Thursday, December 20, 2007

Getting settled in, sort of.

Today was very wet, rainy, and cold. It even started snowing a bit. It is the first time I have seen snow in about 5 years. Hopefully it will be another 5 before I see it again, but there is little chance in that.

Work is getting sorted out now. I am starting to get the hang of things. They sort of threw me into a hornets’ nest with this housing thing. I am trying to work with the military to move 288 civilians into 18 tents. It is worse than trying to herd cats.

I still do not have a place to live other than the dungeon. I actually managed to get the corner suite, complete with privacy blanket and 2 wall lockers. It wouldn’t be so bad if 2 of the guys in my room didn't sound like dying dinosaurs when they snore. I wonder if a pickaxe to the head would shut them up?

My internet is still too slow to try to upload pictures. I have some great shots of the snow capped peaks in the distance. It is still really cool to watch the jets takeoff with full afterburner and their contrast with the gray skies and mountains.

I have about 80 people that work for me. 20 Indians and 60 Afghanis. I thought I would need to learn Pashtu or Dari, but in reality Hindi would serve me better in this position. I am working with one of my guys named Bala to learn some phrases. Most of them use English more than Hindi or whatever dialect. I am surprised at how many of the Indians that work here are from Goa. I didn’t think there were that many people from there, but I have about 9 guys from there.

I love the Indians, but they are hard to joke with. They take everything so seriously! But they are definitely fun to be around. The Afghanis bring in some really tasty breakfast food which is basically a pita stuffed with potato chips and potatoes and some other stuff. It costs me 25 Afghanis, which is about 50 cents. Even the Afghani is doing well against the dollar.

When I went to Thailand the last time, I got 42 Baht to the dollar, now it is trading at like 30. What a joke. Someone needs to fix this crap. We need to implement coal to fuel technology and forget about all the rest of these freaks.

Anyway, it is late here. I will run.


Cheers,
Walt

4 Comments:

Blogger Rex Zeitgeist said...

Try wearing earplugs at night, it helps...I had to share a room with 6 other guys in the army (for a short period) I got in the habit of wearing ear plugs and can't sleep without them.

Now is time to buy the dollar, they say buy low / sell high, and right now the dollar is low....

Saturday, December 22, 2007 at 7:45:00 AM GMT+3  
Blogger Jack said...

This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

Saturday, December 22, 2007 at 10:49:00 PM GMT+3  
Blogger Walt said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

Sunday, December 23, 2007 at 4:57:00 PM GMT+3  
Blogger Unknown said...

Walt I know you remember how bad Jack's snoring was. Earplugs are all that saved my eardrums and my sanity. Mortar attacks were quieter!

Sunday, December 23, 2007 at 8:34:00 PM GMT+3  

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