Tag: foreign service

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Return to Normalcy

Imagine that you lost everything.  Now you are getting it back.  How lucky do you feel?  That is where the people of Western Anbar are today.  After years of suffering, things are finally starting to return to normal and normal looks plenty good when you have not seen it in a while.

The reopening of the port of entry at Husaybah will open western Anbar to trade with neighboring Syria and through that to the Mediterranean. It means that Husaybah and the Al Qaim region is now in the middle of something instead of at the far end.

Goods and people will not move immediately.  The Syrians have been less involved in the opening.  In fact, they were downright petulant, saying that THEY had never closed the POE so they could not reopen it.  But they have begun to clear rubbish, paint buildings on their side, and even touch up the large portrait of Hafez Al Assad, whose friendly face greets visitors entering Syria.  Reopening the POE will profit businesses on both sides of the border and everybody knows that. A Syrian official did wander over from the nether region of the border to congratulate his Iraqi brothers on the reopening.   Whether this was a carefully planned diplomatic move or just some guy wanting to get in on the free food, I do not know.

The refurbished POE will have everything it needs.  There is passport control, a medical unit, police station and a bank.  Outside are docks for the unloading of trucks, as well as a quarantine area and acres of parking. Presumably businesses will pop up nearby to serve the traffic. 

Hundreds of invited guests turned up for the official opening ceremony, including business leaders, officials and local sheiks.  Officials made longish speeches about the work that had gone into the opening as well as the perceived benefits of trade and commerce.  In other words, they made predictable political speeches, normal politics, thanking and acknowledging all those who may be useful in the future.

The opening ceremony itself represented a return to normality.  Although security was very tight, great pains were taken to have security not visibly intrude.  As a result, it looked like an ordinary event in a normal country, with Iraqi flags and Iraqi guests generally dressed in suits or traditional garments, not armor.  The ceremony was followed by the traditional feast.  I understand that 40 sheep contributed the last full measure to the festivities.  And when the feasting was done, the guests went home, without incident.

Below is me at the border.  Over my shoulder is Syria.  Still some work needs to be done on the connection, but normality is on the way.

Our ePRT will be facilitating the flow of commerce at the POE, most immediately with a QRF supported grant for signage to direct traffic.  In the longer term, ePRT personnel are helping with planning things such as traffic flow and placement of commercial areas.

A lot of planning went into making this spontaneous event possible.  I like to remember this from the Book of the Tao:

The best rulers are scarcely known;
The next best are loved and praised;
The next are feared;
The next despised:
They have no faith in their people,
And their people become unfaithful.

When the best rulers achieve their purpose
The people say they did it themselves.

I would presume to add one more line: AND they are right, IF planners get initial conditions right and understand when to get out of the way.

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Celebratory Fire…Maybe the Odd Angry Shot

Kids come out and wave as we drive by.  When I got out and walked toward them, they started to run off.  When I sat down on the curb they came back.  We are evidently a curiosity. 

The day started out auspiciously enough.  We scheduled a full slate of appointments.  We were supposed to meet with the regional agricultural representative, visit the local bank, talk to the microfinance people and tour some local farms.  Beyond all that, we planned to go on a foot patrol through the marketplace.  I had grand hopes to spend my first Iraqi dinar at an actual Iraqi market, even if it was only to buy a can of Coke and some kabobs.

We DID mange to meet the ag official.   I did not have much business with him and only went through the greeting rituals, but my team members spent a couple of very useful hours looking over plans and proposals.  Our first bad news came when we learned we would not be able to visit the market.   An IED had gone off there a couple days before.  The Iraqi police said that it was a local matter, more a case of criminal intimidation than terrorism, but since the site was where we were going, the Marines thought it was not worth the risk. 

Instead, we went straight to the bank to meet the microfinance guys, but there was a flawed communication.  The people we were supposed to meet had gone.  The guard called them and they said they would be right back.  We were having a good into talk with the administrative manager.  He has survived some rough times.  AQI had murdered his father and his ten year old brother.  His family had to hide out in the desert for six months until AQI cleared out.  But now times were better. 

We heard shots, quite a few.  It was “celebratory fire”.  Evidently some detainees were released and their joyful relatives were celebrating the way they do around here: shooting guns into the air.  These kinds of celebrations are dangerous for two reasons.  First they sometimes turn nasty.  Maybe for some of the former inmates, the joy of getting out does not completely balance the annoyance of being put in.  Second and probably more important is that other rule of law — gravity.   What goes up must come down.  Falling bullets hurt and kill people.  They tend to tumble a little, but they come down with force similar to what they went up with.  Not a good thing to get caught in that rain.  The Marines told us that it would be very embarrassing if we got shot while under their care.   They ushered us out quickly and we missed the rest of our appointments.It is surreal.   Our hosts at the bank were not armored or protected and they were also not particularly concerned.  They were just bringing out cakes and little cans of Pepsi (very cute little cans) when we made our excuses.  Those kids you saw in my picture just kept on playing.  I understand the need for safety in general.  I also understand that given the circumstances of the celebrations our presence might actually cause a celebratory mob to turn unpleasant creating danger for ourselves and those people around us.  I just hope there is less such joyful noise so that we can get more work done.

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A Talking Frog

This old guy is walking down the street and sees a frog on the pavement.  To his surprise, the frog speaks and says, “I am an enchanted princess.  If you kiss me, you will break the spell and have a beautiful woman forever.”  The old guy just puts the frog in his pocket and begins to walk along.  The frog complains, “Maybe you didn’t hear me.  I am a beautiful enchanted woman.  If you kiss me, you will have me forever.”  The old guy replies, “At this stage in my life, I figure a talking frog is more interesting.”

I went to see the Purrfect Angelez, pictured above, at a camp show in Al Qaim.  They treated the assembled multitude to an impressive show of gymnastic flexibility, punctuated by less impressive singing.   But it quickly got repetitive, not that it seemed to bother most of the Marines.  I kept thinking about how hard some of those moves would be on a person’s back or knees and it was then I realized that I had been gradually but inexorably moving into the talking frog stage of life.  I am not saying that I am not interested.  The show was worth seeing, although perhaps not worth going to see.  After about a half an hour of watching their vigorous gyrations and observing the enthusiastic response they got from the Marines, I shuffled back to my can to read my book.   I noticed that my PRT colleagues, whose median age is 49, also did not stay much longer.  That is no country for old men. No matter how much we want to pretend, interests develop and that is probably a good thing.

This is kind of a miscellaneous posting.  Take a look at the picture below.  Yes, it is two bottles of mayonnaise sitting in the sun.  I do not know how long they were out there, but let me give you an additional piece of information:  The Marines in Husaybah live with the Iraqi police and they usually prepare their own food.

I was sitting out in the courtyard of the joint Marine-Iraqi Police building listening to the wind and contemplating the nature of things,  when I notice the mayo.  A short time later a couple of Marines came out and we got to talking about their living and working conditions.  They generally liked the Iraqi police and they thought that the fact that they were integrated with the community and got more local food, different from the standard chow hall fare, was a good thing.  It was a more authentic experience than eating the same meat loaf and red jell-o you get in all the chow halls in all the world.  But one of them mentioned, off handedly, that stomach viruses were a bit of a problem among the guys.  Ya think?  Of course, if you leave it out long enough, I hear it turns into special sauce.

All this makes me think of that lesser known Yeats poem.

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I Can’t Complain

Above is my office at my last job when I ran the Worldwide Speaker Program.  I could see the Capitol from the window.  The view from my office in Iraq is not so nice. 

I have been getting lots of emails from people asking me about jobs in the Foreign Service or in Iraq.  I am probably the only FSO they know but hiring procedures are things I know not too much about.  I let HR do their job.  I came in the FS in 1984.  Things were different back then (of course, much harder.  Kids today have it easy.  When we were young …) But I can give you my opinion about careers in the FS and a webpage (www.careers.state.gov) were you can find out more.

I could tell you that I always wanted to be an FSO, but I would be lying.  My father wanted me to be a truck driver and I wanted to be a forester or maybe an archaeologist.  Becoming an FSO was more a result of serendipity than design.  I was taking a nap in the student union at the University of Wisconsin.   When I woke up, I saw a booklet called “Careers in the Foreign Service” laying on the table.  My snoring had driven away the previous owner.  Before that, I did not know there was such as thing or at least I did not know that someone like me could get in. 

FSOs join State through a written test.  It is pretty hard, but not impossible.  I wonder how some of my colleagues got in and I am sure they wonder the same about me.  You have to know about little things and about lots of things most people do not care about.  FSOs are very good at Trivial Pursuit and we can usually impress our friends when watching Jeopardy.   Skills that sell in the marketplace…?  They are useful skills for us because we are generalists.   As generalists, we do what we need to do.  They told me when I came in that my duties could range from talking to important officials to carrying luggage.  I have done both.  Sometimes the luggage job is more fun.

All joking aside, the FS has been good for me.  I have been able to do things and meet people I could never have done.  The FS taught me three languages: Portuguese, Norwegian & Polish.   It gave me a year at the Fletcher School of Law & Diplomacy and paid ME to attend school and live in New Hampshire.   I have never had a job in the FS that I did not enjoy – mostly – and that includes my current job here in Iraq, which is often uncomfortable and sometimes a little scary but tremendously rewarding.

The hardest part is the travel and living in foreign countries.  I know many readers are thinking to themselves that these are the great advantages, the very quintessence of the FS and they are certainly right.  But it is also hard.  You do not have the feeling of home and you are always an outsider, a sojourner, a stranger in a strange land (okay, I will stop with the descriptions).   When we got back to the U.S. and lived in Virginia, I realized how much I enjoy being an ordinary American citizen, a participant in the affairs of my country and community.  Diplomats are always guests, never participants and by clear definition never citizens of their host countries.   

It is the career I wanted and I thank God I woke up to find that brochure at the Student Union, but the FS is not for everybody.  After I come back from Iraq, I am thinking of retiring.  The FS is a great job, but maybe it is time to do something else.  I just don’t know.   That is the final advantage of the FS.  You can retire at 50 (with 20 years of service).  You still are young enough to find something else and you have the FS retirement to fall back on if you don’t.

Below is the American Indian Museum was a short walk from my office at SA 44.  Washington is a nice place to live too and you live there about 1/3 of your career.

FS is good work if you can get it.  At least I really can’t complain. Check out the webpage at www.careers.state.gov.   BTW – the Department did not put me up to this.   As I said, I am getting dozens of emails.  Maybe this will answer some of the questions.   

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When the Marines Go Home

I am in beautiful Baghdad at a conference to discuss what happens when the Marines start to leave.  It is a good thing that they can.  It is a measure of success in Al Anbar that the Iraqi army and police forces can take over big chunks of territory and it has to happen eventually, but it will make life harder for us at the PRTs.  The Marines give me my food, transportation and even my boots.  I need the Marines.

They will not be all gone, but Marine brigades in Al Anbar will be reduced by more than half by this summer, if all goes as planned.  This means fewer helicopters & humvees as well as fewer places to land the helicopter or park the humvee for the night.   Our AO is as big as the State of South Carolina.  It would be hard enough to travel such a big place, but Al Anbar does not have a good road system like the palmetto state and we have significant security concerns on long road trips.  Even absent these problems, I would look forward to driving 12 hours (that is how long it takes to get to Rutbah) through one of the bleakest deserts in the world w/o the prospect of rest stops or gas stations.

That is why we are making plans now.   Actually, I would call it perhaps less planning and more wishing or hoping.  There are a few options and we are already doing some things that make travel less crucial.  For example, we can (and are) sending our people out for longer periods.   They are essentially embedded in a local town for days or weeks.  We also are looking into hiring local employees, as I mentioned in a previous post.  What might end up happening is that we have a HQ at Al Assad, but most of the staff is someplace else most of the time.

Personally I do not need to worry too much.  As long as I am here (until September next year) there will be enough Marines to take care of most of what I need to do.  I will just need a little more planning and trip consolidation.  They would not have given me a new pair of boots anyway.

More challenging, but more interesting is how the PRTs will take over some of what the Marines do in civil affairs.  The Marines have done an excellent job of securing the country and beginning the job of rebuilding (building) those aspects of civil society that help keep the peace.   They are can do kinds of guys and they do the jobs they are given.

But Marines are fundamentally warriors.  Some of them are getting a little nervous that it is too peaceful around here for them to employ their particular talents to the fullest.  We (PRTs) will need to take some of that civil society program over.  Word is that I will get a few more staff members to go with the accretions of responsibility.   Following the Marines, we have some big boots to fill.

Above is the setting sun through the dust as seen from the back of a chinook.  I look at the world a lot through the back of a helicopter.

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Outstanding in His Field

This guy in thinking, “What the …?” 

We walked around some of the irrigated agriculture near Haditha.   The soil is rich.  Our Ag guy, Dennis, says that this place could have productivity similar to the Imperial Valley.  But there is not much in the way of crop variety or improvements.  They are using the same system as the Babylonians.  They dig ditches and flood square sections.   A lot of water is lost.  The soil is full of gypsum and it does not hold the water well.  Evaporation and salinization are also constant challenges.

In some ways life is perhaps too easy.  The primitive methods produce decent results.  Why mess with success?  Another reason might be lack of materials.   Pipes cost money.  Ditches are free.  But probably the biggest impediment to progress is the screwed up system of land tenure.  It is unclear who owns any given piece of land.  Tribal, private, family and governmental claims overlap.  It gets worse.  Various assets are divided out.   A person may own the date palms, but not the land.  Another person owns the water rights.   One guy can graze sheep; another can plant crops.   It is a type of ossified adhocracy.  You can understand the logic in each individual aspect, but together they form a heavy burden.  A guy might plant a date palm only to find he does not own the harvest; he might improve an irrigation ditch and learn he does not own the water.

One of our colleagues thinks a way to cut this Gordian knot is through real estate taxes.  We all hate to pay them, but they do serve to establish ownership.  I know that I was relieved to receive my first Brunswick County tax bill on my tree farm.   Until then, I nursed the unreasonable fear that I somehow had been duped by those slow talkin’ but clever locals. Paying property taxes indicates ownership and at least a minimal commitment.   W/o that commitment, someone can conveniently wait to assert a claim after all the work is done and when he can steal someone else’s labor.

BTW – you can see the difference between mere involvement and commitment in your bacon and eggs breakfast.  The chicken is involved; the pig is committed.

In any case, I did appreciate that I was looking at the Mesopotamia that Sargon or Nebuchadnezzar would have seen. Alexander the Great might have looked at the same scene as he passed down the Euphrates.  They would have been surprised only by this guy’s stylish clothes and the bike that evidently is his means of transport, otherwise not.

I wonder what the locals thought of us.  I am sure the rumor is more interesting than the truth.  Our “patrol” was just picking up dirt, putting our hands in the water and taking pictures of plants.  Dennis filled a couple bottles with dirt and put a dried turd into his bag for later analysis.   Crazy Americans.

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It’s DaMayor

Sorry no ACTUAL pictures.  I forgot my camera.  My wife tells me my poses are getting formulaic anyway.  The picture I have included is from my files.  It is the house where I grew up in Milwaukee.   I planted that horsechesnut tree on the corner – from seed – in 1966, so you can see how big such a tree gets in 40 years.  Maybe I should have fertilized more…or some.

This is the real post

Sheiks are picturesque, but the future of Iraqi democracy is in the hands of the more prosaic local leaders: mayors, local council members and ordinary administrators.

We had a long talk with one of these guys, the mayor of Haditha at the home of a local notable.  His city of Haditha is recovering from the late unpleasantness.  As we drove through town, I noticed that shops are open and full of goods; people are rebuilding homes and fixing damage.  The neighborhood around our destination was very upscale and looked undamaged or repaired.  When we returned after dark, I noticed that the lights were on all over town.    The condition of the city leaves no doubt that it recently was the center of a war zone, but the life of the city gives hope that those dark times have passed. 

The Mayor is a believer in democracy and free speech.  He expressed some anxiety, however, about the quality of leadership available at the national and provincial level in Iraq.   There was not enough virtue and honesty, he complained, necessary for democracy to flourish and expressed the wish that the U.S.  would encourage the appointment of better officials at the national level, ones that would not be beholden to foreign interests.   He was speaking about Iran.   The general opinion around here is that the Iranians currently have overmuch influence in Iraq.  We discussed the need for virtue more generally. 

Our American founding fathers had little confidence in the long term efficacy of virtue in protecting liberty.   Their reading of the history of republics informed them that virtue is often in short supply among the political classes.  Lord knows we Americans do not usually have enough virtuous politicians to go around.  That is why they relied on balances and checks that would keep virtuous people virtuous or at least channel their self interest into less harmful directions.  With that in mind, I said that all governments need strong institutions to contain the ambition of potential leaders.  The Mayor mentioned a free media.  Unfortunately, this section of Anbar doesn’t have any regular media, but the mayor assured me that informal networks (i.e. gossip) were usually sufficient to keep the people informed.

I wondered if the “Iraqi diaspora” could use the skills and knowledge acquired in exile to help in their former homeland’s transformation, as expatriates from E. Europe had helped those countries throw off the lethargy of communism.   The Mayor corrected me, pointing out that in the case of Poles or Lithuanians, those who left and came back had been well integrated into society.  In some cases, they were well known and respected before they left.  In contrast, the Iraqi exiles were more often members of oppressed minority groups or isolated individuals.   Saddam was more brutal than the later years of communism in Europe.   Many of overseas Iraqis feel less connected with their homeland and are unenthusiastic about returning.  Even if they did they often lacked the networks and entrée that was common for E. European returnees.  Iraq’s future rests almost exclusively on the people who had stayed in, or at least near Iraq.

As we discussed Iraq’s future, we naturally moved to the economy and investment.   There are two big facilities in the Haditha district:  Haditha dam, which supplies power for most of Anbar and some of Baghdad, producing 180-200 mw of hydropower every day, and K3, a refinery and pump station for oil from Bayji in the north.  The pumping doesn’t work and the refining does not even support local needs.    If it was up and running near capacity, it could satisfy local needs and send product to other regions.  K3 produces kerosene and naphtha, the latter is also blended to make benzene.

For a “small” investment of $80 million, the pumping facility, which would service Basra and has connections to the Mediterranean through Syria, could be refurbished and developed, which would facilitate oil export, pay fat dividends and would probably reach a break even point within months, not years .  Why the central authorities, who own the plant, neglect this opportunity remained a mystery to all involved in the discussion.

Iraq needs a lot of investment, the mayor allowed.   That is why he hoped the Americans would be in Iraq now and forever.  He says that he always tells people to look to Japan, Korea and Germany.   The guarantee of stability provided by U.S. involvement s is like an umbrella for investment.   Investment goes only where it feels secure.  The recent success in Anbar has bought some time with the American political process, but the Marines continually point out that they will go home and American troop levels will drop.  Iraqis like the Mayor do not want to hear this.  

Rule of law is a prerequisite for both democracy and the free market.   The mayor pointed to out that during the recent insurgency, rule of law was not well established for the practical reason that it was nearly impossible to gather evidence or bring witnesses.  Now that order is being restored, it is time to establish procedures and rule of law.  We agreed that the test of rule of law was when it was applied to those we disliked. 

It is encouraging to talk to a man like The Mayor.   The discussion highlighted how far Iraq had come, but also how much remains to be accomplished.

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Salaam

Personal greetings are really important around here.  People visibly brighten up when you  acknowledge them with a simple wave and a “salaam”.  All of us make a special point to greet strangers when we pass.  Of course, when someone you know walks in, that is occasion for even more complicated good wishes.  From my initial observations and all I read or am told, this is an intensely personal culture.  Everyone needs to be included and acknowledged and relationships trump everything else.

It is also the culture of the spoken word.  People do not read much, but they listen carefully and remember the elegant spoken word.  Some people just like to hear themselves talk, but surprisingly others like to listen to the long talk.

I am beginning to appreciate the Arabic language.  I understand almost nothing, but I can hear the musical quality and I am learning to enjoythe animation of the speakers.  I like to listen to the calls to prayer and the readings from the Koran.  They are very evocative. 

All I can manage to actually say is the simple Salaam and then I flash a broad smile.  Despite the language barrier, I almost always get a smile back and it think it makes a difference to both of us.

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Dust

I have yet to see the kind of dust storm in the picture and the picture is from the webpage of an earlier inhabitant of Al Asad.  I have something to look forward to. 

Even absent spectacular “Mummy-class” sandstorms, if I had to use one word to describe Al Asad it would be dust.  But I would need more than this one word to describe the dust itself.  Naturally, we have the blowing dust.   I expected the blowing-in-the-wind dust.  It is the other kinds that I find more interesting.

I had not anticipated fog-dust.  I thought that dust would have an identifiable source and would either move in the wind or settle to the ground.  Evidently not.   Night before last I thought a fog had rolled in, but it was dust.  It made the waning moon a very attractive shade of red.  The dust just hung there.   It was still there in the morning when it looked more like a haze.  This morning it was windy and it looked clear, but after I ran around a little, I found that my ears, nose and throat were full of sand.  The finer dust particles are almost invisible.

I have seen moon-dust before, but never so much.  Moon dust is the kind of dust that cannot decide whether it should float in the air or lay on the ground so it does both.  I recently was disappointed to find that what looked like a nice smooth running trail was actually moon-dust obscuring some pretty painful rocks.   Moon dust disperses when you put your foot down; it is almost viscous or liquid. Some crawls up your legs and gets in your shorts; some slithers down and gets in your socks.  It is best avoided.   I do not think the moon-dust is really indigenous to Anbar or natural in general.  The constant rolling of our heavy vehicles and machinery probably creates the moon dust.  You often find moon dust around construction sites and I think that is the process here.

Of course there is the dust that our machines kick up more immediately.  Helicopters are excellent dust creators.  This is the most painful type of dust, containing little stones thrown at high velocity, but you can hunker down and ride it out.

Dust gets on everything.   It is a great equalizer, making dark and light a homogeneous grayish-brown.  I had my sunglasses secured in a zippered pocket, but when I took them out they were covered in dust.  Most of the local dust is khaki colored.  I understand the Brits in India’s Northwest Frontier province, a place with similar soils, “invented” that uniform color after everything they owned spontaneously turned khaki anyway.  The funny thing is that the dust inside building seems whitish.  Maybe if enough of it piled up it would look khaki.  I will probably find out, since. I have to admit that daily dusting is not on my agenda.  Computers are the worst because of all the nooks and crannies in the keyboards and their dust attracting fans and electromagnetic fields.  I keep my computer fairly clean with daily effort.  I bought a bunch of Ziploc bags to put some of my other stuff.  That helps some.   

I don’t suppose it is healthy to breathe all this dust.  My throat and nose feel dry a lot, but otherwise I do not feel any worse for the wear.   If I gain weight, I can blame the dust accretion on my insides.  But the concept of dust inspires no great fear.  I lived through worse.  As a young man I worked at Medusa Cement Company loading bags all day, twelve hour shifts.  That is where I became intimate with dust.  We had the cement equivalent of moon-dust and a lot more dust churning around in whatever lethargic breeze managed to get into the warehouse.  The cement dust would stick to sweaty flesh and it was persistent because it was waterproof once it adhered and hard to wash off.  What worked (and I don’t know why) was Irish Spring soap.   I used to particularly hate the dust in my beautiful blondish hair because it would sort of set up when I got it wet.  The Lord, in his wisdom, has taken the burden of hair off my head.  Besides the Al Asad dust, for all its offensiveness, seems to be water soluble.

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To My Overwrought Colleagues

Sorry to post twice in one day, but I just finished reading this article. 

To my vexed and overwrought colleagues, I say take a deep breath and calm down.  I personally dislike the whole idea of forced assignments, but we do have to do our jobs.  We signed up to be worldwide available.  All of us volunteered for this kind of work and we have enjoyed a pretty sweet lifestyle most of our careers.

I will not repeat what the Marines say when I bring up this subject.  I tell them that most FSOs are not wimps and weenies, but I am ashamed of my crybaby colleagues.  I will not share this article with them and I hope they do not see it. How could I explain this?
Calling Iraq a death sentence is just way over the top.  I volunteered to come here aware of the risks but confident that I will come safely home, as do the vast majority of soldiers and Marines, who have a lot riskier jobs than we FSOs do.

I wrote a post a couple days ago where I said that perhaps everyone’s talents are not best employed in Iraq.  That is still true.  But I find the sentiments expressed by some colleagues in the article deeply offensive.  What are they implying about me and my choice?  If they do not want to come, that is okay.  Personally, I would not want that sort out here with me anyway.  BUT they are not worldwide available and they might consider the type of job that does not require worldwide availability.  

We all know that few FSOs will REALLY be forced to come to Iraq anyway.  Our system really does not work like that.  This sound and fury at Foggy Bottom truly signifies nothing.  Get over it!  I do not think many people feel sorry for us and it is embarrassing for people with our privileges to wrap ourselves in the cloak of victimhood.  

We all know that the FS will step up.  Most of us want to do our duty.  We should not let ourselves be judged by the fools who cry at town hall meetings.