Thank you for the letter, and thanks for the update on all the family. It's fun to hear that Grandpa remembers Turkey and going to Germany. I know that our family has a lot of shared history in those places, and it's neat to think that we are going to places that our family has been to before. We're hoping to take a trip to Holland when I come back, because Jenean and I have never been there, and we want to take our "Dutch" kids to see the tulips and windmills as well.
I have now made it to Iraq, and things are very peaceful right now. I am working in the International Zone in Baghdad, which is sometimes called the "Green Zone" in the press. I work in the Palace, and it really is beautiful. There are marble staircases, frescoes under the rotunda, chandeliers in all the hallways, and a few of the bathrooms even have gold-plated faucets. I live in a trailer with a roommate (everybody here calls the trailers "hooches"), so the space is kind of cramped, but we have a bathroom with a shower attached to the hooch, so I don't have to go outside to use the bathroom or take a shower. Yeah!!
I'm working with some Army National Guard attorneys who are with the unit that provides support to the whole IZ. The people I work with are really friendly and pretty relaxed, so that helps make the work environment less stressful. We've been enjoying some real peace and quiet since I've arrived. We have not had any mortars or attacks that I'm aware of since I've arrived here. In fact, just yesterday, our unit put on a 5K race around the compound, with a barbeque afterwards, so that shows you how relaxed everyone feels right now.
Speaking of food, the food here is amazing. Our dining facility serves almost 5,000 people a day, but they still put steak, prime rib, lobster tail or crab legs on the menu on a regular basis, and there is always a salad bar, dessert bar, ice cream bar, and different specialties every day, like Gyros, or mongolian grill, Arabic food, etc. The trick is to not eat too much, because they'll give you as much as you want, for free.
The mix of people here is really interesting; it's called the international zone for a reason. Not only do we have both US Dept of State people working at our embassy and all branches of US military, but also a large contingent of Brits, Australians, Italians, and I've even met Dutch, Danes, and Poles as well. Peruvians provide the base perimeter security. It's exciting to be right in the heart of the political, security and infrastructural rebuilding of Iraq.
I've been able to get in contact with the LDS group leader here, and I made it to FHE on Wednesday. We have a 2pm meeting time in the chapel on Sundays, and today will be my first chance to go to church in Iraq. I'm excited for that.
On the homefront, Jenean and the kids are making it on their own. Because Jenean is living on-base in Turkey with a military phone number at home, I call her from my office every day. The kids don't seem to miss me too much; I guess that probably means that they usually don't see me that much except for weekends.
One of the things that has happened since I've been gone is that Matthijas had some pediatric specialists do a series of tests on him this last week, and they confirmed what we've suspected for some time, that Matthijas has autism. We're not sure yet what the implications of this is going to be for our family, and to what extent additional training and counseling, changes in diet, speech therapy and other changes we can make will affect his ability to be functional and interactive with his world, but it's a challenge that unfortunately, Jenean has to bear on her own for right now.
I'm glad that Jenean has decided to stay in Incirlik; there is such a great support network for her there, with friends, neighbors, our branch, and the resources of the Air Force right there for her. Arcadia is settled in with her school and friends, and she and Matthijas feel that they are at home, after a long summer on the road. Jenean is also surrounded by all her "things" and feels at home as well. She's made very good friends very quickly; that happens on an overseas military post where nobody is close to home so everybody bands together. I don't think that we would want to uproot everyone one more time after just getting settled in. We have felt very secure in Turkey.
So, in all, we're doing pretty good under the circumstances. We're taking all these changes in stride, and we're doing what we can to stay positive, even though I'm away from the family for six months, and we have these other issues to work through.
We hope that all is well with youe. We love you and miss you, and we hope to see you all again soon.
Love,
Johann
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