WAR EAGLE!!! NATIONAL CHAMPIONS!!!!!!
For those of you in Columbia.....be thankful that I am over here and you don't have to listen to me (my office is ready to send me back if I tell them one more time that Auburn won). Maybe I'll have it out of my system by the time I get back and you won't have to listen to me brag about the Auburn Tigers.......or.......I'll make up for lost time. Hopefully none of you will lose any sleep in anticipation.
Getting home for Christmas was great. The kids were off the whole time I was at home so it couldn't have worked out better. It was fun just hanging out with Katy and the kids. It only took about a day and a half to finish off Katy's list of things to fix while I was home. I found out that the threat of no beer until I get my chores done is a pretty good incentive!!! Sorry I didn't get a chance to come to the office and say hey, but the kids wouldn't let me out of their site while I was there. We mainly hung out around Columbia and visited friends. The day before I left I presented Christian's class with a flag and certificate that I flew for them. I told them about our mission over here and how life in Afghanistan is different from theirs. Of course, these were four year olds so they were mainly interested in the kind of animals over here, why a lot of the children didn't go to school and what did the kids play with. I think a good time was had by all, maybe we'll have some Corps recruits knocking on the door in the future.
The flights back and forth between here and the states were pretty uneventful. I spent most of my time in the Dubai airport trying to figure out how the husbands can tell who their wives were by only being able to see their eyes. My FB friends came up with some pretty crazy ideas. I'm pretty sure none of them were even close to the truth, but they were entertaining and helped me pass the time.
Things remained relatively unchanged here. Getting colder. Some projects moved along fine, some didn't. Food hadn't changed except that they found some place to get fries and mushrooms for omelets. I think they had a change in management philosophies, now if the omelet line runs out of cheese and you get some from the salad bar to put in your omelet you get fussed at. I guess in Afghanistan there is omelet cheese and salad bar cheese....they aren't interchangeable.....and it's a matter of life and limb, at least according to the manager.
Thanks to all my friends at the Ft Jackson NEC for sending me a Christmas box!! I got it when I returned. It's always nice having something waiting on ya when you get back.
Our intrepeter watched the last half of the Auburn game with me and is now the newest Auburn fan. He's not exactly sure what that all entails, but he figured that if you get to throw toilet paper on a tree when you win, he was all in!
He gets paid about $400 a month and additional money if he goes out on missions with us. He sends all his money home to his mother. She's a school teacher and makes about $100 a month. His dad is disabled. Of course, his mother is scared to death for him and is afraid that the Taliban will get him or he will get hurt out on a mission. The other interpreters in his tent are jealous because he works for the Corps. He gets to learn about construction, we don't go outside the wire to often, and when we do it's not to clear IEDs or hunt Taliban. Such is the life of an interpreter in Afghanistan.
HOME FRONT NEWS: It's cold in SC and y'all are getting snowed in. Katy was excited that one of Christian's friends came to the house to see if he could come out and play so she could get the kids out of the house for awhile. I guess he hung out with me too long while I was home because his response was "It's too d**mn cold outside. I'm going back to the living room.". I must have been a BAAAD child and now I'm reaping my rewards.
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