Dhub Dhub

Well it's been a couple of days and I'm just now getting a chance... or actually making the time to make another post.  I don't think I really need to get much more into Kuwait... It is what it is, as EVERYONE says.  The monster on my desk is called a Dhub Dhub, at least that is what we are told.  This little guys live out in the desert and forage for whatever they can eat.  They are primarily herbivores (plant eaters).  You might ask yourself, "is there plants in the deserts of Kuwait?".  This Answer is no no really.  There is vegetation sporadically placed throughout the desert but you would never think it was enough to sustain a lizard that size... let alone many lizards, mice, camels, goats and numerous other creatures.  The desert ecosystem is quite amazing.  You can dig down a little bit and find grass, or some form of grass, growing in the sand.  Dig down a deeper and you'll hit WATER!  The water table under Kuwait is fairly vast.  But all the creatures that live her seem to do fine and it just boggles my mind. 

More on the Dhub Dhubs...  The guys catch them in the morning before it gets too hot.  They come out of their holes when the sun comes up and warm-up as well as search for food.  We do several outer perimeter patrols a day so in the morning you can just drive along until you see a Dhub Dhub hanging out then you jump out and the race begins.  It's ideal to catch them when they have strayed away from their hole and it is still fairly early.  If it is later in the morning they are all warmed up and fast as hell!  It's comical watching 3-4 grown men try to catch one of these things.  If you notice the large spiky tail... that is their defense mechanism.  One of the guys let a Dhub Dhub hit him in the hand and it actually drew blood.  So that's how they fight with each other and fend off other predators... I'm assuming.  Our interpreter Mohammad said that he has eating Dhub Dhub before, according to him it tastes like chicken.  The tail is muscular so I guess that's what people eat.  The Bedouin's eat them on their nomadic journeys as well.

I leave you with a semi-funny story.  Here at VA and many of the other camps they have shower trailers.  They aren't bad, they usually have showers lined down both sides and then a bank of sinks for shaving and brushing your teeth.  Well... along with everything on any Army installation in the middle east shower trailers are ran by generators.  So the generator powers the hot water heater (which you don't need in Kuwait, the cold water is hot and the hot water is nuclear meltdown hot), the pumps that feed the showers and sinks, the lights and the A/C units.  Well I (not everyone does this) try and conserve a little water by wetting down... turning the water off, lathering up and then turning it back on to rinse off.  Every drop of water is trucked in so there is no sense in wasting it.  Well I was continueing with my normal shower routine, and i was in my later up phase.  Just as I was soaping up my left and final lower leg in the sequence, the power goes out.  Now it didn't occur to me immediately the consequences of no power to the shower trailer.  I stood there for a second or two, fully soaped up.  I mean soap from head to fuckin toe!  In my hair, on my face and my entire body.  I poked my head out the curtain to see who all was in there, at the same time trying to keep soap out of my eyes.  There was one other guy.  I looked at him and said WTF?  He said I lucked out... I just finished rinsing off.  I didn't know him well enough or at all, so I didn't feel comfortable asking any favors.  I stood in my shower of discontent for a several minutes devising a plan.  I look out again and saw a water bottle sitting on the bench, but it was empty.  I tried all the showers and sinks as if one would work even though none of the other ones did.  Luckily the sinks still for some reason would trickle water.  I held the bottle under spickot trying not to waste one precious drop.  After a bit I had a full bottle of water.  I took it back to my shower and began to pour it over my head, savouring every little bit.  I was able to repeat this process 8 times.  That is all it took to completely rinse my body was 8-16oz water bottles.  I was surprised, I thought I would be there all night.  I was pretty pissed at the time, but now I can laugh about it.  So now I always take a bottle of water with me to the shower... just in case.  Another picture to explain next time.   

Later Nater