From the “Have I Mentioned The Dust?” department: Yesterday we got absolutely walloped with the biggest sandstorm yet, right at mid-day.

The air was clean when I had run to the clinic at about 9 AM to print out my lesson for church. On my way back, however, I was cursing myself for not having brought my wrap-around goggles with me, as the wind was picking up, blowing a bit of dust in my face. I rode home with literally one eye partly open, looking up only when absolutely necessary. I did not think to look northward, for an impending duster, but it must have been there. When I made it back to the canister, I sat down to read and write, and after ten minutes or so, I noticed a rapid change in the light level coming through the window. I got up and spread the venetians just enough to peek out, and everything had a bright orange hue to it, the result of the dazzling midday middle east sun shining through the aerosolized brown dirt. I grabbed my specs and my camera and walked outside into the lysergic landscape. I literally could not see ten feet in front of me.

Back in the canister a few minutes later, I turned off the A/C, hoping that would keep the inside dust levels down, but no dice. I could taste the chalky stuff in the air, and realized that my PlaySkool house must be a bit less hermetically sealed than I had thought. As an experiment, I turned off all of the lights, and pointed my LED flashlight into the nothingness. There was an amazing amount of dust swirling in the air, especially for a room in which there was no discernible air flow. Within 20 minutes, a layer of orange grit had covered every exposed thing in the room.

I had reserved the clinic truck, and was grateful when it was delivered to me at 12:30, which meant that I would not have to walk or bike to church. The turnout for the meeting was low, as expected, but not zero as I had feared. All told, there were five of us initially and one joined later. I was glad I had the truck, so that I could give people a ride back home. Between myself and the Serviceman’s Group Leader, we got everyone in a car except the chaplain, LCDR Vance, who wanted to walk.

The aftermath this morning was quite impressive, with a nice layer of orange-brown on and in everything. I woke up feeling like I couldn’t breathe in all the way, which was a momentarily scary feeling, but by the time I was up and around, and had coughed out some huge brown gobs (sorry!), I felt much better. The air had cleared up a bit, but it never got quite back to normal. In clinic, we had quite a few coughers and respiratory complaints from people who must have sucked in the same pounds of dust that I could feel heavy in my own airways.

We joke around here that, by the time the Americans pull out of Al Asad, “orange lung disease” will be a well-recognized entity.

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By popular demand, I have a case for you tonight. Will try to get more of these out there, maybe one a night for a while.

Today, a “TCN” came in with half of his finger missing. “Third Country National” is a designation throughout the war zone for the people who are not Americans (or part of the multi-national force), nor are they Iraqis. They are from various countries ranging from Sri Lanka to Cambodia to Pakistan, India, Saudi, Kuwait, Qatar, Turkey, and even as far West as Uganda. These usually very humble people have jobs ranging from construction, to flippers at the post Burger King stand (this is NOT your dad’s B.K.), to checkers at the PX.

For reasons that are not at all clear to me, people of certain nationalities seem to have a “lock” on certain jobs. For instance, the Ugandans have somehow gotten all of the security detail for Iraqi bases, so that every time I pass a check point, I am greeted by a thin, very dark-skinned black man, with a massive white toothy grin and a pleasing, almost Caribbean-sounding accent. These men are animated and friendly, and always seem genuinely happy to see me, even though they don’t know me at all, and must have hundreds pass by them daily. They respond with great warmth to any attempt to speak their Luganda language, so we always offer them a heartfelt “zhum-bo” (begins with the same sound as in Zsa Zsa Gabor’s name, and ends with a firm accent on the last syllable). They always, always respond to this with a hearty “zhum-bo” and often all of the men in the checkpoint house will come out to greet the traveler. They are not averse to shooting people who attempt to proceed without having been properly vetted, though, and have in a couple of known cases, stopped bad guys from getting onto our bases, often with force.

Back to the story. This TCN who is a Turkish contractor, had the top of his right index finger completely degloved after having a cement block fall onto the digit while he attempted to get it out of the way. Sounds a bit suspicious, and I suspect that some gears or other mechanical device had something to do with his predicament, but the above was the best I could make of his story, as there was quite a language barrier, and he was in a lot of pain. The bone was sticking out of the avulsed top of the finger, but the meat had not been cleanly peeled off, and the little artery at the top of the finger was exposed, which made quite a bloody hamburger mess. Because nothing appeared to be broken, we simply cleaned the wound (without any sedation or narcotics, poor guy) dressed it, gave the poor guy an Rx for some percocet, and sent him up to the CSH to get his drugs and some x-rays (reportedly negative). He’ll be back every day or so for a dressing change until he has scab over the entire wound. May need some antibiotics along the line, as I suspect he will continue to work, despite our recommendations to the contrary.

I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that there are no unions looking out for the TCNs, nor workmen’s comp, nor even one of those signs up that says “12 days without an accident.” But every one of these workers seems pretty happy to be here, all the same. How do I feel about being here? Glad to have a good job, one I will like a whole lot better about 125 days from now.