October 3 - 10, 2009 - Continued

October 6, 2009 - Was a busy day, Monday's and Tuesday's are busy days.

October 7, 2009 - Spent most of the morning and afternoon in a workshop for all of us PMO staff. JSSP hosted a Bazaar in the late afternoon and early evening, along with a BBQ. We had ex-pats from America, Britian, Canada, Italy, Australia, our sister compounds, hospitals here in Kabul. It was a lot of fun. I bought some more Christmas presents.

October 8, 2009 - Around 0830, stepping out of the shower and thought I was in a California earth quake. I knew I wasn't and knew what it was as soon as I heard the explosion and it was a duzy. I heard people in my building running up the stairs to the 3rd floor to look out over the rooftop patio. Some asshole suicide bomber tried to gain entrance into a secured road and when the security officer wouldn't let him pass because he didn't have proper identification, he blew himself up. I believe 17 people were killed and 80 were injured. Once the building stopped shaking and I let go of the tub and stood up straight all I could think of was "Oh crap, I gotta get dressed and I better call Bill and tell him if he sees it on the news, we're all ok." So I threw on some clothes, went out to see what was going on and came back into my room and called Bill. Then I went to work. We received another new JSSP member. So I showed him around a bit. He needed his ID card so he could go to Camp Eggars with another team member on Friday, so I took him over to my office and took his picture for his ID. While over there we heard a cat crying. Turns out he was hiding up under the stairwell in my office behind some boxes. So when we went upstairs to watch the poker game for a bit I mentioned there was a cat downstairs. I was told it had come in the night before while the doors were open for the bazaar. So, I went over to the kitchen and diced up some turkey and set a dish out so it could eat. Then after the poker game they left the door open so once it calmed down with any luck it would find its way out of the building. It did.

Friday, October 9th - I didn't do anything on my day off, but write in my journal, read a little bit of Horachio Hornblower -good book! Knitted on my looms, took a nap, visited with Beth when she came over and pigged out on her homemade Chocolate Eclair Pie - OMG, it is to die for!!! Went to bed and slept like a baby.

Saturday, October 10th - Got up and exercised to work off the Chocolate Eclair Pie, went to work, had a great day until about 4:30, when I made the stupidest mistake in my career - just foolish for not paying attention to detail. I was so embarassed, after work, I went back to my room and cried because I was so pissed off at myself. I finally pulled myself together, called my boss and talked to him. He's such an awesome man. Not so sure the people I accidently sent the attachment to will be so forgiving and I know I was not forgiving in the past when I had an employee do the same thing I just did - in fact, I gave that person a Letter of Reprimand. This e-mail system over here will not let you delete an e-mail once you've sent it and I immediately sent out another one saying disregard and I apologized but it doesn't change the fact that I screwed up. I will have a hard time forgiving myself. Let's hope tomorrow is a better day. Sometimes I wish I was back at my old job that I could do with my eyes closed. No I wasn't complacent, but in 21 years, I never did anything as stupid as this. Stupid, Stupid, Stupid!

October 3 - 10, 2009

Its been a very busy week. I don't know if I've mentioned it before or not, but over here we work a 6 day week, with Friday's as our only day off. Thank goodness the Afghan's take Friday off as a Holy day otherwise, if there wasn't a Holy day, we wouldn't get a day off either. Anyway, back on track.

Saturday, October 3rd, was the day of our last new logistics person. My boss asked me if I'd like to accompany him to the Kabul International Airport to greet our newest team member. I told him "sure". I grabbed my scarf, wrapped it around my head and shoulders (no, there aren't any pictures), climed into our armored vehicle with my boss and our Afghan driver "Hollywood" (his name is very long so they just nicknamed him Hollywood - :o) We arrive at the airport at 3:15, perfect timing the plane should either be on the ground or close to it. A good hour and half goes by, then two when another Afghan man approaches Hollywood to tell him that the plane took off an hour and a half late. Finally, I couldn't stand it any longer and asked my boss if there was a place I could use the restroom. (Only people leaving on flights are allowed to enter the airport, no exceptions everyone else stands out in the parking lot unless your Afghan, then your in another area) So he turns to Hollywood and asks if there's a safe place for me to use the restroom and a place to get a cup of coffee. He replies, "Sure" and begans walking towards a parking lot, we go through a parking lot, across a street and down this 5 ft. wide concrete path, pass a police post and into a large area that contains a huge concrete slab. This slab must of had about 20 Afghan men sitting around on their hinde haunches shooting the bull. Now, I'm wearing my scarf out of respect for the countries customs, but I still stick out like a sore thumb, because while their women wear jeans, they always have on sandals and a long dress over the top of it. I was wearing blue jeans and hiking boots and sunglasses. But my arms and head was covered up. All those men stopped talking and stood up and stared, and they weren't nice about it. If looks could kill, I'd be dead. Like I told my brother, if looks could have killed his baby sister would be dead. It was very eerie. All I could think was "OMG, I've just put us all in danger because I had to go potty." We continued to walk down the walkway to the entrance of the sitting area for the Afghan people and walked to the back of the mall area to the bathrooms. As we stopped in front of the bathrooms, my boss looked at me and said "Here's the bathroom, Goodluck!" As I handed him my scarf, ID holder and bottle of ice tea, with trepedation, I accepted some red toilet paper from the attendant and entered the stall to "Mohammed's Footprints" It was not like all the horror stories I've heard about how dirty they are. It was clean and the sink was clean so I could wash my hands with soap and water. I did however dry them on my jeans. And the most important thing . . . I felt human again because I wasn't thinking I was gonna die from having to potty. I exit the potty, gather my personal belongings from my awesome supervisor and walk over to the coffee shop so he and Hollywood could enjoy a cup of coffee. While sitting there, I look out the door where we came into the mall area to see all those men staring through the door and a couple of them had actually came inside the building. Honestly, you know the news reels you see of the Taliban, well these men looked like the those men on the tv. Not at all like the Afghan men I work with. These men were scary and they did not like having me there at all. While sitting there drinking coffee, the same guy who told Hollywood the plane was going to be late approached and told us it had landed but there was an emergency. We left immediately and went back over to our original parking lot, away from the men with cruel eyes to find out that when the plane landed, it blew a tire and caught fire. One of the guys from another Corp. who was the first off the plane and out to the parking lot said they had to come down the emergency shoot because the front emergency door wouldn't open. About an hour later, our new logistics team member walked toward the parking lot. Needless to say, he looked beyond exhausted. Poor guy, he was actually pretty calm, don't know if I would have been if it had happened to me. We all went back to the compound and had dinner and tried to relax for the rest of the evening.

Sunday was just a nice work day, got lots done.

Monday, was my 51st birthday. It was really hard for me to be away from my family. I didn't want to celebrate my birthday and I just wanted it to be hush hush because honestly, I was homesick and just wanted to cry. My girlfriend Beth called (she works at our sister compound) to wish me a Happy Birthday, that was about 10 a.m. I told her thank you but not to say anything because I didn't want anyone to know. She said, "Oops, to late" I was like who did you tell, Melinda? She was like, well maybe she'll forget to say anything. So I spent the rest of the day avoiding her so hopefully she wouldn't remember. Then at lunch I see Nooria and she mouths across the room, "Happy Birthday", I said "Thank you and smiled" and I'm thinking ok, great now Beth has called Melinda and told her not to say anything. The day passes and at 4 p.m. I'm thinking, cool, the day is almost over and I can hide in my room for the rest of the evening and eat some of the food stash I have on hand. At 4:30, my boss says "hey Jeannie, come with me, let's get Carlos I have a project I need you two to work on". So as we're leaving the building he tells Matt to he might as well come too and we head over to Bldg. 2. Once inside he says, "see that dishwasher that been sitting there for the last two months, it a domestic dishwasher that has never been installed and they made a mistake because we need a commercial dishwasher but in the meantime I need this one installed". So of course, Carlos and I are discussing the fact that a domestic dishwasher doesn't really reach the temperature range of commercial dishwash and our boss interrupts us and says well come in here and look at this so we follow him into the D-Fac (Dining Room), in the mean time all of the attorney's enter the dining hall and all I could think was man they must really be hungry for dinner and I'm looking around and that's when the cook walked in with the most beautiful birthday cake. And it was my favorite flavor, white cake and white icing.

Field Trip

Thursday, October 1st, we went on what I call an after work field trip. We (PAE Support Team minus 1 who said he'd been there before, :o) but he sure liked what we brought back) went to ISAF, let me see if I get this straight because I don't want to offend anyone. It is a military base represented by military personnel from 40 plus countries. Totally awesome! It was so much fun. We had an opportunity to shop for goodies you normally wouldn't find at Camp Eggars PX. We stocked up on lol, well you name it. There's no need for anyone to crave anything because I think it was purchased. Aside from the food items. They also have some really neat shops. Everything is in Euro's so you really have to watch what you buy because the Euro is worth more than the US $$$. Bummer, I remember when it was the other way around - sad for America - we need to bounce back. Anyway, I bought some really neat Christmas presents. We got back to the compound just in time for me to catch my MST ride over to CSSP to have dinner with friends and hang out for a bit and visit with all those folks from our sister compound. Jillian and Mike had made enchiladas, quesadilla's (sp?) refried beans and Joe made his famous cheese dip - yum. Beth said they had all been to Eggars and bought Corn Chips. It was delicious!

Today, is Friday, the Holy Day in Afghanistan. So it is our only day off. This morning I got up, did my laundry. While that was going, went over to the office to arrange travel for two of our attorneys. Once the laundry was done I went downstairs to wait for my MST ride to Camp Eggars. I met Joe and Steve over there, we shopped at the PX (they had some of that cheese dip in a jar so I thought I'd get some and some corn chips - there were none, I told Joe it was because CSSP had bought them all out) then went to the Bizarre. Camp Eggars hosts a Bizarre every Friday. Found a couple of more Christmas presents. Everyone says Camp Phoenix has a better bizarre but no one seems to know when they are. Anyway, we all ordered pizza for lunch, did some more window shopping so to speak and then went out to meet our MST rides. We can only ride with staff from our own compounds, so the guys pick up was 10 min. earlier than mine, but that's ok, I stood out near the entrance to Eggars in the shade, behind a barrier across from some Afghan security guys. They were drinking tea while looking at me with big smiles on their faces. Commenting I know, about whether or not my flack vest matched my high tech boots. I just know they were. And you know what, they did. How cool is that? :o) My honey picked out those high tech boots and they are so incredibly comfy. I wear them alot. Besides, I have no desire to wear tennis shoes to Eggars, to much dirt, I feel better in my high techs.

So now I'm back, took a shower, washed the dirt off and will just cruise for the rest of the afternoon. Laundry is put away, room is clean. I have my balcony door open. I may even set out there and do some knitting on my looms.

On another note, anyone out there who would be interested in donating to orphanages. Wow! That would be so awesome. There are something like 10 orphanages here and the children could use just about anything. One of our staff works closely with them and recently toured with our DPM several of the orphanages to see what they were in need of. A lot of people give a monetary donation which is used to purchase things like cafeteria tables because theirs are in despictable condition. One of the requests was for an outside spotlight because the bathrooms are located in another building and the children have to walk about 50 feet in the dark and they're afraid to go potty at night. Monies received are spent on items like that. I guess what I'm trying to say is, the $$ are not given to the staff to purchase the items. The items are purchased and installed for them to ensure its not mis-appropriated. So, if you know of any organizations that would be interested in donating to improve the lives of these many children - believe me, it is very much appreciated.

Sometimes we forget or think that just because we come from different parts of the world that we have different goals in life - but we don't. Everyone, I don't care where your from - basically, wants to live a happy life and provide for their family. No matter cultural differences.

Gonna run for now. Until later. . .