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...
Friday, June 25, 2010
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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