war is over
by: Robert Bruns 02.23.2010 No Comments »at least according to Baghdad International Airport –
My friend and colleague ventures out to the civilian side of Baghdad International today en-route to some greener pastures. The situation encountered is telling –
Starting today, military papers and credentials don’t mean much, if anything out there, what’s mandatory, ‘the exit and entrance visas,’ both costing about 100 bucks. Between middle eastern countries, these Visas run upwards of $850 dollars.
She explains it best by saying, I picked up about 5 years of knowledge in the course of the last hour’s imagery and complications. It’s the fringe of hard to describe, hard to organize, hard to explain, hard to categorize –
Sorting out the complications involves ‘emergency contingencies’ like calling mr. ‘x’ at the airport, giving him the secret password and handshake, avoiding the hagglers who will carry your bags 50 yards for 20 bucks. It’s a lot of chaos management, trust, and nodding to the Gods –
It takes a special breed of individual from the developed world to have the courage and curiosity to endure the logistics. En-route to BIAP, it’s apparent why Walt Disney won’t be setting up shop here anytime soon.
We hit up the VBC ‘SG’ area (I guess you could call it a ‘green sprout’ of capitalism) for some Turkish food, I say “Do you smell that? Is it the Turkish restaurant?’, The response, ‘I don’t know but I think I got a good whiff of diesel’ –
That exchange of words in many ways is symbolic of life in Iraq for those capable of mobility, the rest remains centuries behind.
