Ba Ba Bored

The harvest is nearly over, we're on the last stretch, about 25 hectares of partially collapsed rice to harvest. The rice collapsed because of its heavy load being blow down by strong winds. No cool crop circles here unfortunately.

Going out to the harvest has become a routine affair. I wake up, get me a bite to eat from Nahida. Call up my advisor and head off to the fields. If the day starts early I come back home for lunch. The day ends after sunset and I drive back home. I watch the movies, animes and series that Nais has loaded onto my portable hard drive, have my dinner and after a couple of joints go to sleep.

That's not to say that it's all routine. A couple of days ago, a farmer protested against letting a second combine harvester into his land. A couple of his relatives then came in and shot at one of my agents. When things go awfully wrong I've got several numbers to call on: my cousin the sheikh, the dude that's in charge of all the government offices in town, his assistant and my dad. But I couldn't get through to any of them.

I took my agent in my car and we headed to the police station who sent us to the court house that then sent us back to the police station with some. We then had to go back to the court house but we needed witnesses to testify. We called on my other agent and the driver of the combine harvester and they didn't come fearful of any repercussions. It was around this time that my cousin got through to me. He told me that I could go back to the harvest, that he'll get the cops to hurry up and that he's sending a guy we know and who is a relative of the shooter and the farmer to the harvest and who he wants me to put on the line when I see him.

I left my agent at his house and went onto the harvest met up with the guy and we were about to listen to the farmer's side of the story but I had to tell him to get rid of the automatic rifle he had slung on his shoulder (My dad once told me that a farmer must not bear arms during the harvest). After we heard his story, I told him off a little more. We held onto his share of the harvest as instructed by my cousin, the purpose of which was to get him to hurry up with resolving the matter.

By the evening of the same day, I visited my cousin to explain to me what will happen. He explained to me that it was agreed that the next day the farmer and members of his family will apologize to the agent as well as myself in each of our homes and pay somekind of compensation fee of nine-hundred thousand dinars to my agent for the bullet shot and six-hundred thousand to me for messing with an agent of mine whilst doing his job, but that it wouldn't be appropriate to take the sum owed to me. My cousin told me that it was important that such things be dealt with as fast as possible and that they'll come to me even though he wouldn't be able to come. I told him I had no clue what the heck to do, so he agreed to postpone their apology to me to the day after so he could attend.

And so today, at ten minutes to two in the afternoon he came to my guest hall and told me about some website on the net to check the weather on and a couple of minutes later the guest hall was filled with about thirty or forty guys as if they had just come off of a bus. My cousin called for tea and explained the actions he took and some other things I didn't understand and then called on the farmer to say hello or 'peace onto you' which he did and was followed by a bunch of the elders some of which I was well acquainted with, others I had just seen around. The whole thing was over within twenty minutes.

That was pretty much the highlight of this year's rice harvest. The rest of it has been well boring. Especially these nights when I get back home.

Bad Luck Tapping

Seems as though this time of year can be just plain bad luck for me. Something I'll check by reviewing previous posts.

Last night, somebody tried to get passed the PIN protection on my dad's phone and screwed it up. For no good reason at all, I tried sliding in the my dad's SIM card into my Sony Ericsson phone. Turned on my phone and nothing came on except for a little blink from the infrared thing.

This morning I woke up with a wet dream. The last time that happened it wasn't a wet dream, it was chlamydia. But I haven't slept with any prostitutes in a long time, so there's no chance of that. It's still a nuisance. The strange thing about a wet dream, is that I usually get a chance to wake myself up before it climaxes. This morning I chose not to wake up.

I had to go to Diwaniya this morning. I thought that perhaps there I'd find myself a replacement battery and that would do the job. But there was not a single Sony Ericsson phone in sight. I need a phone for work and I'm not going back to Baghdad for another couple of weeks, so I bought a new Nokia. I don't like Nokias, I don't know how to setup the internet on it and I can't find the blog function.

Driving back to the plantation, I drove over a dirt bump that's supposed to keep people from driving through. They didn't quite make it high enough to stop cars from going over it and I drove over it on my way earlier in the morning. On the way back however, I must've been driving too fast because it hit the car from underneath and when I got home some guys took a look and handed me a piece of plastic telling me this must have fallen off.

It was mid day by then and realising that my luck so far has been very bad, I reluctantly went out to the harvest. Surprisingly, everything went smoothly until we got to the last farmer of the day. That's when my scientific calculator which I've set constants to calculate my share of the harvest.

24 hours have passed now and I should be safe now.

Drugs on the farm?

I've been hearing about a flower that people plant for its nice smell and that is also a drug. This is the first one I've seen. There's a story of a little girl that ate some of these flowers and died. The farmer's could also be pulling my leg.

A Day at the Harvest

Why do the people look so small in the picture? There are a lot of these women dressed in black, about thirteen in sight right now. They come and collect the stalks with rice that the combine harvester misses. They collect the stalks in a bag and beat the bag with a stick to thrash the paddy from the stalks.
A few also come to ask for some of the paddy that the combine dumps that the farmer and I split. So we give then about fifteen kilograms from each pile.
There are alot more than there were last year. I thought it was because we had poor crops last year, but I'm told that there women that come from far away places have gathered here because this here is one of the few places that managed to cultivate in spite of the drought.
There was one guy that had been following us since the first day and would walk off at the end of each day with a big bag. It's good to see he's not here today. He got me wondering how much is enough.
Oh no, it's started to rain again. We didn't harvest yesterday because of the rain. It's also started to get cold. I might now need to switch my white summer dishdasha for a winter one.

Harvest will Start

The harvest starts tomorrow. I'm nearly ready and will make an effort to blog from my phone during the harvest. I hope it's not as exciting as the last harvest. I also hope that the farmers don't have much to complain about either. The thing they annoyed me the most about last time regarded getting a 'shovel' (big yellow vehicle with a big scooper in the front). A lot of them got that taken care of after the last harvest. Some will complain that I'm compensating a little less than they expected for the 'shovels'.

After this harvest is through, I'm going to have to start thinking of how I'm going to spend my first twenty million. It's going to totally change the way I think of spending my money. No longer will it be worth my while to spend money on expensive restaurants and the occasionally nasty prostitute. I could try saving my money and travel instead. I'll try to get a job too, but I definitely have to travel even it's to piss in a foreign country and fly right back.

No orn

I haven't wanked in a long time. Having my dad around has made me feel uncomfortable about doing, his room is just across the corridor from mine. He's taken over my room at the plantation and now I'm sleeping the living room and I think it's time I move that bottle of vodka out of sight it's been lying around on a drawer in the corner for a week. I should not be leaving that around for my dad to see. It is a half-bottle of absolute, maybe it doesn't look so suspicious. Let's see, (thinking about wanking) I do need a shower too.

I might as well drink the vodka, there's not much left in it anyway. Never mind, I don't have anymore but I've got plenty to keep me high. Getting high so much is beginning to make me feel I've lost my focus on controlling my life. The good news is that I'm still making the changes I decided I need to make before feeling that I've lost my focus on controlling my life. Maybe I could say that I was in 'boss me' mode and that I'm now in 'do-er me' mode now. Drank the vodka, and the result is that I had so little there's no effect.

This laptop doesn't have any video porn! They got accidentally deleted a while back and I haven't copied anything new. Maybe that's why I haven't been wanking. But back in Baghdad, I've found a bunch of stuff on my old laptop some of which I didn't even know I had. Should have copied some. Porn sites have also lost a great deal of their appeal these days too. I'm definitely wanking tonight no matter what.

I did get turned heavily turned on last weekend though, my dad and I visited some family. That was the most fun I ever had during a family visit, because they Wii at their house. And I got so horny after coming back from their house. They had a very cute sixteen year old daughter. Yes, it's wrong. Fortunately however, she was off my mind the next day and thinking about her now isn't doing anything to me.

Getting a Cut

Autumn started the day of my last post. Ever since the weather hasn't climbed over forty Centigrade. The weather's been lovely ever since. There was one rainy and windy day in the plantation when I was in Baghdad. That day was my birthday. When I came back, portions of the crop had been knocked down by the wind which was a sore sight.

I had a bunch of issues to go through with my dad. One thing that he caught onto quickly enough was that he should play down his authoritarian attitude with me about how things should be done. He now understands that I like to do things differently and that it works. A few days ago, my dad agreed to giving me a portion of the profits. We haggled until we agreed that I get 30% of the profits. That's about 20 million dinars ($16,000) for the last wheat season. I'll also be responsible for paying for my own expenses in Baghdad. The most annoying thing about having my dad around is that he keeps waking me up early in the morning.

Both my father and I are doing better now that we agreed on a cut for myself. He was very apprehensive of the idea at first, but we finally sat down to talk about it he quickly become more receptive. He couldn't sleep that night and the next day after a bad night's sleep he did accuse me of trying to weasel as much money as possible. But after a good rest, he switched to a good mood and now I'm a bit worried that maybe he's figured that he got himself a good deal and that I got ripped off.

Kiki's thinking of coming back. He's still in Malaysia and finally got a job that was passed down to him after the friend he went to Malaysia with flew off to America. He asked if he could stay at my place which of course he's always welcomed to. It would be really nice having him back. It would bring back the spirit of the old times. He was always the one that I was sure to find when I used to visit during summer break when I was living in Lebanon. My ex-neighbour's been here for a month, and Kiki asked if he was staying at his old house. But ex-neighbour is cooped up in grandma's, I told Kiki that he did think about moving back into his old house. It would be great to see the old gang grow back.

Wine from a Tea Pot

Woke up with a slight sore throat. Must have not covered myself well last night as well as smoked too much. Yesterday, was my birthday.

After a morning going round the local offices with my dad to distribute gifts, Nahida popped out the cake she had prepared the night before. Dad remarked by the time he was twenty-eight he was already into his second marriage.

From there I drove back to Baghdad, bought some wine and went over to my ex-neighbour's place. Another friend from school showed up a little later and we went out for dinner where we were served wine in cups out of a tea pot!

Clarification on a Point in Previous Post

In my last post I started off with:

How do these people tolerate their miserable lives in this country? Why does it feel like I'm the only one who is so unhappy with things and in other words why can't I find myself a normal girl to sleep with. It's not just that really, but then again it might be just that.

But to clarify, what it is that bothers me is that people men and women don't socialize in public. It's alright for a guy and a girl to phone each other now that there's no risk of any of the parents picking up the phone or chat on the internet. As long as it's out of sight of the judging eye of society.

Why is it that if people see a guy and a girl out together that they have to come to the conclusion that they're dating. It would be nice if I could someday go to a classmate's house, say hi to her parents and go have some lunch or dinner.

What I'm trying to get to is why can't guys hang out with girls just like guys hang out with guys. If a guy sleeps over at another's house it doesn't mean they're going to bum fuck each other, so why shouldn't it be the same when a girl sleeps over. That is an extreme analogy, but it gets to the point.

I don't think it's just society and its judgmental attitude that's to blame. The guys and the girls are to blame too somehow. Guys here in general have a disrespectful attitude towards girls. Girls on the other hand think of themselves as so precious. So precious, that she would only go out with a guy if she was indeed on a date with him, which ultimately supports society's view of a guy and a girl out together.

In the end, you end up with two halves of society that don't take the chance to get to know each other so that they may respect each other on a personal level and not necessarily thing of each other as something to sleep with or marry.

Since I'm a guy, I should defend my camp. It's so hard to have a personal relationship with a girl that when one does finally get to do so with a girl, that girl gets the focus of his urge to procreate. As for the girls, I'd like to see them explain themselves without blaming us guys.