Silo Brackets Offices-Hilla

The end of our discussion with the silo administration in Hilla, end up with a camp outside the silo area and close by the old new silo complex, with was under construction a few km away. They never pleased to assign us a place, and I chose to take the "stupid expats hat" on, and just camp in some distance from new silo area where we have comfortable driving to and from; without considering if it was government property or a local farmers field.

It was a farmers field, and my disposition becomes a new talent for the self-employed lawyer from Sadam`s Hussein's Baath Party, as I refused to move anywhere.

I hope that the dictatorship system compensates him for my "stupid expats hat" action.

Our Pakistani bus that brings the workforces to the old silo area and back to the camp every day, with my blacksmith Kurt Rasmussen behind the steering wheel.

Since there was no water connected to the chemical toilets, we have a clean flow in and out, and a camp we were able to put up and take down in less than one hour.

The chemical toilets should be emptied every day and at a suitable distance from our camp, of course. It is the only unpleasant I can find in our daily routine.

From the minutes of a meeting, I can read how the leadership in the Baghdad office struggle to find workers with qualifications, not only on the paper but also in reality; probably because the agent and Iraqi government were involved in the recruiting. As I get the workforces delivered without influence, I was to slow to recognise how dangerous it could be for all under my guard. In Erbil, it brought us on the verge of a disaster.

No steel yet, and my vacation was close. I left Hilla for fourteen days vacation on 25th of June 1982 and left Kurt with the Pakistanis on Hilla site. They could do "preparing work" or relax and enjoy the facilities!

A contract for officially paid wages was three months on Iraq and fourteen days vacation with full salary. It becomes the only vacation I took.

I have a private little secret I did not tell them.I have a 13-year-old daughter back home who have been so unlucky to exist at a time where her father's aspirations to become something in the world was running high. So she had to lie back to an always hard student father figure who offered her too little attention, at an age when it was most necessary. She lived with her grandmother and grandfather.

By chancel my next two vacations I could effort to take her with me to London; show her something outside that narrow little world she lived in, and give myself a holiday somewhere afterwards, while my salary still was running in.

I am back 11. July a week before the first truck with steel arrived. New faces in my camp and on my payroll were there without explanation.

The truth was that the administration in Diwaniya controls the worker's payroll, it means, the Indian clerk together with Iraqi lawyers. They were more or less runs their own game. Replace people without explanation and frequency visit different camps with post and arrange vacations for the workers.

A true story which reads the European camp was the guy who asks for a week off because he had to go home and kill a family member in order of the rest of his family. He did and went bag to work a week later in Diwaniya. That was all arranged without headquarters knowledge.

On the old silo area, where our work should take place, we have a single skid-unit for tools and working toilet. On the first working day after I arrived, I met with a complete surprise. A prayer guy! My six workers stood behind him as he explains to me, that they have to pray before the could work, and they have to granted regular prayer time.

No doubt that the Indian clerk and one of the Iraqi lawyers have arranged that attack on my leadership.

He also explained to me, that he was number seven in my camp and should not work and should not go with the rest of the workers at the silo gallery.

What have they hoped? That I should turn up to be so stupid, that I denied them to practice their Muslim faith? In a Muslim country? Where I was a Christian expat? They underestimated me, but I surely do not like to have their religion as my opponent, and I soon realises, that my workers were afraid of him. They had been threatened, probably with a one-way ticket home if they not followed him.

Right on the spot, I experience a total flat leadership in the discipline to empty the chemical toilets. I set up at turns. First Kurt and me. Then the next day, two of the workers, the next day another two workers, and then, we end up with the "toilet empty team" were the prayer guy was one of the two. He refused as I have predicted. It was an obstruction of Monberg& Thorsen's leadership on Monberg& Thorsen site. I fired him in the same second he expressed refusal. You got yourself a one-way ticket back to Pakistan. Go and pack your stuff. Kurt will drive you back to Diwaniya immediately.

A few days later I get a dangerous visitor on my site in Hilla. It was the Iraqi lawyers from the Baath Party, who ask me a dangerous trick question. >>If I will allow them to employ him, the prayer guy, on the Diwaniya job site?<<

He knew very well that it would never be up to me to decide; so did Andersen ran after the football or after the man? If I was running after the man, they could still turn it into a question about religion and make an argument for my resignation on headquarters with could be hard for them to avoid.

My answer! >>You can employ him where ever you like. I have only one claim, and that is, that I will never see him at my job site again.<<

He disappears, and there was never since religious disagreements with the working force, as both Kurt and I respected there Muslims faith and respected their right to practise that faith. I had already accepted an extra skid-unit as their prayer unit. A unit where Kurt and I never put our feet in respect.

If I thought my trouble was over with the arrival of all the steel, I soon realised that they just began.

Despite the fact, I began to examine my surroundings on the weekends and in late afternoon hours. We were not living at Bible time, but we have camped at Bible spot.

Mesopotamian:

Mesopotamia, the flat plain between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris.Sumerians old farmland, known as the cradle of civilisation and home for the first high- culture on this earth.We are back long before the Egyptians; we are in 5300 BC, (Before Christ). Why here? Because the land was so fruitful, that they could settle down and began to do other sings, then chase food. Even today it is evident in my pictures, taken from my privileges "on stomach post" on top of the centre building.

But the Biblical "Babel Tower" from the Old Testament is also here. Babylon is here, right here, in the very heart of Mesopotamian, and of course, I have to go there to play tourist.

The metaphor of the Biblical "Babel Tower" was actually a 100 m high step pyramid within the walls of Babylon.

The exotic "Hanging Gardens" described by ancient Greek historians were also a part of Babylon in ancient time, and now, I have camp less than 10 minutes driving from it all.

Of course, there is nothing left, but a good imagination raises the real experience a bit.

In front of the reconstruction of the famous Ishtar Gate. Was it this Gate Alexander The Great used as he entered Babylon in 323 BC, and later left without a soul? The fact is, that he died here in 323 BC.

Part of the outer wall is still standing.

It was in 1982. Sins Babylon has become world heritage, and Unesco funds the excavation. It looks entirely different today.

Change a wheel.

The unconvinced clash with the prayer guy, just played a few days after I came back from vacation, and in that way, it also becomes my unconvinced introduction of myself to the six remaining Pakistani workers.

It was the worst possible beginning in a nearly nine months long period of work, and of course, they became nervous. Nervous to be blamed for failures, there own and all other possible mistakes, and worried about my reaction, as I just had demonstrated, that to be fired under my watch was an option. I had every possible reason to imagine that it was the way they thought, and that picture was the most extended reasonable distance from the way I want to lead. My management profile was build in my DNA, trust by freedom.

I do not want to control the watch in the early morning. I do not wish the Pakistanis to ask for my permission every time they need to send a man into the town for buying a chicken. I do not want them to ask for permission when one of them had to leave the gallery to fix something in the camp. I wish to be able to trust them, and if they showed me it was possible, I want to pay with "freedom".

We need something; a something I could not specify, and a something which was surprisingly delivered by the Pakistanis; a dead chicken!

But before we could turn the picture Kurt and I have another scary experience with them. Kurt asks one of them to change one of the wheels on the "bus", and his reaction was so unreal that it lame my judgment.

He jumps down and spread his legs on eats site of the wheel; gripping the wheel with his bare hands and try to tear it off.

Kurt and I were laughing at the stunning performance. Hereafter, a grave concern with both of us. The prospect of a working force with such a reaction pattern up 36 m over the ground was scaring.

Here my judgment left me.

I turned off of what I was looking. Maybe because I just have found an M30 torque wrench in the top of a wooden box with M38 nuts, in the steel load from Copenhagen. It seemed to me that all the possible forces tried to stop me from completing my plan.

What should I have done? I should have jumped into my car and drive to Baghdad and confront my director and the branch manager with the fact. I did not. I let the man stay, but we were down on a working force on only five before we had come really on it, and the response burden on the shoulder of Kurt's grew dramatically when his employment was as a supervisor for the workforce.

Today, I'm convinced that the man was mentally disabled, but I was unable to reach that conclusion at the time.

A dead chicking:

The Pakistani were cooking. They prepare every day for a hot meal in the late afternoon hours.The meal was three hours underway and Kurt and I began to become curious.What was it, that took at least 3 hours over a fire to cook together?

It was Chicken in Curry plus!

Azis! The guy we were able to communicate with, and the guy who translate the working order to rest of the Pakistanis, were speedy to read our curiosity. He was also speedy to understand that he had something of value here, as Kurt and I was miserable to prepare a hot meal. After several days where he has observed us eat pita bread for dinner, he took courage and asked if we would taste theirs.

There it was. That was the "something" I could not specify earlier, and Azis tried to used it to kick a crack in what he thought, was Kurt and my hard surface.

We thank yes, and suddenly we were all in Pakistan's end of camp about the massive pot of chicking in curry.

Azis was smiling the whole way up to his ears, and the rest of them was studied us intensely, while we eat us through their incredibly tasty chicking in curry. Azis was in full swing to defeat the fear, and in my quiet mind, I thought; thanks Azis, I will remember you for that handshake you do not know at all you've given me.

We were on chicking in curry rest of our time together, and Azis has got power, as he would invite us every time they wish we should make the company.

A delay:

From minutes of a meeting at Hilla site, I can read that we a before 28 July has one of the longitudinal beams placed over the centre building and the second one was pending.

Then we arrive at the erection of the traverse beams just to find, that the height of the threaded rods was to low. My estimate of the length of the rods at the early state was based on "a closed look", at the middle of the three concrete beams which support the gallery bridge. It was the only one I could see from my "stomach position" on the nearest silo from where I could see in under the bridge. At that early state just after my arrival, we were not allowed to drill a small hole in the galley floor with could have brought us from pure guess to something concrete.

Unfortunately, the two other concrete beams under the bridge were higher than the ones in the middle, and the differences eat up the rest of the length. That mistake was a consequence of the fact that I was unable to do precise measurement from the outside in an early statement.

The devil is in the detail! Control the devil, and you will success Andersen! It was one of the few features I possibly could not control in that state, and it hit us. It was just water on my mill and my Filosofia.

I could imbalances the difference with sim plate from your basket and let the beam hang over the holes in the floor and from the same position, I could do the measurement correctly as a base for new bolts.

I was not the only one who new have essential it was to control the details. Details I impossible could not manage was imposed on us as useless equipment or necessary equipment which never reached us etc. To that, it stood clear that our case was involved in a competence struggle home in Copenhagen between different leaders in the departments.

It comes to light when I under a meeting ask my director to by us J40 jackhammer. It was in direct conflict with the planning department home in Copenhagen. A couple a days later it arrived in Hilla, and on a minute of a meeting in Baghdad at 16. June he just noted; >>Upon advice from the planning department, a J40 jackhammer with 51 mm core drill has purchased!<< We could drill us through an old German bunker with that equipment!

Andersen, you are on your own:

An M30 torque wrench on top of a box with M38 nuts!

A pixie core drill that should be used to drill the holes in the Gallery floor was ordered to be delivered from Diwania never show up!

The detailed planning from Copenhagen they have promised my director never made!

An Iraqi lawyer and Indians clerks who try to make Silo Brackets Offices around to one big Mosque!

Without ask anybody, I let the Pakistanis drivers in Diwaniya understand, that I want to transport to Erbil as soon as possible.