How do you tell someone they can't stay in their own home anymore? How do you look someone in the eye when you know that what little they have, they should abandon, even though they have nowhere else to go?
We had to do that today. Another day looking for nightmares, another day finding them...
We found a house full of gear from Tuwaitha. Full of apparently useful stuff.
Metal sheeting to balance over the rough brick walls to make a roof, wiring, a handful of bolts and screws and a room full of collected goodies in an area where such things pass as almost luxury.
We found that those few possessions were giving readings that would give the entire family, and the one scrawny chicken in the yard, huge doses of radiation. We compared the readings to the UK permissible dose of radiation for a person over a year and calculated that the family would reach that annual dose within two hours. They have had their haul in the house for days, if not weeks already.
More little kids surround us as we explain to the elder of the house what the situation is. His toddler daughter perched naked on the wall swinging her legs, and staring at the scary strangers as we talked.
He understands he has something that could threaten her and the rest of his young family and is prepared to clear out the jumble of metal to an area where we can seal it off. He basically has to virtually dismantle his ramshackle house, because a lot of the stuff was more or less keeping it up - that's why it was so appealing and so useful. So after an hour of frantic crashing and banging, wrenching of cables and metal sheeting, what this morning was his home is in ruins. He is left with those few rough stone walls and a lingering fear.
Behind his house we found a source registering 10,000 times normal. Once again
We cannot identify the source and cannot remove it - tomorrow we ask the US military to come and help us.
There was some light today - but it was something of a mysterious glow. We where back at Al-Majidat primary school - Mister Sara, Mister Sara - how are you from hundreds of kids. It's amazing how intimidated you can feel when that many kids are swarming over you, even if they do only come up to your waist. So they grab your hand and pump it furiously - you need to be an octopus to keep up with demand - laugh at the undoubtedly stupid expressions on my face and then pinch my cheek - not sure if that is a greeting or just taking the piss...any bets on it more likely to be the latter than the former?
Anyway, a blue and white bus suddenly turned up - a smart one, clean, no rust and no Ben Hur style spurs on the hub caps - man they are scary, but all the rage. I'm thinking of bringing a set back for my bicycle in Amsterdam.
A head popped out of the window and asked if this was Al-Majidat school. When it was confirmed, six men in white boiler suits stepped out and started scanning the school with radiation monitors. They wouldn't tell us who they were - though they were all Iraqi, and they wouldn't let us film them, though we did anyway.
They walked straight past our cordoned off area several times, but eventually they too found the radiation source.
They did what our radiation experts said was too dangerous, and with virtually no protection, dug it up.
We just stood open mouthed.
But after they had gone, we checked the site and they had indeed removed the source. A huge blessing, but it leaves me wondering - who they were, why they asked for this school and more importantly, where have they taken that source.
The general opinion was they were from the Iraqi Atomic Energy Agency, but working for the Americans. Weird, but wonderful that they are free of that problem - now we just have to keep working on the rest. Especially after one of the men finally agreed to talk to Rianne and told her he had checked a house recently where the family had repeatedly complained about their young boy feeling sick. When they arrived they found him playing with seven radioactive sources under his bed.
Some light relief finally this evening. Mini Mo - so named by the way because his real name is Christian and we decided that might prompt too many questions about his religion that he couldn't answer, so we changed it - okay it was funny a the time, but that was a while ago and in a pub late at night!
Anyway, tradition has it that on Greenpeace trips the cameraman compiles a crew tape at the end of the campaign - all the stupid shit that everyone says and does without even realising - he is cooking up a storm - we gathered round his laptop to watch Dr Rianne and William, so intent on checking their dosimeters as the alarms rang out once more, walk straight into each other, clashing heads and bouncing off a wall. More Abbot and Costello than serious experts on anything. Gallows humour is the only thing that gets you through the day sometimes.