A Quarter Century

Today was my 25th Birthday and I have to say it was pretty AWESOME!  I got to spend the evening prior to my birthday Salsa dancing with several good looking men.  Upon reaching my office my coworkers serenaded me with Happy Birthday. At AGCHO the English/Dari words of the day was Happy Birthday Bebe Sarah.  I got to have dinner with a close friend and am about to go spend the evening watching movies curled up on a comfy couch.  That alone would have been enough to make me happy, but there is more.  First, my birthday package from my parents and family arrived on my Birthday, it could not have been any more perfect then that.  I am super excited about all of my fun new games and my Lego man electric tooth brush!  Thank you all!  In addition to that for the last few days I have been getting emails from people from all over the US wishing me a Happy Birthday.  Today I was bombarded with Birthday wishes.  I feel so touched and overwhelmed by all of the people who took the time to wish me a Happy Birthday.  It has truly been an amazing day.

Baba wa Bebe

In my learning of dari I have taken to saying specific sentences about certain people.  When I learned the word baba, which means old man or grandfather, I said Rob baba ast (Rob is an old man), about my Canadian cohort.  My sentences have started to stick, and soon the students were referring to Rob as baba or baba Rob. 

My other sentences which I repeat often are Fawad bisar tefel calon ast (Fawad is a very big baby) this is because he is the youngest in the class.  Nesar bisar mar calon khatarnak ast (Nesar is a very big dangerous snake) this because it is funny. Shikeab buinak ast (Shikeab is smelly) this because it is also funny.  Eshan muschkil sauce chucha ast (Eshan is a little trouble maker) he is a little person and he is always finding things wrong on peoples maps!  Needless to say we laugh alot at my limited vocabulary and the few sentences I can actually make. 

While I am learning Dari the students are learning English, my cohort Dave teaches them English for atleast an hour a day so it is fun to go back and forth with words, for instance the other day I thought I overheard one call me honey, and I then had to explain what honey was and how it was used as a term of enderament.  It now gets used as a name around the room.

This morning Fawad comes in and we are talking and as usually I call him a tefel, and he responds with Sarah bebe ast, I thought he said baby and said no, you are the baby.  He said no, do you know what bebe means, and he wrote BB on the board, I said no why don't you tell me.  He said it means grandmother, now we have Baba Rob and Bebe Sarah...I think it is rather ironic that I became a grandmother before I even had children, but what the heck, why not?

Stalk her 'til she likes you!

About once a month my directorate holds a party that is deciated to "Hails and Farewells" (Hello's and Good-bye's) to any new people and to anyone leaving. Gifts and awards are presented and a few (or alot) of words are spoken. Last week there was a party where I was welcomed and a few others were sent home. Part of the going away process is writing down what you learned while you were here. One of the guys was a younger guy had a very memorable quote that I picked up on "Stalk her til she likes you" I thought it was pretty funny and have passed it on whenever the opportunity presents itself.

I was talking to a Senior Chief I had met and he was telling me how his recruiter had pretty much stalked him to get him to join the Navy, at which point I had to interrupt and tell him my new quote. He thought it was great and asked me to email it to him as he has a memory like Dori (Finding Nemo). So the next morning I sent him a quote of the day. He responded with his appreciation, I then told him to let me know how the advice panned out for him as I was curious to know how it worked. His response was that I would be the first to know as he would just stalk me.
 
Six hours later he was waiting for me at the gate as I walked back into camp.  I asked him what he was doing, his response "I'm stalking you, remember?" I'm not sure yet, but I am pretty certain that just backfired on me!

Fish Update

Today as promised Fawad brought me fish.  My $20 bought me six fish, two of good sized and four of varying smaller sizes.  One of the big ones was even orange!  Were thinking possibly a variety of koi. 

The fact that Fawad brought me fish is not the funny part.  The funny part is the fact that he arrived at work after lunch with a plastic shopping bag full of water and fish!  The bag had not been tied at the top and air pumped in...it was open, and he had carried it all the way back from the bazar! 

Well now we had our fish, but no container to put them in as if we had put the bag down all of the water would have flown out.  So we made a makshift bag holder until my boss could get there with a garbage can to transport the fish back to the pond in!  So far they are all still alive, and hopefully we can find them some food so they stay that way.  But regardless, the adventure was definately worth the $20!

Fish Pond

The camp where I live and work was once a rather upscale neighborhood of Kabul.  Many of the buildings and walkways are made of marble, there is some really neat architecture to be seen in some of the buildings.  My particular office is a connex (shipping containers) placed over top of a swimming pool.  Outside of my office is a patio with a small pond.  Some of the people from other offices have worked really hard to make the patio a place to hang out and get together, they have also made use of the pond, but filling it up with water and having filters, pumps, etc. sent from the states, so we actually have quite the water display going on. 

In an effort to make the area as fun as possible they have decided to add animals...the first addition is four tortoises.  They are currently in a box that is about 2ft x 2ft, however, they have a elephant coffin sized box that will soon become their home. Many of my cohorts enjoy feeding them and watching their antics.

From the begining I have thought that we needed fish for the pond, since I can't go out into the town myself I have recruited one of my students to do my bidding for me.  So last week I asked Fawad if he could get me live fish.  He came back a few days later and told me it would be $3 for two fish that were about as long as my palm.  Since the pond is rather large I thought we would need several, so I gave him $20 and told him to get as many as he could.  Since Thursday is a half day for them, I thought it would be a good day to transport the fish back etc.  So about 1030 Fawad and Nesar leave to go get the fish, about 1115 Fawad returns holding one fish by its tail.  The fish is not moving, he walks into the room and puts the fish down on the table next to me.  I said Fawad, you were supposed to get me fish that were alive, he said that the fish ran out of water on the walk back, I said where are the rest of them, I gave you $20 that should have bought me alot more then one dead fish.  His response was that I could eat it for lunch.  I thanked him but said that he could have it for lunch if he liked, but that I would pass.  Eventually, he told me that the man at the Bazar did not have any live fish today but that he would bring them on Saturday, however, he thought he would atleast bring me one fish today so that I would not be disappointed. Apparently he got several funny looks as he walked back to work holding a dead fish by its tail...I wonder why...

So as an end result, Fawad still has my $20, I have no fish...atleast none that are alive...and I am not certain how he disposed of the one, but the Canadian figures that we should be able to smell our way to it in a few days.

The Pakistani Embassy

At AGCHO there is a special bathroom reserved for foreign counterparts and guests. This is done because from what I hear the bathrooms for their employees are pretty gross...now I have never dared to enter one, but one of my co-workers who has ventured into the Afghan mens restroom informed me it was only a hole in the floor. Walking around AGCHO it is not uncommon to see water leaking into the hallways from the bathrooms or being tracked out. Sooo since most foreigners would consider those bathroom conditions unusable, they have special accomodations for them, we (the Americans) share it with a group of Japanese guys. My predecessors have dubbed it the Pakistani Embassy since it is such a nice place!

We have a key that we use to open the door as it is kept locked (so only the special people can use it), It reminds me of an old skeleton key. When you walk in immediately to the left are four dirty sinks (the Japanese clean their floor mops out in the sink and dump their coffee grinds down the drain), two of which actually work I think, the other two drain to the floor as the hoses have been disconnected. Luckily there is a handy floor drain for such things! If you continue on to the back of the restroom there are four stalls, each individually doored with actual toilets. A few things to note, the door frames are made of solid wood and are exactly 5'10, it REALLY hurts when you hit your head on it as you walk through! Three of the four stalls have broken toilet seats, so there is only one that I can actually use seeing as I am a woman. It is not uncommon to see water draining from several of the stalls to the floor drain as the toilets leak. Overall the bathroom is disgusting by our standards, but its better then a hole in the floor!

Now keep that picture in mind, I just wanted to give you a little background and a visual for the stories I am about to tell.

Story One

As I mentioned earlier we share the Pakistani Embassy with the Japanese, so one day I am going into the Embassy and a Japanese guy follows me in, I go into the one stall that I can use and he goes into whichever stall he decided to use. Seeing as he is a guy, he finished first washed his hands and left, as I was exiting my stall and heading to the sink, he was locking me into the bathroom. Apparently he had forgotten that I let him in to the bathroom in the first place! Luckily, my key also works from the inside.

Story Two

On this day I went to the embassy only to find that the door was unlocked, so I headed back towards the stalls only to come face to face, or face to back with a Japanese guy standing in one of the stalls with the door wide open! I quickly reversed direction and waited by the sinks until he had finished and I could comfortably enter my stall. I was happy to see that that Japanese guy did not lock me into the bathroom when he left.

Story three does not take place in the Pakistani Embassy, but in one of the Connex bathrooms back on base that is designated as unisex. It still seems weird to walk out and see guys at the sinks.

Story Three

I go to use the facilities, and you know how you get into a routine and generally use the same stall...well the door to the stall I like to use was closed but I always check to see if it is open anways. In the back of my head I had a feeling someone was in there...but I tried anyways, so I push down on the handle and to my surprise it turns, so I'm like ok and begin to open the door, only to see a uniform through the crack standing up facing the toilet...I quickly close the door and move on to the next stall and remain inside until the other party had vacated the bathroom without washing his hands...seriously though...what is it with guys and not locking the stall doors?

So although these stories take place in a more "personal" place, I get a laugh out of them every time I think about it so I thought I would share the laughs and adventures.

Learning Dari

Learning a new language is not an easy feat.  It takes time to memorize the words not to mention the different sentence structure. Lucky for me I have a wonderful translator Mariam, who is willing to help me learn.  So every day after lunch we sit down and pull out a bunch of flash cards that I made and work on dari.  I have found that I am learning, slowly if nothing else.  I am able to put together simple sentences and recognize words.  The two words that I use most often are fulcalata (fantastic) and buinar (smelly).  My sentences frequently are SoandSo is smelly (____ buinar ast), or SoandSo is fantastic (______ fulcalata ast).  Today I learned to say SoandSo is not fantastic/smelly (________fulcalata naest).  So my students got a kick out of me saying some people were or were not fantastic/smelly.  However. Mariam and my favorite sentence that I have concocted is "Men are snakes" (Mard mar ast.)  I can't help it, it cracks me up.

It seems the biggest chanllege I have is prounciation, ast being the hardest thing for me so far...it should be pronunced like mast, but without the M, only I am always saying Ace-t, or est...I blame my spanish days.  but I continue to see improvment everyday.  I am not able to put together longer more complicated sentences madAr tu fulcalata ast (your mother is fantastic), _______ shumA kar fulcalata ast (____ your work is fantastic)...I use fantastic ALL the time, but it is fun and I am learning.  I don't know if I will every truly be fluent, but I definately think that after 6 months I should be well on my way to atleast being able to understand what is being said around me if nothing else.