Umm....

When we are returning from a mission to the east, Massoud Circle is the last traffic circle we go through. The gate to the green zone is at one end of the circle. We are always a little nervous because entering/exiting the ECP (entry-control-point) is one of our most vulnerable points. But it's nice to see Massoud's monument and know we are almost in the safe zone.



Anwar came by our office the other day. I hadn't been out to see him so he felt the need to give me a big hug. I'm kind of flinching because he doesn't smell good. I don't think he washes his clothes either. It's tough to deal with the smell of strong BO. The vast majority of afghans are like that.

Airport run

Been fighting contract battles mostly the last few days. Afghans just can't except how long it takes the U.S. government to pay them, and how often things get screwed up. They are constantly fearful they'll never get paid. One of my favorite expressions:

Hanlon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

I'm having a hard time teaching the afghans this lesson in relation to our contracting process.

Today I got to run around in civilian clothes for a while. I went to the airport to do a sight survey. It feels strange to wear civilian clothes and to not have my weapon on me.

Nomads

We drove past a nomad tribe today. They just wander around the country with their animals and pitch tents to stop in one plane for a while. The place where they were stopped was former warlord land which was being partitioned off and sold to the people. I wonder what the nomads will do when everyone owns the land. You can see the brick walls starting to be built. As soon as an afghan buys some land, he builds a brick wall around it.



I ate an MRE for lunch. The first MRE I've had since Ft. Jackson.

At least a couple of our fish are still alive. I'm not sure who feeds them though. I don't see the smaller fish around. Maybe the big fish ate them.

Flowers

Things have been busy lately. There was bad VBIED the other day that killed a few Americans. It had been a while since Americans were killed in Kabul. The attack occurred on the road to Camp Julian where I did the marksmanship training on April 7th.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/world/asia/19afghan.html?src=me

Also, the internet was really slow for the last couple of days. Something to do with the attack on Bagram air base.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1990334,00.html?xid=rss-topstories

Yesterday morning my directorate held a ceremony to honor two people that died from an IED a year ago:

http://www.usafa.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123205594

So there's been lots of activity. Things are probably picking up now because of the Peace Jirga. I still feel pretty safe. The only threat to me are the VBIEDs, which seem more or less random. So statistically I don't really have a reason to be concerned.

Laziness

The contracting process here is so messed up. At any given time, about 1/3 of my contracts have some kind of problem. And most of the problems are with the military/civilians running the contracting and finance offices. I have to meet with another afghan tomorrow who wants to evict us because he hasn't been paid. Why hasn't he been paid? Because the contracting and finance offices are excruciatingly slow. They certainly don't work under the direction that we are fighting a war here and we are trying to win the hearts and minds of the afghan people. If you have any doubts, just look at the office hours for the finance office. They work less than bankers hours. The afghans that work in contracting actually seem way more competent than the Americans.

I'm not a big fan of Karzai, but if he has to deal with half as much crap from the military as I do, I can see where he might be frustrated and wonder if it'd be better for us to just leave so we'll stop screwing up and turning the local population against the government. (Of course, he wants is to keep funneling our billions/month his way.)

I can't imagine the kind of communication failures that would lead to this kind of stuff:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/16/afghan-prosecutor-arrest-warrant-us-officer

Fish

LTG Caldwell came by the other day for an awards ceremony. He got a chance to see the tortoises so now they've met the senior ranking officer for the base. That's probably as high as they'll go. I don't think GEN McCrystal ever comes over here.



Also, the NGA folks managed to get 6 fish for the pond from their afghan counterparts.

And a crazy sandstorm blew through today. It lasted about 30 minutes then it went back to being a beautiful sunny day.

Rock Stars

Ok, so the tortoises are popular. We had a power outage yesterday for a while so I took let the turtles out to stretch their legs. Probably 20 people were milling about watching them waiting for the power to come back on. Even BG Macdonald walked over to check them out (probably wondering what everyone was staring at).

Tonight was cigar night and a Major General was over smoking a cigar and checked them out. I bet they wish they could tell all their friends in Mez about their moment of fame.

Not Turtles

I haven't felt like updated my blog lately. The days are starting to blur here. Not much changes.

Some company in the states donated a pump for our pond. It looks nice and clean now:



The NOCs asked out interpreter to get us some turtles for the pond. Unfortunately he got us Russian Tortoises which just sink. So now we're not sure what to do with them. But there are very popular. Everyone stops by the check them out. I even took them for a walk yesterday.

Half Mast

I noticed the Canadian flag was at half mast today. It's a sad day for some family.




http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/canada/breakingnews/canadian-death-toll-in-afghan-mission-143-members-of-forces-2-civilians-92751934.html

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Standing in Line

There is not much nice about Eggers. It's crowded everywhere. There's not enough berthing. Chow is greasy. It's hard to find a free treadmill at the gym. There's an ever present sewage smell. You get the idea.

But there are a couple of things I enjoy. Every morning when I walk to work I see the snow capped mountain peaks in the distance. I always enjoy that sight:



The only flowers I ever see the afghans planting are roses. So it's actually very very nice to see rose bushes everywhere:



Lastly, I was standing in line at the DFAC and realized I actually enjoyed the wait. It's not uncommon to wait 20-30 minutes in line, depending on what they are serving (pizza night is the most popular). But it's never bothered me to stand there in line and zone out for a little while. Strange. In the states I hated to wait on food.