In the Desert

They call me in for a meeting. The department manager who employed me, and the director of the international department. >>We need you in Iraq!<< They were brilliant to let people feel, that they were essential and their salary was fare less important.>>OK, but it's not dangerous when they are in a war with the Iranians?<< The stupidest reply I could possible has given. They prepared for that questions.

>>Not at all; the war with the Iranians unfolded at the front line in the border area, and Iranians can`t run them over.<< How could he be so damn sure, I thought. >>We never think about it when we are there;<< he continued.>>Also because the Iraquies control the airspace.<< Yes; but how long, I thought.

>>It will be good for your career here in Monberg & Thorsen, and your salary will be tax-free if you make a contract with us at minimum 12 months. You will get your oven independent office and labour forces with direct reference to our branch manager and me in Baghdad,<< he continued.

In less than a year, they have already read me as a highly independent figure, who was not afraid to lead and take decisions, but also a character who has much to learn, especially to learn to control his temper.

If we control him close and drag him for the right wagon he could be an asset for us, but sent him to our big camp in Diwaniya under the command of the leadership there, will never end well, they must have thought.

They knew their sheep at that time.

And by the way; he has no family yet, so should he be so unlucky to die in a car accident it is to bear for us. There will be a lot of driving for him down there; they must have concluded.

In less than a year after my accession, I found myself on board a flight to Baghdad. Acropolis from the windows was beautiful as we touched down in Athen to change crew.

It was a night when we were crossing into the Iraqi airspace, and one hour from Bagdad airport the crew turn of the light in the cabin and drag black cuttings for all the windows.

What should that be good for? I tried to get an answer, and a guy next to me look at me. Fool! Who has placed him on this aeroplane, may he have thought. And the explanation! >>We are within the scope of action of the Iranian night fighters, << he told me. So the Iraquies control the airspace Mr. director?

But they were doubted theme self of how good it was.

Two days later, I found myself in a car with the director, our branch manager and an engineer, bout from our Baghdad office, on the road to Hilla silo complex.

And accurately as he has predicted, he got what he wants from me. >>If you can not find others, I'll complete it myself.<<

Here I lost my disk in the main Office in Baghdad, and here I missed the possibility for social contact with the leadership in Baghdad after work. Here I obligate myself to live a whole year together with six Pakistan steel erectors and a Danish blacksmith in a simple strå unit called skid-unit in a dusty and dirty silo area in three different locations in Iraq.

>>How well do you think that is for your career, Andersen; << I asked myself later.

>>Andersen! Describe your plane with sketches and word, and I will bring it with me back to the planning department in Copenhagen, but first, you have to go to Mosul and Erbil. We have arranged for a Turkish driver for you. You start tomorrow morning. Goodbye Andersen, you are on your own as you wish!<<

With 20 litres of water each, my Turkish driver and I set off for a nearly 850 km journey the next morning. First Mosul, then Erbil and though Kirkuk bag to Baghdad. It ends up to be two days journey before we were back.

My Turkish driver next to my new car, which imported under my reference number.

Despite the fact that my driver was excellent, it became the last time I let anybody drive for me. Driving in Iraq was dangerous, so dangerous, that I want to have my own life in my hand on steering wheel. There was no light in the rural areas. There was a lot of dead animal on the roadside in the dark. A lot of banded and broken truck left without flash, and in the end, it cost life between less prepared European. Also, M&T was hit by such tragic accidents.

It wasn't a coincidence that they prefer young men with no family for such a kind of job.

Later I learn to take my driving so severely that I always live Bagdad about 3 in the morning, so I was out of the city before it woke, and the same pattern when I had a meeting in Bagdad. I always arrived a 3 or 4 in the morning.

My Turkish driver connected immediately with the silo manager when we arrived. They got me placed on a chair with"Turkish tea", --more sugar than tea-- in a whole hour. They were talking, laughing and enjoying each other`s company, and the fact, that I did not know a single word of there languages, (Arabi). Every time the could read my impatience the just offer me more tea, and we end up to be five-person from the silo administration who want to look at me and drink tea with me.

Finally; I got the permission to do what I was here for; trying to estimate the length of the threaded rods that should keep it all together and figured out, how we could accommodate.

We should read Erbil and a Hotel before darkness and took off in the last 84 km that day.

We reach Erbil before darkness. My driver disappears to someone he knows, and I find my self a hotel, not without a little concern. I was well aware of my price as a hostage if PKK (The Kurdistan Workers' Party -PKK) grabs me, and no absolute no, I did not trust my driver! But if it should happen, it will all be addressed to him. I could only hope, that he was smart enough to realise it.

Was my concern justify? Not my distrust of my driver, but a half year later another Danish citizen was grabbed in Erbil as we were there, and nobody heard anything from him the next half year. That story later.

My meeting with the silo manager in Erbil went well; less tea this time! I get my permission to entered the silos and looked around at the area trying to find a spot where we could camp.

Here, less than a week after I arrived in the country, I was struggling to consume all the new expressions and adapt to it all.

Next, to the entrance to the silo area, I was spotting a building site with two guys on the roof and some strange crooked bars below. I need a closer look and what I saw was utterly unreal. The used this as scaffolding in a multi-story building! I wondered, what the death rate was among Arab workers on an ordinary building site.

And here the old Citadel of Erbil dates back to 5th millennium BC taken from the top of the silo building. I was cautious not to expose myself when I took those pictures. I crawled my stomach to the edge of the roof of the centre building and back again.

Is somebody live up there? With the risk of there life every day? The answer was yes.

>>Andersen, forget you're always "save the world attitude" or go home. Your thinking has no time on earth here, forget it. And if you begin to think aloud, you put your own life in danger.<< I said to myself.

There should go a couple a weeks more before I began to relax.

It was time to find the way back to Baghdad. We have 350 Km in front of us, as we took the direct route through Kirkuk.

Baghdad Office:

Between my disk and outdoor environment, was there a permanent temperature different on about 15 degrees census and in June and July it rose to 20. 20 indoor and 40 outdoor.

I got a terrible headache until I learned to drink twice as much water as I thought was sufficient.

The Plan:

It was not a plan. There was not a single engineering consideration in it. It was all pure common sense, and everybody who also has had a life outside the university environment would have reached the same solution.There was a logistics- and management challenge, but a person could solve it without an engineering education.

My only real contribution to the technical solution was to look away from the vast Hacki scaffolding. If there were an explanation I couldn't see, nobody ever tried to justify it, and until this day I never catch the wisdom. But of course, it was a perfect platform for our tender on request from the Client.

What they struggle to understand home in Copenhagen was this

The crane driver carefully jaws the "flyer" free and unhook from the sling, as was possible with the unique ball arrangement on top of the hook. We continue from inside the gallery and drag the wire and the roads the whole way up through holes in the assembly plate on top of the beams in the gallery. A single nut on only two of the four roads on top and the traverse beam hung there. Then we were free to change to a working basket on the tip of our crane and dismantled the sling, and mount the remaining four bolts and erect contact plates etc.

But of course, the devil is always in the detail. Do you managed to control him, are you on the right track and will succeed in the end.Our precise measurement on the bridge floor and accurate drilling of all 12 Ø 51 mm holes in the deck at forehand make a big difference between failure and success, but it still not necessary to be an engineer to this. Pythagoras on a right-angled triangle can do it.

But control the details also included a smart crane driver, who understood the risk he will apply to all if he operates the crane wrong; the picture below.

It was the plan I try to express in word and sketched, and the plan our director brought with him back to Copenhagen. He hung in an aeroplane between Baghdad and Copenhagen two times a month. It was before the internet.

The planning department home in Copenhagen struggled to do my planning to there planning, and they never succeed.In the end, I have no other choice than to ignore them and let my director discuss with them its time he was home. It remained his problem. We have beames to erect!

Sightseeing:

I was back in Baghdad, and the first week was gone, and I has a weekend in front of me.

One thing was that my Turkish driver could find his way back to the Baghdad office, but if he had asked me to see the way from the suburbs, as we arrived from Kirkuk-Baguba, will I not have been able to do it. I had to learn to drive out from and unto our Baghdad office in a hurry, and it was not so easy, as Baghdad was one big building sites at that time. There was a large number of infrastructure projects running.

So what do you do? You jump into your car at getting lost!

What I had planned to do was, to jump into my car with my primitive map and mark some visible spot, building, crossroad etc. as a red thread back, but it was not what happened. After approximately 5 km from the office and after I had crost five roundabouts and caught it right at AQABA SQ. I get it wrong in in the next roundabout without knowing it. Then you`re lost. You follow the map, but you do not drive the street you think you`re driving.

Panic! In a couple of minutes, Andersen lost his high grade of self-confidence.

It was dangerous to circle away from the major main streets alone in a company car who visible "shouted", that you are expats from Denmark, "probably with your pocket full of USD". And you know, you are in the wrong neighbourhood, when people on the street begin to stop and just look at you with expressionless faces.

My heart was pumping adrenaline around, and my brain was working in overdrive.>> Do not look at the map. Do not stop. Turn your car around slowly. Take a comfortable seat behind the steering wheel, and regardless of which direction you take from here, you must reach one of the major four-lane main streets as fast as possible;<< I said to myself.

I have three main routes that I had to learn quickly. Baghdad-Baguba / Baghdad-Tikrit and Baghdad-Hilla road. It was until Baghdad from three different corners. I push on with the several trips alone until the city, until I was fully confident with those three routes until our Baghdad Office.

The last impression, before I have to leave Baghdad to my temporary destination in Diwaniya was also a sat one. Iraq did not offer me any help in its attempt to sell itself to me, or my effort to come up with a positive expression. Those next two pictures have been hidden in about 30 years, as all the pictures made into slides. I did not know what I had, as I began to make those slides into jpg, but the blindfold donkey;I knew was there somewhere. That picture was burned into my brain.

I considered several short text note to those pictures when I saw them again.

The first impulse was stigmatising and racists; I left it.

The next was, >>cultural differences that will stay with us to the end of days where ever vi live on this planet<<; I also left that.

The third: >>Akademedes have just gone.<< No! put that old ancient Greek scientist in connection with this, was not appropriate; I left that too.

>>Of all the animals on this planet, the human being is by far the cruellest.<< There it is; The word for word, a true statement raised above any argument. It is understandable why some people are religious. They merely need a god to blame!

Where is T.E. Lawrence Arabia? The British officer, who fell so must in love with the Arab culture that he chose to lay his uniform and walk around in Arabia outfit instead. But it was WWI and during the Arab uprising against the Ottoman empire more than 60 years ago. Is there anything left?

I was disappointed and sad about what I saw during my first week in Iraq.