Thanksgiving Weekend in the 'Stan.....

HOLA everybody!!  It's your horrible-at-being-consistent blogger here!!  Been a busy last couple of weeks.....where to start?  Well, I was finally able to go to the Provincial Governor's weekly admin meeting, where he gets together with all his Line Ministers and they discuss admin issues (duh).  It was interesting.  As the PRT, we are really just there to be flies on the wall so we didn't have an active roll at all.  There were about 6 of us there and we sat at the end of the table with our headsets on, listening to the interpreter translate for us.  I'll be honest, I couldn't really keep up because I didn't know who any of the line ministers were so when they started talking, I spent their whole spiel trying to figure out "Is that the Minister of Agriculture?  Is that the Minister of Education?" so by the time I thought I knew who it might be, another one would start talking about something totally different so I was lost.  How about an agenda, people??  (Well, there was one, but it was in Dari (or Pashtu?))  How about some name placards, people??  Granted, the meeting is not so Amy Lindahl can understand or keep up so I guess if THEY knew who each other were and could understand each other, that's really all that mattered.  :)

 

I DID accomplish my one goal of the meeting....to meet the Director of Women's Affairs (DOWA).  There are only two female line ministers (out of 36 I think?) and they are sisters.  Needless to say, they didn't say anything in the meeting.  So I approached the DOWA after the meeting and introduced myself.  We agreed to meet soon to talk about what we can do to help the women of Uruzgan province.  So we DID meet later that week and it was an interesting meeting.  I think it will be a challenge to work with her and get her to think about low cost, high impact projects that will reach MANY women throughout the province rather just doing small projects around the capital, Tarin Kowt, that only benefit 20 or 30 women at a time (she has done a couple of sewing courses and some literacy classes and things like that....).  I'm trying to figure out what we can do for the women outside the capital that probably need the most help with gender equality type stuff....women's rights, etc.  It's not an easy problem....we don't have access to those women, first of all, and it's especially not easy when trying to do everything through the Afghan government.  But it's what we're here for so we will forge ahead!!  We are going to have regular meetings with the DOWA and we'll see what kinds of things we can get going....

 

I also Skype'd with my friend Allison's 1st grade (or 2nd, Ali?) class with my friend Sam, who is a Major in the Australian Army.  It was really fun!  The kids were adorable and asked us questions like, "Do you live in an apartment?  What do you eat?  Where do you eat?  Who do you sit with?  Who do you sit with if THEIR table is full? (They were very interested in all things that had to do with the cafeteria....) What do you do when you're working?  What do you do when you're NOT working?"  Then Allison told me to tell them why we live in hardened containers and I got flustered (do you tell 6 year-olds that you don't want to get killed by a rocket attack in your sleep?) so I turned it over to Sam and he was like, "ROCKETS, KIDS!!"  GEEZ!!  Luckily, he has SUCH a pronounced Aussie accent, I don't think they understood half of what he said so it all worked out.  In one of our future Skype sessions, I'm going to bring in another one of my comrades, Emil....this big, tall, scary (but total gentle giant) Slovakian Officer.  The kids'll get a kick out his 'Russian' accent....

 

Last week I ALSO got to finally get out of TK and get over to one of our more remote FOBs (Forward Operating Bases), FOB Tinsley.  It was GREAT!!  Got to fly over there by helicopter and see some of the countryside, got to see our Tinsley detachment and catch up with those guys, got to go out on a couple of missions and actually interact with some local people and kids.  I got some GREAT pictures while I was there but won't be able to upload them until I get my internet back....and I'm about to leave for a week so I don't want to renew it for another month until I come back....so I'm stuck blogging here on my work computer (don't worry, it's BEFORE the start of the work day so your tax dollars will be hard at work in about 20 minutes....well, maybe not HARD at work, but AT work nonetheless....) where I can't upload pictures....much less anything.  We can't get on half the websites we try to go to (not THOSE websites!!).....I'm talking the NAVY EXCHANGE website.  WT....?  We can't get on YouTube, can't use thumb drives, can't burn CDs.  Geesh!!  So I'll put the pics up in a future blog....got some good ones of one of the medics blowing bubbles for the kids....some of the countryside.....some of the guys in their recreation area.  It was fun!!

 

Now I'm back for a couple of days and then I head down to Kandahar to go to a week of Female Engagement Team training.  Should be interesting!!  I'm actually really looking forward to it, although if you remember my past blog about my experience in Kandahar, I believe I referred to it as 'an armpit'.  Thankfully, the Aussies have taken us under their wings and we're staying with them, which I HEAR is in a much better area than we stayed in last time.  YAY!!  So I have high hopes.  Plus it will be HOT SHOWER time!!  It will be nice to not have to cut off the water to soap up.  Should be a good week.  Will look forward to getting back here to TK, though.  I like my job here, I like the people I work with, I like my accomodations.....food is good (drank SOUR, chunky milk out at Tinsley and about barfed....), gym is nice.  I'll bring my computer down to KAF and try to blog from there.....

 

Thanks for following everyone.....even though I AM a horrible blogger.  Surprised I still have any followers at all!!  And thanks for the care packages and letters!!  Been getting lots of good stuff and it's so fun to open the boxes and see what people send.....me and the guys have been enjoying everything so keep em' coming!!  :)