from the Hyundai showroom the car would remain the legal property of the company. That on its own killed the deal right away.

Nahida's got her brother trying to cheer me up by driving me around Baghdad. Last night we went out late (around nine o'clock in the evening), people were boozing on the Jadriya bridge. We had ourselves some ice cream and then some burgers. And then we came back to our dreary neighbourhood. The one improvement in our neighbourhood is that we now have street lightening which I believe is of the courtesy of the US army on one side and solar powered street lights on the other side.

Dad's gone a bit nutty with some idea about milling and selling rice commercially. Last thing I heard from him is that he's going to a Chinese embassy for a refurbished mill. I don't really understand how he can even be envisaging doing something like this without properly studying the idea and planning it out.

Hating Work

2008-07-20T01:53:00.002+03:00

I'm hating the plantation with vigor now. I feel overwhelmed by all the things I've got to get done. Every time I speak to my dad he tells me how important it is that I get this or that done. And these things just accumulate, and to be fair I'm not sincerely getting any things done yet.

Upon arrival to my last trip to the plantation, the first place I went to was the agricultural office to check on those checks. Turned out I had mixed up the checks with the paperwork and that it wasn't such a big deal and the office was able to manage it on their own.

When I got to the house there, Fozzy told me the news that one of my relatives got kidnapped. Later that day I called one of my cousins and he told me that the guy that got kidnapped had been found dead. The next day, I tagged along with my cousin for the funeral ceremonies. The body was first picked up from the morgue and then drove over to the town and then on to Najaf (the big ol' necropolis). Later that afternoon the three day funeral service at a local mosque went ahead.

The funeral service was drawn out affair of hellos, byebyes and a lot of standing. It was also a good chance to meet more relatives, more than I could ever handle. But I got the chance to get well acquainted with a few and to see some that I would probably not have had much of a chance to see otherwise. What was weird about the three day funeral service was how happy everyone was when greeting those they perhaps haven't seen in a while and so on. As far as I can tell most of the grieving took place at the sheikh's house. That's were people seemed the most earnet.

The next day involved a lot of standing too. Nabs and I went to the agriculture office to pick up some fertilizer called Propanil. We spent the whole day waiting for all the other farmers to pick up their gallon share of the stuff, whilst we were waiting to get our six barrels worth. It wasn't till the end of the day that they agreed to give us the barrels as long as we brought them back after emptying them into our own. Of course it really took the piss when I passed by the next day to find very few people waiting for the stuff and a relative stocking up on some barrels who explained to me that I should have waited till the next day too.

I've nearly finished preparing my new laptop. Right now, I'm just waiting for iTunes to finish downloading. I've nearly finished setting up most of the software I wanted and am rid of most of those annoying vista pop ups. I've got my Google Sidebar all set up. I'm slowly becoming accustomed to Vista. And I can see myself getting used to it now.

Power cut... F*$@!!! I scrapped my middle finger on the broken handle of the generator starter rope. Hurts like hell, but not so much now that I've had my self a TGV.

iTunes is done, what should I install next? I've already installed Avast for anti-virus protection, but I then noticed that Google's giving away a Norton product for free. I'm not sure if I should switch or not. How about downloading StarOffice? Oh I know... I'll download Google SketchUp.

One of the things I hate the most about being at the plantation is not having an internet connection. And the two internet cafes over there aren't so comfy either. I don't think it's worth the expense to setup multiple wireless bridges to get a wifi signal all the way to my house.

Crap! My plaster peeling off already.

My cousin called me yesterday to tell me about some free tip to Turkey for those that have just graduated to learn English and stuff and to get some girls to sign up. I know I've got too much work to do and told Nahida that I can't but Nahida was rather excited by the idea so I told her to speak to my dad to see if he'd let me go. He told her that I had plenty of important things to get done and that he himself believed that he didn't have much time left because his kidney's working less and less because of his diabetese. That freaked Nahida out, and when she told me that freaked me out a little too. It got me wondering if he'll get to see me marry.

It's half past three in the morning and I think I might be getting sleepy, but I think I'm to pop out of my bed room for a cig first.

New Laptop, Hard To Love

2008-07-12T21:00:00.004+03:00

I feel terrible. I spent the first two nights of my arrival back in Baghdad drinking. I had bought a a bottle of tequila, gin and vodka just before leaving to Shamiya and I started drinking those bottles with a mighty thirst. I've also been teaching my friend who have been sleeping over how to drink tequila shots with salt and lemons. They liked it alot.

Fozzy called Nahida a little earlier, telling her that he had called one of the guys in charge of the fertilizer distribution and was told that I screwed up the sum on the certified checks. This after I had double checked everything. Everything, except for checks themselves because I was so excited about finally getting them that I rushed them to the agriculture office.

I got myself a new laptop today. It's a Toshiba Tecra A9-P12. I loved my first Toshiba, but this one I got today on the other hand is much harder to love. Well I had my mind fixed on getting a Tecra, and I was looking for a 14 inch monitor. I wish I had found the M9 instead but I ended up with the only Tecra in the market which is a 15 inch. This one is ugly and big, maybe a bit too big for my Eastpack backpack. And for some reason it doesn't include Microsoft Works, and Vista is a pain to get accustomed to. It's got plenty of extra security options like hard disk encryption or password protection and fingerprint reader, but it doesn't have a built-in webcam. I just hope the build quality will prove itself worthy of being loved.

Went to the pool again, made sure not to slam my balls against the water again whilst diving. Still ended up getting dizzy after leaving the water, yet no as much as last time. Don't know why it's happening to me. Mous says it's because of all my binge drinking. He might be right, but I still think that it's just a sign of how unhealthy I am.

I've got to start loading the animes I got from Mous onto my laptop now. Oh crap... I don't even have codecs installed on this laptop. It's going to take forever to fully load this laptop.

Happy Birthday India

2008-07-11T16:24:00.003+03:00

Got back from my plantation trip a couple of days ago. Spent a whole week there. I've begun taking charge of the accounts, making payments as well as processing government papers. I was working on some papers to get subsidized fertilizers from the government. When I finished it last Monday that some of the fertilizers may be made available next Monday. So I hopped back to Baghdad the next day. Getting those papers done here is a bureaucratic mess, it takes so many signatures to get something processed.

The worst part was going to the bank to make a certified check. On that day, I had to join the crowd of people pushing themselves in to the one bank in town. The crowd was made up of farmers also wanting a certified check to purchase fertilizers, other seeking were seeking credit and another group were there to get their retirement payments. Inside the bank was humid, hot and smelly with the body odour of crowd. Luckily for me, half-way through the process the manager invited me to sit down in cooled office and let one of the employees finish processing my certified check.

Aside from processing government documents and noting down the expenses of the day, there wasn't much for me to do the rest of the day. I had about fifty episodes of anime that I finished watching by the fourth or fifth day. It was after that that afternoon and evening boredom began to get on my nerves.

I've begun to get a feel for the ropes of running a plantation. I'm fortunate enough to have a couple of distant cousins, Mamo and Mado, who are my age who are also involved in running their family plots and they're there to give me advice. Mado for example, explained to me that I should always just listen when dealing with a farmer and that if I had anything to say it was best to leave it to one of the managers.

Fozzy's also there and is still in charge of most of the daily operations, as well as Nabs who's more or less Fozzy's right hand man. Nabs is the one I rely on the most to accompany me wherever I go and he's always looking out for relatives of mine so that he may introduce me to them. The boys in his family come over to my house all the time to help Nahida clean up the house. Nab's shows himself to be very loyal to my dad and points out that his grandpa died in one of my grandpa's battles.

The only person on my team that I'm not convinced of yet is the irrigation manager, Jaws. It's the probably the hardest and most crucial job on the plantation and I'm still pretty much in the dark regarding it. Personally I've never really liked the guy, last summer he really got on my nerves because he'd pull my arm to bring my face closer for a kiss every time we shake hands. A cheek-kissing greeting is very normal, but I certainly don't like my arm being pulled.

When I sat down to see him during this visit, the guy just talked a whole load of crap about the farmers being always at fault and that our irrigation pumping capacity isn't sufficient. I don't think it's very smart of him to clear himself of any blame on my first meeting with him. Aside from that, he upsets Fozzy and Nabs is always complaining about him not being about and having to do his work.

But on the other side, he may have that one job that makes everyone hate him by default. I've heard that farmers always think more water is better even though that might not always be true. And I did hear several farmers complaining during this visit. In Jaws favour, he does have one quality and that's the one of having way too many kids thus giving him strength in numbers. Having strength might be an important requisite when dealing with allocating irrigation considering how farmers aren't shy of killing one another.

The first piece of news that I heard when getting there was that of a man being killed over unpaid debts which were a result of last year's currency traders frenzy into buying and selling US dollars on credit. Lots of people in town have been murdered or have fled as a result of it. There's an Islamic principle that if you lend money to someone and that person makes a loss with that investment then you too should share the loss. But unfortunately, they didn't apply that principle.

Whilst I was at the plantation, some guy came over and took me to see some millling equipement. The bastard made me pay for the cab ride even though the cab driver was his family and the bastard's going to make a commission if I decide to buy anything. Dad's got an idea to mill rice and to market it for retail. His idea, but it'll be up to me to carry it out. I think he's getting a bit ahead of himself myself, and I should start putting to practice that stuff I learnt at college about feasibility studies.

The neighbourhood generator line is buggered and keeps cutting off so I'll try making another post tomorrow before I go back to the plantation.

2008-06-30T19:17:00.002+03:00

I can now say I officially graduated since Nahida got a call from college today saying that I passed. And I'm off to the plantation tomorrow.

To-Do List

2008-06-24T13:19:00.003+03:00

My drinking binge wasn't very successful, into the second day I wasn't feeling so well and gave up. All I had was that German beer and Teacher's whiskey. I really wish I had some Smirnoff vodka and some Bacardi but the shops here aren't selling the stuff unless you request them to bring it.

So I spent yesterday, drinking some more and writing up a to-do list. It's looking pretty good so far:

Tidy up house
Buy Stationary
Take 35mm film that's been lying around for years to lab and ask about VHS to DVD conversion for Mos)
Do lactose intolerance test (got to e-mail them)
~~Burn a copy of Resident Evil the Umbrella Chronicles~~
Go to Bab AlShargi and buy: energy efficient candle shaped light bulbs, that thing that measures the number of amperes running through a power cable with a digital display, a thing that raises the voltage up to 220 volts, and a voltage stabilizer (if i need it), a new copy of NFS ProStreet with no scratches.
Look for a new laptop
A new socket to go into the generator and another to go into the wall
Tidy up the farm house
Delete internet accounts and make new Gmail, Yahoo, MSN, and Facebook accounts
Fix farm electric (use that voltage gadget)
Do a panorama x-ray for my teeth to see what's up with my wisdom teeth
Go to B-Town get socks, t-shirts and an exercise ball or see if i can order one
Buy toner for my laser printer
Ink for my Canon printer at the farm (need to inspect it first)
Get Bacardi and Smirnoff
A cash counter
Plugs and Fuses
Get the toilet checked out cause it's constantly leaking through the flush outlet
Get the big Split air-conditioner in the hall checked out
Build a swimming pool in Shamiya
Get a 4x4
Get an HD video camera
Get teeth whitening strips
Study physics especially electriciy
Study Maths will need tutor
Get the Koran on mp3 to learn Arabic
Get a copy of the Koran
Get some new clothes
Some boxes for putting files in
Call classmates monthly (a linen suit perhaps)
Buy Zippo fluid
Read up on agriculture, rice growing and milling on the net

I've got breakdown some of those items and I'm not sure I'm going to do them all, but I'll try.

Mos slept over last night, and this morning, he skipped work and I canceled my trip to Bab AlShargi so that we go to the swimming pool near by his house. It was a rather simple outdoor pool populated with boys, I might have been the oldest person there but I had fun despite feeling very dizzy every time I got out of the water. Goes to show how unhealthy I am. Mos got me to try to learn how to dive into the pool. I nearly got it on my second go, I still need to spring stronger and straighten my legs. I only tried to do it three times in total I think because everytime I did it my head would come out of the water and scream "My Balls! My Balls!".

After spending about an hour at the pool, we left because I was feeling so dizzy and slightly nauseious. But it really was fun going to the pool and whilst driving home the world seemed a prettier place afterwards even though I was a bit worried that the checkpoints might hassle me for wearing swimming shorts. They've never bothered me about it, but I've heard they have done so to others previously. The climate also feels cooler after spending some time at the pool. I've definitely got to make me a pool at the farm if I could.

I'm exhausted and really temtped to go to sleep now. But I might play some Mario Galaxy first. Remy's right to drink a TGV, I should add tequila and gin to my booze to-do list. I'm so happy I'm done with college.

Graduated

2008-06-21T17:06:00.002+03:00

Yes, I've done it! Ten years ago, I enrolled into the American University of Beirut, I was sixteen years old. And now I'm... oops hold on, how old am I?... Nahida says twenty-six. Okay, so now I'm now twenty-six and I've finally got my degree in business management from a lousy college in Baghdad. It's been a long road to get to here.

I've started my boozing binge with Oettinger beer (wonder how that's supposed to be pronounced), which is the one beer available here that isn't made in Turkey. Nahida called up Kiki in Malaysia so that he may congratulate me. She was surprised to find that K was also there with him. She spoke to the two of them and then passed them on to me. It was wonderful to hear their voices.

Totally screwed up on my exam today... but less so than most of the others... A pass for me is pretty much guaranteed. I've got some beer to drink...