Life in JBB - Money

I have not spent much money since I have been here.  I neither have time to spend it, nor time to look for things to buy, nor time to shop, nor time to use stuff that I would buy.  Moreover, there is nothing I really need.  The army is pretty good at providing food, clothing, and most other eseentials.  Other useful things come in care packages, like more food from home and toiletries.  Once in a while I have to spend money, like when I want a haircut or some other things from the PX or one of the stores. 

We have various money options here in Iraq.  Most places accept credit or debit cards if they are Visa or Mastercard.  Many places also accept cash, American cash.  However, while we use American dollars we do not use American cents.  We use AAFES change.  AAFES is what used to be called (and sometimes is still called) the PX.  AAFES is the army store and they have pogs instead of change, so it is rare to see a quarter here.  Here is a picture of some AAFES change.  They have all sorts of military pictures on them.  We also have "Eagle Cash" which is an Army Debit Card which is accepted in almost every place on post that charges for something.  There are machines that let you load the card with money that gets taken straight from your bank account and then you can spend the money using that card.  The post office here takes Eagle Cash and Cash, but not the AAFES change.  The "Haji shops", where you can buy pirated DVDs and software takes almost anything.  The restaurants take all forms of payment too. 

But again, there is just not all that much to buy here. 

 

Life in JBB - Showers

As Army showers go, the ones we have here are pretty ordinary.  We not not have plumbing in our CHUs, so one must leave their CHU if they want to use one of them.  The showers are in large trailers that have about 12 sinks and 12 showers, each shower covered by a cheap and rather uninteresting shower curtain.  Yes, they are in ordinary free-standing trailers and there are lots of them around the post, especially near the living quarters, though some are in pretty random places.

 

To get to the trailers closest to me, I have leave my CHU and walk about 2 minutes across a large gravel lot.  When I go to shower I usually wear flip-flops and Army Shorts and an Army T-shirt. The walk is very annoying for a lot of reasons.  First, flip-flops and gravel don't go well together.  Second, if it has just rained, flip-flops and mud and puddles really don't mix.  This is especially true for the way back after I have showered and have to return back to my room by slogging through all mud again.  Third, sometimes it is just cold and who wants to go leave the building in the cold to shower? And who wants to walk back in the cold after a shower? 

 

The trailers are almost always clean.  And while that is a good thing, they are always clean because there is always someone there cleaning them.  There is always a TCN (third-country national) trying to wipe down the sinks or squeegee the floors while you are there.  They are really polite and don't get in the way, but they are always there.

 

There is usually hot water, but not always. Once in a while I was forced to make do with a cold shower.  But that's rare.  It is also pretty rare that you have to wait for a sink or shower.  Actually, that has never happened to me.  Usually, when I go, there aren't more than three or four people using the trailer.  So it is not that bad. 

 

Now you know how I shave, shower, and brush my teeth each and every morning. 

Weekend getaway

I was able to spend the weekend in VBC - Victory Base Complex in Baghdad.    I got to see some of Saddam Heussain's palaces and the compound.  It was good to get away from JBB.  I'm back now. 

Life in JBB - Clean hands

Each DFAC (Dining Facility) here (and there are four of them) has an antechamber with about 15 sinks and lots of paper towels that all have the consistency of toilet paper.  Everyone washes their hands before entering the DFAC to eat.  Hand washing prior to meals is not normally that interesting, but in this case it is because there is no such room with sinks in any of the DFACs in the US that I have been to.  I guess that you are expected to come to DFACs in the US with clean hands, whereas here, people may be coming from the field with dirty hands.  So the sink room is something you only see here.  Perhaps it is related to the dirt. And almost everyone entering the DFAC uses washes their hands - the soldiers, the TCNs (third country nationals from places like Nepal, Uganda, or Bangladesh), the locals, and the US civilian contractors.  I have actually seen people make nasty remarks when people just walk in to the dining room without washing their hands (I witnessed this personally). 

 

On a related note, though I don't like using the stuff, hand sanitizer is fairly ubiquitous.  Wherever you go, every office, latrine, room, etc, has hand sanitizer.  The USO put it in the little kits they gave us, it comes in care packages, they are attached to the latrines, and they are generally all about.  I have a bottle on my desk.  I got new bottles as part of a "flu kit" that just contained hand sanitizer and cheap tissues.  It is quite normal for people to asent-mindedly use some while standing by a desk, in a meeting, outside, or wherever. I caught myself doing it yesterday.  Actually, I think I have used so much hand sanitizer at this point that I can tell the difference between the different brands by the way my hands feel a few seconds after rubbing that stuff on them.  Some brands leave your hand feeling refreshed in that alcohol wipe sort of way, others leave your hand feeling sticky, and others have moisturizer.