Weekly Wrap-up

Let me just say I'm sick of the RIP (Replacement in Place).  The entire base is "RIP'ing right now and it's ANNOYING!!  People EVERYWHERE.  Lines out the door at the dining facility.  Lines out the door at the coffee place.  On top of THAT, even though they turned the hot water back on, it's only on for four hours/day....0600-0800, 1130-1230 and 1900-2000.  Seems OK at first glance but you have to completely plan your day around the water....OH!  Because it's not just that that's the only times we have HOT water, that's the only times we have WATER.  Water for washing hands, water for flushing toilets, water for ANYTHING.  I hate to say it but I'd rather have cold water ALL the time than NO water 20 hours/day.  But now I'm just bitching.  I'm counting on the fact that everything will get better after the RIP....half the people, normal water, more rooms in our chalet (I like how they call them "chalet's" like we're in the Swiss Alps or something....) and we can spread out a bit.  Although I'm getting comfy in my room now, and don't know if I want to move....I re-arranged last week and moved my bunk from the top to the bottom for a number of reasons....1) I'm old and don't want to keep climbing my big ass up to the top bunk and 2) I don't have as much "stuff" as I thought I'd have to use the bottom bunk as a 'closet' so I moved it.  MUCH better:

Closet on top, bed on the bottom....

Other than that, the days are going by fast....typical day is get up at 0400 and go to the gym, shower at 0600, breakfast, office by 0730 and then I pretty much just do admin throughout the day to keep the Staff running smoothly.  I haven't been off the FOB yet (Forward Operating Base) but I will next week!!  Yay!!  I am going to the Provincial Governor's weekly admin meeting in the hopes of meeting the DOWA (Director of Women's Affairs).  If I can meet her, I'm hoping we can start working together to get some women's programs off the ground.  We'll see.  I also have a meeting Monday afternoon with a guy that owns a sewing factory where he can employ up to 30 women but he needs a generator so I'm hoping I can hook him up with the DOWA and they can work together to get what he needs.  This past week we also did pizza night again.  We're getting better!!  We must have fed over 100 people this time!!  And we also went to the zero range to sight in our weapons again.  I was dreading it since the LAST time I was on the zero range, I was there for 5 hours and it was an afternoon of pure frustration....well, this time, zero'd that baby in NINE shots!!  I was pretty happy.

The first six our in the lower left, the next three are right in the middle there....WOO HOO!!

And that was about it for our week.  On the FOB, it's pretty much straight office work....off the FOB, the military members and the civilians (Department of State, USDA, AUSAID, etc) are trying to get their government up and running.  Will be a tough road but hopefully at the end of our time here, we'll have made some progress.  Hopefully will have a more exciting update next week.

OH!!  One last thing....FINALLY got some good mail this week!!  Got a couple packages from a friend, one from my parents, my Amazon stuff finally started to come in and got a box of Thanksgiving decorations from my friend Missy!!  AWESOME!!  You'd never think mail day is such a big deal but it is.  Warmed my heart that people back home are thinking of us.  OH!!  Another last thing....we got back one of our guys that got injured in the IED attack.  He's glad to be back and is doing well!!  Still a little sore but none-the-worse-for-the-wear.  We did NOT get back our other guy, who got sent back to Georgia to rehab his broken elbow.  He is home now, recuperating with his family.  Still pretty amazed that it wasn't worse!!  Thank GOD!!  OH!!  And one more last thing....be thankful for FAST internet!!  I downloaded an episode of 'Parks & Rec' last night and it took SIXTEEN HOURS.  That's right.  SIXTEEN.  For a 21 minute TV episode.  At home, it used to take about 2 minutes.  Wowza.  And mind you, this costs $85/month for slower-than-dial-up internet.  You gotta love Afghanistan!!  ;-)  More next week!!  Thanks everyone for all the support, it really does mean a lot!!