What I miss and how it has changed me

Being away from home and from your known suroundings definately throws a person off.  You are no longer able to walk down the street to the grocery store or head into walmart, you can't go camping in the woods with your friends or do any number of things.  And I am ok with that.  I volunteered to give that up,

What I miss are more simple things;

I miss my family.  My family is going through an extremely exciting time right now as we look forward to the birth of the first grand baby into our family.  I am supper excited for my sister and her husband and cannot wait to meet the little guy.

I miss my electric toothbrush.  I'm not really sure what changed, if it is the food, the environment or the voice of my mother in the back of my head, but I have become obsessed with brushing and flossing my teeth,  It seems as though I can't keep my mouth clean enough. 

I miss my close friends, and the ability to call them up and go visit and hang out when I needed someone to be with.  I got lucky when I got here and was quickly able to pick out my Afghanistan Best friend, Ty, he quickly became my shortkick and we really enjoy hanging out togehter.  I feel lucky to have him in my life as a friend and confidant, However, I miss my old friends too, and communiation is hard with a crazy time different among other things.

I miss the ability to get into my car and just go somewhere, here I walk everywhere I need to go, and if its on base then you can go anywhere, your just very limited on where that is.

I think that one of the biggest things I miss is privacy.  Privacy is at a premium.  Even in my room there is no true privacy as my roommate can hear everything I do, and everywhere you go there are people, sometimes I just crave solitude, and a little time to regroup and regenerate.  I always liked my alone time, but never realized before now just how necessary it truly was.

Missing those things are difficult, but I still feel that the job I am doing qne the experience I am getting more then make up for what I am missing.  Here I found a new family, the people I work with are crazy and great and I have come to love them.  My boss immediately took me under his wing to look after as a daughter, I have recently dubbed him Daddy Warbucks.  My Canadian Baba Rob has grown on me imensely and I am already sad at the idea of him leaving in a few months.  My other co-workers all have their unique quirks and good personalities that make working with them so much fun.  There is not a day that goes buy that we do not laugh until there are tears pouring out from laughing so hard.  It's what happens when you put a bunch of crazy old men togehter in one room...

What has Changed me

I think the biggest thing for me is self confidence in my abiliteis and my skills and my future.  I also have a better sense of myself.  The confidence has allowed me more freedom to explore different areas of myself and be able to search those areas and determine the true me.  A time of reflection was good.  Now I need the strengh to stand behind those lessons learned and do what is best for me.  And it will...it may just take time like anything else.

Camp Life

Remember what it was like to live in the dorm at college?  Where you and a roomate share this tiny space and there is a floor full of rooms just like it filled with even more people?  That is pretty much exactly what it is like here.  I live in a connex, which is a building made out of shipping containers, basicually each room is one container and is shared by 2-3 people. They named it the SWAMP, which I love since I am a huge Mash Fan.  I am lucky in that I only have one roommate, her name is Doll, she is pretty cool and tolerates my wicked ways well enough, so I can't complain.  We partitioned off the room to have a litle added privacy but is still a shared room and you can always hear what the other person is doing.  I am also lucky in that the bathroon is just across the hall.  There are three shower stalls, two toilets and two sinks.  Im not exactly sure how many woman are on my floor and share it, but i would say 10-15.  Some mornings it can get a little hairy, but so far it has worked out.  The only problem comes when there isn;t any water and you cant take a shower, wash your hands, or flush the toilet.  That has only happened a few times in the month I have been here, so I guess it could be alot worse. 

Heading outside there are several  more buildings that look just like mine.  Many are housing buildings and some are workspaces.  Across the street is one of the chow halls...it has the longest lines, but in my opinion the best food.  Not too much further down is a gathering place for many, there is a fun patio with a tree and flowers, a video shop, the green bean coffee shop, mwr where you can rent movies and games, they also have pool tables and fooshball tables as well.  Next to that is one of the gyms, and inside the gym is the movie room with couches and a big screen tv.  My friend Ty and I frequently enjoy relaxing on the cumfy couches and watching movies...sometimes we even get to choose what we watch! (We are in the midst of the Star Wars Saga as I had never seen them.)  Outside of the gym is the clam shell, this is where all of the big activities take place.  Any group training is done here, church services, and the fun stuff like bands, salsa night, karokee night etc.  Througout the area there are many places to shit and chat and relax.  It is nice to have so much so close.  My office is a bit further away...it probably takes 2-3 minutes to walk there. and from there it is another minute or two to the other DFAC. 

DFAC's are very important places.  Firstly because I love to eat.  Food is GOOD!  So I always make sure to get in there for dinner and then I stock up on snacks and necessities that i might need for later in the day like cookies, cereal, beef jerky (for the dogs) fruit, and beverages.  I have to say that even though I enjoy and appreciate having someone else cook for me, I would much rather cook for myself.  And for some reason no one has thought up Veggie burgers or morning star products.  Might make things easier.  But I guess there is always salad.

Overall its a pretty small camp. I have found that once I become aware of a person I see them everywhere and because it is the same people over and over again it tends to begin to feel like stalking...just ask my stalker he'll tell you.  I like the closeness of the community though.  It seems like you cannot go some where and not know anyone, kind of makes me feel like I'm on cheers or something.

There are some luxeries there though, there is a pizza place that should stay open for another few months, there are several haji shops where you can get rugs, scarves, various knick nacks, and a custom made suit for $60.  There is a nice courtyard filled with gazeebos and roses where lovers go to cuddle up and where the rest of the guys just go to hang out because it is so pretty! There is also the lovely Green Spa that I told you about previously as well as the PX.  The PX i have a love hate relationship with.  This is for a few reasons.  Ihe first is that the flooring and stair structure of the building are really odd and being the klutz that I am I frequently trip over the floor or invisible stairs.  However they have things that I like a need, a little secion on skin care and personal hygiene, a large section of growth hormones for guys trying to get ripped, a small secion of various household goods you might want.  as well as a junk food sction an electronics area, and military supply area.  I have found that my favorite area is the junk food section....i try not to eat too much junk food, but i have a hard time resisting sour cream and onion ruffles and as i was waiting in line i spied a microwave bake brownie, so I had to get two.  Bake that bad boy up, throw on some ice cream and hot fudge I scored from the DFAC, We were in heaven.  I mean you can almost have it like you were back home.  Love it! 

Cheese Whiz

I had intended to bring some treats to AGCHO for my birthday, but withit being salsa night the night before I just didn't make it to the PX tobuy anything. But I did go to the PX on my Birthday and bought some snacks (think elementary school). It just so happened that the Easy Cheese had been talking to me for the last four weeks and I decided to indulge. I told myself it was my substitute Birthday Cake. I ended up bringing the Easy Cheese and Crackers to AGCHO with me and since I had to have a few for myself I set it out for everyone. Rob and I were enjoying it and Mariam our interpreter came up and grabbed a cracker and took a bite, I told her,you have to put some cheese on it, she looked at me a little questioningly and I took the can and showed her how to put it on her cracker. She duplicated my efforts and then popped the cheesy cracker into her mouth, it was then that her eyes lit up, after she finished eating she said "that is really good!" eventually the rest of the students came around and Rob taught them how to put the cheese on the crackers. And they all were soon addicted. Apparently they had never had cheese whiz before! It was a lot of fun to be the one to introduce them to something new, especially since they all liked it so much.

My favorite part though came when Fawad took the cheese and three crackers and spelled out WWE (He is a WWE fanatic). It reminded me of how my mother used to spell out our names and varous things on crackers with cheese when I was young. I can't help it, I am always smiling!

Afghanistan Women

Many people are aware that Afghanistan women wear burkas and keep themselves covered.  For some there is a religious reason, for others it is a safety measure.  Covered here would be always wearing pants or a long dress, wearing long sleeves, and a covering for their head.  Most of the women that I have seen simply wear a scarf wrapped around their head and shoulders and show their face.

Being American and coming from a different culture and religion, I have a very different opinion of what is proper and acceptable to be shown in public.  Coming here to work I was ill prepared to be a woman working among the Afghan population.  By that I mean that I did not have the proper wardrobe.  Even though it is summer I cannot wear short sleeves, and my polo shirts that are long sleeved, well, they have a womans cut to them and therefore are not designed to be tucked in and as a result, my back will often show when I sit down etc.  This is not a good thing and as a result I have needed to be creative to make sure that I am covered from the neck down with nothing peaking out where it is not supposed to be. 

I also make the choice to not cover my head.  I believe that I am being respectful to the culture by covering my body, I will not cover my head.  This is not a problem with the people that I work with, but rather it has garnered me a great deal of unwanted attention.  Esentially, I am an oddity here, I have pale skin, and I do not cover my head which shows hair that is a rather unique color for the region.  Walking to work the men all stop to look, the gaurds all want to shake my hand and touch me, but the funniest part, is that they all want to take a picture with me.

A camera is an expense that not many Afghan's can afford, however, they all love having their picture taken, so when they see American's they know that we have cameras and ask to have their picture taken, and this is how it goes down.  Dave, Rob and I are walking to AGCHO, we get stopped by soldiers or guards and asked to take a picture, Dave ALWAYS goes for his camera, and the guards/soldiers immediately move to stand near me.  They don't just want their picture taken, they want their picture taken with ME!  I find this to be rather humerous, and have decided to start a collection of pictures with me and random guys...I'm not sure how many have been taken so far, but there will certainly be many more taken in the future!

After we took this picture the guard on the right asked for it every day. Now, first off, I didn't even want to take the picture with him let alone make the effort to print it out, Second, I had no desire to give a picture of me "uncovered" to a guy that I didn't know. However, the insistent peppering for the picture was starting to get irritating. So Rob being the smart man that he is came up with a solution. He said, lets give him the picture but put a burka on you. I said, you know that might just do it, this way my picture was not in the hands of a random guy, and the guard still gets his picture. So we had our new guy Peter photo shop a burka onto me and we will be giving it to the guard on Saturday, Rob is going to be armed with his camera to document the guards reaction when he sees the photo. I am pretty excited myself. Now if I can only get the head guard to stop asking me for my picture I will be good!

The Green Spa

Regardless of what many people think military bases in a war zone are civilized places, and at the one I am on there is a spa. It is run by a bunch of women from Kyrgyzstan. Needless to say they do not speak a great deal of English.

For my birthday I decided that I wanted to spoil myself a bit and get a pedicure, since I was there I decided to get some waxing done as well. My eyebrows needed some shaping and according to my sister Emily I need to do my lip and neck as well (damn Arnold genes!). So I figured that since I was there I might as well get it taken care of.

The Pedicure was done in what was previously some kind of bathing facility/corner of the spa, in place of a massage chair there was a padded office chair straped up on a pedestal, and a plastic foot bath placed in front of it, there was also a padded wooden stand that my feet were placed on when she worked on them. The lady did a nice job getting callouses off and shaping my nails, she painted them and did a nice design.

Next, I was scheduled to do my waxing, the lady seemed to be in a rush as she kept coming over to the gal doing my pedicure asking her if she was done yet etc. (this was all done in a different language so I assume that is what she was saying, but, I am not 100% certain) So as soon as my pedicure was done I was wisked behind the waxing curtin. I was instructed to lay down on the table and then the woman asked me what I wanted done she said eyebrow and lip, I said yes, but do my neck and anywhere you saw long hairs. Her response was "Oh my God!" and she ran out of the room. I was thinking to myself, really? It didn't seem like that strange of a request to me, but maybe she had someone else waiting and she thought it would take too long. She returned a minute or two later and proceeded with my waxing. She waxed nearly my entire face! From cheek bones all the way down my neck! Now I guarantee you I did not have hair in all of those places, so I assumed that there was some serious miscommunicationthat had occurred as my entire face is now completely fuzz free. She then moved on to my eyebrows and (sorry Emily) gave me the most intense eyebrow shaping experience of my life. I don't think I have ever had anyone pay so much attention to the shaping of my brows, but they did turn out good.

Now I am sure you all are wondering the cost of such extravagance in Afghanistan, well, let me tell you, the Pedicure was $18 and the Face Waxing was $12...all in all I thought it was a pretty good deal especially since the whole time I was getting waxed I was thinking about how much fun it was going to be to blog about. Tomorrow I am going for my $20 - hour long massage....I am excited!

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.