Travels (Part II)

3/17/2007
It’s Saint Patrick’s Day. Happy Birthday Maggie!

I woke up to the call to prayer this morning at 4:45. It lasted for about 5 minutes. At first I thought they were just celebrating the Irish holiday, but someone corrected me. I could have sworn they were chanting Gal-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-gher.

We had a project meeting and a site visit this morning. We travelled in a convoy of 3 vehicles, each had two “shooters”. One of the guys in my vehicle was a private security contractor from Australia. A couple of others had English-ish accents but they didn’t talk enough for me to determine where they were from. The drive today was similar to the first day’s ride; the drivers don’t mess around or stop for anyone. We were often on the left side of the road passing people, but then again so was everyone else. So maybe we didn’t stand out as much as it felt like we did.

We passed some absolute squalor. The Afghans that I saw on this trip seemed ludicrously poor. They must be tough people to live in conditions like that. Almost everything we saw on the ride was the same color (a clay reddish-brown). There are some splashes of bright colors now and again, but everything is basically brown. The soil is mostly clay here, so when it rains everything stays wet for a long time, and it’s very dusty during dry times. It was raining slightly when we were there and everything was a mess. Many of these people live in clay houses (non-fired clay), I wonder what they are like when it rains.

I took some pictures of the site but cannot publish most of them (Hey, I’m not the NY Times, I have respect for confidential information). There are a few on the Flickr page though.

Back at the camp in the afternoon they had a St. Patrick’s Day parade. There were two vehicles and several people walking behind them. They went around the building twice - woo-hoo!

I went into the tent and a cat was sitting on my bed. I shook the bunk but the damn thing didn’t want to move. So I lifted the blanket and finally got it to move. It yelled at me when I chased it out of the tent. I’ll probably get fleas now. It’s a good thing I got that haircut yesterday.

Went back to work till around 2100, and went to bed.

3/18/2007
Sunday (I think).

We had a slower day today. Either that or I am getting used to this place (God help me). We had a couple of meetings, but all of them were in the room in which we were working. In the afternoon we had a meeting with an Afghan General. When they asked him if he wanted coffee or anything, he told them that he and his men wanted to eat. And they did. So we are all standing around looking at each other while these 4 or 5 guys are chowing down. The meeting went well though. The General’s English is not very good, but he seemed like a good guy.

We went back to work after that until dinner. It rained all day today, so we rarely left our room. We are planning to go to Baghram Air Base on Wednesday if we can get a convoy.

3/19/2007
Monday - I’m pretty sure, it certainly feels like a Monday.

Not much happening today, more meetings. We may actually be getting somewhere. This one arrogant little shit expects me to do all of the civil design on this project based upon coordinates that have an accuracy of +/- 1 meter. Oh yeah, and the elevation should be correct to within 10 feet. Everyone on our team wants to strangle him. OK maybe it’s just me, but I’d strangle him three times to make up for the others.

Someone in our tent turned the heater up to 30 deg C (86 deg F) or “Well Done”, I turned it down to ~68 deg F “Medium Rare”. I missed the call to prayer this morning; must have slept through it. Damn, I hate it when that happens!

There was a report of an IED that went off today near here. No word on whether anyone was killed yet. It was on a road that is well traveled by US personnel between Kabul and Baghram. We are scheduled to go to Baghram on Wednesday; I remain hopeful that we will take a different route.

They are expecting the Taliban to start their spring offensive in a couple of days. With any luck, I’ll be gone by then. I do think I could do a tour here though; except for the arrogant little shit and the no booze clause. I really haven’t minded it too much, because we’ve been too busy. And once you’re here for 2-3 months, you get to move out of the tent and into a room in one of the CONEX boxes.

3/20/2007
We had our out-briefing this morning. Everything went pretty well and we spent the rest of the day typing up meeting minutes and such. After dinner a couple of us watched Bubba Ho-Tep in the DFAC. I forgot that Dan Roebuck was in this movie.

Some Intel guy was making sure that everyone knew where to go in case of an attack. Apparently tomorrow (Wednesday) is the Muslim New Year, and the Taliban are expected to start ratcheting up the attacks during the new year. “So if you hear some explosions, that’s what it is”, he reassures us. ”Good to know”, I’m thinking, “I’d be worried if it was some local kids with fireworks; but since they are just incoming mortars, I feel much better.”

We walked across the road to the other camp, just to get out of ours. Had a decent cup of coffee at Greenbeans Café. At east it was better than the old-burned-sock taste of the regular Army coffee.

We did get to witness some rather unsafe building practices today. Moving a 40’ CONEX on a 20’ flatbed trailer was one. A crane truck lowering a CONEX while having two wheels and at least one support raised off of the ground was another.

3/21/2007
We didn’t get to go to Baghram today. It’s Muslim New Year and almost everything is shut down. We are in “Lock Down” and were not even allowed to cross the road to the other camp today. Most of the Embassies are also locked down as a result of New Years and the bombing the other day. I’m not sure how the Muslims celebrate New Years. At least they didn’t celebrate with mortars this year (and that’s really all I care about right now).

It was a pretty boring day really. I did some laundry and packed for tomorrow’s flight out. We are staying over a night in Dubai and are working on finding something to do while we are there. The cook gave us a book and we are looking into it.

I can’t imagine what the Local Nationals who work here think of us, especially the ones in the kitchen. I’m sure they like their jobs, and are therefore happy we are here, but I wonder what they think about us. What I’m trying to get at is, while most of the people around here don’t have a pot to piss in, we Americans are complaining about the food that is incredibly abundant to us here. The chow hall here does not close. You can come in at any time and grab a sandwich, a bowl of cereal, or a cup of hot coffee. The contrast in the quality of life is incredible to me, and I’m living in a tent!

to be continued....