17 July

I promise all I was pointing at this kid was my camera. You'd think I had my pistol in one hand and the camera in the other.




A "shower." The security guards provide some insight to "Afghan" thinking. They have rooms with electricity with nearby running water, but choose to sleep out near their posts so they don't have to walk so far to get to work. The result is this is their shower. One guy climbs the ladder and dumps a bucket on the guy showering.




Notice the bag on the goats nipples. They do this so the baby goats don't take the milk so they can have it themselves.


He missed his turn. This is what created the traffic jam below.

I haven't asked, but I was stuck in traffic at this time. They probably would have been able to tell me "there is traffic."

Changing a tire.

Haji does surf...donkey surfing


This is what happens if there is a wreck or a traffic slow down...they all bunch up. So, what happens if there is a wreck that blocks both lanes, everyone on both sides of the wreck does this. So, now you have to clear the wreck and get all the idiots out of the road before you can let a either side go.



Caught my eye--they had to know they were going to run out of room

Hunch Back of Kabul and an overcrowded bus with people on top in one frame...great success

Old russian Armored Personnel carrier

Sweet Jingle-bling


An impressive gut. We think he is pregnant



These are our fearless fire fighters for the ANA. We are working on them being able to run drills without "pre-alerting" the drill. For those of you non-nuclear types, this means you can know that a drill is coming, but you should go about your business like you don't know it is coming. The first drill we ran, these clowns were dressed and ready on the water truck 30min before the "drill" was supposed to start. Our goal for the second drill was no "pre-alertment." Just before the second drill, I went to deliver some sandbags to the firefighters and this is what I found. They were slightly embarrassed, but were quick to pose when I broke out the camera.




"Dead guy" for drill. He was laying next to the "suicide bomb" (a burning blanket). When the fire fighters showed up, they sprayed the fire extinguishers everywhere, including all over this poor guy. He didn't flinch. He played a great dead guy.





Another new friend and true business man


Well, after making my blog entry last Jummah (corrected from previous spellings), I relaxed for a few hours and then went to the bazaar. This is our primary interaction with the local kids. I usually load up my pockets with candy or pens and hand it out along the way. Friday, I filled an entire cargo pocket with over 50 pens/pencils/markers and wrapped some shoes my mom sent me in a piece of material. I thought it would be a big hit…and it was. They were so happy to see me that they mobbed me. Ripping things out of my hands, fighting each other for shoes. You had one kid with a flip flop and another with the other one…each telling me that they only got one. It came down to an Afghan security guard back handing a few of them and open hand smacking a few others for them to get off of me. I only had to back hand one of them because he ran up and grabbed me after I had had enough and decided that this was a bad idea. I gave the guard that helped me what was left in my pockets and a pair of crocs for his kid and got the hell out of there. This is not the first instance of these little bandits not appreciating our kindness and being patient. A few weeks ago, in the bazaar, a boy that works at one of the shops had just accepted my payment for several things and was thanking me for the business when I offered him some candy. My hands were full, so I handed him the bag and said take one or two. He reached in and was gone with several fists full before I knew what happened. I told him, “Nay, nay, nay” as I pulled the bag away, but he continued to grab and looked in my eyes as he made away with my candy. I told him to enjoy the candy b/c he was never going to see a single penny from me and anyone of my friends if I could help it. I don’t know if he thought I was joking b/c every time I go, he says, “My friend, my friend, come to my shop, I have no business.” I tell him that is good, I like watching thieves fail. I usually holler something over my shoulder as I walk pass about how he shouldn’t have taken the candy or that I hope he enjoyed the candy.

Today, I was confronted by a mob of dirty Afgan kids all yelling “Mista, chocolate…” As I got closer and passed through them, I could see that they each had a mouth full of chocolate. It is cute and fun to give them things sometimes, but it is setting up this country for failure just like welfare did for ours.

Cultural Note: many of you are hunters or are married to one and have seen your food go from hoof to pot…maybe by way of the freezer. All of us have bought meat from a butcher or the grocery and never paid much mind to what that animal looked like or how long ago it was killed. I am not going vegi on you, this is just a lead-in to something I saw a few weeks ago. I have been unsuccessful at capturing it on film, but some of the butchers sell meat on the side of the road from stands we would associate with a booth at a flea market or a beer stand at a fair. Now picture it 140F out and there is a huge cow’s back leg hanging from the corner off the lean-to roof. They sometimes use the cow’s hide to keep the flies off, but I rarely see this measure taken. I don’t know what happens to the rest of the cow, but I only see one back leg hanging there…(I am sure the rest is refrigerated). Well, we were on our way to drop someone off at the airfield at 330am when we passed one of the stands and saw a huge cow standing next to it...a few of us joked about how that cow was hanging out in a bad neighborhood for beef. Ten minutes later when we passed back by on our way home, the cow was dead. Three hours later, I passed again and just one leg was left hanging by a hook. BY 2pm that day, there was no more cow. It was interesting to watch this over the course of the day.

I had a great week. My mentee and his security force have showed great improvement in their ability to plan and execute exercises and drills. They are really starting to understand the importance of some of the many things that I have been trying to drill into their heads for the past 3months.

An Army colonel asked me how things were going the other day, and I told him how frustrated I get sometimes. He reminded me to exercise “Expectation Management.” I realized instantly how important those two words are. I was briefly reminded of the instance many years ago when my mom told me (one of many times): “I guess I expected more from you, I am disappointed.” I replied, “Well mom, if you don’t expect much, it makes it harder to be disappointed.” I was probably back handed shortly thereafter. I now know that to expect the world is to pave the way for disappointment, but to expect nothing is a disservice to yourself and others. It is all about managing your expectations and making expectation adjustments over time. When I got here, I wanted to help so bad and had high expectations. My expectations clouded my reality and led to me doing too much work for the Afghans, furthering their dependence on us. I quickly grew tired of doing it for them and started getting angry when they wouldn’t do it themselves. I don’t know what I expected of them after studying the history of the United States and knowing that if you do something for someone else that they should be doing themselves, the end result is they will let you and they won’t know how to do it eventually. I have now shifted, along with all of my fellow Americans here to a “I’ll watch, you do it" mentality. One guy that I work with was too busy to visit the clinic where he mentors the doctor and his staff due to our schedule. When he finally got over there, he found the clinic cleaner, more organized, and the senior medic had made a training plan and was training his junior personnel. I don’t have clear explanation for this, draw from it what you will.

God Bless, have a good weekend.

BMP