Footprints in the Dust by Roberta Gately

Author:Roberta Gately
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2018-09-11T16:00:00+00:00

Deployment

Finally, in late March 2003, within days of the US invasion and with industrial-strength lipstick and Irish passport in hand, I was deployed to Iraq by way of Kuwait, which had become the staging area for the US and Coalition forces and aid groups. Direct flights—in fact, most flights—to Kuwait had been cancelled due to the threat of bombings. I flew first to London and from there to Dubai, where the flight information screen described my final flight to Kuwait as “Cancelled.” When I approached the airline desk to ask about it, I was asked for my ticket and passport, and then I was quietly informed the flight would actually be departing on time. The “Cancelled” notice was a ruse to trick would-be terrorists into thinking the flight was off. I spent the last hour there wandering around until I found an Irish pub. There wasn’t time enough for that just then, but I filed it away for my return flight. Final boarding was announced at the very last minute, and I raced to make my connection.

Kuwait City is a modern desert city with paved streets and lush green lawns, the last made possible by the desalination of ocean water and its distribution throughout this wealthy desert land. The streets were populated with luxury cars, and the homes in the city center were more palace than house, each more ostentatious than the next. The workers here were not Kuwaiti; they were imported from dirt-poor countries like the Philippines, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan.

This IRC team had gathered from around the world. Adam, the field coordinator, was from Australia; he had a chiseled, tanned face, an easy wit, a soft, honeyed accent, and he was relentless in his expectations of all of us. Phil was a member of the headquarters staff in New York but had been deployed to Iraq as a member of the initial team to provide communications expertise and leadership for this vital project. Phil, tall and distinguished looking, had a dry, sarcastic humor. The team consisted of me for health and Jason, another American, who lived in Bulgaria, for water and sanitation services. Considering that we had come together as perfect strangers, we became a perfect team, the best of friends in the worst of times. Although others would come and go, this was the core team with whom I would work.

Adam was responsible for logistics—getting our equipment ready to go once we were settled. Jason would do the water and sanitation assessments. Without the electricity that powered the water pumps, clean water was already an issue. I would be responsible for health assessments, proposal and grant development, and program start-up. I’d always been involved in providing care in well-developed programs with systems for medicines, equipment, and staff already in place. This time, I would be the person responsible for doing the assessment, writing the proposals, and designing the programs. We’d already done the research. We just needed to get into Iraq to see the situation firsthand.

We lived in an apartment/hotel in Kuwait City.

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