Sunday, October 05, 2003

I worked late last night, as usual, trying to deal with all the projects that I have started, not being able to, nor do I want to, forego on anyone of them. I woke several times during the night with my mind spinning around, going over and over several issues, waking up with my brain fully engaged on the schedule of the day. At times, I feel like a fishing pole struck by a large whale that is running the line out, so I wake up every morning with my line racing uncontrollably. I am sure you can imagine the sound of that.

This is quite a ride I am on, one I never would have missed for anything. You cannot imagine all the magical and wonderful things happening here. On a daily basis, I am just in amazement of all the things that are transpiring, both the good and the bad. I will try to put words to the details of the events going on.

Yesterday, I was able to take one of my source’s little boy to our military hospital to be evaluated by a neurosurgeon. The little boy is suffering from seizures, perhaps epilepsy, at least according to the Iraqi doctors. The little boy’s condition has been worsening over the last few days, forcing us to take action to provide some type of care or prognosis of his condition.

I had met with the doctors a few days earlier to arrange for this appointment. The doctors were more than willing to help out due to the nature of the circumstance. I was so pleased with their attitudes, so gracious and eager to be of assistance. The doctor actually spent over 2 hours evaluating the little boy’s condition, even taking a CAT Scan and everything. They are somewhat limited by the lack of certain equipment, but the doctors prognosis was favorable, indicating that it didn’t appear to be epilepsy.

While I was waiting for the doctor to complete his evaluation, I walked outside to get some fresh air. I walked by the young female guard at the front of the hospital, offering up the customary greetings of “How are you?� her response caught my attention, compelling me to turn around and sit down next to her. After further inquiry about her condition she broke down and started to cry, expressing how home sick she was.

In an effort to cheer her up, I told her I would bring a box of toys over for her to pass out to the little kids that come to the hospital. Her eyes sparkled and she smiled upon hearing my offer to bring a little joy to others, doing so might help get her mind off of her own separation from loved ones.

There are so many opportunities to reach out to those around us, helping them in time of need. If we are paying attention to our surroundings many opportunities to brighten another’s day will come our way, to bring a little sunshine into what might be otherwise full of gloom and despair. Sometimes it is just a matter of being sensitive to the signals of someone in need whose path we might pass in the course of our busy life.

On Thursday, one of the local orphanages with about 85 kids, is having a field day over at a hotel not far from here, so we are planning on loading up the Chief Wiggles Toy bus, we have a bus now – a 20 passenger bus no less, to do a toy drop as the good luck genies. We are also putting a trip together with the doctors of our hospital to do a toy drop over at the local children’s hospital which has over 300 beds. We will continue to plan for these events as we attempt to put the toys everyone has sent into the hands of needy kids.

I am trying to come up with a name for Chief Wiggle’s Toy Bus and for a slogan and design to go on our t-shirts that we wear while we do these toy drops. I would like to hear your suggestions. We could even make these t-shirts available on our web site for any of you who would like to buy one. I will have Scott my site manager put the design on the site that we have come up with.

It is now 10 pm Sunday night. I have collapsed back into my office chair, totally exhausted from the hectic day’s activities. Sometimes at the end of the day, Chief Authentico and I just take a moment to sit back and laugh about the crazy-zany, mixed up things that happen to us on a daily basis.

I am sure if we didn’t just make fun of things we would go totally out of our minds. Sometimes just a glance at each other will cause us to burst out laughing, words at times just not necessary to convey the mutual feelings we are experiencing about the strangeness of the daily events.

I can’t even begin to explain some of the things that happen, due to the sensitive nature of the subject matter and for the fear that many of you might misunderstand or take offense. Let me just say that there are times when we feel like we are on a different planet, totally dealing with a different realm of circumstances and situations.

At any given time we are pursuing leads tha, if proven to be true, would solve any and all the problems that exist over here; from the whereabouts of Saddam, to the location of weapons of mass-destruction, to stashes of gold, to locations of Fedeyeen, of Whahabees, of Ba’ath Party members, of Mujuhadeen, of ex- intelligence officers still pro-Saddam, of Al Quieda members, and so on and so forth.

This land has become a gathering place for anyone who, through hatred, has a desire to kill or harm the infidel Americans. If you take all of those groups with all that hatred and mix it up with all the traditions, the culture, the beliefs, and the religions of this region, you can start to imagine what kind of pot of soup we are dealing with. I say this with a sincere love for these people too, but on any given day we run into the full gamut of people, their stories, their expectations and motives, their excuses and solutions.

This evening alone we met with one individual who is campaigning to be the next president of Iraq, tribal sheikhs from 5 different family groups, 2 metaphysical spiritual leaders, a Kurdish lawyer and an Engineer/Lieutenant Colonel from the old regime. You could not have interviewed a more different group of people, with all of their idiosyncrasies, their cultural traditions and religious beliefs, and rituals, superstitions, and fears. Fortunately, we didn’t have them all in the same room at the same time.

It is like a breath of fresh air when we meet someone who really cares about his people for the right reasons, with pure intent, with no hidden agenda or ulterior motive, without greed or self-consumed desire to gain personally from everything that is said or done. There are those who, for whatever reasons, have remained uncontaminated by the evils perpetuated by the leader of this country.

Fortunately, it is the time spent with those people and their families that recharges our desire to go forth, continuing to care and be concerned about what happens to this land and its people. 

One man brought his family over this week, inside the green zone, desiring for all of us to have dinner together. All I had to do was meet his kids and I knew at that moment what I was working so hard for, what we were all fighting and dieing for. What a great family, with 4 kids, from 16 to 8 years old, well groomed, so polite, and so loving.

Meeting such a family such helps me realign my perspective about my surroundings, aside from all the bad stuff that I normally hear on a daily basis. I am so glad that I was able to go with gifts of toys from all of you, making a huge difference in the long-term big scheme of things.

Time to crash. Good night.

Wiggles