Busy Week

Whew, it’s been a busy week.  We had a dinner with the KTR building the Brigade HQ.  Those Turks treated us to an excellent meal.  We had chicken and Adana kabobs, vegetable salad, onions seasoned with a Turkish spice (sumac??), nan and an eggplant/mincemeat/yogurt dish.  If moving to Turkey involved eating like that, count me in.  The translator that works for this company spent 12 years in America as a driver, mostly in NY City.  He had some stories!!  I think my favorite was about how when he first moved there he had to find a night job while he was going to school.  He worked at a gas station in a bad part of town and quickly figured out that if you gave the cops free food, they would hang out there.  After a few weeks the manager told him that their nightly intake dropped from around $1000/night to about $40/night because all the cops were scaring the customers away.

The weather has been beautiful the last few days.  Unfortunately, the nice weather has brought the Taliban out of hiding.  I had the unfortunate privilege of witnessing the first rocket of the spring.  I think our forces must have discovered them because the next day we felt the joy of an hour long artillery barrage.

Operation Ranch COK was carried off with great success.  Our DFAC has been running short of various supplies.   One being OJ and the other ranch dressing.  After calling in some favors I was able to get both items imported from Kabul via a heavy backpack and helo mission (they said that they were already heading this way).

Fat Tuesday brought a surprise parade.  No King Cake was to be found, but there were beads and cheering.  We had a farewell dinner that night for our Area Engineer and Office Engineer.  It’s about that time when we start having a major turnover in the office.  Since I extended I get to see most of my friends off and handle the turn-over.  Lucky me.

Today we had a ribbon cutting for the FARP.  The project consisted of a C-17 runway, turn-around, and a Helo refueling point.  It was a beautiful day to hang out with the office, KTR and all the military in charge of flying and refueling the helicopters.

HOMEFRONT NEWS:

I was talking to Lily on the phone a couple of mornings ago.  During the conversation she said, “Daddy, let’s go up to my room.”  So she walked up to her room jabbering the whole time.   Once “we” were up there she put the phone on the floor (it was on speaker):  “Oh, Daddy, here’s my Daddy doll.  See there you are.  And look, here is my puppy, isn’t he pretty….” And so on.  It’s almost like I never left J

To set this story up, you have to realize that Katy is deathly afraid of reptiles.  A frog once blocked her from entering our house for 30 minutes until I heard her screams and got rid of it.-------- Christian came in the house a couple of days ago excited to tell Katy about his new pet lizard named Sammy.  He caught him in the backyard and he is the best lizard ever.  All he needed was something to keep him in.  Katy asked him where Sammy was at that point, Christian said he was right here and reached into his pocket.  He pulled out his empty hand and started to cry that Sammy was gone.  Did he get out his pocket in the backyard or in the house???  Nobody knew (that was a restless night for Katy).  I was talking to Christian on the phone the next day and he was telling me about Sammy.  In the background I heard Sera calmly say, “Umm, Mommy, I think I found Sammy.”  What I heard next could have come from a horror movie.  There was screaming, chairs being moved/knocked down, ushering of kids out of the room (Christian wanted to chase and capture Sammy) and the frantic search for a bowl or pot to cover Sammy.  Eventually  a neighbor was called in to capture Sammy and take him outside.  Did Christian learn his lesson, only time will tell.

Contractor Lunch

The Afghan contractor building our Sea-hut is finally finishing up and decided to bring us lunch to celebrate.  They had plans to bring the food down here to cook, but with the snow we got throughout the night they decided to cook it in Kabul and bring it down.  They brought palow (a rice dish with raisins and lamb), grilled sheep freshly killed that morning, yogurt, nan, a flat cornbread and oranges.  It was delicious.  While stuffing ourselves the contractor talked about how different it was working for the Corps as compared to the Air Force CE (we are a lot stricter), how much we all learned from each other and life in general in Afghanistan.  His family is from the same province that we are in, but they can’t travel down here too often because of the violence from the Taliban that is in this area and the provinces to the south.  He said that many of the people support us being here but that they are pressured by the Taliban to not cooperate.    Besides MILCON projects, the Corps is coming into it’s large ANA and ANP push.  The owner of the company talked about how it is nice that we are building schools, roads, etc but that we should have been building the ANA and ANP facilities 5 years ago to help bring more security and stability to the country.  The people that are building private buildings are building mostly near the ANA and ANP stations.  While we were all agreeing, our Area Engineer said that “in America we have a saying, Better Late Than Never”.  The owner quickly chimed in that “in Afghanistan we also have a saying, The Fish is Always Fresher Right Out of the Water”.  I guess you can’t argue with that.

KATY’S KORNER

I generally received notices that Sera’s school lunch account is overdue by about 50 cents or $1 and I will send a check for $20 to pay the past-due bill and give her credit to use until I get the next notice.  I guess I failed to notice that I haven’t received a notice or sent a check in quite a while.  Recently, I received a phone message from Lake Carolina Elementary reporting that I was being “turned over to collections” because Sera’s lunch account is delinquent in the amount of $67.00.  Apparently, they have sent me several notices, all of which were crumpled up in the bottom of Sera’s backpack.  Upon inquiring with Sera I learned that she has recently been offered an “alternative lunch” every day   (cheese sandwiches) due to our non-payment.  She hadn’t mentioned this to me because….well….she likes cheese sandwiches….

Sera’s cat, Pebbles, living outside is working out better that I expected.   She stays in the greenhouse most of the time, lounging and soaking up the sun.  On the weekends and after school, however, Sera will put her on her leash and take her in the front yard to play.  If Sera is busy riding bikes with friends, she ties Pebbles’ leash to a tree or mailbox and Pebs lies down and catches a quick nap.  Sera is hoping to get a basket for her bike so she can take Pebs along for some rides, however.  I don’t know if the cat is quite that mellow, but I guess we’ll probably find out…

Christian and his BFF, Cayden, usually chatter excitedly on the way to preschool.  During a recent conversation, Christian giggled and commented, “I like you, Cayden.  You’re the funnest kid ever!!”

Site Visits

We have a lot of work starting this summer so we have had a lot of contractors on the FOB for site visits.  So far we in my work at this base we have only had American, Turkish and Afghan contractors.  The American contractors usually aren’t all that fun to deal with.  They usually want us to help arrange their transportation, find them a place to stay and help them get established.  It’s a shock to some when they realize they can’t just hop on a plane and fly into the local village, rent a hotel and car, and stroll onto the base.  The Turks I have dealt with are already established in the country and are usually fairly self sufficient.  The Afghan contractors are a mixed bag.  We get some that haven’t been a company very long and others that have done major projects with the corps.  Some companies are run by engineers, some by a Dr. Somebody in Kabul and others by Afghan nationals and their Afghan-American cousins that have come back over Afghanistan to help manage the company.  One of my favorites was from a site visit we held the other day.  This guy was attending Kabul University Engineering School when the Russians invaded Afghanistan.  He decided that at the time it was better to fight than go to school.  So he quit, moved north and “spent the next few years killing Russians”.  Now the company he’s with is building roads and buildings throughout Afghanistan.  Most people you deal with over here have either spent a good part of their life fighting, moving to wherever the safest part of Afghanistan is or moving between countries.

I have been starting to get boxes of school supplies to take to a local school.  Thanks to everyone that is helping out!!!

HOMEFRONT NEWS:  I guess Katy has taken a break from sending me stories so here is one she told be about a few weeks ago.

On the way back from Wal-Mart Lily had managed to get partly out of her seat belt.  In the past I had told Christian that the cops don’t like it when kids get out of their seat belts, and….maybe…..I said something about having to go to jail.  So Christian tells Lily to get back in her seat belt or she’ll have to go to jail.  She wasn’t able to squirm back in so Christian started getting frantic.  He looked at her, with tears in his eyes and said “Lily, you’re going to have to go to jail” and started crying.  Lily got all worked up, as kids do, and started crying as well.  She looked to her left at Sera and between tears said, “Sera, I’m going to miss you.”.