First Days, Latest Visit

I was awoken this morning by the sound of the muzzein making the call to prayer around 4:30. Once the call faded I heard the buzz of an unmanned drone followed shortly after by the thrum of a pair of Blackhawk's flying by. I could hear all this because the generator was not going, which meant that the compound had power from the utility. These are some of the sounds of life at the Inma compound in the Mansoor district of Baghdad.

Things seem to be different here, definitely "better" based on a limited and perhaps superficial view. First, the weather is lovely, with pleasant temperatures and even some overcast skies. Having come here in mid-summer over the last couple of years, this has been a welcome difference. Second, I've never seen Iraq so green. Partly this is a function of the time I've arrived, corresponding to ripening wheat and barley crops and abundant winter vegetables. Apparently there has been quite a bit of rain over the winter, so Mesopotamia looks lush. Third, people seem to be in a good mood. There were jokes and laughter among the passengers headed to Baghdad from Amman. We saw numerous wedding parties in crowded mini-vans, with everyone inside clapping and singing in unison, as we drove back to Baghdad yesterday. It also seems to me that there are fewer check-points, especially on the main north-south highway, known as Route Tampa to the military. In their place I saw numerous roadside restaurants, surely a sign of good progress. I've seen very little sign of the US military, with the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police firmly in control of all the major check-points. This place is still highly militarized and tightly controlled.

We've taken two excursions since coming here this week. On Tuesday we went to the National Fish Hatchery in Suwayra. This was a place I tried to visit in 2008 but was thwarted in part by a rather tenuous security situation in the area. Typical of many government facilities, there were way more workers than actually needed but there were some dedicated and skilled workers who anchored the hatchery and made the place functional. Carp spawning season is well underway so we saw the hatchery with incubators filled with eggs and ripe broodfish nosing their tank-mates with nervous energy. We also saw the results of attempts by the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization to "help." There were beautifully tiled Chinese-style spawning tanks, sitting dry. There was a recirculating aquaculture systems with expensive biofiltration equipment, including stainless steel microscreen particle filters and a pressure-swing oxygen generator, that was severely overdesigned based on potential fish loads. Apparently the system includes monitoring equipment that allows remote control through the web from Germany. There were also pontoons, floats, and walkways for a cage culture system that may never be installed.

When we first proposed the introduction of the new carp broodstock from Hungary, our intention was to include the National Fish Hatchery in the distribution, but this proposal was rejected by some political considerations at the level of the Ministry of Agriculture or Ministry of Fisheries. We are going to push to get them some of the hybrid broodstock that we will be making this spawning season.

One of the most amazing things I saw during this visit occurred on the way there. While driving on the main highway extending east from Baghdad, we saw two lycra-clad cyclists hammering away on their road bikes. I couldn't believe what I was seeing! Another sign that things are changing to be sure.

Yesterday we visited the two hatcheries where we will be doing most of our work during the time I'm here. It was a scoping visit to view facilities and talk with the farm owners and hatchery workers and my friend and colleague Dr. Khalil Saleh, who will be my indispensible partner in our work. It was a great visit, capped off by a wonderful lunch with lamb, roast chicken, and roasted carp (masgouf), complete with all the trimmings (rice, pickles, bean soup, salad, and more). I'm anxious to get to work and, after yesterday's trip, we now have a basic plan to move forward. We should make our first hybrids on Sunday or Monday. More once we make our first babies.