Comings and Goings

I went to Afghanistan, zen neutral.  For those of you who don’t know what this means, let me 
explain.  I focused on my breathing in order to calm myself.  I did not want to land in a war zone with a preconceived notion of what my new life would be like.  Apparently, I held my breath for the months I was encased there.  Hypoxia does strange things to your mind.

In all honesty, the unrelenting challenge of my new life in a war zone had bitch slapped me into some semblance of giving a shit.  I could slowly feel the distant flicker of my inner drive resurfacing.  The “fire in my belly” that impelled me forward my whole life had been missing for months, years maybe, I don’t know.  I knew a visceral change was happening because I had been thinking about playing music, studying and writing with a glint of anticipation.  Hmmm.

I will not mince words.  Strive for “the corporate man” I did.  I have nothing to droop my head about.  The facts remain, I am out of a job and as of this moment I have no prospects.  The firing was perfunctory and quick.  I went into my boss’s office on a Friday morning to discuss the terms of my contract renewal.  (Friday is my official weekend day off) I was fully expecting to be negotiating the amount of my raise.  Josh, my boss, looked at me and said simply, “We are going to have to let you go.”  My first response was, “Here is my other leg to pull, Josh”  Ha ha, nice joke, I thought, cruel but locker room funny.  I suppose my reaction to this “tease” would be the brunt of several tasteless ribbings.  Like “You should of seen the look on his face.  Bah ha ha ha.”  But he was dead serious.  Barely blinking, staring straight at me, he was totally stone faced.  Shit head.  Here is a guy I have gone out to dinner with, drank cocktails and talked about life with for hours.  We danced in chaps during one of our guesthouse parties for Christ sake.  Hell, we sat down for several hours and discussed ways to help the company improve.  For some reason he would not give me any reason for my dismissal.  He would not even give me the professional courtesy of writing me a letter of recommendation.  Butt faced pig ass dick licking mother f****** son-of-a-bitch...COME ON Lou!  Tell us how you feel!

Josh the "Boss" In Chaps

Unbelievably, I had been thrown under the Herat bus.  I thought I had survived the never-ending onslaught of impossible situations by buckling down, working long hours and moving the multi-million dollar projects along as best as could be expected under the circumstances.  I thought I had found a way to help extricate the company out of the quagmire they had dug in Herat.  Hell, I even uncovered some potential embezzlement after I was told by Josh to “just take it over Lou”. (I still have that email by the way LOL)  In a nutshell, I truly thought I was doing the work that was expected of me.  Two of the Project Engineers for the Army Corp even told me things had improved substantially since I arrived.  Foolish mortal.  You thought?  Welcome to corporate America in Afghanistan.

The truth is as follows: being an expat working in Afghanistan has a very low quality of life.  This realization is magnified once you return to normal life in the USA.  Day to day you are surrounded by armed guards and you must put in a request to go anywhere off the compound.  I kept my blinders on while I was there because focusing on the true reality of the living situation would have driven me crazy. Getting out of the office meant you were traveling to a remote job site and the dangers increase exponentially whenever you drive down the road and/or get on an airplane to fly across the country.  There were three airplane incidents while I was there.  Three.

Dennis, Me and Lucy "Life Doesn't Suck"

Overall, I was treated with respect from my fellow workers.  I was given a decent level of comfort and care in my day to day living situation considering that this was Afghanistan after all.  I was never afforded any concrete direction, written or spoken about the expectation of work product.  There was no policy on how to best accomplish the goals of the company.  This multi-million dollar company is inhaling our tax dollars at a prodigious rate, (tens of millions of dollars a year) yet it does not have a working organizational schema or a consistent policy expectation in our dealings with our client, the Army Corps of Engineers.  The Corps sign off on our paychecks.  One would think a company would have some policies in place for sucking up to the money...welcome to Afghanistan...the larger stories about corruption and graft may be exaggerated...but probably not.

The potential reasons for my untimely and unexpected dismissal burn through my brain like so many hot coals dripping onto tissue paper.  Blasts of white light, white anger, white pain, all running into a cauldron of blinding disappointment.  It now occurs to me that my downfall could have been a direct result of my success.  I may have been a threat to my boss. Really?  Chicken shit mother f*****.  I don’t know why I would be a threat to him by being successful.  I will probably never know why.  Everyone I saw and talked to before I left was absolutely stunned and bummed by this turn of events.  Many of the guys gave me big hugs and were speechless.  They all perceived me as doing great work and could not fathom the reason’s why.  It is what it is...and here I am…

Enough of the drizzle eyes, I have a couple more stories I want to share with you all about my experiences.  I need to share some of the cool/incredible stuff.  Some of the day to day, life in Afghanistan stuff.  Onward.

Koochi Camp

Mujaheddin Hero-Masoud's Grave

The smell of the country still invades my nostrils.  As if it has become part of my flesh and I still have not eaten enough, drank enough or shat enough to rid myself, my body, my mind, of this odor.  It is as if this pungent aroma has intertwined itself with my mustache, my hair, my skin.  I have scrubbed myself furiously in vain attempts of whole body aromatherapy.  It is as if some parts of my brain had been neuron-ically singed by the funk.  Permanently etched neural paths have been seared.  It is like I have a smell brain tumor.  People with brain tumors have reported that they would become aware of a certain smell, sound or a visual “aura” right before having a seizure.  Maybe I am having a seizure.

Sometimes I think my smell “tumor” could have been caused by the weed spraying the gardener did during my three day battle with the flu in Herat.  (I got the flu from eating lunch at the army base, go figure)  The prodigious use of unregulated poisons like DDT and dioxins are rampant in 3rd world countries and Afghanistan is no exception.  I discovered these products were being used in the rose garden to control weeds and bugs.  It was wild, I mean for days I kept asking everyone if they knew what that “smell” was.  Nobody else could even smell it much less tell me where it was coming from.  This repeated “nay” response to my queries turned my thoughts to the possible brain tumor growing in my skull.  I don’t know why. 

Me and My "International" Friend Farook

After several days of inquiries, I took matters into my own hands.  In this case, it was more like my own nose.  I wandered around outside the offices in the 100+ degree heat to find where this horrific smell was coming from.  I finally found a spray canister of “bug spray” that the gardener had been saturating the entire area with like it was rose water.  He was blithely shuffling around in his sandals spreading dioxin everywhere.  Hell, these volatile chemicals were even seeping into my guesthouse through my split-pack A/C unit.  The lingering fumes made my eyes sting.  It took almost a week for the stink to dissipate.  I don’t think my tumor has shrunk yet though.  They did grow beautiful roses though.  Just sayin’.

Some of you have asked how the army people are holding up during this summers “surge”.  I was at Camp Stone outside of Herat for a meeting with the Army Corps people, and I noticed four guys cleaning their big guns.  Big, black gunmetal guns with huge long barrels.  They had parts spread out all over the tables near the camp post office.  I recognized the 50 cals (having seen them on every HumVee all over the country) but I had to ask them about the other huge barreled appliance they were dismantling.  They explained it was an experimental brute killing machine gun called an XM 25 or something like that.  It launches exploding mini-grenades.  I wondered if I could pick them up to “feel” how heavy they were.  The “exploding rounds” were incredibly heavy while the actual gun was surprisingly light.  Only 14lbs ready to shoot with a 4 round clip.  The five Rangers were forthcoming and animated about their massive guns and were still “amped” about the firefight they got into a few days prior.  The adrenaline was obviously still pumping as they shared the story about their recent ambush.  Apparently several insurgents were neutralized and a few buildings were leveled during the encounter. 

The XM 25, they explained, fires 25mm rounds at targets up to 700M away using laser sights.  That is like half a mile.  “The great thing about this piece of machinery,” they chimed excitedly, “is that the rounds pierce the wall of a compound, then explode like a grenade inside the house.”  Even the Sarge expressed his satisfaction at the results of the recent firefight, “It reminds us why we are here and that we are helping in this fight.  This is how we are going to win this war...one firefight at a time.”  With firm handshakes and smiles all around I thanked the guys for the info and jokingly asked them when I could fire a few rounds one of these days.  They looked at each other and grinned, “Maybe we could set something up.  See you next time if we are not out on mission.”  This illustrates one great reason to be an American in Afghanistan...the chance of discharging really BIG weapons.  Wow.

So there I am waiting for my flight back to the states.  I am sitting in middle of the gleaming glitzy-ness of the Dubai airport.  A multicultural, multinational hub of money dripping ostentatious-ness.  You can smell money here.  I pondered the nonchalant saunter of the chosen people sliding along the gleaming marble.  Most of the faces I looked at were festooned with the gaze of bored privilege.  Ironically, for the next hour or two, I am one of them, by definition.

I have already drunk too much espresso and combine that with my lack of sleep, I am wired for stereo.  Great, so now I am super nervous, my Mac battery is almost gone, and smoking is not allowed in the terminal.  Damn-it, I don’t even smoke.  Jesus.  I will need this computer for the upcoming soul wrenching writing I am sure will overtake me on the 16 hour flight to LA.  The desperate flight home.

All the kings horses

Bread for the Workers

And all the kings men
Can not put Afghanistan
Together again

A Dream Speaks Volumes:
My blue airplane dream captured the easy moments of conviviality when thoughts and ideas could be expressed easily.  No competition just collaboration.  That was the overriding sentiment originally expressed when I agreed to the job.  “We are all a team here.” my new boss Josh stated during our first conversation after his promotion.  “It is more of a title than anything else, Lou, don’t worry.”  (I wonder if my ears were burning when I heard that?)

In my dream I had wandered across the small creek surrounded by green grass to a small cottage on the edge of a meadow.  I parked a blue car with the steering wheel on the right side.  I watched a single engine plane turn and descend sharply to make a landing approach in the wheat filled meadow that spread out in front of me.  I watched it with interest and longing for the day that I would be able to fly again.  My days of ultralight adventures are already 25 years in the past.  Flying an ultralight is like driving a motorcycle with wings.  Wind in your hair and bugs in your teeth.  The blue and white plane descended sharply, leveling off smoothly and made a graceful connection with the meadow grass. 

The grass shimmered with morning dew and the tassels of seed moved in waves with the slight breeze blowing across it.  The plane bumped along and was coming directly to where I stood by the car.  I suppose I should have been alarmed as the spinning propeller got closer and closer.  I wondered calmly if the pilot was going to stop in time.  I did not think about jumping out of the way and I don’t know why this did not occur to me.  I knew I was safe somehow.  A third person observer would have yelled for me to move.

Hmmm...Lou in Field in the Kush

The plane did stop and the propeller did wind down about 10 feet away from me.  After a couple of minutes a spry young man in his early 30’s leaped from the cockpit and smiled as if he knew me from some other place.  I recognized him but I did not know who he was. (such is the way of dreams)  He was not a truly familiar face by any means but I knew him.  I mumbled something like “Nice day for flying huh.”  to which he replied smiling “Yes, excellent.  Glad you are here.”  I wanted to ask him why he landed at this particular place because there was no runway and no fuel for the plane.  Somehow I understood that none of this mattered.  I also knew I was in a dream.  I was aware of the unreality unfolding in my mind.  I did not concern myself any further with these thoughts.

After an expanse of time lost in the melancholy of the moment, I watched the pilot open a narrow door.  The door opened underneath and behind the propeller.  He bent down a little and walked through the door into the belly of the plane.  I stammered out “What the…” as he turned and smiled a beatific smile and said, “Don’t you want to see everything?  Come on in.”  I followed him into the belly of the plane and discovered a very neat and tidy 1950’s boat galley type of affair, complete with sink, cookstove and a small bathroom shower.  Beautifully matched powder blue and white vinyl covered seats that you know would fold out into a bed.  He sat down languidly on one of the bench seats and looked at me.  “Nice huh.  Keeps me cozy wherever I go.”  “Yeah, no kidding.  It is so roomy in here,” I said excitedly,  “You cannot imagine this kind of space from the outside of the plane.”  I explained.  “I mean not at all.”  The not so distant stranger smiled languidly, took a satisfying pull from his long neck beer and said, “It is a bit of an optical illusion isn’t it?”

People can get used to anything.
And now for something completely different.

I walked around evergreen lake yesterday.  It was a blustery October morning.  As I walked I became more aware of the growing black hole lodged in my breast.  I tromped pass other imperial walkers who greeted me sunnily with a “good morning” or “hello”.  The signal was one of solidarity between us, between us, the chosen lake walkers.  We who were able to ring this high mountain lake on this extraordinary day.  Even with my growing inner blackness the beauty of the moment was not lost on me. I reveled in the reflection of the sun shimmering off the wind capped water.  I watched kayakers and stealthy canoes slicing through the water.  Two or three intrepid boaters beached themselves in order to get their lines wet with the anticipation of their well hidden hooks snagging an unsuspecting trout.

Mo & Lisa With Me & Trice

Max, Nat, Trice Patty & Buzz and Me...home again

It has taken me this long to get my head around this experience, this adventure.  I am back in the USA and have no conscious intention of going back to Afghanistan, or any other “conflict zone.”  As I have said, going there was not my druthers, but it is what it is, it is what I did, and now I find myself searching back through the opaque looking glass of my experiences there.  Regret is not the word/feeling I would choose in retrospect.  Absolute astonishment is more to the core of the experience. 

There is more...there is always more

Feedings In The Third World

There are two things that really enliven overseas travel.  Local food and their bathrooms.  Obviously they go hand in hand, er, right hand then left hand in many places.  First world countries have pretty much resolved this huge issue by ensuring clean water and providing central sewer systems in all their major urban areas.  The rest of the world is playing catch-up.  Visiting third world countries requires you, the traveler, to be aware and be wary of what you eat and where you go to relieve yourself…but this very real concern should not paralyze you or anyone else into locking yourself into a 5 star hotel during your stay abroad.  Concerns should not prevent anyone from sampling local cuisine and, out of necessity, using a public restroom…well not so much.  It is part of the adventure, part of the experience.

Eating local dishes in a third world country always fills me with anticipation, dread and hope.  A new cuisine forces you to re-educate your taste buds, and if you are open to the exotic flavors, you will always learn to enjoy what is offered.  I have had the pleasure to savor indigenous foods from many parts of the world.  In Mexico I salivated at tables full of locally grown fruits and fresh caught fish.  There is no way to compare the flavor of eating fresh food served in the area where it is grown, raised, harvested and/or picked.  In Castroville, California, which calls itself the Artichoke Capital of the World, you can have artichokes made in every way imaginable.  A veritable Bubba Gump shrimp-like menu for artichokes.  You can eat artichokes on the half shell if you want.  Did you know that Norma Jean was the first ever Artichoke Queen?  (a.k.a. Marilyn Monroe)  I won’t even go into the “native” foods I ate in France or Italy because they use pounds of butter and garlic so that is cheating and doesn’t count.  In India, I fell in love with Samosas and Tandoori oven cooking…yummy. 

The issue is how your digestive system reacts to the foods (thus the need for decent bathrooms) and the quality of their preparation and the inherent spices.  Going to visit relatives in another state can and sometime does disrupt the workings of your bowels.  This is especially true if you live in a city and you go to the country and have some fresh, locally grown produce.  The reason I specifically discuss a city person going to the country is because a they are used to drinking chlorinated water.  Country people usually have wells and they are not chlorinated.  Chlorination will kill helpful bacteria along with the e coli and cholera.  As you know, our systems are infested with billions of intestinal bacteria that aid our digestion.  If you have ever had the pleasure of looking under a microscope you will be fascinated by this idea.  In fact, without these good guy bacteria, we could not process anything we eat and we would die.  This symbiotic relationship allows our bodies to get really good at utilizing local bacteria for processing the food we eat every day.  It is a down home thing.  When you move from down home, you have to re-educate your guts.

The staple of the Afghan diet is long grain Arabian rice and large platter sized slabs of leavened oven baked flatbread, called naan.  My first days in Kabul were filled with huge serving trays of this rice and piles of flat bread.  I like rice, being a Cuban and all.  Rice everyday for me, is very nice.  Other expats would not agree.  Some days we had green rice called quorm and a delicious steamed rice with raisons and carrots and lamb called qabli pulao.  Additionally we would be served a watery vegetable soup called shorma.  These dishes were the staples we encountered everyday, rain or shine.  The problem was the additional meat that would be presented with the staples.  In Kabul we would be given unending amalgams of  “yellow” or “electric green” chicken.  The brilliant color of the chicken is the source of mind numbing snide remarks and bitch slapping admiration by all of those who eat it but do not enjoy it.   Kentucky Fried it is not.  Mystery meat never looked so oddly colored.  There must be some truly special herbs and spices that the Afghan cooks use to attain the absolutely unreal tint and undeniably weird flavor.  Definitely takes some getting used to.

The Kabul guesthouse menu was enhanced by a weekly serving of chicken fried “plank” fish, which was cooked so well that knives were useless against it.  It was as hard and as tough as a board.  If you stuck it into the microwave with a little bit of water, you could soften the fish up enough to enjoy it.  At first we were served no other fresh food like green salads or vegetables due to the concern over the contaminated water everything is washed in.  The few times I forgot this fact and tried some fresh vegetables that were not peeled, I suffered for a couple of days.  I mean it is so wrong to be afraid of a zucchini or a tomato.  We did have cooked vegetables, which were boiled to the point of extinction but anything fresh had to be examined carefully. The food in the Kabul guesthouse was nothing to write home about, (the Herat food is something else) so I will stop writing about it, and illuminate you on our dinner table discussions.

What to do in Kabul when you are NOT working.

It always amazed me that workplace feeding zones always revolved around “shop talk” discussions.  It is totally like there is nothing else to talk about.  After all these years, I have to admit that for a lot of people, the only safe subjects are sports and sex and work, not that there is anything wrong with that.  My years of construction site lunches always seemed to degrade into a “fu**ing this or mother fu**ing that ” verbal assault on the English language contest.  It amazed me that reasonably intelligent guys would lose their ability to speak in complete sentences without cussing like a sailor on leave.  I surprise myself when I use only three or four words to describe my world.  In the end, it was always safe to talk about work related shit, provided you don’t name names and get too pissy about it.  But it is not safe to talk about personal feelings and/or any political, religious or social opinions.  Just like conversations at home, difficult subjects are not to be broached in polite company.  Fuck that.  It was easier that way I understand, but come on, here we are in a war zone and somehow there are things we cannot discuss like mature adults.  Then it dawned on me…the mature adult thing…maybe not so much, doesn’t matter where you are.

For example, when I worked at the hospital is was impossible for the nurses to discuss anything but the most repulsive procedures they had been involved with that day.  (this talk is for you Annie)  It was a badge of “I-will-not-hurl” courage to flippantly detail the grossest parts of “healing the sick” day while stuffing our faces with food that looked like the fluids we recently extracted from some drug addled, fetid corpuscle of a human being.  You know what hospital food used to be like.  Remember?  It blew me away how the nurses would laugh uproariously when discussing the latest enema explosion, with a mouth full of food mind you.  This was so absolutely wrong yet it was absolutely hysterical at the time.  Women in white outfits, with silly starched hats, talking about dysfunctional bodily functions is the essence of “shop talk” gone totally dysfunctional.  I guess the fuck-all-this-shit discourse common on construction jobsites is a relief compared to the life and death failing body parts homily of nurses on the floor of a hospital.  It still makes me laugh out loud…

In all truth, trash talking about “work” during lunch “at work” always drove me crazy.  Discussing details concerning issues demanded by our paying jobs, should not be rehashed ad nausea during off time.  I mean really?  Here we are, in a heavily fortified compound, talking smack about our jobs.  Wouldn’t it be better to have dreamy discussions about best vacations, family, funny jokes, silly stories, new technologies, cars, boats, bikes, whatever?  Anyway, the liveliest discussions surrounded food choices in the Kabul guesthouse.  After finally getting “scrubbed” fresh green salads served regularly, the group huddled up and decided to create a “menu”.  The way it was supposed to work was that a couple of folks would go out and purchase whatever foods we wanted at the grocery store and give the company the bill, which they would reimburse us for.  Since I was in Herat the majority of the time, I didn’t really get into the menu details except to say that we should request local foods like lamb and kebobs.  At some point the geniuses upstairs decided that they would give us all an individual monthly food stipend to avoid the accounting “confusion”.  Within a week, we added up what we usually spend vs. the newly imposed stipend, and we discovered that we would be getting $300 MORE than we usually invoiced the company per month.  We all had to laugh long, hard and quietly at this absurd solution, but now we had more money to spend on beer and vodka.  It was a good trade for us.

When asked by my compatriots what the menu was like in Herat, I would always answer, “It is awesome.  The soups are much heartier and savorier, and the double daily dose of rice, bread and “it is not neon green” chicken is never ending.”  Breakfast consisted of yesterdays’ rice and a couple of watery eggs which after a few weeks, I started frying myself.  Then I would laugh.  Except for the couple of times that I went out, that is exactly what I was served everyday at noon and again at dinnertime.  Don’t get me wrong, the soup and chicken was really tasty, much better than in Kabul, so I really didn’t get too upset about the redundancy of my feeds.  What did concern me about the Herati food was that after a day or two, my guts would get into a roil.  

My stomach would start gurgling and “Mohammads revenge” would maliciously befall me.  Mind you, I have always had a pretty strong ironclad stomach, so I usually take different foods in stride with little or no discomfort.  This scene was really bothering me.  Part of my job is to travel to the remote project sites that require me to be in a vehicle for a couple of hours each way.  Unloading on the side of the road in the land of no trees did not appeal to me.  I could not be away from the bathroom for more than fifteen minutes, so that made my site visits during these days impossible. 

It took me several weeks to discover why this tasty food was upsetting my stomach.  I would stop eating any chicken and/or soup once the distress signals from my stomach started up.  I would just eat the rice and bread with the never ending pot of green tea.  My cook would then ask me why I was not eating anything.  He does not speak or understand English so our “conversations” were a combination of charades like hand signals and the use of simple words would culminate in me holding onto my stomach and frowning.  Universal for my gut is fucked.  What ensued after this exchange was predictable and not very helpful.  One of my co-workers, who did speak English, would ask me if I needed to see a doctor.  “No, thank you, but thanks for your concern, I'll be fine in a couple of days”  I replied.  Properly trained doctors in Afghanistan are rare and I had already found out that there were no trained doctors anywhere in Herat.  “Do you need medicine?” they would ask hopefully.  The Afghanis were always very interested in helping me however they could.  I know it was part of their job to take care of me but it seemed like they took special care, which I sincerely appreciated.  “No thank you, I have my own drugs.” I would answer quietly.  “I will be fine in a couple of days”.  The frightening part of their offer for medicine was that they would go to the nearest pharmacy and buy “stomach” pills, better known as the “pink pills”, no prescription needed, ever.  Well, these pink pills are flagyl (metronidazole) which is an antibiotic used to treat giardia lamblia, a water borne parasite.  They would try to push them to me for what ever perceived ailment I had.  The pink pill was their cure all and they were not afraid to use it.   A lot.  Hmmm.

 

What my Sherlock Holms-ing discovered was that my food was being cooked in boiling lard…after they cooked the chicken in the lard, they would use the left over "drippings" as stock for the soup.  I had already observed quite an oil slick on my soup if I let it cool down a little.  Everyday they would save the used lard by straining it, setting it on the counter, covering it with a towel and using it the next day to cook more chicken.   The problem was that they were using LARD!  Duh.  They were not refrigerating the used lard, so it sat in the heat (over 90º inside during the day).  Basically, it would get rancid.  I pointed this out to my Director of the Herat office, Rafi, as delicately as I could.  I did not want him to fire the cook. (this is unfortunately what usually what happens when I point out some problem, someone gets canned)  Rafi proudly showed me a gallon of corn oil which he told me would be used once to cook my meals and disposed of.  Unsaturated corn oil.  Oh well, it was better than rancid lard.  After this, I stopped having stomach distress upon my arrival to Herat.  Yah!!!  Small but substantial victories help make life in Herat more palatable.

No father's day to speak of out here.  I am the only expat at the Western Zone office.  The rest of my “peoples” are in Kabul.  The nearest Americans are at the army base south of the airport which is about twenty five minutes away.  I have begun to make a few acquaintances with the army regulars and who knows, maybe this will blossom into a friendship or two, which might be cool with the 4^th of July coming.  Do you think they might have some “shit that goes up and blows up” on an Afghanistan army base?  Whoa daddy, it could be epic.  The possibility of whacking a few rounds out of a 50 cal machine gun makes my eyes tear up…we will see…

So, Father’s Day was surreal and reminded me of my isolation.  I have had a couple of the Afghani men visit me in my guesthouse in Herat and those times were very pleasant and may turn into deeper friendships in time.  Fortunately, my kids, especially Max, have chosen to include me in their day to day activities/experiences which truly touches my heart.  Unbelievable really.  I have no expectations that I will/should be a big part of their adult lives.  But I must say, the first time Max skyped me to ask my opinion about something or other, I welled up.  He skyped me and we talked about how different it was not getting together with the family to celebrate.  We have been very good at keeping those kinds of traditions alive.  Max is currently doing an internship at UCLA for the summer, getting paid to conduct robotic algorithmic research with a proff and a grad student.  He has decided that he really likes the work and the challenges it presents and was very proud to tell me that his newest test worked out well, way beyond expectations.  Coolness I say, way cool it is, too proud I feel.

Natalie is in Peru attending a community service camp near Machu Pichu.  Her ability to communicate is very limited but I have heard from her that she is loving the people and the camp and Peru...I am very jealous of her South American sojourn since I had always planned to travel the continent...one of my top ten bucket list items.  Maybe in the next life if I am not too late...I miss them both and will enjoy catching up with their budding lives and adventures in the near future.

I have something very surprising and stunning to share with you…next time…

Love, hugs, misses

create more peace everyday

The Daze of Life in Herat

Two months of managing the Western Zone office has afforded me some insights into the Afghani culture.  So I am going to contribute to your understanding (or lack of) of Afghani life.  Much of what I am going to share you will not fit the stereotypes that the western media has fed you.  As with all things “different” I ask you to open your mind’s eye to their culture. 

The Men.  They dominate the observable cultural landscape.   The most interesting, and possibly surprising thing I have observed in Afghan men is their overwhelmingly gentle and kind respect for each other.  This is emphasized by morning greetings which always include a respectful handshake combined with the universal greeting, “As-Salamu Alaykum” (peace be upon you).  They greet the elders first (that includes me) then they subsequently greet all fellow workers.  A smiling hug and a busing of the cheek is reserved for closer “friends”.  Afghan men also hold hands as a sign of friendship or when they are discussing something very personal.  Later interactions during the course of the workday can get heated and impassioned, but I am getting ahead of myself. 

My interactions with women are rare.  All women are veiled (not burkha-ed but covering their hair and neck).  They keep to themselves and always maintain a physical distance and are not prone to anything remotely described as a developing friendship with a man.  Co-ed interaction does not happen comfortably in this culture.  While you all know that my curiosity is astronomical, I am not going there in the foreseeable future.  I will patiently wait for a while before confronting this cultural anomaly.

However, there was this one interaction that absolutely floored me and gave me a completely different perspective on male/female interactions in an Islamic culture.  Fakoor is one of the well dressed, bright, quick witted young Afghanis I have the pleasure to work with.  He is the head of the companies Logistics Department and quick to smile and say, “Good Evening” when it is morning.  He finds this little twist of words quite hysterical.  He is a joker at heart.  I had the pleasure of spending some time with him on occasion and we engaged in some deeper conversations about anything and everything.  His aspect was open and very forthcoming so naturally he was one of the young men I was immediately drawn to. 

One day he was bringing me a company camera (I photograph all my projects for documentation purposes and had literally burned up my personal camera).   He called me at the guest house to come down and do the exchange.  It was our Friday afternoon “day off” which is like our Sunday in the states.  I went downstairs and found him holding his beautiful one-year-old daughter who had big eyes and a look of curiosity without fear.  (I know this look in children and I am always attracted to it.)  I cooed and smiled at her, touched her little hand while her proud father beamed.

Fakoor then paused dramatically and asked me if I would like to meet the rest of his family.  I immediately said I would love to meet them.  He started walking and instructed me to follow him outside the guesthouse.  “Your family is here at the office?”  I asked incredulously (our corporate office is next door to the guesthouse where all the expats stay in Kabul).  “No, they are waiting for me out in the car, but I told them about you and they said they would like to meet you, so please come with me.”  Fakoor smiled at me, reached over and gently took my hand and guided my through the door.   This soft and kind gesture was an interaction I was experienceing more as I got to know my Afghan co-workers a little more each day.  I followed him out to his car and he introduced me to his wife and his mother.  His mother immediately got out of the car and extended her hand in greeting.  Mind you, she is my age and the “handshake” with a women in Afghanistan is pretty much taboo around here, so I was doubly touched, taken aback and awed by this obvious expression of friendship.  “It is a pleasure to meet you,” I stammered as I shook her hand, “you have a beautiful and bright family, you must be very proud of them.” I offered sincerely.  “Yes, I believe they are getting those attributes from me.” She offered without hesitation and started laughing.  I laughed at her quick wit, as did we all.  Fakoor was quick to explain, “My mother is a very smart women, she is a Professor at the university for the last 25 years, and enjoys lively conversation, which is why she wanted to meet you.”  I responded, “Fakoor, now I understand your sense of humor a little better.”  After some more lively banter, his mother bowed her head slightly and said, “I look forward to seeing you again Lou.  It was a pleasure meeting you.”  Fakoor jumped in, “I will invite you to our house one of these days, if you like.”  I responded slowly because I knew this invitation is not one to be taken lightly, “That would be a true pleasure and an honor Fakoor.  Whenever it is convenient for you and your family, just let me know.”  I waved them off with smiles all around, my head spinning with this outpouring of consideration and friendship.  This encounter made me smile for weeks to come.  It also confirmed my long held belief that all humans, at their core, want the same thing in life.  Happiness, security, food and friendship.  Observe any family gathering and you will know this is true.

So it is time to talk religion because it is the basis of the Afghani culture.  It is impossible to describe the people without understanding and accepting their “view” of the world.  Know that when I say “understand and accept their view” I do not mean that I agree with them any more than I agree with Americans although I do “understand and accept their view”.  While “understanding and accepting” another point of view, a different religion or a political position allows me to have intelligent conversations it does not imply that I see eye to eye with them.  Bear with me and enjoy the ride.  You all have heard me discuss “dis-organized religion”.  Ultimately, it is what it is, and when in Rome…

The majority of Afghanis are Sunni Muslims.  Their outward expressions of faith are similar to what we know and love in the states, only different terminology.  It runs the gamut from jaw dropping “unbelievable radicals” to super subtle nuance.  The only core divergence is the Jesus-is-the-one-and-only-God-thing.  Some Muslims are totally over the top religion-crazed and pray 5 times a day.  They respond to the ever-present “drone to prayer” broadcasts you hear from the ubiquitous mosque loudspeakers.  At a moments notice, and for no apparent reason, these fanatics are willing to kill you in order to save your soul.  “You will thank me later for saving you.”  Can you hear that?  Sound familiar?  They will try to recite passages from their holy book, the Koran (the Qur’an is considered to be the final revelation of God in case you were wondering) , even though they cannot actually read the Arabic language.  (can you Bible people read Hebrew or Greek?)  Translations are problematic because it is “divine sacred writing”.  I could ask my Christian friends which version of the King James do you read/believe?  Which chapters do you identify with?  I have asked my new Islamic friends this question and the answers I get vary with the intensity of their “faith”.  Lest I get too far a-field on the righteousness of soul-saving discussions, (I probably already did but, buck up and deal) know that I am happy for people who have faith.  Faith in something/anything gives us the ability to be “humane”.  Saying that, I just don’t need to have someone’s “translated/interpreted version” of personal faith, stuffed down my throat, it pisses me off and wastes my time…just sayin…

Half of my co-workers will thank Allah, at a moments notice, for their fortune in life and their hopes for the future and for their families and their country.  A common catchall phrase is “Insha’allah”, which means “God willing”.  Sometimes this saying becomes a mantra and I want to bitch slap some of them when they keep saying that at work.  Like when they tell me  “...it will be done by the end of the day, Insha’allah”.  My impatience slimes out on these occasions and I inform my fellow workers, in no uncertain terms, that “god’s will” has nothing to do with their pig-headed lack of a reasonable work ethic.  Of course, I really should not use the word pig-headed to describe anything, cuz their lack of bacon eating lifestyle would give them grounds to chop off my head.  So I respond evenly, “Insha’allah that I don’t fire your ass for your constant inability to get shit done in any reasonable time frame.”  Hell, it makes “Bailey Time” seem like hypersonic time travelling.  I like the “done” answer when I inquire about progress.  “Done is good”, I remind them of this simple construction mantra, on a daily basis.

The call to prayer is endemic and fortunately, some of the “singing Inmans” have very nice voices and I enjoy listening to their call, even though it is five times a day!  Honestly, some of them can sing real pretty like.  There is a plaintive kinda country and western style to their outpourings of grief and sadness.  Different beat and all mind you, and I have no idea if their dog or truck ran over their girlfriend but it has the same kind of “kill me now” whining that makes you homesick for immediate shots of 100 proof moonshine.  Some of the other guys voices, not so agreeable.  In fact, one afternoon in Kabul I wanted to take my 9mm and shoot the speaker towers, at the nearest mosque, into oblivion because that dude really sucked.  I mean, come on, call me to prayer and be totally out of tune?  Really?  Is there not anyone in your entire mosque prayer circle that can hold a note?  How about a guest singer?  Record them and use that.  Puuuullleeeezzzeeee.  Which brings me to playing music during a civil insurrection…uh, well, basically I have not done that yet, although I have looked for a piano in Herat…

Besides the ever-present droning call to prayer, my daily life has some other interesting socio-cultural differences.  Due to my “position” with the company and the fact that I am a foreigner to boot, I am given many special considerations and the utmost respect by all the Afghanis I work with.  This is an integral part of the their cultural consciousness.  They treat me just like we treat foreign co-workers in the states, right!  I mean, whenever we hear someone speaking a foreign language we immediately give up our seat on a bus and invite him or her into our house for some tasty food.  Right, huh!  Okay, not so much, but seriously, my Afghani co-workers would NOT go through a doorway in front of me.  Forget about holding the door open for a women, doesn’t happen.  In fact if women see you getting near a doorway, they stop dead in their tracks, lower their heads and wait for you to pass before they move forward.  Seriously.  Women will not pass in front of you if it can be avoided.

It is a sign of total disrespect for my Afghani co-workers to enter or leave a room in front of me since I am a “guest” in their country, and I am their boss.  One day in Herat I had a Mexican standoff with a guy after I ordered him to walk through the door in front of me.  He had done something fabulous and I wanted to “honor” him and I asked him to pass through the doorway to my office first.  It took over 5 minutes of laughing and haranguing coupled with his constant insistence “I cannot do this” talk.  The only reason he ultimately walked through first was because it was lunch-time or we might be standing there still.  Afghanis do not miss lunch; in fact, the majority of their morning time-management revolves around being available for the noon feed.  It is part of the “perk” package they get working for the company.  Ti feeds lunch to all its workers partly because if they didn’t feed them, I think they would go home and not come back until the next morning.  Eating together and sharing food/tea is a very important part of daily life here.  It also speaks to the unbelievable poverty and near starvation that has existed and continues to exist throughout the country.

My “corporate office” in Heart is located on the second floor of the “compound” business office.  I share it with my “right hand man” Jawed.  (his picture was in my last blog entry)  This office arrangement was agreeable until it started getting hot in early May.  After weeks of uneven power to my AC unit, it totally crapped out and started belching warm fetid air which did nothing to push the 100º+ heat out of the room.  Sitting at your computer with sweat streaming down your back is wrong in so many ways and totally unacceptable.  The Afghanis even said it was hot.  “Enough!” I declared and I called my electrical engineer guy, Nazari into my office, and told him that the lack of AC in my office was just not okay.

After an interminable translation by Jawed, Nazari explained to me that the brownouts had to do with the power grid for the entire town of Heart and could not be fixed.  It took him about 20 minutes to say this.  I stared at him incredulously until he started smiling nervously.  He had seen this expression on my face before when I was not entirely pleased with his work product.  “Really? That is your final answer?” I asked dubiously.  I waited while Jawed translated what I had just said into Dari (Dari is one of the Farsi/Persian dialects used in the country and is promoted by the government) .  This translation took another 10 minutes.  A quick side note here; you must understand that translating anything I say from English to Dari takes an insanely long time.  Simple one-sentence questions take a millennium in translation.  When my translator seemed to understand my query, he would translate my question into Dari and then listen to the answer.  After another millennium it was my translators turn to answer.  I listened for a week and finally interrupted him with, “It was a yes or no question, why is he going on and on?” I queried.  Jawed replied patiently, “Well sir, let me tell you right now what he said sir, I know what he is trying to tell you now…” I smiled patiently and waited until he explained the intricacies of power service in a third world country.  This conversation took most of the morning.  Then it was lunch-time.  I have learned a lot about patience.  Patience with others but more importantly, patience with myself.

Basically I needed a transformer to get steady power for the AC unit.  Like Jean Luc Picard from Star Trek, I said, “Make is so Nazari.”  Several days later, he proudly dragged a big metal box into my office and plugged my AC unit into it.”  Within a few minutes, cold air was pummeling my face and I was content.  During the next few weeks of insane 100+ heat I had everyone up for extended “refrigerator meetings”.  Sometimes the small things in life are just AWESOME! 

In the next week my office mates set up several “Afghani Air Conditioner” units in the other offices.  (see photo)  These little home made units are a great example of creative back-yard engineering at work.  They took bunches of still green tumbleweed type plants and built a screen box outside the window, stuffed the plants into the box and dripped water over the plants.  Eureka!  An evaporative swamp cooler, Afghani style.  It worked incredibly well I must tell you and the fragrance of the plant was very pleasant to boot.  Necessity is the mother of invention.  Did someone ask me if it gets hot in Afghanistan?  Hmmm, I did get to 121º the other day, after three weeks of over 110º…a bit warmish, don’t you know.  It is cooler in Kabul which sits at about 6,600’.  Herat is at 3,400’ and on the edge of the great desert which covers the south western part of the country and extends into Iran and Pakistan.

Flying back and forth from Kabul to Heart has given me a heightened perspective of what is truly the historical life of Afghanistan.  Just as rural towns embody the core of America, the small villages of Afghanistan clinging dramatically to ribbons of green downhill of unseen springs, is a canvas worth describing. 

I looked down from the airplane window letting my eyes follow a large river watercourse paralleling the flight path to my north.  I imagined the maps I have studied and decided I was looking at the Hari River which runs 1100 kilometers from the mountains of central Afghanistan to Turkmenistan, where it disappears into the Kara-Kum desert.   From the height of 28,000 feet I can see spindly narrow trails of tan brown winding along the watercourse and snaking haphazardly up side drainages and along the sides of some of the knife ridges.  All the mountains in Afghanistan are a deep shade of brown, devoid of any trees.  Apparently, the mountain soils are too poor to support mature trees. It is a very, very stark landscape.  Formidable jagged ridges rise up at to the base of the 20,000’+ peaks surrounding these lower drainages.  All I see are endless mountainous desert landscapes unfolding below me.  It is like I am flying over Nevada…without the neon Vegas watering hole and huge water fountains waiting for me at the end of the flight.

Signs of civilization appear in stiletto ribbons of green fields where wheat and barley is being grown.  In between the razor edged ridges, sprout small mud huts dependent on these scarce water resources.  All the remote villages must grow their own food and graze their own sheep in order to survive the winter months when nothing grows and the winter snows prevent any travel for months at a time.  Their subsistence lifestyle is evident in all agrarian-based societies but it is particularly profound here when viewing the sun-scorched immensity of the land.  This is the daily existence for millions of Afghans.  The unrelenting poverty and hardscrabble life does not lend itself to a hopeful future.  How Afghanis can smile and visualize any glimpse of a positive future is a testament to this cultures inner strength and resilience.

Here is my take on what is going on…just an opinion…

The majority of the Afghan world is tribal, physically isolated from any and all trappings of modern development.  No electricity, no clean water, no road maintenance, no schools, no hospitals, no overriding social support structure other than their religion.  My meager understanding of this country’s history is a saga of invading countries taking advantage of their lack of centralized government.  Centuries of national turmoil and decades of invasion and oppression, ironically, have not significantly affected the day-to-day lives of the majority of these remote villages.  Due to the 80+% illiteracy rate, core changes to villages’ daily routines are necessarily endemic and slow to embrace change.  This same remoteness has been devastating in the last three decades of never ending civil strife, invasion, insurrection and deceit. 

The overriding paradigm is fierce village independence, versus cooperation and inter-dependence.  The core of the Afghani existence is the knowledge that every village must take care of themselves because whatever centralized government is in place will not attend to the villager’s needs.  History has demonstrated, again and again, that the centralized government will not last very long, even with the best of intentions and the temporary support of the global community.  The standing governments of Afghanistan have been unable to pay adequate attention to the individual villagers’ due to national insecurity and the inherent isolation of their mountainous locations.  Tribalism is the rule of law and family based self-centrism is the unrelenting force behind it.

Add to this mix their symbol based Persian language.  Like their Chinese cousins, it is difficult, if not impossible, to “create” new words, new expressions, new ways to describe their world.  My observations revolve around the art of conversation and translation.  This is their network; this is their connection to the world.  The spoken word still dominates their life and their culture in a way that ironically undermines their need and desire to move forward and modernize.  The newly educated youth are the key to long-term peace and prosperity.  It will take several generations of relative peace and stability in this country for core cultural change to spread and take hold.  Hopefully this change will allow for the universal education of their children and their children’s children.  Without the prospect of stability the future of this country will be reflected by it’s tormented past.

All our efforts to “install” democracy in Afghanistan will fail miserably.  History should have taught us that the barrel of a gun does not create democracy.  Afghanistan has no history that would lead towards embracing a representative form of government.  Part of their culture is an understandable distrust of all foreigners.  Imagine that.  The world has been using this country as a ping pong table for questionable security reasons, from the silk trade route to the current position of “buffer” between a nuclear Pakistan and Islamic fundamentalist Iran.  This ancient culture demands a different reckoning and deserves decades of peace coupled with Afghani born and bred prosperity versus the current “no end in sight” war profiteering.  They need a  break from the boom/bust, let the good times roll, mentality.  The spigot of money being poured into the country is not letting up and, like honey for bees, more people and more companies are rushing in to get their slice of the gushing “war profit” pie.

The international community recognizes that allowing Afghanistan to falter and devolve into another civil war would be disastrous for the entire region.  The possibility inherent in this no win situation will take our attention and the worlds’ resources for decades to come.  By rebuilding infrastructure, educational and medical facilities we are taking steps in the right direction, certainly.  Ultimately it will be up to the majority of Afghanis to embrace the changes necessary for them to evolve into a secure and stable nation.  I think a democratic Parliamentary system fits this culture best.  They really like to talk about it and question their leaders, so why not give them a national government that provides that forum.  …sorry about the social political barrage but I think it needed saying…

Where were we before I started yapping about the “why are we here” conundrum???

Yesterday I was traveling back from a project site called Khwaja Jeer, near the Turkmenistan border up in the northwest corner of the country, when a convoy of Army Rangers stopped all traffic going in to Herat.  I had nodded off on the drive back and woke up hearing English.  American-English at that.  I got out and walked over to a small group of soldiers to say hello.  It was such a cool thing to be able to just stand around and mingle with some home-bodies.  I had the wonderful opportunity to talk with several of the Rangers about their recovery mission and get a close up look at their massive machines.   The weirdest thing was that everyone was taking out smokes and standing around looking like old TV commercials, “The Pause That Refreshes!”  For the first time in decades I really wished I smoked cigarettes.  I mean all the Rangers were sucking on tubes and I just wanted to fit in.  I was offered a cigarette by two different guys and honestly, the undeniable attraction of standing on a remote road in north-western Afghanistan, smoking a Marlboro in a hundred degree heat with a bunch of Army Rangers was priceless…impossible to resist…

They talked to me about their mission and told me there were no serious injuries from the IED attack.  The M-RAP personnel truck, took the blast and ended up breaking a guys nose and giving another soldier a mild concussion.  The blast ripped the whole front end off the vehicle and flipped it over.  In light of the seriousness of their job, the general attitude of all the Rangers I spoke to was surprisingly positive.  They expressed their opinion that the youth of Afghanistan will eventually bring this country around.  Our continued presence (US and NATO) will help keep the levels of violence down while we train the Afghani’s to serve and protect themselves.  They did admit, in no uncertain terms, that we will never stop these kinds of attacks without the help of the native Afghanis.  We have invaded their country (regardless of our best intentions to eliminate al Qaeda and the Taliban) and the history of this country has been a very harsh teacher.  Belief in a long-term positive result is in short supply.  Understandably.

I totally agree with the Ranger’s frank assessment of the future of this country.   I work with many well-educated young Afghani's who really hate the Taliban extremists and what they have done to their country.  They grew up with Taliban influence in school and totally reject them and their religious fundamentalism.  This revelation gave me some hope for our ongoing mission in Afghanistan and afforded some support for my personal reasons for being here. 

The Rangers were covering up the blown up remains of the disassembled M-RAP vehicle with netting and camouflage before they drove through the town of Herat, because some of the armor design is heavily classified information.  A higher ranking officer, a Captain or Major I think, had come up and introduced himself.  He chatted freely about their mission.  This recovery team had been out for over 13 days getting in to where the attack occurred and extracting everyone.  It took them over 4 days just to drive out from the site due to the terrible conditions of the back roads.  Once again, the extreme isolation inherent in this mountainous country coupled with the lack of basic infrastructure and agreeable social contracts inhibits Afghanistan’s ability to join the 21^st century.

As we got ready to leave I enthusiastically shook hands all around.  All the Rangers I talked to were refreshingly friendly and forthcoming.  With smiles all around, they let my car pass in front of the convoy on our way back into town.

One of my co-workers who is a Western dress style-hound, described his youth in Heart under the Taliban rule.  He told me that he was required to study Islamic fundamentalist literature.  They did not allow his sisters to attend school.  During the years of Taliban rule he witnessed shopkeepers getting beaten in public and restrictive dress codes enforced.  Western style dress was considered a punishable crime.  He remembers walking with his head down, never questioning his instructors and being told that all non-Muslims are infidels, evil, and should not be allowed to stay in the country.  He recounted the frequent sound of exploding bombs and gunfire in the streets while he and his family huddled in their homes hoping the next incoming missile will not strike them or their friends and family.  He knew some families that lost someone during these raids.  I listened to his recollection of his childhood in shock and disbelief.  He was quick to tell me that things are vastly different now and he was very happy to have a relatively safe, decent paying job, which allowed him to support his family.  Everything was definitely improving in his life and he was happy the US is helping his country move toward a new future.

Several of the older Afghans I have had the pleasure to spend time with, insist on explaining to me that they fled before the Russian invasion took place in 1979.  You may not know this but the Russians were invited to help the fledging Marxist communist government in their fight against the warlord directed Mujahideen insurgents.  (the same Mujahideen that our tax dollars supported during the Russian invasion)  These Afghani expats returned in the year’s following the US invasion in 2001 when we overthrew the Taliban regime.  The effect of continuing instability does not afford itself to long term optimism, yet these expatriates returned to their homeland with the hope of a better tomorrow for their family in a war torn country.  After seeing what these people have gone through in their lives, I hope we do the right thing and stand by them through the long haul.  Afghanistan deserves the support of the entire world community and we should feel compelled to find a way to give them the opportunity to live in peace.  A couple of historical side notes, to date, only the Mongol Empire led by Genghis Khan in the thirteenth century, has ever successfully invaded, conquered, and subjugated Afghanistan.  In the 1980s, half of all refugees in the world were Afghan.

One older gentleman (he was my age) told me several times that he hated the fundamentalist Taliban rule and welcomed a return to a more secular style government.  He fled to Pakistan and worked there with his family over the years during the occupation.  He explained to me that the most educated Afghans fled the country and were generally moderate Muslims who do not agree with the Islamic fundamentalist radicals.  He pointed out that he still isn’t comfortable being too politically active for fear of reprisal and/or harassment to his family.  After philosophizing about “You never know what tomorrow may bring”, he says he is cautiously optimistic about the future of his country but he understands that the Taliban have a very strong hold on a majority of the uneducated people.  They augment their influence by providing security to remote villages, ensuring basic services including clean water and food, and religious schools for the young men.  In essence, the Taliban are front line providers and exert direct and daily contact interactions with the remote tribal population.

Today’s blast happened at 7:30 pm and was WAY closer than the one two mornings ago.  Maybe less than 0.5 Km away (about 500 yards).  It rattled the large steel doors that guard the entrance to the compound and shook the doors and windows of my bedroom..  I jumped up from where I was working on my computer, and scooted out onto the late afternoon sunlight of my front porch.  I expected to see people gathering in the courtyard but I found two of my guards calmly sitting on the grass talking quietly and looking at the garden to the west.  I asked them about the blast direction, since they did not speak English it was more like a pantomime of shit blowing up…they casually pointed north toward the street in front of the compound.  I ran up onto the roof to see if I could observe some smoke or something. What I observed next tells the tale of how people deal with everyday life during a civil war.  There were people on the street milling around and pointing north east toward one of the mini town centers, a area where I had gotten some Kabobs from in the past.  I glanced back at the guards who had not even gotten out of their chairs.  My mind is racing, “a huge fucking bomb just went off around the corner…why aren’t you as freaked out as I am?”

The family that lives next door came strolling out of their door and casually sauntered up the road toward where the blast occurred.  I have heard this family’s young children playing in the past but I had only seen two of the kids.  The family started up our alley, all seven of them, to the street to see what there was to see.  They looked like they were going to the mall for some ice cream.  Nobody was cowering, nobody seemed to be overly concerned; everybody was walking in the direction of the blast like they were out for a Sunday stroll.  Come to think of it, they actually were taking a Sunday stroll, since today is Friday, and Friday IS their Sunday.  Why are they walking toward the blast?  Don’t they realize there could be other insurgents or crazed suicide bombers waiting for a crowd?  I was dumbfounded.

About 10 minutes after the blast, my Security Director, Farid, showed up to check on me.  He told it was an IED set off by remote control near the election officials’ compound and asked me if I wanted to go do a drive by look-see?  No one was hurt but it left a big crater.  The site was surrounded by green 4-door Nissan Police trucks, (the ones with the 50 cal machine gun mounts on their roll bars) rubber-necking bystanders and a TV crew.  I told my driver to stop and rolled down my window to take a couple of photos.  Thought you would all like to “see” this scene second hand.  I was immediately yelled at by a fast approaching police man who looked pretty pissed off.  Farid said a few strong words to him in Dari and waved him off…I never got out of the car nor did I get the picture taken.  At that moment I thought it was better to tell my driver to “Balei, balei!!” and NOT end up in jail.  Just sayin.

A “Let’s Wind This Up With A Little Big-Picture Philosophy”  I think my experiences reinforce my "core" beliefs.  I choose to assume that everyone else understands this and has their own "core" beliefs.  But I also believe you have to have gone through the introspective and philosophical meanderings necessary to create a "personal belief" rather than just accept an indoctrinated dogma.  Like the dog-shit-ma we get in school or at church.  With the slight bits of wisdom I have accumulated over the years, I am sure the true difference between “personal belief” and “dogma” is that they are impossible to separate in how we walk through our daily lives.  We are an amalgam of society's "imposed" knowledge and our personal revelations.  But I can tell you that I will be totally pissed off if I find our there is NO difference.  That tidbit of knowledge would have saved me so much moral/spiritual anxiety over the years and it would have allowed me to be a blissful social/emotional ignoramus.  Too late for that at this point, so I will chalk that mind-numbing thought up for another life story, waiting for another life experience.

Yeah, we make choices every moment of our life that alter our paths in micrometer shifts.  Then something monumental happens which twists our heads around like Linda Blair and all known bets/assumptions/dreams are off...I hope my choices came from where I squeezed myself out of, like toothpaste out of a tube.  My continuing choices are where my being continues to evolve from…or toward…I don’t know…a little introspection that went on and on and on...what else am I going to do here?  Eat?

On that subject.  You won’t believe it until you read it here.  Watch for my next installment of, “It Tastes Like Chicken, Only Wetter.”  Hasta Later My Friends.