Can you believe we have already had mosquito sightings here in Afghanistan? In the first week of March?! I find that unbelievable. Before I left North America, the deployment folks provided me with a six month’s supply of Doxycycline as an anti-malaria preventative (which I am supposed to take daily). Kris notified me this week that my second six month’s supply arrived at our house. That coupled with the sightings in the same week makes me think I should start taking the Doxycycline daily as prescribed instead of whenever. Hopefully this stuff also prevents Leschmaniasis as I certainly do not want to contract that lovely disease. The hardest part will be to remember to take the stuff every day as I have never had to take a daily pill or supplement. I guess I’ll put the bottle next to my toothbrush.
I made a comment to my wife the other day that I had tremendous difficulty with sewing a button back onto my flannel pajama pants. This was one thing my mother never taught me and I have not acquired the skill in the 22+ years since moving out of my parents’ house. I certainly understand the basic concept of running the thread through the button holes, but the stand-off distance thing from the material is my downfall. I had that button so up close and personal to the fabric that it essentially stopped being a separate item and instead became one with the flannel. I could not slide the button into the button hole that it is supposed to reside in. Eventually, I cut it back off, put it and the pants in a box, and it is now on its way to my wife for repair. Kris thinks my inability to sew on a button is hilarious. I reminded her of my quantum myriad other qualities which include cooking, cleaning, machine sewing, and my amazing ability at buying her clothing, however, none of those measures up to sewing on a button. I now feel like I’ve plummeted to the bottom of the Caste system because of my newly proclaimed inability.
Oh yeah, last week Vice President Cheney stopped by for an overnighter to check out the goings-on here in this lovely neck of the world. Surely he enjoyed the roar of the jets coming and going throughout the night and no doubt gleefully reveled at his dining experiences. However, I’m sure the thing he appreciated most from his visit here was the morning fracas caused by a Taliban exploding himself at the East gate. This was the first attack on Bagram since May 2005. The unfortunate part was killing 17 people which included one U.S. soldier and one KBR employee. Evidently three individual Taliban strapped bombs to themselves and were intent on coming in and meeting our V.P. They parked their car, got out, and walked up to the gate. The first bomber took out the gate while his two accomplices decided they were not ready to meet Allah and our Vice President just yet and began to flee. Fortunately, our soldiers captured them (there are conflicting reports as to whether they were captured or shot) and prevented any other explosions.
Another unfortunate part was the general Red Alert that was sounded all over Bagram and direction from the Giant Voice to occupy our nearest bunker. CD and I were at work when this occurred and when we were told to get into our bunkers, Craig asked me where our bunker was. If we were at our hooch, we certainly know as we nearly run into them every time we walk out of the door; however at the shop I had no idea. We eye-balled our shop and determined that it was made of concrete and earth (and other materials that I will describe later) and must be considered a ‘hard building’ therefore we would reside in it. Five KBR workers were in our compound delivering containers and shared our building with us during the next six hours of Red Alert. During that time, F-15Es, A-6s, A-10s, and AH-64s flew overhead at what seemed like inches above the buildings. All other air and ground traffic in and out was stopped (except for Air Force 2) which meant mail and Frappuccino deliveries were now going to be messed up for a couple of days. Additionally, our beer contact can no longer deliver as the gates are under much tighter scrutiny and security for an indefinite amount of time. I know this is a good thing; conversely it seems like a bad thing.
Our main shop building was originally constructed by the Russians using concrete for the floors, walls, and ceiling. It appears to be reasonably sturdy. At some point, the locals or Taliban added on to the building using the local materials available: mud, straw, and Russian airplanes. The walls are a couple of feet thick and made of mud and straw. The roof is made of Russian airplane wings covered with mud and straw and some type of tar that repels water only in seven inch splotches. How do I know, you ask? Well, in portions of the building, areas of a plane wing are exposed to include some of the missing exterior skin of the wing revealing wiring and hydraulic tubing. A terribly constructed concrete floor was poured sometime after the construction of the walls and roof. Fortunately for us, we work in the better constructed half of the building.
Just as we were completed with the first two-thirds of our vehicle completion allotment here, Dobbie and I received the remaining quantity of vehicles for us to work on. These vehicles are a tremendous improvement from the previous we have received because they are much newer and have extremely few maintenance problems. They are still “Hajji’d up”, but not nearly as bad as our early to mid 90’s predecessors. We are actually excited about these and have two that we take turns driving our whole 1.1 mile round-trip daily.
When I say “Hajji’d up”, I mean screwed over with reckless abandon exclusive of apparent thought made towards practicality, convenience, and or concern. Most and I do mean most of the vehicles we have received were originally right-side drivers. Of those, only four survived Hajji conversion to left side drivers, meaning we had four out of our plethora that you would drive from the right side of the vehicle. Supposedly, left-side drivers are what everyone here wants (not us, the locals) to be more like America and less like Britain. It is evidently worth the cost of changing the dash, wiring, and steering to the left side of the vehicle when local resale is concerned.
The Hajjis do a terrible job of wiring. Imagine changing the driver’s side worth of power windows and locks and mirrors to the other side. The face plates that house the buttons and switches do not match the curves of the opposite side of the vehicle door, so they are simply cut (trimmed) and glued to fit. The stalks on the steering wheel that control windshield wipers, headlights, and turn-signals are not rearranged and are backasswards. The heating / air conditioning and fan controls slide or turn the opposite way. In a couple of instances, the Hajjis have cut the red and blue portion of the temperature plate out and glued it in upside down so the switches would follow the appropriate action, however, the writing is now upside down as well. It is a sight to behold and unimaginable to believe that people would pay more for a vehicle in this condition. At least the clutch, brake, and accelerator are positioned correctly.
Speaking of Britain, all of our pirated TV channels come from the land of the Queen’s English. Take a show that most of you have probably seen like Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel. Here, we have a different host narrating the same show you folks see. This dude is decidedly British and uses words that we do not use in America. The show is otherwise identical to there with this huge exception. At first, I was having a problem keeping up with part of the shows, but now that I can understand English all is well. I’m not sure I will be able to come to terms with TV back there in the states.
Not to be outdone, our internet comes from India. When I Google or surf the web, the default browser returns with Indian information; you know those addresses that have the “.in” at the end of the strings and so forth. Everything runs through India to include my Skype VOIP. I called the Skype (which is a company in Iceland) Help Desk to ask a couple of questions and got Raoul Taj (not really sure how to spell his name) who had an uncanny accent and dialect of someone I associate with living in India. I was really hoping Sven or Inga would be answering my questions, but I suppose the Nordic folks also find comfort in using the technical support people in India. Who woulda known?!
With tremendous Asian and European ethnicities and nationalities represented here, I have had to “get used to” a couple of their idiosyncrancies whether I wanted to or not. One of them that not only annoy me, but Dobbie as well, is the lack of personal space these folks seem to have no regard for. The other day as we were standing in line to enter the DFAC, I had this Russian guy behind me that was not content unless his arm was actually touching me. Every time he bumped me, he announced, “Sorry” (he must have done that seven times in five minutes). Then when I had my tray and was putting food on it, he elbowed me a couple of more times. After the ninth “Sorry”, I finally said, “Why don’t you back off a meter!” in a measured tone. I no doubt startled him. He suddenly stood there with mouth agape and his entire body frozen in place. I was fully prepared to rattle off a few well chosen soliloquies and point to CD’s 9mm, but didn’t need to as he was still frozen, giving me ample space and time to finish acquiring my three food items for lunch. This was by far not the first time I have experienced this lack of personal space. I also know it will not be the last.
Maybe I’m going soft or my taste buds have finally broken down to that of a local Afghani who will eat anything. Our DFAC of choice has BBQ spare ribs on Saturday. I can tell by looking at them that they are not from cows and are certainly not from pigs. That leaves me with only a few options as to what they could possibly come from and camels, goats, mules, sheep, and yaks are the only guesses I can come up with. These things are slathered in a sauce and I take extra delight in applying another 23 layers of BBQ sauce from the Heinz bottle sitting on the table. The texture isn’t all bad and if you can accidentally (deliberately) get BBQ sauce on your nose, the smell isn’t too bad either. I’ll run through a couple to give myself the feeling that I actually am enjoying the food and keep my fingers in shape by gripping the ribs.
My brother-in-law, Joe, sent me a few DVD-Rs of television shows, music, and video of Kris and the kids. What a fabulous surprise. I had asked Joe around the Superbowl to DVR the Superbowl commercials (because we didn’t get them) and if he could DVR ‘24’ (the show with Keifer Sutherland). I had actually forgotten about that request and viola! they showed up. I have torn through the music, watched the video and commercials, and am gearing up for a ‘24’ fest as Joe sent me the first six hours. I plan on hitting this the next day off. I’m just giddy with excitement thinking about it. I’m not really sure why, but I just am.
OK, instead of putting the picture in the body of the letter, I have placed it on the fifth page. It is a picture of me standing next to Russian-made T-55 and T-62 tanks. Yeah, they look a little rough for wear, but that is the way I like seeing them. This picture is fairly significant to me because I spent my career in our (American) Armor (tank) community and had studied and trained to fight these vehicles for years. It is great to see them up close and personal and to really experience what poorly designed pieces of crap they really are. In the background, the sharp-eyed group of you will notice a couple of MiGs.
I’ll see you fine folks next week when I discuss Tea Snobbery, the perks of living the Afghanistan high life, and the surely-not-to-be-missed fine art of Templating 101! Whew, I can’t wait either.
Arrivederci,
Craig
