"Special" Food
My friend Boris has been helping me out at AGCHO while my Canadian is home on R&R. He has been a great help with the students and getting things done. However, he isn't the biggest fan of our $7 a month lunches. So since it was a holiday I decided to send my boys out to get lunch for everyone. Since there were twelve of us I told the guys to get 11 kabobs, a thing of rice for me, chips, drinks, and whatever else they wanted. So when the got back and we all start to eat I notice that some of the kabobs seem to be made of a lighter meat then the others. I ask them about it and I am told it is a another kind of kabob, a "special" kabob. When I ask them what kind of special kabob they didn't want to tell me. It was Dave who said, "you have heard of Rocky Mountain Oysters right?" It was then I understood why they didn't want to tell me. But they did say that since it was a special day they thought special food was in order.
Accidents Happen
So it being a holiday and all I decided that I was going to dress up and look something like a female for a few hours. So I put on this long dress that I had brought along, and since it was a summer dress I had to wear a shrug so I was "Decent". I was walking down the street with Boris and this local Afghan was riding by on his bicycle. Like always they tend to stare at me, so being the brilliant man that he was, he was riding his bike and staring at the woman on the side of the road. He then proceeded to do that little eyebrow thing that guys tend to do that says "hey, your looking good, wanna go get busy". I was pretty much disgusted by this, so I looked directly at him and gave him a dirty look. He proceeded to run his bicycle into a cement block. I did a side fist pump and exclaimed "yes" while Boris and I laughed the rest of the way down the street. Seriously, I know that I am an accident waiting to happen, but it is even more fun to be the cause of an accident!
International Relations
I am at a 4th of July BBQ, after standing in line for half an hour to get food my only options are lettuce, meat, meat, meat, and meat. Finally I settle on some meat with lettuce. My friend Boris and I snag the end of a picnic table with a tag along. We were waiting for my stalker and his friend to join us, so we were trying to find a table big enough for all of us. When we first sat down there were a couple of Brits on the other end of the table. But about halfway through they got up, so we decided to move down and take up the rest of the table to make sure we had enough room.
Less then a minute goes by and another Brit comes over and asks if he can join, Feeling bad that we had the whole table we said sure. Well it turned out it wasn't just 2 or 3 Brits, but like 12. I had gotten up to use the bathroom and came back to find our table had been commendeered by the British Royal Navy. However, there were still a few chairs we had pulled up left, so I said, ok you all can have our table, but I get the chairs (we were going to move them to a smaller table). One of the Brits response was, thats ok, you took our country. I just laughed and asked them if they had had any Tea Parties that day? I returned a minute later with a festive Patriotic Decoration to put on their table and proceeded to give them instructions to "Celebrate America's Independence" They were afterall at our 4th of July BBQ!
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Hugs!
This first part is for all the non-government people: The government structures the majority of its employees on a GS scale of 1 - 15, I am a lowly peon GS-12, my site lead is a GS-15. The people higher then the GS-15's are referred to as SES's. Essentially senior executies.
Now the group I work with here was run by a US Army Colonel, but is now being co-run by a civilian SES, who I will refer to as Mr. T. Now, Mr. T is a very nice guy and his office happens to be right next to where my group sits so we always say hello and exchange pleasantries. I have even smoked a few cigars with him! (Strawberry and Grape flavored of course)
So one night I was hanging out with my stalker and I walked him back to his room. He gave me a hug goodnight and as we are pulling apart this random guy walks by and asks where his hug is, as I turn in the other direction here comes Mr. T asking for his hug as well. Since I knew Mr. T I figured why not, so I give him a hug, explain to the other guy why he didn't get a hug but Mr. T did, and continue on my way.
Fast forward 24 hours, I am hanging out with my friend Bruce and I told him what happened with Mr. T the night before and he says, "I would have given him a hug" I just laughed. Well as we are walking back to our rooms, who do we run into but Mr. T, and I proceed to ask him if he is ready for his hug. I give him a hug and then Bruce moves in to give him a hug as well. He turns to me and says "I told you I would give him a hug". He certainly did.
The next day I run into Mr. T in the guard shack, we both just look at each other and I bust out laughing, he says to me "I know what your thinking" but to be honest, I was just trying to decide if I should ask him if he wanted his nightly hug a few hours early.
Now the group I work with here was run by a US Army Colonel, but is now being co-run by a civilian SES, who I will refer to as Mr. T. Now, Mr. T is a very nice guy and his office happens to be right next to where my group sits so we always say hello and exchange pleasantries. I have even smoked a few cigars with him! (Strawberry and Grape flavored of course)
So one night I was hanging out with my stalker and I walked him back to his room. He gave me a hug goodnight and as we are pulling apart this random guy walks by and asks where his hug is, as I turn in the other direction here comes Mr. T asking for his hug as well. Since I knew Mr. T I figured why not, so I give him a hug, explain to the other guy why he didn't get a hug but Mr. T did, and continue on my way.
Fast forward 24 hours, I am hanging out with my friend Bruce and I told him what happened with Mr. T the night before and he says, "I would have given him a hug" I just laughed. Well as we are walking back to our rooms, who do we run into but Mr. T, and I proceed to ask him if he is ready for his hug. I give him a hug and then Bruce moves in to give him a hug as well. He turns to me and says "I told you I would give him a hug". He certainly did.
The next day I run into Mr. T in the guard shack, we both just look at each other and I bust out laughing, he says to me "I know what your thinking" but to be honest, I was just trying to decide if I should ask him if he wanted his nightly hug a few hours early.
Friday, June 25, 2010
Laundry Facilities
I would like to add to the list of things I miss my second hand washer and dryer. This may seem like a relatively small thing. But trust me, they are sorely missed.
For doing laundry at camp I have three options. The first is a free laundry service where you take in your clothes and they send them offsite to be washed, folded and then returned to you. The problem with this is that one, I like instant gratification and don't want to wait the day or two it may take to get my clothes back. Two, ocassionally items are not returned to you in the condition they are sent in or not returned at all. Three, I feel weird having some stranger handling my "personal" items, especially if I want them washed a specific way.
The second option is the laundry facility, there are two on base. However, there are so many people on base who want to use them it is a struggle to actually find open washers. When you do see there are open wash, you sing Hallalluah, run back to your room grab your laundry bags, and run back to the laundry facility in hopes that no one else got there before you and put their clothes in the washers. You then have to wait for the wash cycle to run, generally it is double the length of time that is indicated on the washer, followed by atleast an hour in the dryer. Nothing you wash will be returned to you with out additional "stuff" on them, random stains will certain appear in places they were not before they were put in the washer and ocassionally you will find someone elses socks mixed in with yours as they didn't get removed from the washer before your clothes were put in there.
The third option is the shower. By that I mean wash your goodies by hand in the shower stall, ring them out and let them air dry in your room for a few days. You do this for anything you do not want ruined or you do not trust in the washer. I dont mind doing it, but things usually take atleast two days to dry...so a pain in the butt!
And of course I have my favorite laundry story. So I have two bags that I fill with clothes to take to the laundry facilities. I get there and I wash them, come back 30-40 minutes later and put them in the dryer, and again after another hour I pull them out of the dryers. I generally just shove everything back into the laundry bags and bring them back to my room to fold so I can put them away. Well right before I went to pull the clothes out of the dryer it started raining pretty hard, so there were a few puddles here and there. As I was running back to my room from the laundry shack my one bag of "whites" just happend to hit the ground in the middle of a mud puddle, so my freshly washed and clean white clothes were now muddy brown. I proceeded to return to my room and did my best to shower wash them and let them hang dry. Unfortunately, its hard to get muddy brown off of white in the shower...
For doing laundry at camp I have three options. The first is a free laundry service where you take in your clothes and they send them offsite to be washed, folded and then returned to you. The problem with this is that one, I like instant gratification and don't want to wait the day or two it may take to get my clothes back. Two, ocassionally items are not returned to you in the condition they are sent in or not returned at all. Three, I feel weird having some stranger handling my "personal" items, especially if I want them washed a specific way.
The second option is the laundry facility, there are two on base. However, there are so many people on base who want to use them it is a struggle to actually find open washers. When you do see there are open wash, you sing Hallalluah, run back to your room grab your laundry bags, and run back to the laundry facility in hopes that no one else got there before you and put their clothes in the washers. You then have to wait for the wash cycle to run, generally it is double the length of time that is indicated on the washer, followed by atleast an hour in the dryer. Nothing you wash will be returned to you with out additional "stuff" on them, random stains will certain appear in places they were not before they were put in the washer and ocassionally you will find someone elses socks mixed in with yours as they didn't get removed from the washer before your clothes were put in there.
The third option is the shower. By that I mean wash your goodies by hand in the shower stall, ring them out and let them air dry in your room for a few days. You do this for anything you do not want ruined or you do not trust in the washer. I dont mind doing it, but things usually take atleast two days to dry...so a pain in the butt!
And of course I have my favorite laundry story. So I have two bags that I fill with clothes to take to the laundry facilities. I get there and I wash them, come back 30-40 minutes later and put them in the dryer, and again after another hour I pull them out of the dryers. I generally just shove everything back into the laundry bags and bring them back to my room to fold so I can put them away. Well right before I went to pull the clothes out of the dryer it started raining pretty hard, so there were a few puddles here and there. As I was running back to my room from the laundry shack my one bag of "whites" just happend to hit the ground in the middle of a mud puddle, so my freshly washed and clean white clothes were now muddy brown. I proceeded to return to my room and did my best to shower wash them and let them hang dry. Unfortunately, its hard to get muddy brown off of white in the shower...
Friday, June 18, 2010
English Turrets
As a part of our work at AGCHO we teach English to our employees. Dave does formalized training twice a day, probably for about 30-60 minutes a day. Frequently the students will come in with questions about words that they have heard on movies or TV, they will also pick up things that you say and ask what it means etc. There have definitely been some funny words and occurrences dealing with learning English.
After a rough day where Shikeab lost all of the data on his hard drive, he returned the following day with the word “suffering”, I told him I was suffering with him.
Often times I will hear what the students are saying in Dari and think it’s an English word. Once I over heard what I thought was Fawad referring to Nesar as “Honey”, I asked, did you just call him honey? He said no, and then proceeded to ask what honey meant. So I explained it was honey that you eat, but also a term of endearment for your special someone. Occasionally, someone gets called honey.
However, my favorite English story is about Nazir. Nazir will pick up on a word or sentence and then repeat it over and over again, but extremely fast. So fast that I couldn’t always understand his English, so I always have to tell him to slow down and to pronounce each word distinctly. Apparently he speaks Dari very quickly as well, and his co-workers have to tell him to slow down frequently too. I was telling one of my friends about Nazir and how it made me laugh how fast he said things etc, his response, “it’s like he has Turrets”. And really, how can you not laugh about that?
After a rough day where Shikeab lost all of the data on his hard drive, he returned the following day with the word “suffering”, I told him I was suffering with him.
Often times I will hear what the students are saying in Dari and think it’s an English word. Once I over heard what I thought was Fawad referring to Nesar as “Honey”, I asked, did you just call him honey? He said no, and then proceeded to ask what honey meant. So I explained it was honey that you eat, but also a term of endearment for your special someone. Occasionally, someone gets called honey.
However, my favorite English story is about Nazir. Nazir will pick up on a word or sentence and then repeat it over and over again, but extremely fast. So fast that I couldn’t always understand his English, so I always have to tell him to slow down and to pronounce each word distinctly. Apparently he speaks Dari very quickly as well, and his co-workers have to tell him to slow down frequently too. I was telling one of my friends about Nazir and how it made me laugh how fast he said things etc, his response, “it’s like he has Turrets”. And really, how can you not laugh about that?
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Peace, Love, and Vampires
Our monthly hail and farewell seems to grow with each passing month. This month I have to say good bye to my site lead whom I have come to refer to as “Daddy Warbucks” this is for a few reasons. First, before I even arrived he began to look out for me in a fatherly fashion, second he is bald, so it pretty much fits perfectly. I am going to be very sad to see him go. He is a great guy and I have truly enjoyed working with him. I also will need to say goodbye to this crazy biker dude from California who has instructed me to refer to him as “The old son of a bitch”. He is going to be truly missed as approximately 95% of our comedic relief comes from him. We have a board where we write down the funny things that people say; it probably should just be renamed for him as all of the quotes are his.
I would guestimate that there was somewhere in the neighborhood of at least 40 people there. To celebrate the fun occasion we got lots of food from the DFAC, this included burgers and dogs, potato salad, beans, chili, chips, and of course ice cream, it was good!
However, my favorite part of the night was the piñata. One of the girls from the team created a piñata full of candy and all of the people that were leaving tried to break it open. Being the smart person she was, she reinforced it with duct tape, so everyone hit the crap out of the piñata and no one was quite able to break it. But it was certainly fun to watch. As an added bonus, she is a total Twilight fan, hence the awesome piñata design!
I would guestimate that there was somewhere in the neighborhood of at least 40 people there. To celebrate the fun occasion we got lots of food from the DFAC, this included burgers and dogs, potato salad, beans, chili, chips, and of course ice cream, it was good!
However, my favorite part of the night was the piñata. One of the girls from the team created a piñata full of candy and all of the people that were leaving tried to break it open. Being the smart person she was, she reinforced it with duct tape, so everyone hit the crap out of the piñata and no one was quite able to break it. But it was certainly fun to watch. As an added bonus, she is a total Twilight fan, hence the awesome piñata design!
Monday, June 14, 2010
5K
My friend Ty decided that I was going to run in a 5k with him. This was determined a little over two weeks before the event. I reluctantly agreed to do it knowing that I had never run that far consecutively in my life, let alone in a 5k race. But, I figured that it would be good exercise, and hey I could say I ran my first 5k in Afghanistan.
I began running almost every day and figured that I should be able to get through the race with a little walking. My goal was simply to finish.
Race day came and went with a few difficulties. First, I had a few “graceful” incidents that took me out of the running train for most of the week leading up to the race and the day of the race was quite hot, (I had been running at night) and it made it more challenging. However, I made it through, I completed the race in a much faster time then I had anticipated and was glad for it. There were several people from my team that ran, and it was fun to see so many people participate. There were all kinds of runners, from the Mongolians who sprinted the entire race, to the slow pokes like me who were just trying to make it through. Apparently my next goal is a 10k in July. Lord help me now!
Myself, Ty, and Daddy Warbucks before the race
I began running almost every day and figured that I should be able to get through the race with a little walking. My goal was simply to finish.
Race day came and went with a few difficulties. First, I had a few “graceful” incidents that took me out of the running train for most of the week leading up to the race and the day of the race was quite hot, (I had been running at night) and it made it more challenging. However, I made it through, I completed the race in a much faster time then I had anticipated and was glad for it. There were several people from my team that ran, and it was fun to see so many people participate. There were all kinds of runners, from the Mongolians who sprinted the entire race, to the slow pokes like me who were just trying to make it through. Apparently my next goal is a 10k in July. Lord help me now!
Myself, Ty, and Daddy Warbucks before the race
And we're off!!
After the race...I squatted down so they wouldnt feel so short!
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Just call me Grace
As many of you know, I am a walking disaster. If there is a hole, I will find it, step in it and trip. If there is not a hole, I will still trip and fall…I am just that good.
Saturday
I go out running in the evening as it is cool and I had finished work for the day. So I am running along and low and behold I find something to trip over and fall down. I end up severely bruising my right knee cap and cutting my right hand. Truly, a great way to end the night.
I was sore and hurt from the night before and I didn’t sleep well, so I was running late for work. I stopped off at the DFAC to grab breakfast and head to the office. Now, one of my new obsessions has become applesauce. So I was carrying a TOGO carton with a bowl of applesauce on top of it. I walk into the guard shack and put down my food, put my phone on the shelf, pick up my food and turn to enter the combination for the door, as I do so my applesauce falls and I end up with applesauce on my shirt, pants and in my shoes…not a good way to start the day.
Monday
Monday was a seemingly normal day, until dinner that is. We frequently will eat dinner outside on this patio area. So after eating our meal we decided that we needed to have some ice cream for desert, so I go to get up and end up catching my foot between the chair and table and going down. I bruise myself all the way around my ankle, my left knee, hip and shoulder. Luckily, the patio was only half full, so only 20 or so people saw my graceful fall.
After that point I thought it would be a good idea to start taking bets on how many more times I would fall this week. Unfortunely, once the next Saturday rolled around, I again biffed it at the DFAC, I am now keeping a running total on my stay here.
Saturday
I go out running in the evening as it is cool and I had finished work for the day. So I am running along and low and behold I find something to trip over and fall down. I end up severely bruising my right knee cap and cutting my right hand. Truly, a great way to end the night.
Sunday
I was sore and hurt from the night before and I didn’t sleep well, so I was running late for work. I stopped off at the DFAC to grab breakfast and head to the office. Now, one of my new obsessions has become applesauce. So I was carrying a TOGO carton with a bowl of applesauce on top of it. I walk into the guard shack and put down my food, put my phone on the shelf, pick up my food and turn to enter the combination for the door, as I do so my applesauce falls and I end up with applesauce on my shirt, pants and in my shoes…not a good way to start the day.
Monday
Monday was a seemingly normal day, until dinner that is. We frequently will eat dinner outside on this patio area. So after eating our meal we decided that we needed to have some ice cream for desert, so I go to get up and end up catching my foot between the chair and table and going down. I bruise myself all the way around my ankle, my left knee, hip and shoulder. Luckily, the patio was only half full, so only 20 or so people saw my graceful fall.
After that point I thought it would be a good idea to start taking bets on how many more times I would fall this week. Unfortunely, once the next Saturday rolled around, I again biffed it at the DFAC, I am now keeping a running total on my stay here.
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