What a fun day! The sermon I preached on this morning came from the Book of Daniel chapter one, and was all about how to be people of integrity and praise God even when life doesn't work out the way we want it to. With this sermon ready things began giving me opportunity to practice what I was about to preach as the proxima for the songs that we had spent a lot of time on refused to work. It was turned on but no matter what I did (even those things that had worked previously) the computers screen would not show on the proxima. The Colonel sat waiting, my Rater and Senior Raters sat occasionally checking their watches for the start time when I made the decision for no slides. I walked up to the choir director to whisper discreetly that he just teach us the words as we sang, and he stood up, walked to the back where the computer was and pushed the same buttons I had been pushing and the songs appeared like magic on the big screen...The first song "How Great is Our God." Unfortunately somehow the W had disappeared mysteriously and in great big bold font on every slide was "Ho Great is Our God." The Ugandans sang it loudly just as they read it. I prayed God would let me keep my internal monologue internal. After the service a Soldier shook my hand as she was leaving and said "The choir is so good, I felt like they were singing right to me." I couldn't shake anymore hands and excused my smiling self for lunch.
Lunch was at an Iraqi restaurant and it was delicious! I ate Hummus, and beef kabob, and pork kabob, and two different kinds of soup, and multiple forms of rice, pita bread, veggies, jalapenos...I wobbled away from the table with blurry vision and was just a breath mint away from slipping entirely into a food coma. We drove back to Camp Cropper around 3 O’clock and SFC Ford said at 5:30 we would meet back up to go to dinner at the local Iraqi Generals house. I laid down on my bed and was instantly awakened by a tapping on my door. Struggling into an upright position I cracked the door open to see SPC Nelson as he said, "Are you ready to go Sir, its 5:30." I had indeed suffered a two hour food coma from which I was not entirely recovered.
We drove onto the Iraqi compound as the last rays of light from the sunset began fading to darkness, and the first thing I saw was three men around a burn barrel made out of what looked like an old sink and I knew we were in the wrong neighborhood. On one side of us the grass was as tall as our vehicle, and I was told by MAJ Johnson that this used to be a wildlife preserve. As we pulled in front of a mini palace I saw a horse tethered to a tree and wondered if it was scheduled to be up-armored at some point. Off to our right was a large cage filled with monkeys and I began wondering what dinner was actually going to consist of. Inside was a mixture of US Soldiers, Italian Special Forces, and every uniform in the Iraqi inventory. Small glasses on saucers were filled with piping hot sweet Chai Tea and we were quickly given ours. In the center of the room was a circular drop-off into a body of water that flowed in from somewhere below the building. I was told that crocodiles used to help interrogate people there at one point in history. Alongside the railing of this drop-off to the water ran a massive banquet table filled with every kind of Iraqi food imaginable as well as drinks, and plates...but no chairs. The table was of normal height so eating while sitting was out of the question. One of the Iraqi interpreters from Camp Cropper saw us and came over to explain. He said the General had been serving this great Banquet for everyone each Sunday for the past four years. He took us near the table and had us stand near a plate. He said when you hear the bell ring, rush to the plate and start filling it with food before it is gone. The first ones there get the best things. I guess Iraqi dinners aren’t that different from my house after all.
Dinner was magnificent! I ignored my stomach screaming that I had lost my mind and cleaned my plate then downed several more glasses of Chai as I walked around like a happy tourist and took pictures with every group of Iraqi Soldiers I could see. We returned to base around 9PM and after spending some quality time thinking about the consequences of my gluttonous ways in the latrine I decided to share my fun day with whoever wanted to read.
No comments:
Post a Comment