A little late with this blog posting. I blame it on my roomie moving out, giving me some blessed solitude--something very rare on a highly dense military base. My roommate and friend Master Sergeant Ronnie R is headed back to Germany to see his wife and little ones. I hope I do as well with my next roomie. I immediately proceeded to abuse my newfound privacy by staying up late surfing the web, playing video games and watching movies. This is probably one of the reasons that it's wise to double up the rooms. It prevents a sort of natural withdrawal that is natural in such a crowded place. It won't be a problem for long though; any day now I'll get a new roomie. Hope he's as good as the last one.
It's snowing very heavily right now. We're in this nasty cycle of snow/thaw/freeze that leaves the entire place like an ice rink and plays hell with the engineering, cracking the concrete and loading the roofs and structures with ice. It got down to almost -20°C here a few days ago. Who knew it got that cold here? Just another reason why Kabul is such an international tourist mecca I guess.
Speaking of Mecca, we discovered that toilets used by the Afghan locals have to be oriented so that they don't face Mecca. When this was announced, one of the sharper engineers offered "so which way do they orient the toilets in Mecca?"
In this next four month stint in Kabul, I'm determined to get out and about a little more to see Kabul. The first few months, I stayed close to home, as I felt I lacked the situational awareness to go wandering about Kabul. Also, there's military mindset here (not surprising for a military base, I suppose), that treats the city proper as a battle space. But the reality is that there are thousands of European and North American civilians living in Kabul, usually associated with some type of non-governmental association or another.
That said, you always have to keep your wits and eyes sharp when you're out and about. The biggest danger isn't insurgents, but kidnappers, since the average white guy here is tremendously wealthy compared to your rank-and-file Afghan. So, for example, you don't just hop into anyone's car who claims to be a cab driver. (The taxis here are just regular older-model Toyotas like 90% of the vehicles here.) Some of the guys here have grown beards and wear the scarves and ... so that they blend right in, weather because their job requires them to do so, or they just don't want to stand out. I'm 46 and I still can't grow a beard, plus I'm very white and tall compared to the locals, so I have a gaggle of kids gawking at me wherever I go.
The restaurant was a Lebanese bistro where I was meeting some Afghan friends for lunch. The food was excellent. It was a little uncomfortable having three waiters standing around the table the whole time, sublimely attuned to my most innocuous body language, even to, for example, rearranging the plates on the table so the dish I was reaching for was more conveniently located for me. At times, I felt like a Brit in 19th century India. "Bring me a plate of your finest meats and cheeses. And you-- dance for my amusement."
Afghan people, apart from the occasionally stinkeye, are very friendly. The kids clamor around you where ever you go. When I couldn't find the restaurant and wandered into an alley, these little alley rats offered, in very limited English, to be my bodyguards. To their credit, they somehow took me right where I wanted to go, so I greased their palms with a Yankee dollar and took their picture.
In this next four month stint in Kabul, I'm determined to get out and about a little more to see Kabul. The first few months, I stayed close to home, as I felt I lacked the situational awareness to go wandering about Kabul. Also, there's military mindset here (not surprising for a military base, I suppose), that treats the city proper as a battle space. But the reality is that there are thousands of European and North American civilians living in Kabul, usually associated with some type of non-governmental association or another.
That said, you always have to keep your wits and eyes sharp when you're out and about. The biggest danger isn't insurgents, but kidnappers, since the average white guy here is tremendously wealthy compared to your rank-and-file Afghan. So, for example, you don't just hop into anyone's car who claims to be a cab driver. (The taxis here are just regular older-model Toyotas like 90% of the vehicles here.) Some of the guys here have grown beards and wear the scarves and ... so that they blend right in, weather because their job requires them to do so, or they just don't want to stand out. I'm 46 and I still can't grow a beard, plus I'm very white and tall compared to the locals, so I have a gaggle of kids gawking at me wherever I go.
The restaurant was a Lebanese bistro where I was meeting some Afghan friends for lunch. The food was excellent. It was a little uncomfortable having three waiters standing around the table the whole time, sublimely attuned to my most innocuous body language, even to, for example, rearranging the plates on the table so the dish I was reaching for was more conveniently located for me. At times, I felt like a Brit in 19th century India. "Bring me a plate of your finest meats and cheeses. And you-- dance for my amusement."
Afghan people, apart from the occasionally stinkeye, are very friendly. The kids clamor around you where ever you go. When I couldn't find the restaurant and wandered into an alley, these little alley rats offered, in very limited English, to be my bodyguards. To their credit, they somehow took me right where I wanted to go, so I greased their palms with a Yankee dollar and took their picture.
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| My Afghan Bodyguards |
The Afghan men and children love to have their picture taken. However, it's strictly taboo to take a picture of older girls or women. I've been told I shouldn't even acknowledge them unless I've a reason too.
Oh--and a humorous military logistics anecdote to relate. My friend Bill is the Warehouse guy--you know, keeping the office supplied with pens and paper. So anyway, a couple of days ago, he filled out the form for some stuff including one box of paper clips. I went with him to pick up the stuff, and the Warehouse guy dutifully loads up boxes of paper and a crate of binders, a few packages of pens, etc. And a paperclip. One. I guess the guy took the form pretty literally, where, for paperclips, it requested a Quantity of "1."
"Actually," said Bill, showing immense patience learned oly from years of exposure to military logistics, "I meant one box of paperclips."
"Ohhhhhhhhh."
Or how about this one: one of the Afghan locals working here was turned away from the base recently when he tried to bring a sheep in. There's a lot of locals working here, and the idea was that he was going to slaughter the sheep at lunch time and cook it up. The guard asked him why he didn’t just slaughter it at home or at the butcher, to which the guy replied (with impeccable logic, I might add) that then he would have to carry it here, rather than have lunch walk itself.
As I was clearing up our shared drive the other day, I came across a slideshow put together, I believe, but one of the German engineers that used to work here. There's some fantastic shots here that really portray what it's like here in Kabul. There's some fantastic shots. Have a look!
Oh--and a humorous military logistics anecdote to relate. My friend Bill is the Warehouse guy--you know, keeping the office supplied with pens and paper. So anyway, a couple of days ago, he filled out the form for some stuff including one box of paper clips. I went with him to pick up the stuff, and the Warehouse guy dutifully loads up boxes of paper and a crate of binders, a few packages of pens, etc. And a paperclip. One. I guess the guy took the form pretty literally, where, for paperclips, it requested a Quantity of "1."
"Actually," said Bill, showing immense patience learned oly from years of exposure to military logistics, "I meant one box of paperclips."
"Ohhhhhhhhh."
Or how about this one: one of the Afghan locals working here was turned away from the base recently when he tried to bring a sheep in. There's a lot of locals working here, and the idea was that he was going to slaughter the sheep at lunch time and cook it up. The guard asked him why he didn’t just slaughter it at home or at the butcher, to which the guy replied (with impeccable logic, I might add) that then he would have to carry it here, rather than have lunch walk itself.
As I was clearing up our shared drive the other day, I came across a slideshow put together, I believe, but one of the German engineers that used to work here. There's some fantastic shots here that really portray what it's like here in Kabul. There's some fantastic shots. Have a look!
Great slides!
ReplyDeleteI can think of a practical reason why the guard wouldn't let the fellow bring an un-butchered sheep into the base: IEDs. Much easier to figure that out if the meat is already in smaller pieces.
ReplyDeleteBe safe, Boomer! Hope to catch you next time you're in town.