"One Piece at a Time"
Mobbing
Mob in hot pursuitWell, have been in country for over a month now and getting into the rhythm of things. The only bad part is that not too much new happens around here. As I have mentioned before, my FOB is about 100m x 300m in area. We had about 200 people living and working here, but now we are over 300 and growing. For the last week I have been building large tents. The tents are pre-fabricated in Pakistan. They come with a wooden floor that we had to put together and level. After we got the floor together, we had to figure out how to put together the Paki tents with little or now directions. We worked all day last Friday (supposed to be our day off) putting up 3 tents and did 3 more on Saturday. Well, sure enough, a freak dry season rain came along Saturday night and down they went. Sure, we didn't do what we could to ensure proper water runoff, but I'm sure we'd have gotten around to that. Everyone else wants to blame the length of the stakes or Paki manufacturing, but I pretty much blame us. So, we spent Sunday and Monday rebuilding and reinforcing what was already there and the rest of the week through yesterday building the rest of the tents.
A team of Army guys is here this week validating our Afghan counterparts. Their job is to come in and take a look to see if these guys could run a base without American assistance. It has been a good experience because I have learned a lot about how the Afghans do business. It would have taken me much longer to learn most of this stuff on my own. One of the things I did was a long walk-about with the security officer to show him the full ANA Base so he could assess their security capabilities. When we got over to where the villagers and farmers live, the kids started asking for pens, our water bottles, and then money! I saw the little curly hair girl from a previous story. I gave her a piece of paper from my notepad and a mechanical pencil. Well that started a riot. Kids came out of the woodwork. We told them no more and kept walking, they followed. One of the guys with us thought it was a good idea to give her a dollar and tell her to run in the hopes that the rest would follow (pretty sick, but not a bad idea). As you can see from the pics, she is running off and they are not following her. Shortly after this pic, we went into a gate and left them outside.
I have been working on my room a lot. I started out living on the bottom bunk and decided to switch. Switching to the top allowed me to remove the frame from the bottom and gave me more room for my stuff. Now I have to build an "entertainment center" for watching movies from the top bunk.
I have befriended several of the interpreters that work for us. They are young Afghan men that want to make their country better (and they get paid more than senior Afghan military officer for doing their jobs). Most of them aspire to go to the states for further education or work. One of them is only 18 and another is younger, but I am not sure exactly how old. They often go to wedding parties on the weekends to see friends, and a few of them call themselves the wedding crashers. The weddings are usually 600 to 1000 people at large hotels. Sounds fun doesn't it? Now, close your eyes and picture this: 1. No alcohol. 2. Males and Females are completely separated in different ball rooms. I was surprised to here about the separation thing, so I asked what they do, and he said, "Some of my friends, we dance and have fun." Now just picture our wedding with everyone separated, but still having a grand ole time dancing and singing...keeps me laughing. Boys and girls are allowed to play together and hangout until around 13 yrs old. After that, unless it is your sister or wife, you probably won't see her face. I asked him how they get to know girls and he says you can meet them at their house and visit with the parents or there are special restaurants where an unmarried couple can go and visit, but no touching. Alcohol is not sold in this country in stores, you must do it "in secret" according to the terps.
I have eaten at the interpreter or ANA officer dining facility several times and had a dinner with the ANA Base Commander. Now some of you know that I have a history of "stomach issues," but my stomach has been rock solid in this place. Everyone around me has had GI issues since we have been here, not this guy. I don't know what it is, probably the year I lived with Glueck, Flynn and Trip prepared me to deal with any viral or bacterial infection.
I still haven't seen any snakes, though sightings have been reported on our FOB. Miss you all. Take care and God Bless.
BMP
A team of Army guys is here this week validating our Afghan counterparts. Their job is to come in and take a look to see if these guys could run a base without American assistance. It has been a good experience because I have learned a lot about how the Afghans do business. It would have taken me much longer to learn most of this stuff on my own. One of the things I did was a long walk-about with the security officer to show him the full ANA Base so he could assess their security capabilities. When we got over to where the villagers and farmers live, the kids started asking for pens, our water bottles, and then money! I saw the little curly hair girl from a previous story. I gave her a piece of paper from my notepad and a mechanical pencil. Well that started a riot. Kids came out of the woodwork. We told them no more and kept walking, they followed. One of the guys with us thought it was a good idea to give her a dollar and tell her to run in the hopes that the rest would follow (pretty sick, but not a bad idea). As you can see from the pics, she is running off and they are not following her. Shortly after this pic, we went into a gate and left them outside.
I have been working on my room a lot. I started out living on the bottom bunk and decided to switch. Switching to the top allowed me to remove the frame from the bottom and gave me more room for my stuff. Now I have to build an "entertainment center" for watching movies from the top bunk.
I have befriended several of the interpreters that work for us. They are young Afghan men that want to make their country better (and they get paid more than senior Afghan military officer for doing their jobs). Most of them aspire to go to the states for further education or work. One of them is only 18 and another is younger, but I am not sure exactly how old. They often go to wedding parties on the weekends to see friends, and a few of them call themselves the wedding crashers. The weddings are usually 600 to 1000 people at large hotels. Sounds fun doesn't it? Now, close your eyes and picture this: 1. No alcohol. 2. Males and Females are completely separated in different ball rooms. I was surprised to here about the separation thing, so I asked what they do, and he said, "Some of my friends, we dance and have fun." Now just picture our wedding with everyone separated, but still having a grand ole time dancing and singing...keeps me laughing. Boys and girls are allowed to play together and hangout until around 13 yrs old. After that, unless it is your sister or wife, you probably won't see her face. I asked him how they get to know girls and he says you can meet them at their house and visit with the parents or there are special restaurants where an unmarried couple can go and visit, but no touching. Alcohol is not sold in this country in stores, you must do it "in secret" according to the terps.
I have eaten at the interpreter or ANA officer dining facility several times and had a dinner with the ANA Base Commander. Now some of you know that I have a history of "stomach issues," but my stomach has been rock solid in this place. Everyone around me has had GI issues since we have been here, not this guy. I don't know what it is, probably the year I lived with Glueck, Flynn and Trip prepared me to deal with any viral or bacterial infection.
I still haven't seen any snakes, though sightings have been reported on our FOB. Miss you all. Take care and God Bless.
BMP
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