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

10 July - Granny B: WARNING SNAKE PHOTOS

Another beautiful truck.


"Wrench" telling these guys they are wrong



They watch and think, "Man, we gotta do this again."

2 Weeks behind, why wouldn't you wash a car on the job site

It is the small things...people are not held to a standard...

...ever.

Snake from last Friday

Happy Cobra Killer

After the rocks, before the pool stick

This is my office hallway, my feet must have been just outside the photo

Long hard week.

Saturday, the 4th, I went on 3 convoys to the airfield down the road...it is a short ride, but the whole commotion of gearing up and gearing down takes a while. The first one was at 330 a.m. to take some guys to catch a plane, went again at 9am to drop off a truck, and back at 1pm to pick up the truck and get mail. Well how nice for them, no work on that base for 4th of July, so no mail for us. We did have a BBQ dinner on the 4th on the back patio of the dining facility. They decorate the dining facility for different holidays, so it was nice. It doesn't come close to being at home or at the real "Personville" for the 4th. One guy told me a story of him calling his brother on the 4th, and the brother answers the phone by popping open a beer and describing the BBQ...the guy just hung up...saying, "I don't be needn' to hear about all that bull sh-- right now."

His facial expressions make the story...he is a cross between Dave Chapelle and Mike Rivaut (Major and Dad only will get this reference).

One of the major security projects I have been working on opened up Saturday. It is a new gate. Well that threw their whole world for spin. It was like teaching them how to do their jobs all over again. My temper grew very short and eventually pretty much was lost Wednesday morning. I was explaining to one group via my interpreter how they were not doing their jobs correctly when one of them interrupted me and started telling his side of the story...on a calm day I simply ask them to remind me of our current situation: "Were you invited to my country to help me sort this crap out, or am I here to help you?" Usually that gets them on the right track. However, Wednesday, I yelled at him in English (not sure what I was hoping to accomplish) to shut up, I told him I didn't care about his story, or why he thought doing it my way was not important. I realized I needed to walk away, and did so. Apparently, as I walked away, the Security Co. Commander, my mentee, proceeded to beat the snot out of this kid. I didn't see it, but another American and terp saw the whole thing.

My whole team is growing tired. We are in a situation in which we want to do everything we can to help the ANA and Afghanistan, but we tend to have a 1yr sprint mentality. The fact of the matter is, you can't sprint for a year and these folks are here for life, so they are in no hurry to help themselves...why would they be, the silly Americans are willing to do almost everything for us. They have great pride in themselves as individuals, but not in the sense you 'd think. For instance, if I walk up to a job site that is all jacked up and want to correct it and show them the right way to do something, they will let me do the whole thing...not the stand and watch and look concerned kind of let someone else do the work, but more the find a shady spot to squat down and just let that dude do my business type of laziness. Pray for my team, our patience and our stamina.

The contractors cut corners in the construction of buildings because for the most part they can get away with it. We have an incredible Warrant Officer (Wrench) who rides them hard. I have seen them tear up slabs he didn't like, tear down walls that were a little off, etc. He tells them "This is wrong, stop now and go back to step X." They will sometimes continue in defiance, and he just says..."Ok, I'll make you tear it out tomorrow." These idiots continue to test him, and he continues to make them go 1 step back 2 steps fwd day after day. The reason they are willing to spend the extra time and money on double work is that they average about 150% profit on each contract. So they try to cut corners to make more money, if they get caught and have to do double work, they just accept defeat and move on because they know they get away with enough.

On a different note, my leave dates are relatively set for the second half of August for 2 weeks, and I am set to be back in the states for good around the beginning of December.

Murl and I are in the process of deciding on our next duty station, so keep that in your prayers as well.

Have a great weekend. God bless.

BMP

03 July

SORRY, NO PICS. I had plenty of them, but my computer decided to delete them. It told me there was a problem with the folder and asked if I wanted it to fix it...sure, why not? My computer's idea of fixing a problem apparently is akin to that of the mafia.


Happy 4th everyone! This week has really flown by. I went on convoys several days, so that makes things go by pretty fast. Our boss returned from leave, so we had to go back to Bagram to pick him up along with some more supplies. I was back on the FOB for one day, and then back on the road. Thursday, I went up to some really small FOBs to deliver them some new vehicles. It was my first time to travel in this area of the country. We drove along a river valley just miles from the Pakistan border. The terrain is absolutely beautiful. As usual, we passed village after village with kids lining the streets waving and gesturing for water/food or just giving a thumbs up. We got a few other gestures, but those are few and far between.

I did get to witness the ANA do some very interesting things, as usual. On the way home from Kabul, an 18-wheeler in our convoy “broke down.” I use quotes, b/c his break down spot was located in a picturesque valley with a small stand that sold drinks and fruit…oh, how convenient it was prayer time, too. Heck, while we are stuck here, let’s take some pictures with our RPGs in front of the river to send back to mom and dad. All the while, the silly Americans will believe that this truck is broken, but we are fixing it and will be done any moment now.

I’ll get back to the prayer/faith subject in a minute.

The whole purpose of us going to Kabul besides picking up the boss and supplies was to pick up some up armored Hummers for the ANA. Yes, the ANA is now starting to be outfitted with the same equipment as the U.S….well kind of the same. We have M1151 and they are getting M1152 (yes, theirs are newer and more powerful). So our convoy up there was about 13 vics, a mix of U.S. and ANA. Now on the way back it is over 25 with the new ANA Hummers and the 18wheelers pulling the new U.S. trucks for the guys at the smaller FOBS. Keep in mind, the ANA is used to driving FORD Ranger pickup trucks…now we are giving them something the width of one and a half Suburbans that weighs 14000 pounds.

Before we even left to return to JBAD, an ANA Hummer ran into the Ranger parked behind my vic…chaos ensued. ANA officers appeared from everywhere yelling and screaming at the Hummer. One opened the door and proceeded to beat the driver about the head and face until his hand apparently hurt. So, you are thinking did we train these people to use this new equipment?…Yes, supposedly.

As the sun set on us in a winding valley, I see that the ANA Hummer a few vics in front of me doesn’t have its lights on. I know what is about to happen and what already has. This guy doesn’t know how to turn the lights on, and he is going to break it trying. There is a safety mechanism that prevents you from accidentally turning on the lights in case you are trying to be “dark.” So, as the sun goes down, I am hoping that I am wrong and he is going to sort it out…NOT. Now, what is happening is the 18wheeler behind the dark Hummer notices the problem and does the neighborly deed of lighting his path by driving in the left hand lane next to him on a two lane mountain side road with a sheer drop to a river going about 40mph. I am not believing this. I call up to my boss and recommend we stop to stop the madness and prevent the imminent crash. So we stop, and yes, he did break the light switch. During the stop, a medic was requested due to a cranial laceration…yes, this injury occurred while we were stopped. The best I can guess is someone got lippy and someone got an AK-47 butt stroke to the skull.

A few other “ANA NEW TOY-isms”:
1. The turret (gunner’s area on top) is usually (always /100% of the time/everyday) reserved for one man, in body armor with a heavy weapon…what did the ANA think was a good idea? Two or three guys with no body armor and no weapon (how would you fit a weapon and two friends?). They thought they were in a victory parade or something…hair and beard blowing in the wind taking close up pics of each other.

2. The turret (see above description) is a “keep hands and arms and most other body parts inside type of space”…not anymore. Some American gunners will rest an arm or hand on the top of the turret…ANA rests arms inside the turret. I saw one guy sitting outside the turret on the passenger side of the roof with his feet dangling in front of the passenger windshield on the hood…THE ENTIRE TRIP HOME.

The ANA guys we rolled with Thursday were more professional. Didn’t see any crazy things today except the areas we drove through had a lot more naked Afghan toddlers running around…just an observation.

As far as religion/faith go, Afghanistan is 99.9% Muslim/Islamic. A person is a Muslim. The religion is Islam. Rules, teachings…etc are Islamic. The official name of the country is the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (IRoA). From what I can tell, you are either a good Muslim or a bad Muslim. I am not 100% sure of the wickets one must meet to be on either side of the argument. A good Muslim prays 5 times/day (usually in a mosque) and believes that if anything happens, it is the will of God. A bad Muslim may or may not pray 5 times, uses the will of God as an excuse for laziness, and will talk of drinking and his girlfriend in Kabul. As far as the whole will of God concept, or “Enshalla,” it is quite frustrating. We try to get them to clean their facilities to prevent illness, we get, “Dirt/filth doesn’t cause illness, God does.” I try to get certain security measures implemented, and get told, “If it is God’s will, we will be attacked.” I cannot tell them that God doesn’t help those who don’t help themselves, b/c then I will be punished under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for proselytizing (preaching to people).

Afghans believe that the prayer in the mosque counts for more points: I was walking with my terp a while back, and call to prayer came over the loudspeaker at the mosque. I asked if he was going to go, and he said that he was with me, so he would go later. I said thanks and asked if he prayed in his room or just anywhere, or did he only pray in the mosque. He explained that he could pray anywhere, but prayer with the congregation was better. His exact words were, “So, today…I lose.”

Prayer call is 5 times per day. The first starts at about 3:30 am and they have a few more throughout the day and then another around sunset. The first time I heard it, I was sleeping in a tent my first night in country and nearly jumped out of my skin thinking it was the “Allah Akbar” (God is great…now I am going to kill you) vice the “Allah Akbar” (God is great…wake up and come to Mosque). The call to prayer is sang/chanted over loudspeakers situated on top of the mosques. There are mosques everywhere, so when call goes down, you may hear 3 or 4 separate sets of speakers “Alllllllllllllllllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah Akkkkkkkkkkkbaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrr….” I just grin and say yep, sure is. Many of them carry beads around very similar to a rosary (without that whole cross thing) and say prayers for the different beads. I asked once what they say or how the beads work and was told, "you just say 'Allah Akbar...Allah Akbar'" Not very creative in their prayers.

One thing I have come to terms with is SAFETY doesn’t exist in this culture…back to the Enshalla attitude. They don’t tell one another to “Be safe” before a mission, it is God be with you. Americans should probably be telling each other “God be with you” a little more often, but we need to be safe too my people.

I hope this cultural lesson answered some of the questions I have been getting about their religious habits.

Until next week, GOD BE WITH YOU and be careful. Have a safe 4th.

BMP

NOTE:
(It is Thurs night. I write this every Thurs night and then load it on Fri morning. I was sitting here proof reading when I hear, “Hey, DOG (Dog is a 300# redneck from Arkansas that works for KBR on the FOB) what kind of snake is this?” I had to hear it twice before it clicked…must be an inside snake…not good. I ran out of my office to a COBRA between me and the door. I grabbed a pool stick from the rec room and broke it on my first swing. His head is up now hissing and I got people throwing rocks from the other direction at the snake and me and yelling at me to keep him inside. What kind of sense does that make…keep the damn snake inside? I chased the snake outside to the stone throwers. There were no less than 10 people in a semicircle tossing baseball size rocks at this snake. They got one good hit and I finished him with the pool stick piece in my hand….not cool man, not cool.)

26 June

Never even thought of it before-wheelbarrow lounger


Just a neat little car I wanted to take a pic of. Notice the medal chains dangling from the front. This is Afghan car bling. The trucks are called Jingle Trucks b/c they have so much junk attached to them they jingle down the highway. I was going to do a photo essay on just jingles, but have been unable to take the pics. I encourage you all to look up "Jingle Trucks" on google and take in some sights...



This is a pic of a jingle with some elaborate designs and paintings on it. This is typical of what a fuel tanker looks like. Notice the burn barrel in the vicinity of the fuel tanker. This truck was empty. As I rounded the corner of the building, this is what I saw, and decided I had to have this pic. The truckers get these trucks and put them to work right away. They work on them over a period of months, all the while using them to haul fuel....so you are starting to see the problem: Welding on a big tank that is full of fuel or fumes. One of them has blown himself up working on his jingle in town since I have been here. Some of these trucks are real beauties.




Trouble. The one in the light colored man-jamies on the right spotted us coming down the road and took off for us to be the first one to get whatever candy or goodies we had. As he was running towards us, he was focused intently on his feet. I said, "hey everyone, watch this." I took off running toward him at a full sprint. When he looked up and saw me coming, he came to a sliding stop in the gravel and took off in the other direction. I nearly fell over laughing along with all the other kids in the field. He was so flustered he nearly fell in that puddle he is standing in front of. To be honest, I thought he was all the way in it. All I could see was his feet sticking over the top of the edge. He was hangin on to a root or something. All that was wet was his butt.





A used car salesman and the muscle men


Tough guys...the small one is the one that got the wet bottom.

Don't let the C-wire fool you, they were on us in no time. I was taking a picture of the group when the guy next to me tossed a handful of candy into the air. The battle for sugery goodness ensued.

Thumbs up. She is a Tiger Fan.

A new friend.

26 June

Another one down…a week, a book, and a national championship. For those that are concerned, I was able to watch the games. We had the first Arkansas game and the Texas series on ESPN. It required me to get up at 3:30am for first pitch. I’d usually track it on the internet while talking to Murl and then catch the rest either in the gym or in the cafeteria. The National Guard unit in the area right now is from Georgia, so they were pulling for LSU against Texas. Football season should be interesting.

I did a good bit of mentoring this week, and have continued to learn about the language and culture. I can nowhere near carry a conversation, but have made it a point to learn things like “good to see you…I will see you later…how are you.” Of course I have picked up a few other things…I wanted to figure out their equivalent of “What’s up?”...the closest they could give me is “how are you, boy?” So, I started using that with the terps, and then one decided to ask me “what is up little girl?” I had to counter that by finding out how to put him in his place the next time…the best they could do for me was “sit down, dirty one,”…pretty offensive huh? The problem is he thought it was the funniest thing when I told him. I tried using it on a group of about 20 kids (pictured above) and they all just started yelling…not in English, but not in Pashtun either…it couldn’t have been anything coherent. It was like the whitey with sunglasses speaking Pashtun gave them a rush of energy they have never experienced (or maybe it was the fact that they had been begging for candy for 6 hours). So, because I make a concerted effort to learn the language, and enjoy the food so much, a couple of the terps have said, "Lt Person, he is Afghan."

I learned a valuable lesson this week, and I hope the people of Afghanistan did, too. Don't use an open flame to cook underneath your fuel truck. Pretty powerful lesson. So powerful the explosion a mile a way shook the building I was sleeping in. TO BE CLEAR, THIS WAS AN ACCIDENT NOT AN ATTACK. Some local idiot waiting to get his fuel truck to the delivery point was cooking his dinner at about 9pm Wed night when his truck went boom. Of course, we didn't know what was going on, so we hunkered down. We could see the flames were in the distance, and the next day we got the full story. I would like to see the sign they make for the highway warning people of the dangers of cooking over an open flame underneath your fuel truck.

Another interesting experience I had this week started with a coworker losing his gvt issued 9mm pistol. He was carrying some heavy cables for a generator on the ANA base when he shifted the cables on his shoulder, the pistol hit the ground, and he didn't realize. A nearby ANA officer watched the pistol for 2 to 3 minutes and picked it up and put it in his waistband. We searched for hours and started checking all ANA/civilians leaving the base. We restricted certain groups of people to the base. I was doing a final back track of his steps when a boy in civilian clothes motioned me over. He was squatting in the shadows of some trees with his face half covered. He muttered some broken English about some cables and a pistol. That is all I needed to hear, so I took him with me to find a terp. He told us he saw the whole thing go down and wanted to help get the pistol back. The problem was, he just wanted to tell us what he saw, but didn't know who he saw. We told the base commander one of his officers took the pistol, and he wanted to talk to the boy. The kid was deathly affraid that he would lose his job or worse. So I set out to start my own little witness protection plan. It took a lot of convincing to get the kid to talk to the base commander. After a few minutes with the base commander, he went from I don't want to talk to any ANA officers to "Take me to them, I will show you which one did it." We put him in a U.S. Army uniform (that is what our terps wear), sunglasses, a full head cover, and a different pair of flipflops. The group of officers that work in the area the pistol was dropped were put in a room. As he walked in calmly, a silence fell over the room. About 10 men...one knowing he is in big trouble and 9 others scared that they are going to get blamed for something they have nothing to do with. He walked up to one guy and stuck his finger in his chest and barked something in Pashtu. I was speechless. The pistol was returned within an hour. I don't know what they did to recover it from him, I don't know what his punishment is, and I haven't seen him since. I have seen the boy on base a few times. What he did was very brave and honorable. Often times in this country, bravery is confused with stupidity or carelessness. Honor is hard to come by in a war torn country where the average yearly income is about the same as the average minimum wage two week income in the U.S. He could have easily approached the officer and told him to pay up or he would report him. He could have gotten $1000 dollars from that guy, but he chose to do the right thing when he didn't have to, when no one was watching him. Afghanistan and the world needs more Azims.

Take care, God bless, and have a good weekend. And of course, GEAUX TIGERS!

BMP

19 June 2009

View from my position in the Village

Part of a growing crowd. They are sitting on the roof of a mud hut that is situated right next to the road. You can see my commander and our medic below in the village talking to the elders before going into a house for a meeting and tea.

A guy from my team and I at the HA site survey

Just another ANA dude getting his picture taken. This was his third pose.

Really dull week.

The highlight of my week was going out last Saturday for a humanitarian assistance site survey. We do the survey to get the lay of the land and see what the people need. We order the stuff and make a plan to go back and hand out things and administer minor medical care. The site is a small village (about 300 families) on a river. The village is perched on a flat piece of land at the base of the mountains overlooking the river. It is neat little place and the people were glad to have us.
My job for the mission was to provide security for my commander while he went into a meeting with the village elder to discuss some of the problems the village has and what the ANA/Americans can do to help. Throughout this and all of our trips (other than weekly mail runs), the ANA is right next to us providing security as well. They had an officer in the meeting doing the talking, we are there as advisers. The children would flock around us and just stare. These kids are young enough that they don’t know an Afghanistan without faceless American men with fancy sunglasses and big black guns. I brought along a bag of candy and gave it to my interpreter to pass out to the kids. When the crowd of kids around me would get too big, I didn’t have to worry about it, an ANA soldier would be along shortly to shoo them away like a stray animals. The kids would run a few meters and laugh and slowly creep back to a sitting position close enough to be shooed away minutes later…sounds like a fun game, right?The meeting lasted for about 45min and we left the area without incident.
While I was there, I did get to enjoy an Afghan Capri Sun (although, it probably was made in Pakistan). While we were there, a man approached me and asked if I could help his daughter…he was grabbing his hand. Our medic was in the meeting, so I said that I would take a look. He said that she had burned her hand and there was a problem with the healing. As he walked away to get her, I asked how long ago (I figured days), he responded “2 years.” Well about that time, I knew that Neosporin wasn’t going to help. He brought her out, and this is what we saw:

(her last three fingers on her right hand are pretty much webbed together. Her fingers healed in a curled position, so she'll need some physical therapy to straighten that out)

I don’t have any follow up on her. I forwarded the pictures to our lead medic and he did some research. Her father can bring her to an Egyptian run hospital about 3hrs away, and she can get the surgery done there. We are going to advise them on how to do this and make the arrangements for them. I will try to keep up with this and let y’all know anything that I find out. The best I can figure is that she spilled a pot or kettle on her hand and it was wrapped in a cloth to heal.The rest of the week has been really slow.

I have done a ton of office work and little mentoring. My main mentee was gone most of the week. We met Monday and Thursday. I had lunch in his office off of the vinyl table cloth both days. I had lady fingers (smothered okra cut in about 2” pieces) for the first time here. It is one of my favorites back home, and they did an excellent job on it. They bring so much food, and as most of you know I’ll sit and eat for a while. I have to make them take it away. Both days this week, they brought watermelon for dessert. Thursday, I had somewhere to be, so I tried to excuse myself after only a few pieces, and my mentee told me, “No, you have to eat.” So, I ate. He was probably joking, but he doesn’t laugh when he jokes. He laughs at other times, mainly when I joke or try to speak Pashtun.
He is a very interesting man. I have been reading a lot since I got to this mysterious land. I have read two books about Afghanistan. One was from Alexander the Great to present times, with very little about the country since 2001. The other talked very little about before 2001, and focused mainly on Sept 2001 to Jan 2002. Both went into great detail about their respective time periods and both heavily praised a man known as “The Lion.” Massoud was his last name and he was killed on 9 Sept 2001. Bin Laden had him killed, because he knew that the Americans would be coming and Massoud and his men would help the U.S. Well, obviously we did fine without him, but he was a great man for the country and people of Afghanistan. People bow their heads at the sound of his name. People have his face plastered to the front windshield of cars or in the common room of their homes. Well, I decided to ask about the military history of my mentee. He fought next to the Lion against the Russians and the Taliban. He helped the U.S. beat the Taliban in the winter months of 2001. He has seen a lot. He walks with a limp; his right ankle looks like it is permanently rolled. He has huge scars up and down his arms. He stands about 5’5” tall but thinks he is as big as his afternoon shadow. It is unique to have had hours and hours of conversation with this man, but the only words we have exchanged between the two of us directly are “How are you , God be upon you.”

I hope you are all enjoying my tales. I write so you know that I am enjoying my time here. I write so you can try to understand how someone could enjoy this. I especially write so you know that there is a lot more good going on in this country than bad.

Take care and God Bless.

BMP

12 June

Just a little manlove...not that there is anything wrong with that. (It is nothing to see Afghan men and boys holding hands. They will take breaks from work and lean and lay on each other...just imagine pulling up to a construction site at lunch time and seeing a group of workers just lounging around in the shade with their heads on each other's chests. A few of the Afghan officers have tried to hold my hand while talking or walking...I am just not ready to take our relationship to that level yet...my best technique is to break out into a coughing fit.)


Afghan traffic. No driver's license required here...just a set of wheels. This is the most patient culture I have seen in every facet of life except the roads. When traffic slows or stops, they will go three wide with the quickness. This is wall, car, truck, truck, curb, 1000' drop. As far as the guy wandering around in the road, unexplainable.



Flat tire...we couldn't secure the road for 45min b/c that pisses off the people and pissed off Afghans blow stuff up, so we had to set security and hurry up.


Moral of this story: Poppy (Opium) Kills and Wheat makes delicious bread. Because of the low literacy rates (about 30% across the country; higher in the city and much lower in the mountains), the make signs that tell the story with pictures.


Traffic on the switchbacks...all the cars on this road are jam packed with people. It is common to see a 4door sedan with 6 or 8 people in it. Most of the trucks have people on top of the cargo. Notice the curb that keeps you from plunging 1000'.


Typical view from an eastern Afghan valley floor.


Flood plain of Kabul River. There are people in some spots fishing from large inner tubes and the roads near the lakes are dotted with fishermen selling their catch.


Donkeys


Cow


Middle Aged-Middle-Eastern Camel Heardin' Man


Smoke in the Cab


This is an Afghan Police Sub Station


Entering a Tunnel

Another week in the books. I started my work week early Saturday morning by driving in a convoy to Kabul. It is only about 91 miles, but it takes about 3.5 to 5hrs to get there. We drove there, dropped off the ANA trucks that made the trip with us, refueled, and drove about 40miles north to Bagram Airfield (1.5 to 2hrs). At Bagram, we dropped off some U.S. guys for various reasons, did some shopping, picked up some U.S. guys, and a truckload of supplies. The FOB I live on has a small store(approx 150 square feet). We pick up supplies to restock it from Bagram once a month. Then it was back on the road to Kabul for the night.Sunday morning I went for a run (6,000 feet elevation and the air quality of your garage with the car running) and attended a two hour class on how to stay out of federal prison (learned how to properly spend your tax dollars to help the Afghan Army where there supply system is lacking). Sunday afternoon, it was back to Jalalabad.
This was my first extensive ground travel in the country, and mileage wise, it is not that extensive. I saw some of the most beautiful terrain God has created. During that short trip, we drove through tunnels built by the Russians, saw gutted out Russian tanks, drove through mountain passes where Afghans have defeated their enemies for thousands of years. I saw goats, sheep, cattle, and camels. Almost hit one of each at some point in the drive. Our speed varied from dead stop up to 55mph. We went through an area we call "The Switch Backs." It is a few miles where the road climbs over 1,000 feet. You drive one direction up the mountain,then you do a U-turn and drive up the mountain the other direction. The only thing keeping you from going to the bottom is commonsense and a 1foot concrete curb.The route took us through several towns and many small villages. The streets were lined with small children constantly giving us a thumbs up and yelling. They would stop giving the thumbs up only long enough to make a drinking gesture in an effort to get us to come off a few bottles of water. We cannot give them water for several reasons (a. 30mph bottle of water is hard to catch and if you catch it with your face, your face is broken...not good for winning hearts and minds. b. if it bounces in the road, they will go after it, they will fight over it, and they don't care what else is coming in the road.)

Other than a suicidal cow that was only being kept off the highway by a young boy with all his strength, the craziest thing I saw was ...well,there were a few of them.

1. ANA Fire Drill: while driving down the highway (my truck was the last in the convoy that stretched several kilometers), the ANA cargo truck in front of me stopped dead in the road. At that exact moment, an oncoming ANA Ford Ranger stopped next to it. One soldier from each truck jumped out, they exchanged a weapon, and the one from my convoy got in the other truck headed back to JBAD, and vice-versa. This all lasted about a minute. My gunner was yelling at them to hurry the hell up, we were getting left. My truck commander was trying frantically on the radio to inform our convoy commander (over a mile away now) what we were seeing.I was just honking the horn and looking on in amazement. It took us over 5minutes and several miles to catch up on some of the curviest roads I have ever traveled.


2. U.S. Fire Drill: While driving from Kabul to Bagram (no ANA at this point) down a very bumpy road destroyed from IED attacks and vehicle wrecks, the U.S. truck in front of me radios in that there is smoke in the cab of their truck and they must stop. I immediately stopped and positioned my truck to block the rest of the convoy ahead of me from any traffic coming behind us and watched as they all bailed out of the truck with a puff of white smoke. We were there for about 15 minutes while they inspected everything and slowly started up equipment until they had enough equipment to safely drive and communicate. It wasn't until the next day that someone found that the turn signal module by the driver's left leg had melted.

3. The same truck got a flat tire on the way back from Bagram that night that we had to stop for about 45min to change.

Nothing too exciting by war zone standards, but it was an interesting trip, nonetheless.
The rest of the week went pretty fast. My Officer in Charge (OIC) is on leave back in Ohio. We are doing a ton of construction work here on the FOB, so I had to adjust some security measures for the Afghans that will be working here. There is a Catholic chaplain in town, so we had mass last night and will have it today and Saturday. Out of the 4 of us that showed up, I had been most recently for Easter, so naturally, the priest wanted to perform Easter mass...at least he didn't want to do vigil. Today, we are doing last Sunday's, and Saturday, we are doing this coming Sunday's. This guy obviously doesn't prescribe to the "Once you show up to mass, you are all caught up theory." He did make it abundantly clear that Saturday's mass would count for Sunday...that is nice of him.

Everyone have a great weekend. Take care and God Bless.

BMP

5 June

Farmer and kids in the field (I was on top of the wall installing security cameras. All of the water in the field is put there one shovel scoop at a time out of an irrigation ditch.)


BBQ Prep


The spread


BBQ Pits with coworkers


Some sort of cupcake...wrapped in newspaper



What I brought to the table


Had to take a picture of it


Little girls playing hide and seek from me at the HA mission


Happy little girls with their new goods from the HA mission


Caught her slippin'



Little boys in their "Man 'Jammies"

Happy Juma to All!

The weeks are starting to go by pretty fast. I had planned on adding pics to last weeks blog, but this week went so fast I didn't get to it.Not going to complain about that. I went to the bazarr last Friday to do some "shopping." The shop owners are overly aggressive...none of that Mexican "Hola, my friend, I make you good deal." These crazy A'holesgrab an armed man by the arm and put things in his hands saying "You like? You like? I get you bag. How many you want." I tell them over and over, "I am not interested, thank you." I a few things, nothing too interesting. There is a lot of junk. They make some crappy jewelry, bury it for a week in the dirt and then try to sell it as "old necklace, handmake." They have some coins that they do the same thing to. They have Alexander The Great on them...no way these things are real.

They have rifles for sale, too. I read up on these things on how to tell if they are truly antiques, or rip off replicas. All of the ones I have encountered are rip off replicas by a long shot.
As far as specific goods at this soccer field covered in trees with shops all over it. There are DVDs for $2, Oakleys, any kind of pocketknife you can think of, watches, pipes, hookahs, rugs, head wraps, and many more items that go in the junk category. All of the stuff is either made in China or Pakistan. The DVDs range from TV shows or the latest movies. The movies are the black market stuff where you see the guy in front of the camera get up to go to the bathroom. I have only bought textile products from these yahoos.

The only other significant thing I did in the past week was do a cookout for some ANA officers. We bought two small bbq pits and some charcoal.We got one of our terps to get some meat from town. I supplied the marinade and spices from a carepackage my dad sent me. I believe the ANA officers really doubted our cooking ability. They watched intently as we assembled the shiny metal tables (bbq pits), poured black rocks on them, and set them ablaze. After I started the pits, I went up to checkout the meat. I found three plastic trays of room temp meats (beef,lamb, and chicken). We had to finish cutting up the beef and lamb to goon skewers that were borrowed from a local hotel. The skewers were really nice. The were metal, 18" long, and were flat, so when you grabbed it and turned it, all the meat turned, too. The chicken was just regular ole chicken legs. We also attempted "baked" potatoes and grilled corn on the cob. The potatoes turned out ok. The corn was somewhat of a disaster. We had corn on the cob in the husk. We peeled back the husk and took out the silk. We didn't have butter, so we made some oil and Slough Daddy concoction to put on the corn before putting it in tinfoil...plan doesn't sound too bad does it? Well, when it comes to taste,just imagine picking up some corn off the table out of a Thanksgiving decoration and biting into it. We called it "Indian Corn." All we were familiar with was sweet corn. Apparently, you are supposed to soak this corn before cooking it. The ANA provided rice (different than the rice we are used to. They took my meat scraps and bones and added it to the rice with some onions and tomatoes. It turned out pretty much like jambalaya. They use a pressure cooker pot to boil the water faster in the altitude.), watermelon, nan (like pita bread), mountain dew, salad,and cookies.

We went through a half a bottle of Louisiana Hot Sauce in one meal. I had the ANA putting it on everything. They loved it on bbq chicken, they tried it on potatoes, they filled a pepper with hot sauce and ate it,they put it on a cookie, and I made a spread by mixing hot sauce and butter (we eventually had butter) and put that on bread...it was great.I had a blast cooking and eating with these guys. We had a terp there,but we rarely spoke with them. We mainly just laughed at each other and enjoyed the food.

Have a great weekend everyone. Take care and God Bless.

BMP