Today was my day off. I think I prefer working!!! I woke up late and went to brunch, which is served on Friday from 11 through 1:30. There is no breakfast service, presumably because no one is there to eat breakfast. I assume that Thursday is pretty much a party night!
After breakfast, I actually read a book. And then I went to the treadmill and walked a couple of miles, and after that, came back to my room and repacked so that I don’t have to unpack to get to the things I need before I change locations again. I watched Braveheart on television – with almost no commercials, and the commercials I did see were in some other language. It was pretty funny.
Dinner came at the same time as usual, and so now I prepare to get ready for bed. I have to be at work at 8 in the morning, and for those of you who know me well, that will be nigh onto impossible. I will probably have to get up at 6:30. What tragedy!
Today, I gave thanks for the water we have in the United States. We are lucky to live in a country where our cities are required to give us potable water. I have to brush my teeth here using water from a bottle in addition to drinking water from a bottle. I never thought much about going to the sink to get a glass of water from the tap, and I can promise you that I won’t take that for granted when I get back home. I hope you don’t either.
Well, this is a short post for a short day. I’m looking forward to learning something new tomorrow, and I will let you know what it is.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Next Day
The day began as I frantically threw my clothes and leftover stuff into my two humonga suitcases. I had done most of my packing over the past day when I found out that I would be going to another Camp for two weeks. I hate to get up in the morning and try to pack to go somewhere because I usually forget something. Believe it or not, and this goes to Russ and the praise team, I was actually ready BEFORE 9:30. I had my suitcases outside and ready to go by 9:15, and waited patiently for Chris to come pick me up.
In the meantime, I watched the people walk by. I find it interesting to see the diversity in the dress of the Afghan people. The young women wear skinny jeans or pants under fitted, colorful tunics and cover their heads with beautiful scarves. If they wear skirts, they are long and gauzy, and they wear footless tights underneath the skirts. The older women dress mostly in black, as most of us have seen on television, with long, heavy, draping skirts and generally dark head coverings. The young men dress in jeans and tee shirts, or they wear suits as we would see on the streets of any American city, or they wear traditional garb, which consists of flowing trousers, usually white, with a matching tunic with slits up the side. The tunic usually hits the man about mid-thigh. Some men wear that traditional clothing and top it with a suit vest or even a suit coat. Most everyone wears sandals, which is incredible to me because of the dust and dirt. I can’t imagine what their feet look like at the end of the day.
Anyway, Chris arrived, and my driver was late, and then the guards wouldn’t let the driver in the gate, and Chris had to go get him. Eventually, about half an hour after we were supposed to leave, we left one Camp to go past the airport in the other direction to the other Camp.
The route to that Camp is difficult to describe and even talk about. First, almost the entire distance is unpaved, so the road is dirty and dusty and full of ruts and holes. I think sometimes we in the United States take for granted that the government sees to it that the roadways are at least paved and are as safe as possible for its citizens; after seeing these roads, I will never take my highways for granted again. The sad thing is that this road is a main road connecting Kabul with the south, and I can see that business development, and therefore community development, is hindered because of this supposed thoroughfare that, in the United States, would be declared not drivable as a national highway, and certainly in need of maintenance out in Pettis County.
Then, as I mentioned when describing my drive in from the airport, Afghanistan has no rules of the road. Drivers, including the one who was behind the wheel of my vehicle, simply go down the road at whatever speed is achievable for the circumstances. The circumstances vary, though, and sometimes the cars leave the purported road for the purported shoulder in order to avoid colliding with the car in front, or the approaching car that is passing the approaching truck down the middle of the road. Fortunately, because of the horrendously bad condition of the road, no one goes really fast.
Next, the road is populated with people – people on bicycles, driving goats, walking along, and, in one instance, sitting in the middle of the road with a child. This was difficult to see. A woman was sitting in the middle of the road holding her toddler’s hand so that he would not wander out into traffic, but I think she was begging for money or food. She was almost invisible because of the dust until we were right upon her, but sitting there she was. I cannot imagine such a situation. I wonder if she has no other way of support. I wonder if the child’s father is dead. I wonder whether anyone stopped to give her anything.
Then, as we drove along, creating our own dust bowl, I saw vendors alongside the road. These people were selling fresh fruit that was displayed artistically on shelves. I cannot imagine buying the fruit, however, because as it sat there, appealingly beautiful, the dust swirling from the passage of traffic settled on the fruit, making it dirty and filthy. I suppose the dirt can be washed off, but who will buy it?
And people were simply walking alongside the road, scarves to faces, trying to hold out the ever-present dust. I asked my driver why and how someone would walk in the face of such adversity. He said that they didn’t have any choice. I think there must be a better way, but that would require the people’s coming together to demand of their government that improvements be made that would make their lives better. I’m not sure what kind of government exists here. Maybe as I go along, I will have a better idea.
I got to the Camp and found that I would be working with a fast-talking, chain-smoking, peripatetic Scot I will call Bruce. I like that name and think it sounds like Scotland. I was also in an office with the mayor of Pinnacle, Jim, who had learned being a mayor from the mayor of the other Camp, my friend David. He was delightful to work with, and we shared frustrations and successes as he taught me how to write specific kinds of reports and I taught him how to make his computer more efficient. I had a great afternoon, and got to write, as well as read, stories about how the program I am working for has made a difference in the lives of the people who work in the Afghan justice system.
After work, because tomorrow (Friday) is our day off, we went out for pizza with David and another friend from Camp, and Bruce talked about Burns Day in Scotland, and told me how he makes haggis. Then he recited Robert Burns’ poetry in the most beautiful Scottish brogue I have ever heard. I am going to make him record some of it for me before I head out.
And I found out that I will head out much earlier than expected: someone has been reassigned, and that means that the Herat team is one person short. That person is me – and as you know, I am always short.
So tomorrow, I will enjoy a day of rest and wait to see what happens next.
In the meantime, I watched the people walk by. I find it interesting to see the diversity in the dress of the Afghan people. The young women wear skinny jeans or pants under fitted, colorful tunics and cover their heads with beautiful scarves. If they wear skirts, they are long and gauzy, and they wear footless tights underneath the skirts. The older women dress mostly in black, as most of us have seen on television, with long, heavy, draping skirts and generally dark head coverings. The young men dress in jeans and tee shirts, or they wear suits as we would see on the streets of any American city, or they wear traditional garb, which consists of flowing trousers, usually white, with a matching tunic with slits up the side. The tunic usually hits the man about mid-thigh. Some men wear that traditional clothing and top it with a suit vest or even a suit coat. Most everyone wears sandals, which is incredible to me because of the dust and dirt. I can’t imagine what their feet look like at the end of the day.
Anyway, Chris arrived, and my driver was late, and then the guards wouldn’t let the driver in the gate, and Chris had to go get him. Eventually, about half an hour after we were supposed to leave, we left one Camp to go past the airport in the other direction to the other Camp.
The route to that Camp is difficult to describe and even talk about. First, almost the entire distance is unpaved, so the road is dirty and dusty and full of ruts and holes. I think sometimes we in the United States take for granted that the government sees to it that the roadways are at least paved and are as safe as possible for its citizens; after seeing these roads, I will never take my highways for granted again. The sad thing is that this road is a main road connecting Kabul with the south, and I can see that business development, and therefore community development, is hindered because of this supposed thoroughfare that, in the United States, would be declared not drivable as a national highway, and certainly in need of maintenance out in Pettis County.
Then, as I mentioned when describing my drive in from the airport, Afghanistan has no rules of the road. Drivers, including the one who was behind the wheel of my vehicle, simply go down the road at whatever speed is achievable for the circumstances. The circumstances vary, though, and sometimes the cars leave the purported road for the purported shoulder in order to avoid colliding with the car in front, or the approaching car that is passing the approaching truck down the middle of the road. Fortunately, because of the horrendously bad condition of the road, no one goes really fast.
Next, the road is populated with people – people on bicycles, driving goats, walking along, and, in one instance, sitting in the middle of the road with a child. This was difficult to see. A woman was sitting in the middle of the road holding her toddler’s hand so that he would not wander out into traffic, but I think she was begging for money or food. She was almost invisible because of the dust until we were right upon her, but sitting there she was. I cannot imagine such a situation. I wonder if she has no other way of support. I wonder if the child’s father is dead. I wonder whether anyone stopped to give her anything.
Then, as we drove along, creating our own dust bowl, I saw vendors alongside the road. These people were selling fresh fruit that was displayed artistically on shelves. I cannot imagine buying the fruit, however, because as it sat there, appealingly beautiful, the dust swirling from the passage of traffic settled on the fruit, making it dirty and filthy. I suppose the dirt can be washed off, but who will buy it?
And people were simply walking alongside the road, scarves to faces, trying to hold out the ever-present dust. I asked my driver why and how someone would walk in the face of such adversity. He said that they didn’t have any choice. I think there must be a better way, but that would require the people’s coming together to demand of their government that improvements be made that would make their lives better. I’m not sure what kind of government exists here. Maybe as I go along, I will have a better idea.
I got to the Camp and found that I would be working with a fast-talking, chain-smoking, peripatetic Scot I will call Bruce. I like that name and think it sounds like Scotland. I was also in an office with the mayor of Pinnacle, Jim, who had learned being a mayor from the mayor of the other Camp, my friend David. He was delightful to work with, and we shared frustrations and successes as he taught me how to write specific kinds of reports and I taught him how to make his computer more efficient. I had a great afternoon, and got to write, as well as read, stories about how the program I am working for has made a difference in the lives of the people who work in the Afghan justice system.
After work, because tomorrow (Friday) is our day off, we went out for pizza with David and another friend from Camp, and Bruce talked about Burns Day in Scotland, and told me how he makes haggis. Then he recited Robert Burns’ poetry in the most beautiful Scottish brogue I have ever heard. I am going to make him record some of it for me before I head out.
And I found out that I will head out much earlier than expected: someone has been reassigned, and that means that the Herat team is one person short. That person is me – and as you know, I am always short.
So tomorrow, I will enjoy a day of rest and wait to see what happens next.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
If you have not read The Caine Mutiny, by Herman Wouk, you should. It is a wonderful book, and its protagonist, Willie Keith, tells an intriguing tale from World War II. Before he gets to that part, however, he tells of his struggles as he enlists in the Navy. It seems to Willie that no one knows what is going on or what to do, so he tries to stay out of everyone’s way until he figures out what he is supposed to do in the Navy. That’s the way I felt for the first couple of days I was here. I knew I was supposed to get a computer and a telephone and body armor, but I didn’t know exactly how to go about getting those things or where they were, or who was in charge. David, the mayor of the Camp, or so he is called because of his extensive knowledge of people and stuff, did a good job of getting me going, but he had two other people to lead about, and so he headed me in the right direction and I took off.
First, I found out that I was not going to be paid until October. I had assumed that I would be paid in September for the few days (9) that I was employed in August. Back to The Caine Mutiny – Captain Queeg: “You can’t assume a thing in the Navy. Not a GD thing.” Apparently, you can’t assume anything at work, either. It seems that the cutoff date to be paid in September for August’s work days was the week before my arrival. So those days will be paid on September 30. I also had not been paid for my pre-deployment seminar. The finance department said that I wouldn’t be paid for that until October as well.
I didn’t think that was quite fair, and so I went about changing that. Endless e-mails later, including one that told me my direct deposit form was wrong, I managed to be paid for July at the end of August. The reason the form was wrong is because we banked at Union Savings. The voided check I gave the company showed the Union Savings logo, routing number, and account number. The form I completed in July showed the Third National routing number and account number. I found Max and had him send me a pre-printed deposit slip, and then Kathi Johnson at Third National, who has made the transition from Union to Third National as easy as it could be under the circumstances, iced the cake and e-mailed me a letter explaining the situation, and I forwarded the letter and the deposit slip to company headquarters. Problem one solved.
Then I set about finding a computer. I thought I remembered which office handled those distributions, and so I set out in that direction. The man who could help me wasn’t there, but another man indicated that he could help. When I say “indicated,” I mean that he spoke to me in English, but I had trouble understanding him. I asked him to slow down, which HE didn’t understand (English idiom, for heaven’s sake – what was I thinking?), but we finally got it together and found a computer, some body armor, and a lovely helmet. Unfortunately, the body armor is navy blue, and most of the clothing I brought is black, so I am afraid I will not make a really good fashion statement.
The computer had to be registered in another office, and so the nice man took the body armor to my room so I wouldn’t have to carry it before he took the computer to the office. He saw a picture of Emily and one of Max. The photo of Emily is that fabulous one from her senior year in high school, and the one of Max is a great one from 1985 that was taken on the shore at Carmel, California, when his hair was long enough to blow in the wind. So my “assistant” asked if Emily was my daughter, and I answered yes. Then he asked if Max was my son. I told him no, that Max is my husband and that picture was taken long ago. He then asked if Max was still living. At that point, I thought it best to move from my room to the office where the computer should be registered, even though I know he meant nothing untoward!
When we got there, I found out that the registration would take over an hour, so I moved on to try to get the phone situation taken care of. In the packet of materials the company sent before I left, one paragraph talked about bringing my own telephone and then inserting the SIM card from the company into that phone. That way, if we wanted, we could use our own telephones instead of relying on the company. I decided to do that, because I wanted to have my photos on my phone with me, and because I wanted to be able to take photos as well, and didn’t want to have an extra piece of equipment to lug around. So AT&T unlocked my phone because our contract is up soon, and I brought my iPhone. I went to the “phone office” and told Arturo what I wanted. The other young men in the office, all of whom are either Afghan or Pakistani or Indian, I think, excitedly gathered around and spoke very quickly and loudly in their native tongue(s). They were thrilled to see an iPhone and were excited about my being able to accumulate some kind of bonuses by using more minutes. I have no idea WHAT they said.
What I eventually got was that the youngest one, who lives in Kabul, was going to take my phone to the “Russian” company, that the company was going to cut down the SIM card to fit, and he would bring it back the next day. I froze. Let my iPhone go to Kabul without me? With a stranger? Would he bring it back? Arturo told me the little guy was to be trusted, and so I reluctantly gave him the phone. We went to the office and got my SIM card, the one that would need to be cut down, and that is when I found out that it was not a “Russian” company, but instead a company called “Roshan.” I was so happy to have something FIXED that I gave everyone a hug. The little guy was elated, and turned and laughed and said something to the other three men in the room. Then they all laughed. I got the feeling that he was telling them that they had missed out on something! The bonus here is that I now know more than I ever thought possible about SIM cards, including what they are and what they do. I am proud!
By that time, my computer was ready, and so I went to pick it up. When I got back to my room, I noticed that they forgot to give me a charger and cord, so I had to go back to get that. Then I hooked it up for the first time and tried to retrieve my e-mails. Something went wrong, so I went back to the office, because I don’t know these people’s names to call, nor do I know phone numbers, nor did I, at that time, have a telephone, and I found out that I can’t use the computer in my room – but I didn’t have an office to take it to. I was getting frustrated by this time because I knew I had been issued an e-mail address and people were going to be e-mailing me, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to know.
Eventually, I went to find David, the mayor, because he was going to leave me a flash drive holding information I needed, but he wasn’t there. His office mate was there, however, and when I whined about not being able to use my computer in my room, he offered me the extra desk in their office. Now, this “office” is exactly like my room. That means in place of the luggage, armoire, bed and night stand, the room holds three desks and really crappy chairs that are too short for the height of the desktop. Regardless of the sardine feeling, I took him up on the offer, and plugged in my computer. You’ve Got Mail!!!!! I had three messages, and I took care of those, and then I began to download the information on the flash drive to the computer. The information was in .pdf, and Adobe wasn’t downloaded on the computer. I began the download. It was going to take 45 minutes, according to the information on the screen. I told Tony, David’s office mate, that I would be gone for a few minutes and would be back. When I returned, the computer had shut down, and the flash drive was gone.
You can imagine that by this time, I was almost apoplectic. I closed the computer, picked it up, and prepared to walk out the door, and in walked David with the flash drive. He told me that the guy in charge wanted to talk to me and that he would take me to his office, but there was no need. He showed up at the building and we went outside to talk.
He needed to tell me that he had an assignment for me, and that he wanted my input. As far as I’m concerned, any boss who asks for an employee’s input is “jake.” He had a couple of possible places to send me for work, and he wanted to know which place was more appealing to me. He said that he reserved the right to make the decision, but that he wanted me to have some say in the matter.
After he and I talked, I went to talk to three different women, two of whom had never been to one of the places, and all of whom had been to the other. Two of them, including the one who had been where the others had not, advised that I go to the training center at Herat. I told The Boss of their advice, and told him that I was more apt to take their advice than not.
And so this morning, when I got to my computer and opened my e-mail, I found my next orders.
Tomorrow, I will go to a different compound here in Kabul for training, and then on my 59th birthday, I will head out to work on a team that trains court personnel on changes in the law in Afghanistan. I have the possibility of working with a woman prosecutor who was listed in Time Magazine as one of the 100 most powerful women in the world. Wow! Wonder what that will be like?
As I leave this camp, I want to say a word about what I hope to accomplish, which has changed somewhat after this week. I see men and women of Afghanistan who work in this compound, maintenance workers, food service workers, women who mop the floor, young men and women who serve as local legal advisers and trainers, men who empty the trash, young men and women who serve as translators: I know that their work here feeds their families and makes life a little better for each one of them. Right now, if my being here provides them with a way to make a living and a way to contribute to their own society and their own families, I’m fine with that.
I will see what tomorrow brings and let you know.
First, I found out that I was not going to be paid until October. I had assumed that I would be paid in September for the few days (9) that I was employed in August. Back to The Caine Mutiny – Captain Queeg: “You can’t assume a thing in the Navy. Not a GD thing.” Apparently, you can’t assume anything at work, either. It seems that the cutoff date to be paid in September for August’s work days was the week before my arrival. So those days will be paid on September 30. I also had not been paid for my pre-deployment seminar. The finance department said that I wouldn’t be paid for that until October as well.
I didn’t think that was quite fair, and so I went about changing that. Endless e-mails later, including one that told me my direct deposit form was wrong, I managed to be paid for July at the end of August. The reason the form was wrong is because we banked at Union Savings. The voided check I gave the company showed the Union Savings logo, routing number, and account number. The form I completed in July showed the Third National routing number and account number. I found Max and had him send me a pre-printed deposit slip, and then Kathi Johnson at Third National, who has made the transition from Union to Third National as easy as it could be under the circumstances, iced the cake and e-mailed me a letter explaining the situation, and I forwarded the letter and the deposit slip to company headquarters. Problem one solved.
Then I set about finding a computer. I thought I remembered which office handled those distributions, and so I set out in that direction. The man who could help me wasn’t there, but another man indicated that he could help. When I say “indicated,” I mean that he spoke to me in English, but I had trouble understanding him. I asked him to slow down, which HE didn’t understand (English idiom, for heaven’s sake – what was I thinking?), but we finally got it together and found a computer, some body armor, and a lovely helmet. Unfortunately, the body armor is navy blue, and most of the clothing I brought is black, so I am afraid I will not make a really good fashion statement.
The computer had to be registered in another office, and so the nice man took the body armor to my room so I wouldn’t have to carry it before he took the computer to the office. He saw a picture of Emily and one of Max. The photo of Emily is that fabulous one from her senior year in high school, and the one of Max is a great one from 1985 that was taken on the shore at Carmel, California, when his hair was long enough to blow in the wind. So my “assistant” asked if Emily was my daughter, and I answered yes. Then he asked if Max was my son. I told him no, that Max is my husband and that picture was taken long ago. He then asked if Max was still living. At that point, I thought it best to move from my room to the office where the computer should be registered, even though I know he meant nothing untoward!
When we got there, I found out that the registration would take over an hour, so I moved on to try to get the phone situation taken care of. In the packet of materials the company sent before I left, one paragraph talked about bringing my own telephone and then inserting the SIM card from the company into that phone. That way, if we wanted, we could use our own telephones instead of relying on the company. I decided to do that, because I wanted to have my photos on my phone with me, and because I wanted to be able to take photos as well, and didn’t want to have an extra piece of equipment to lug around. So AT&T unlocked my phone because our contract is up soon, and I brought my iPhone. I went to the “phone office” and told Arturo what I wanted. The other young men in the office, all of whom are either Afghan or Pakistani or Indian, I think, excitedly gathered around and spoke very quickly and loudly in their native tongue(s). They were thrilled to see an iPhone and were excited about my being able to accumulate some kind of bonuses by using more minutes. I have no idea WHAT they said.
What I eventually got was that the youngest one, who lives in Kabul, was going to take my phone to the “Russian” company, that the company was going to cut down the SIM card to fit, and he would bring it back the next day. I froze. Let my iPhone go to Kabul without me? With a stranger? Would he bring it back? Arturo told me the little guy was to be trusted, and so I reluctantly gave him the phone. We went to the office and got my SIM card, the one that would need to be cut down, and that is when I found out that it was not a “Russian” company, but instead a company called “Roshan.” I was so happy to have something FIXED that I gave everyone a hug. The little guy was elated, and turned and laughed and said something to the other three men in the room. Then they all laughed. I got the feeling that he was telling them that they had missed out on something! The bonus here is that I now know more than I ever thought possible about SIM cards, including what they are and what they do. I am proud!
By that time, my computer was ready, and so I went to pick it up. When I got back to my room, I noticed that they forgot to give me a charger and cord, so I had to go back to get that. Then I hooked it up for the first time and tried to retrieve my e-mails. Something went wrong, so I went back to the office, because I don’t know these people’s names to call, nor do I know phone numbers, nor did I, at that time, have a telephone, and I found out that I can’t use the computer in my room – but I didn’t have an office to take it to. I was getting frustrated by this time because I knew I had been issued an e-mail address and people were going to be e-mailing me, and I didn’t know what I was supposed to know.
Eventually, I went to find David, the mayor, because he was going to leave me a flash drive holding information I needed, but he wasn’t there. His office mate was there, however, and when I whined about not being able to use my computer in my room, he offered me the extra desk in their office. Now, this “office” is exactly like my room. That means in place of the luggage, armoire, bed and night stand, the room holds three desks and really crappy chairs that are too short for the height of the desktop. Regardless of the sardine feeling, I took him up on the offer, and plugged in my computer. You’ve Got Mail!!!!! I had three messages, and I took care of those, and then I began to download the information on the flash drive to the computer. The information was in .pdf, and Adobe wasn’t downloaded on the computer. I began the download. It was going to take 45 minutes, according to the information on the screen. I told Tony, David’s office mate, that I would be gone for a few minutes and would be back. When I returned, the computer had shut down, and the flash drive was gone.
You can imagine that by this time, I was almost apoplectic. I closed the computer, picked it up, and prepared to walk out the door, and in walked David with the flash drive. He told me that the guy in charge wanted to talk to me and that he would take me to his office, but there was no need. He showed up at the building and we went outside to talk.
He needed to tell me that he had an assignment for me, and that he wanted my input. As far as I’m concerned, any boss who asks for an employee’s input is “jake.” He had a couple of possible places to send me for work, and he wanted to know which place was more appealing to me. He said that he reserved the right to make the decision, but that he wanted me to have some say in the matter.
After he and I talked, I went to talk to three different women, two of whom had never been to one of the places, and all of whom had been to the other. Two of them, including the one who had been where the others had not, advised that I go to the training center at Herat. I told The Boss of their advice, and told him that I was more apt to take their advice than not.
And so this morning, when I got to my computer and opened my e-mail, I found my next orders.
Tomorrow, I will go to a different compound here in Kabul for training, and then on my 59th birthday, I will head out to work on a team that trains court personnel on changes in the law in Afghanistan. I have the possibility of working with a woman prosecutor who was listed in Time Magazine as one of the 100 most powerful women in the world. Wow! Wonder what that will be like?
As I leave this camp, I want to say a word about what I hope to accomplish, which has changed somewhat after this week. I see men and women of Afghanistan who work in this compound, maintenance workers, food service workers, women who mop the floor, young men and women who serve as local legal advisers and trainers, men who empty the trash, young men and women who serve as translators: I know that their work here feeds their families and makes life a little better for each one of them. Right now, if my being here provides them with a way to make a living and a way to contribute to their own society and their own families, I’m fine with that.
I will see what tomorrow brings and let you know.
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
I can’t remember which building Chris took me to, but he introduced me to my “sponsor,” David, whose balding head and full beard remind me of Santa Claus in the classic Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, narrated by Burl Ives. David has a slight southern accent and later confirmed that he hails from Alabama. He was friendly and supportive, and he helped me into my spartan room, the room where I will be sleeping and getting ready and writing my blog for the foreseeable future. We agreed to meet a little later, and I set about trying to find a way to make this room look like home.
The hardest thing to write, I tell my students, is a description of a physical location, using spatial transition words and phrases; nevertheless, I am going to try to describe my room right here, right now. As I looked in through the doorway, I saw a long, rather than wide, room. At the end opposite the door sat what some might call an armoire and others might call a standing closet with drawers, and still others might call a chiffarobe. Whatever it is called, it was supposed to be big enough to house all the clothing I brought to wear, because the room has no other closet. I walked straight back to it and opened one of the doors; I saw a hanging rod and no hangers. Immediately to my left was the bathroom, which is about the size of a good closet. Whatever its size, however, I was triumphant in the fact that it is mine, and I have to share it with no one.
The bathroom has all the essentials, including a shower stall with sliding plastic doors that don’t really slide. Interestingly, I noted, though a mirror hangs above the sink, the bathroom contains no electrical outlets for hairdryers, electric shavers, or the like. I stepped back out of the bathroom in front of the armoire (I will take the high-falutin’ road) and looked toward the door I had just entered. My luggage lay on the room’s gray hard rubber floor immediately to my left, and when I took one step forward, I peered around a corner to see a desk and black chair. Right above the desk I saw two triangular shelves nestled into the corner; on the top shelf I saw a 20-inch television and on the bottom shelf, a DVD player. Directly in front of the desk and chair, and leading back toward the door, I looked at my cot that hugs the wall parallel to my luggage. A small bedside table sits between the bed and the door.
I gulped. This was it. The room is cooled by a Samsung window unit, and I heard it click on and off, but I was still in some form of shock. I believed the room to be smaller than Emily’s college dorm room – the one she was in by herself. Fortunately, before I had much of a chance to wallow in self-pity, it was time to meet David for my tour.
David is the perfect person to present to a newbie in the compound; he is cheerful, pleasant, optimistic, energetic, and it seemed to me that he knows everyone here. I don’t know how many people that is, but he introduced me to more than I care to remember – okay, more than I can remember. First, he took me to the dining facility. The Chow Hall. The Mess Hall. The DFAC. Can you guess that one? Everything here, and I do mean everything, has an acronym. If you guessed that DFAC stands for Dining FACility, you are better than I. It took me two days to figure that out. I asked a person for directions to the laundry, and he told me to take a right in front of the DFAC. I was still lost.
Oh, well. While we were in the DFAC, David introduced me to Frank, who is a friend of a William Jewell and UMKC schoolmate, Steve Hemphill. Frank and Steve go way back, but I’m not sure whether it’s way back to Iraq or to Kosovo. Yes. This is one of the parts of this journey that still flabbergasts me. When I was in Washington, almost all, if not all, my “classmates,” for lack of a better term, had extensive foreign travel experience, and most had extensive experience working for international organizations – some had worked for the United Nations! And here I was, selected with this group, me, who has been nowhere, and who has never worked for anyone outside Sedalia or Kansas City (except for Martin Drug and Senn Five and Ten in Thayer)! I found myself in very elevated company. Many of the people had worked in Rule of Law programs, which are designed to bring stability to a country after conflict, and I believe that is what Steve and Frank were doing when they met.
Anyway, I met Frank and his dinner companion, I met other people, and other people, and then we went to other buildings, all of them looking alike to me, all of them overwhelming me, all of them representing something that I was going to have to learn, and then probably unlearn, should I be deployed somewhere else in the country. We stopped in one building to get my meal card, and we stopped in another to register my computer so that I could send an e-mail to Max and Emily telling them that I had arrived and was safe. It was going to take over an hour for the computer to make it through the IT maze, so the very nice “IT guy” let me use his phone to call Max. I got voicemail, but I managed to leave a message without bawling. I was, after all, in front of someone who didn’t know me!
Eventually, we wandered beside one of the buildings, and I saw Wendell! Wendell works for the same company but in a different division; however, we were in Washington at the same time, and he was, like David, pleasant, optimistic, and gregarious. I shrieked, “Wendell!” and he hugged me, and at that point, I knew everything would be all right someday. Right then, a truck pulled up, and Julius, another Washington classmate, jumped out and hugged me. I was surprised, because during the entire 12-day seminar, I think Julius, who had a 20-year Navy career, said two words. Okay, maybe three.
We kept walking, and I saw coming down the sidewalk Ara, yet another Washington friend. I hugged him and told him that I was glad to see him! Ara was the first person I met in Washington, and he was surprised that I connected his name with Ara Parseghian, the Notre Dame football coach. It turned out that this Ara is Armenian, as was the coach, but this Ara was born in Egypt. He and his family lived in many countries in the Middle East while he was young, and he learned all the languages. Ara’s father died while his family was in, I believe, Lebanon during the 1960s. They were undocumented at that time, and during the Kennedy administration, the State Department welcomed any Egyptians who did not want to live in that country because at the time, Egypt was friendly with Russia. So Ara’s family immigrated to the United States, where he distinguished himself as a high school student who spoke five or six languages, but not English.
Eventually, he got a Master’s degree and wrote his thesis on, in the early 1970s, terrorism. That paper brought about an offer of employment from the State Department, but a hiring freeze prevented him from ever working there. Ara now has a Master’s degree in Tax Law (LLM), and he, too, worked in Iraq during the first months of the 2003 invasion, as well as at other times during that war. Now, though I speak only ONE language fluently, I am working alongside him in Afghanistan. We promised each other that we would get caught up the next day.
I think David could see that I was getting overwhelmed, and so he suggested that we call it quits for the night and meet the next day at 11. I was more than ready to try to put my room to rights and be quiet, so I agreed. David told me to expect to wake up during the night and not be able to go back to sleep, but I had faith in jazz and Advil PM.
I know that we ate dinner some time that night, but I can’t remember when. I just remember thinking that I really needed to teach those guys to cook vegetables. They were soggy and mushy. But I cut them some slack. It’s hard cooking for hundreds of people. It was at dinner that I met the person who is in charge of the operation I work for here. He explained to me the chain of command, and he told me that I would someday soon receive a job assignment, but he wasn’t sure when that would be or where, if anywhere, it would take me. Because these jobs are on year-long contracts, jobs come open at different times in different places. He was direct and pleasant, and I figured we would get along just fine, but I decided that to unpack everything would be an exercise in futility.
So I went back to my room, looked around for a while, took out my new wireless iHome speakers, and turned on the music to which I fall asleep every night – Jazz at Night’s End. Every piece on the album is fabulous, and I think it is my favorite. My faith in the music and the Advil PM paid off. I slept like a log, regardless of the fact that the pillow provided me is nothing more than thousands of lumps of foam rubber sewn up in pillow-shaped cloth. The travel pillow that Emily made me buy (for $40 at Brookstone, I might add, that I never used on the planes) saved my night, because I put it right on top of the lumps, and felt just fine.
The next day, David took me on more of the grand tour. Somewhere along the way, we met up with another newbie, this one also a friend of Frank and Steve’s, Bryan, who wasn’t really new. He, too, has worked internationally, and for world organizations. It turned out that Bryan has an Armenian wife, and Ara, who joined us on our walk-around, was pleased. On the tour, I met the people who would make sure I got paid, those who would make sure I got my leave, those who would make sure I got my visa updated, those who would make sure I got maintenance I needed (I assumed that getting hot water was a problem, but it turns out that my water heater was the problem, and Marizel got it fixed!), those who would make sure my clothes were clean, and finally, the people who would give me the things of life. At “Logistics,” I got cleaning supplies, but no scrub brushes or cleaning cloths. I got liquid soap, paper towels, and TP. I did not, however get a mop or bucket. I wheedled myself into a broom, and begged for rubber gloves, which came in a size large. I didn’t care. I got the last pair.
Somewhere along the way, I got an expense report to complete, and thank heaven that I save everything, because not only does the company want my boarding passes, they also want the itinerary they sent me. Fortunately, I had everything I needed, except for one taxi receipt, which I forgot to ask for in Dubai. I think I had been so relieved to make it through all the things I needed to make it through at the airport, that I forgot to ask the cabbie for a receipt.
Though we tried to be time-efficient, every office we visited told us to “come back after lunch.” We finally gave up and went to lunch ourselves. Though I will complain about the food, I will not complain about the people who cook it, serve it, and clean up after meals. They are friendly and eager to please. They can’t help it that the food just doesn’t come out tasting as good as it might. They are also trying to please a variety of cultural palates – since I have been here, we have been served pork at least three times, and Muslims do not eat pork. We can choose hot food, running the gamut from T-bone steak (overcooked) to chicken kabobs (really good tonight), to macaroni and cheese, to somewhat-tempura-battered shrimp. We can eat a sandwich, although the tuna salad looks pretty bland, and the salami looks pretty heavy. We can go to the curry bar, which usually has a meat or vegetable curry, daal, rice, and naan. I can’t remember what daal is, and I haven’t had the courage to try it yet – maybe tomorrow. Naan is soft flatbread. There is a salad bar of sorts; it doesn’t look much like a salad bar, but I did find really good cole slaw there yesterday, and fresh fruit is usually served, although I hesitate to eat that which I cannot peel, such as apples and sand pears, because they have been washed in the water.
We are discouraged from drinking the water, because it is like Mexico’s water, I guess, and our American digestive systems aren’t quite ready for it. We have access to all the bottled water we can drink 24 hours a day. But there is NO recycling. I feel guilty when I used bottled water to brush my teeth and cannot even recycle the bottle.
Regardless of the quality of the food and the potability of the water, all the men who attend our meals are gracious and go about their work seriously. The man who tends the silverware and check-in told me in hesitant, broken English that if nothing on the menu suited me, I could order a hamburger. I did, and it was really good. Too bad I can’t eat hamburgers every day!
That day, David, Bryan, Ara, and I finished our tasks at “Logistics,” and then we finished the day. I found the gym and walked my traditional two miles on the treadmill, I went back to the DFAC (I swear I won’t use that again), and then I came “home” to eagerly answer e-mails and Facebook comments, and to tell those who care about me, by way of my blog, what my day was like. I wonder if anyone will read it.
The hardest thing to write, I tell my students, is a description of a physical location, using spatial transition words and phrases; nevertheless, I am going to try to describe my room right here, right now. As I looked in through the doorway, I saw a long, rather than wide, room. At the end opposite the door sat what some might call an armoire and others might call a standing closet with drawers, and still others might call a chiffarobe. Whatever it is called, it was supposed to be big enough to house all the clothing I brought to wear, because the room has no other closet. I walked straight back to it and opened one of the doors; I saw a hanging rod and no hangers. Immediately to my left was the bathroom, which is about the size of a good closet. Whatever its size, however, I was triumphant in the fact that it is mine, and I have to share it with no one.
The bathroom has all the essentials, including a shower stall with sliding plastic doors that don’t really slide. Interestingly, I noted, though a mirror hangs above the sink, the bathroom contains no electrical outlets for hairdryers, electric shavers, or the like. I stepped back out of the bathroom in front of the armoire (I will take the high-falutin’ road) and looked toward the door I had just entered. My luggage lay on the room’s gray hard rubber floor immediately to my left, and when I took one step forward, I peered around a corner to see a desk and black chair. Right above the desk I saw two triangular shelves nestled into the corner; on the top shelf I saw a 20-inch television and on the bottom shelf, a DVD player. Directly in front of the desk and chair, and leading back toward the door, I looked at my cot that hugs the wall parallel to my luggage. A small bedside table sits between the bed and the door.
I gulped. This was it. The room is cooled by a Samsung window unit, and I heard it click on and off, but I was still in some form of shock. I believed the room to be smaller than Emily’s college dorm room – the one she was in by herself. Fortunately, before I had much of a chance to wallow in self-pity, it was time to meet David for my tour.
David is the perfect person to present to a newbie in the compound; he is cheerful, pleasant, optimistic, energetic, and it seemed to me that he knows everyone here. I don’t know how many people that is, but he introduced me to more than I care to remember – okay, more than I can remember. First, he took me to the dining facility. The Chow Hall. The Mess Hall. The DFAC. Can you guess that one? Everything here, and I do mean everything, has an acronym. If you guessed that DFAC stands for Dining FACility, you are better than I. It took me two days to figure that out. I asked a person for directions to the laundry, and he told me to take a right in front of the DFAC. I was still lost.
Oh, well. While we were in the DFAC, David introduced me to Frank, who is a friend of a William Jewell and UMKC schoolmate, Steve Hemphill. Frank and Steve go way back, but I’m not sure whether it’s way back to Iraq or to Kosovo. Yes. This is one of the parts of this journey that still flabbergasts me. When I was in Washington, almost all, if not all, my “classmates,” for lack of a better term, had extensive foreign travel experience, and most had extensive experience working for international organizations – some had worked for the United Nations! And here I was, selected with this group, me, who has been nowhere, and who has never worked for anyone outside Sedalia or Kansas City (except for Martin Drug and Senn Five and Ten in Thayer)! I found myself in very elevated company. Many of the people had worked in Rule of Law programs, which are designed to bring stability to a country after conflict, and I believe that is what Steve and Frank were doing when they met.
Anyway, I met Frank and his dinner companion, I met other people, and other people, and then we went to other buildings, all of them looking alike to me, all of them overwhelming me, all of them representing something that I was going to have to learn, and then probably unlearn, should I be deployed somewhere else in the country. We stopped in one building to get my meal card, and we stopped in another to register my computer so that I could send an e-mail to Max and Emily telling them that I had arrived and was safe. It was going to take over an hour for the computer to make it through the IT maze, so the very nice “IT guy” let me use his phone to call Max. I got voicemail, but I managed to leave a message without bawling. I was, after all, in front of someone who didn’t know me!
Eventually, we wandered beside one of the buildings, and I saw Wendell! Wendell works for the same company but in a different division; however, we were in Washington at the same time, and he was, like David, pleasant, optimistic, and gregarious. I shrieked, “Wendell!” and he hugged me, and at that point, I knew everything would be all right someday. Right then, a truck pulled up, and Julius, another Washington classmate, jumped out and hugged me. I was surprised, because during the entire 12-day seminar, I think Julius, who had a 20-year Navy career, said two words. Okay, maybe three.
We kept walking, and I saw coming down the sidewalk Ara, yet another Washington friend. I hugged him and told him that I was glad to see him! Ara was the first person I met in Washington, and he was surprised that I connected his name with Ara Parseghian, the Notre Dame football coach. It turned out that this Ara is Armenian, as was the coach, but this Ara was born in Egypt. He and his family lived in many countries in the Middle East while he was young, and he learned all the languages. Ara’s father died while his family was in, I believe, Lebanon during the 1960s. They were undocumented at that time, and during the Kennedy administration, the State Department welcomed any Egyptians who did not want to live in that country because at the time, Egypt was friendly with Russia. So Ara’s family immigrated to the United States, where he distinguished himself as a high school student who spoke five or six languages, but not English.
Eventually, he got a Master’s degree and wrote his thesis on, in the early 1970s, terrorism. That paper brought about an offer of employment from the State Department, but a hiring freeze prevented him from ever working there. Ara now has a Master’s degree in Tax Law (LLM), and he, too, worked in Iraq during the first months of the 2003 invasion, as well as at other times during that war. Now, though I speak only ONE language fluently, I am working alongside him in Afghanistan. We promised each other that we would get caught up the next day.
I think David could see that I was getting overwhelmed, and so he suggested that we call it quits for the night and meet the next day at 11. I was more than ready to try to put my room to rights and be quiet, so I agreed. David told me to expect to wake up during the night and not be able to go back to sleep, but I had faith in jazz and Advil PM.
I know that we ate dinner some time that night, but I can’t remember when. I just remember thinking that I really needed to teach those guys to cook vegetables. They were soggy and mushy. But I cut them some slack. It’s hard cooking for hundreds of people. It was at dinner that I met the person who is in charge of the operation I work for here. He explained to me the chain of command, and he told me that I would someday soon receive a job assignment, but he wasn’t sure when that would be or where, if anywhere, it would take me. Because these jobs are on year-long contracts, jobs come open at different times in different places. He was direct and pleasant, and I figured we would get along just fine, but I decided that to unpack everything would be an exercise in futility.
So I went back to my room, looked around for a while, took out my new wireless iHome speakers, and turned on the music to which I fall asleep every night – Jazz at Night’s End. Every piece on the album is fabulous, and I think it is my favorite. My faith in the music and the Advil PM paid off. I slept like a log, regardless of the fact that the pillow provided me is nothing more than thousands of lumps of foam rubber sewn up in pillow-shaped cloth. The travel pillow that Emily made me buy (for $40 at Brookstone, I might add, that I never used on the planes) saved my night, because I put it right on top of the lumps, and felt just fine.
The next day, David took me on more of the grand tour. Somewhere along the way, we met up with another newbie, this one also a friend of Frank and Steve’s, Bryan, who wasn’t really new. He, too, has worked internationally, and for world organizations. It turned out that Bryan has an Armenian wife, and Ara, who joined us on our walk-around, was pleased. On the tour, I met the people who would make sure I got paid, those who would make sure I got my leave, those who would make sure I got my visa updated, those who would make sure I got maintenance I needed (I assumed that getting hot water was a problem, but it turns out that my water heater was the problem, and Marizel got it fixed!), those who would make sure my clothes were clean, and finally, the people who would give me the things of life. At “Logistics,” I got cleaning supplies, but no scrub brushes or cleaning cloths. I got liquid soap, paper towels, and TP. I did not, however get a mop or bucket. I wheedled myself into a broom, and begged for rubber gloves, which came in a size large. I didn’t care. I got the last pair.
Somewhere along the way, I got an expense report to complete, and thank heaven that I save everything, because not only does the company want my boarding passes, they also want the itinerary they sent me. Fortunately, I had everything I needed, except for one taxi receipt, which I forgot to ask for in Dubai. I think I had been so relieved to make it through all the things I needed to make it through at the airport, that I forgot to ask the cabbie for a receipt.
Though we tried to be time-efficient, every office we visited told us to “come back after lunch.” We finally gave up and went to lunch ourselves. Though I will complain about the food, I will not complain about the people who cook it, serve it, and clean up after meals. They are friendly and eager to please. They can’t help it that the food just doesn’t come out tasting as good as it might. They are also trying to please a variety of cultural palates – since I have been here, we have been served pork at least three times, and Muslims do not eat pork. We can choose hot food, running the gamut from T-bone steak (overcooked) to chicken kabobs (really good tonight), to macaroni and cheese, to somewhat-tempura-battered shrimp. We can eat a sandwich, although the tuna salad looks pretty bland, and the salami looks pretty heavy. We can go to the curry bar, which usually has a meat or vegetable curry, daal, rice, and naan. I can’t remember what daal is, and I haven’t had the courage to try it yet – maybe tomorrow. Naan is soft flatbread. There is a salad bar of sorts; it doesn’t look much like a salad bar, but I did find really good cole slaw there yesterday, and fresh fruit is usually served, although I hesitate to eat that which I cannot peel, such as apples and sand pears, because they have been washed in the water.
We are discouraged from drinking the water, because it is like Mexico’s water, I guess, and our American digestive systems aren’t quite ready for it. We have access to all the bottled water we can drink 24 hours a day. But there is NO recycling. I feel guilty when I used bottled water to brush my teeth and cannot even recycle the bottle.
Regardless of the quality of the food and the potability of the water, all the men who attend our meals are gracious and go about their work seriously. The man who tends the silverware and check-in told me in hesitant, broken English that if nothing on the menu suited me, I could order a hamburger. I did, and it was really good. Too bad I can’t eat hamburgers every day!
That day, David, Bryan, Ara, and I finished our tasks at “Logistics,” and then we finished the day. I found the gym and walked my traditional two miles on the treadmill, I went back to the DFAC (I swear I won’t use that again), and then I came “home” to eagerly answer e-mails and Facebook comments, and to tell those who care about me, by way of my blog, what my day was like. I wonder if anyone will read it.
Monday, August 27, 2012
When I awoke, I looked out the airplane window and saw brown. I couldn’t tell whether I was looking at dust up as high as the plane, or whether I was looking at an optical illusion that brought the desert up close to me. Regardless, I saw brown. For a little girl from the green hills of the Ozark mountains, this whirling brown dust was really unattractive. And it was BIG. I saw no trees, no lakes or ponds, no indication of a city, nothing but a vast expanse of brown dirt. I wondered what it would look like up close.
I was soon to find out. The Safi Airways flight attendants, beautiful young women in uniforms more western in design than I expected, came through the plane’s aisles and told us passengers to prepare for landing. We were almost there. As we approached Kabul, I noticed what looked like big fenced-in areas, very square, with different sized sections within each square. These fenced-in areas were far apart, and as we got closer, I could see that the square sections were actually buildings, probably some houses, with flat roofs, that were set apart like neighborhoods. I was probably looking at suburbs of Kabul!
When we landed, I was very nervous about what to expect at the passport control area. The company had given very explicit instructions about where to go and what to do after landing, saying that processing would take forever, so I expected long lines at every turn. That, thankfully, did not materialize.
We walked off the plane and through the jetway to an airport terminal that looked very old. Many of the signs, posted on the wooden columns in the room, were written in English and another language that I did not know, but surmised to be the Afghan language. In Dubai, the passport gates were stainless steel. In Kabul, they were old, worn wood. In Dubai, the floors and walls were pristine and clean; in Kabul, they were tired and dreary. Where the passport control in Dubai had been expedited by handsome young men in traditional white dress, the passport control in Kabul was expedited by nice-looking young men in military-type uniforms. I tried to surreptitiously see if they were carrying guns, but was thwarted because some silly man tried to take a picture. The expediter shouted something at him, and when he did not put away his camera fast enough to suit, the expediter rushed over to the would-be photographer in a manner that I would have considered threatening. Then it was all over.
In line at the passport control, I had my first experience of someone who was just rude. I wasn’t surprised by her actions; I had watched her and observed her attitude in the gate area in Dubai and decided that she ruled the roost. A family was traveling together: Papa and Mama, their grown sons, at least one daughter-in-law, and one infant. Mama was the first really overweight woman I had seen in native garb; she had to sit often to take a load off her feet and breathed heavily. In the passport control line, I was behind a man in western dress, and Papa was beside me. Papa indicated that I should advance in front of him in the line. Mama had moved up to stand beside the man in front of me, and politely, he indicated that she should advance in front of him. At that point, she motioned for the entire family to cut in the line with her. Papa, still next to me, hesitated, but she gave him a look that would turn most to stone and gestured for him to get up there and be quick about it. Bless his heart, he did what he was told.
Anyway, I was anxious about what the passport agent would say to me, what questions he might ask, so when it was my turn, I smiled brightly and said, “Good afternoon,” when I handed him my passport. He looked at my documentation and smiled at me and said, “Welcome!” That was it. I breathed more easily, although the hardest part of my trip was coming up. I knew no one would help with my bags, but I had to pick them up and drag them about 100 yards to my pick-up point. The cars can come only so close to the airport, and one of the parking lots I was going to have to cross was gravel and dirt.
The first surprise occurred when a man helped me with my bags. I think he was a self-employed porter who finds people at the airport and talks them into letting him help, for a tip, of course. But he helped me and didn’t ask for a tip or wait around for one. In Kabul, and in London and Dubai, after a passenger picks up his or her bags, the bags have to go through screening – all bags, nothing removed, just everything in its original container. Another man helped me through screening by taking the bags off the cart, putting them on the screening belt, and then loading them back up again to take to the front of the lobby. He did hang around for a tip, but it was worth it, because half of my work was then done. I removed the shrink wrap surrounding my bags – the company recommends doing that to avoid pilfering, and shrink wrap stations are numerous in the Dubai airport – stuck my laptop and iPad in the emptier of the two bags so I could stack the carry-on and the big suitcase, and then began the trek to find Chris, my security guard. My bags each weighed 50 pounds, and so my arms tired quickly. Kabul is higher in elevation than Denver, and though I didn’t feel ill, I did feel as if I should have lifted a few more weights before I began the trip! The wind was blowing hard, and it was hot, so I was winded more quickly than I like to admit.
The company had given me a map of the airport, but it was not accurate, so I dragged the bags farther than I needed to. In doing so, I dropped my mother’s trench coat and ran over it with both bags in the dirt and gravel parking lot. Great. Now I had to stop, pick it up, turn around, go BACK the several yards I shouldn’t have been on in the first place, and find where I was supposed to go instead. Fortunately, at that point, the map was inaccurate in my favor. I didn’t have to go as far as I thought I would have to go before I heard a friendly voice ask, “Deborah?” I replied affirmatively, and Chris took both the big bags from me. Barely able to breathe, I told him I would probably hug him. He laughed and took me to an armored vehicle.
Now, when I say “armored vehicle,” I’m sure you are thinking, “sleek, shiny, black Lincoln Navigator or Ford something or other.” No. I’m not sure what kind of SUV this was, but it was not only a dirty bronze color, it was simply dirty, inside and out – probably having something to do with the fact that it had been driven in a desert forever. It also was a very bouncy ride, which I figured out soon after we pulled out of the airport parking.
Before we left the parking lot, however, the driver told me where we would be going, that we would pass some checkpoints, that I was not to open my door or talk to anyone, and that I should fasten my seat belt. Then we started. We passed the first checkpoint as we left the airport and I found that there are few real roads on the route we took from the airport parking lot to the compound where I am staying. The first traffic jumble was at a roundabout. According to Chris, there are no typical rules of the road in Afghanistan, something I figured out as we maneuvered among the cars and trucks and SUVs in the roundabout. My driver certainly followed no American-type rules, but Afghan rules instead, as we drove down the road sometimes parallel to a car driving in the same direction on what was the size of a two-lane state highway. One driver kept coming at us to turn left, and our driver did not waver; we missed collision by a couple of feet because the other driver finally slammed on his brakes. We took some different turns through different checkpoints, and then I thought we were probably back in Arkansas.
The first time Max and I drove to see my great-grandmother in Paragould, Arkansas, I warned him that he needed to watch for the answer to the riddle: Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side. Chickens are known to run amok on US highways in Arkansas. I remember driving through the state and seeing chickens leaving their perfectly good homes in the front yards of residents and darting out into traffic, only to attempt to run to the other side of the highway. If a driver didn’t exercise great care, the road kill could be, literally, yardbird. Max was disbelieving, of course, and then he saw it with his own eyes (Today, however, I assume such a sight would not be unusual, since many cities have amended ordinances to allow residents to keep chickens in their yards inside the city limits. Why anyone would want stinky old chickens as pets, I don’t know, but people do. Really, are eggs THAT expensive?).
Well, in Kabul, the animals crossing the road are not chickens. They are goats. We saw at least three sets of goat herders walking alongside the road, such as it is, with huge herds of goats ambling alongside. The cars and SUVs and trucks had to work to avoid hitting them. And that was difficult, because the road is not paved and is filled with deep ruts that the vehicles lurch in and out of.
As we passed along the road, I noticed that we were going through some sort of neighborhood, but not like any neighborhood I have ever seen. It looked to me as if bunkers the size of 18-wheel trailers were sitting on the side of the road, being used as living quarters, or storage, or as a dumping ground. Trash was everywhere. No grass was to be seen. Here and there, buildings stood with windows broken out, and bicyclists rode by them as if they were out playing or going somewhere to see someone. And goats marched by on the other side of the road.
We stopped at one more check point, and the driver got out of the car. Then Chris got out of the car. Then some man with a cloth over his nose and mouth indicated that I was to get out of the car. Remembering my orders, I merely shook my head and pointed to the driver and Chris, and the man left. The driver and Chris got back in the vehicle and we went through a gate. We drove another twenty or so feet, stopped at the final check point, and drove through another gate. I saw a grid of buildings laid out in perfect symmetry, buildings that looked like huge Monopoly houses, and I knew I was looking at my new, temporary home.
I was soon to find out. The Safi Airways flight attendants, beautiful young women in uniforms more western in design than I expected, came through the plane’s aisles and told us passengers to prepare for landing. We were almost there. As we approached Kabul, I noticed what looked like big fenced-in areas, very square, with different sized sections within each square. These fenced-in areas were far apart, and as we got closer, I could see that the square sections were actually buildings, probably some houses, with flat roofs, that were set apart like neighborhoods. I was probably looking at suburbs of Kabul!
When we landed, I was very nervous about what to expect at the passport control area. The company had given very explicit instructions about where to go and what to do after landing, saying that processing would take forever, so I expected long lines at every turn. That, thankfully, did not materialize.
We walked off the plane and through the jetway to an airport terminal that looked very old. Many of the signs, posted on the wooden columns in the room, were written in English and another language that I did not know, but surmised to be the Afghan language. In Dubai, the passport gates were stainless steel. In Kabul, they were old, worn wood. In Dubai, the floors and walls were pristine and clean; in Kabul, they were tired and dreary. Where the passport control in Dubai had been expedited by handsome young men in traditional white dress, the passport control in Kabul was expedited by nice-looking young men in military-type uniforms. I tried to surreptitiously see if they were carrying guns, but was thwarted because some silly man tried to take a picture. The expediter shouted something at him, and when he did not put away his camera fast enough to suit, the expediter rushed over to the would-be photographer in a manner that I would have considered threatening. Then it was all over.
In line at the passport control, I had my first experience of someone who was just rude. I wasn’t surprised by her actions; I had watched her and observed her attitude in the gate area in Dubai and decided that she ruled the roost. A family was traveling together: Papa and Mama, their grown sons, at least one daughter-in-law, and one infant. Mama was the first really overweight woman I had seen in native garb; she had to sit often to take a load off her feet and breathed heavily. In the passport control line, I was behind a man in western dress, and Papa was beside me. Papa indicated that I should advance in front of him in the line. Mama had moved up to stand beside the man in front of me, and politely, he indicated that she should advance in front of him. At that point, she motioned for the entire family to cut in the line with her. Papa, still next to me, hesitated, but she gave him a look that would turn most to stone and gestured for him to get up there and be quick about it. Bless his heart, he did what he was told.
Anyway, I was anxious about what the passport agent would say to me, what questions he might ask, so when it was my turn, I smiled brightly and said, “Good afternoon,” when I handed him my passport. He looked at my documentation and smiled at me and said, “Welcome!” That was it. I breathed more easily, although the hardest part of my trip was coming up. I knew no one would help with my bags, but I had to pick them up and drag them about 100 yards to my pick-up point. The cars can come only so close to the airport, and one of the parking lots I was going to have to cross was gravel and dirt.
The first surprise occurred when a man helped me with my bags. I think he was a self-employed porter who finds people at the airport and talks them into letting him help, for a tip, of course. But he helped me and didn’t ask for a tip or wait around for one. In Kabul, and in London and Dubai, after a passenger picks up his or her bags, the bags have to go through screening – all bags, nothing removed, just everything in its original container. Another man helped me through screening by taking the bags off the cart, putting them on the screening belt, and then loading them back up again to take to the front of the lobby. He did hang around for a tip, but it was worth it, because half of my work was then done. I removed the shrink wrap surrounding my bags – the company recommends doing that to avoid pilfering, and shrink wrap stations are numerous in the Dubai airport – stuck my laptop and iPad in the emptier of the two bags so I could stack the carry-on and the big suitcase, and then began the trek to find Chris, my security guard. My bags each weighed 50 pounds, and so my arms tired quickly. Kabul is higher in elevation than Denver, and though I didn’t feel ill, I did feel as if I should have lifted a few more weights before I began the trip! The wind was blowing hard, and it was hot, so I was winded more quickly than I like to admit.
The company had given me a map of the airport, but it was not accurate, so I dragged the bags farther than I needed to. In doing so, I dropped my mother’s trench coat and ran over it with both bags in the dirt and gravel parking lot. Great. Now I had to stop, pick it up, turn around, go BACK the several yards I shouldn’t have been on in the first place, and find where I was supposed to go instead. Fortunately, at that point, the map was inaccurate in my favor. I didn’t have to go as far as I thought I would have to go before I heard a friendly voice ask, “Deborah?” I replied affirmatively, and Chris took both the big bags from me. Barely able to breathe, I told him I would probably hug him. He laughed and took me to an armored vehicle.
Now, when I say “armored vehicle,” I’m sure you are thinking, “sleek, shiny, black Lincoln Navigator or Ford something or other.” No. I’m not sure what kind of SUV this was, but it was not only a dirty bronze color, it was simply dirty, inside and out – probably having something to do with the fact that it had been driven in a desert forever. It also was a very bouncy ride, which I figured out soon after we pulled out of the airport parking.
Before we left the parking lot, however, the driver told me where we would be going, that we would pass some checkpoints, that I was not to open my door or talk to anyone, and that I should fasten my seat belt. Then we started. We passed the first checkpoint as we left the airport and I found that there are few real roads on the route we took from the airport parking lot to the compound where I am staying. The first traffic jumble was at a roundabout. According to Chris, there are no typical rules of the road in Afghanistan, something I figured out as we maneuvered among the cars and trucks and SUVs in the roundabout. My driver certainly followed no American-type rules, but Afghan rules instead, as we drove down the road sometimes parallel to a car driving in the same direction on what was the size of a two-lane state highway. One driver kept coming at us to turn left, and our driver did not waver; we missed collision by a couple of feet because the other driver finally slammed on his brakes. We took some different turns through different checkpoints, and then I thought we were probably back in Arkansas.
The first time Max and I drove to see my great-grandmother in Paragould, Arkansas, I warned him that he needed to watch for the answer to the riddle: Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side. Chickens are known to run amok on US highways in Arkansas. I remember driving through the state and seeing chickens leaving their perfectly good homes in the front yards of residents and darting out into traffic, only to attempt to run to the other side of the highway. If a driver didn’t exercise great care, the road kill could be, literally, yardbird. Max was disbelieving, of course, and then he saw it with his own eyes (Today, however, I assume such a sight would not be unusual, since many cities have amended ordinances to allow residents to keep chickens in their yards inside the city limits. Why anyone would want stinky old chickens as pets, I don’t know, but people do. Really, are eggs THAT expensive?).
Well, in Kabul, the animals crossing the road are not chickens. They are goats. We saw at least three sets of goat herders walking alongside the road, such as it is, with huge herds of goats ambling alongside. The cars and SUVs and trucks had to work to avoid hitting them. And that was difficult, because the road is not paved and is filled with deep ruts that the vehicles lurch in and out of.
As we passed along the road, I noticed that we were going through some sort of neighborhood, but not like any neighborhood I have ever seen. It looked to me as if bunkers the size of 18-wheel trailers were sitting on the side of the road, being used as living quarters, or storage, or as a dumping ground. Trash was everywhere. No grass was to be seen. Here and there, buildings stood with windows broken out, and bicyclists rode by them as if they were out playing or going somewhere to see someone. And goats marched by on the other side of the road.
We stopped at one more check point, and the driver got out of the car. Then Chris got out of the car. Then some man with a cloth over his nose and mouth indicated that I was to get out of the car. Remembering my orders, I merely shook my head and pointed to the driver and Chris, and the man left. The driver and Chris got back in the vehicle and we went through a gate. We drove another twenty or so feet, stopped at the final check point, and drove through another gate. I saw a grid of buildings laid out in perfect symmetry, buildings that looked like huge Monopoly houses, and I knew I was looking at my new, temporary home.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
So with that fateful telephone call, my adventure began.
I had been reading and re-reading the suggestions on what to bring with me should I be selected and asked to spend a year in a foreign land – foreign as in halfway around the world and foreign as in a totally different culture. I had, therefore, a good idea about what to put in the suitcases, but not how much. I knew that someone else would be doing laundry (as if that doesn’t happen already – thank you, Mr. Max!) and so I would need to bring washable clothing. I would also need the things of life: soap, shampoo, hangers, toothpaste, and other things that I knew I wouldn’t remember until it was too late.
In the midst of all this, I had no idea what I was going to put all this “stuff” in. I remembered that when Emily returned from her Italy sojourn, she bought two humongous suitcases to pack all her loot, but those bags were with her in Savannah. So Max and I found a good, big Samsonite suitcase during a Macy’s sale, and we bought it and a companion piece. After all, while I might be able to give up some things, I simply could not give up style! Eventually, everything went into four bags: two checked and two carry-on. And I was off to the first part of my journey: to say good-bye to my baby daughter, who was bereft (as opposed to gleeful) that I would not be around to talk to at any given time every day.
We had a wonderful visit, and I got to see her at work at her first real job at the Troon Golf Club in Savannah, where, as Customer Relations person, she has organized a Tuesday night happy hour with special cocktails, aptly named “Mix and Mingle with Emily.” She has been there about a month, and all the people who were there, including her boss, told me how wonderful she is – manna to a mother. Also while I was there, I took one of her big bags and reorganized, because one of my bags was horribly overweight in Kansas City, and I had an unwelcome surprise when I found out I would be able to carry on only one bag for the transcontinental flight and the one to Dubai.
Saying good-bye to Max at the airport as I left for Washington was harder than saying good-bye to him at KCI, mostly because we were almost late in Kansas City, but saying good-bye to Emily at the Savannah airport on Wednesday morning was the hardest of all. I know it is normal for parents and children to live across the country from each other, but as you now know, that is not normal for me, and it certainly is not when the parents and child are Max and Emily and me. I tried to keep from crying, but could not, and I was reminded of the day Max and I left Emily at Hendrix College, she knowing that she could not look back at us while we drove off, and we knowing that we had to leave her. This time, I was the one who could not look back, and Emily was the one who had to leave.
Then I began a journey that would take me halfway across the world, being unable to change clothes or lie in a bed for 36 or more hours. I have never done anything like it, and what I now know is that I can, and that I will have to do it at least twice more before I come home for good.
I first flew from Savannah to Atlanta by way of Charlotte, because to fly directly would cost me an additional $250. I then waited at the Atlanta airport for about eight hours for the flight that would take me across the Atlantic to Heathrow in London. I tried to check in immediately upon my arrival in Atlanta at 1:00, but British Airways didn’t open its station until about 3:30, so I got to sit there for two hours. Fortunately, I had enough books to keep me company, but I wasn’t really happy because the lobby is not really very comfortable, which is the opposite of the gate lounge areas, which have ample, comfortable seating with nearby electrical outlets for our absolutely necessary tag-alongs: the phone and iPad. That being said, should you ever get a chance to fly British Airways, do so. They provide pillows and blankets (and toothbrushes and toothpaste), real meals, and get this, free booze. An added bonus is that the flight attendants are very efficient, and there is something exotic about being told in a lovely British accent to fasten your seat belt and that we will be arriving much earlier than expected after such a “sluggish start.”
I slept across the Atlantic, with the help of Advil PM and a headache, and then awoke to fly into Heathrow at 10:30, where I waited another two hours for the six- or seven-hour flight to Dubai, also on British Airways. My seatmates were charming; I had the aisle, but when I saw the young man who, at 6’5”, was doomed to sit in the middle, I gave him my seat, thereby sandwiching myself between a good-looking 32-year-old man and a man-of-the-world from Nova Scotia who was moving his family to Dubai for a new business venture. We held nice conversations while we did not sleep. Neither of them snored; I hope I did not. If I did, they were too nice to mention it.
We arrived in Dubai around midnight, and I dragged my bag to passport control and customs. I was taken aback by the number of people standing in line to go through passport control at that late hour. I believe there were six to eight lines, with at least 75 people, maybe more, in each line. As we stood and patiently waited our turns, young men whose job it is to expedite the lines roamed about in gracious white garb, headdresses, and sandals. At first, I thought they must be sheiks or something, because their posture was without flaw, they were all handsome and tall, and they had a regal air. Then I saw more and more of them and realized they were airport personnel. Oh, well.
Though my bags were not overweight, they were VERY heavy, and I was thrilled when a man offered to help me put them onto a cart, after which I pushed them outside to a waiting cab. The company had arranged for me to sleep at the Crowne Plaza in Festival City, about 10 minutes from the airport, and when I arrived, I wished that I didn’t have to sleep, because the hotel was so beautiful. It was very modern in design, in that all lights were controlled by sleek stainless steel buttons, and the bathroom was cool and white with a rain shower head. For the first time in around 36 hours, I took off my shoes and looked at my feet. Though I had taken off my shoes during flight, my feet had swelled, so much that they looked like buffoonish balloon animals. I showered in clear, warm water, and then I did sleep, and woke up in time to go downstairs for a buffet breakfast.
I could have been in any Sheraton in the United States, except that I was pretty much the only white person in a room full of people whose skin colors were different shades of brown. I knew then how it must feel to be the only black person in a classroom full of white people. Families were eating breakfast together, fathers were scolding children, children were running around, waiters were hovering attentively, and all were smiling. The smiles could have been because of the abundance of food, which was somewhat different – for instance, one line in the breakfast buffet offered baked beans and chicken, while another offered green salads. I had an omelette to order, some fresh-baked bread, brie cheese, and what was purported to be strawberry jam; however, it was blackberry. In re-packing for weight, I had taken out my French Vanilla Café, so I had hot tea and a small strawberry smoothie. That was the first real food I had eaten since leaving Savannah. It tasted good.
Then, I took another cab and went to the Dubai airport, this time, going through the passport control the other way. Though I thought I had packed well, my luggage was overweight for Safi Airways, the Afghan airline. “Miss Deborah,” the attendant said, “your bags are overweight. You will have to pay 500.” I thought she meant Five Hundred Dollars, and I just about croaked. She explained that the payment was in Afghan money, but she couldn’t tell me how many US dollars that would be. I had to go to another counter to find out that 500 Diri equals $142.
Then I had a couple of hours to explore, and found that the Dubai airport was both exotic and western at the same time. I found a Coldstone store, and a Citibank computer kiosk, but saw much written in some form of Arabic, and the design, while modern, encompassed some Arabian Nights themes. For those who feel sorry for the tobacco companies because Americans are quitting smoking in record numbers, stop right now. Marlboro and its friends are alive and well in the Middle East. Cartons of cigarettes were stacked high in the duty-free shop. In my favor, Afghanistan allows a person to carry in two bottles of liquor, but because of my packing fiasco, I would have room for only one – so Jameson’s from duty-free came with me.
As I boarded my last flight, my stomach was churning. This, truly, was the point of no return. I had done all of this so far alone, save for the nice people who helped me with my luggage, and I was relieved that I had come so far. Going even farther, I walked toward the jetway, and toward what I hoped would be a rewarding, challenging time. I sat down in my seat, and for the first time in every flight, had no companion. I stretched out and slept.
I had been reading and re-reading the suggestions on what to bring with me should I be selected and asked to spend a year in a foreign land – foreign as in halfway around the world and foreign as in a totally different culture. I had, therefore, a good idea about what to put in the suitcases, but not how much. I knew that someone else would be doing laundry (as if that doesn’t happen already – thank you, Mr. Max!) and so I would need to bring washable clothing. I would also need the things of life: soap, shampoo, hangers, toothpaste, and other things that I knew I wouldn’t remember until it was too late.
In the midst of all this, I had no idea what I was going to put all this “stuff” in. I remembered that when Emily returned from her Italy sojourn, she bought two humongous suitcases to pack all her loot, but those bags were with her in Savannah. So Max and I found a good, big Samsonite suitcase during a Macy’s sale, and we bought it and a companion piece. After all, while I might be able to give up some things, I simply could not give up style! Eventually, everything went into four bags: two checked and two carry-on. And I was off to the first part of my journey: to say good-bye to my baby daughter, who was bereft (as opposed to gleeful) that I would not be around to talk to at any given time every day.
We had a wonderful visit, and I got to see her at work at her first real job at the Troon Golf Club in Savannah, where, as Customer Relations person, she has organized a Tuesday night happy hour with special cocktails, aptly named “Mix and Mingle with Emily.” She has been there about a month, and all the people who were there, including her boss, told me how wonderful she is – manna to a mother. Also while I was there, I took one of her big bags and reorganized, because one of my bags was horribly overweight in Kansas City, and I had an unwelcome surprise when I found out I would be able to carry on only one bag for the transcontinental flight and the one to Dubai.
Saying good-bye to Max at the airport as I left for Washington was harder than saying good-bye to him at KCI, mostly because we were almost late in Kansas City, but saying good-bye to Emily at the Savannah airport on Wednesday morning was the hardest of all. I know it is normal for parents and children to live across the country from each other, but as you now know, that is not normal for me, and it certainly is not when the parents and child are Max and Emily and me. I tried to keep from crying, but could not, and I was reminded of the day Max and I left Emily at Hendrix College, she knowing that she could not look back at us while we drove off, and we knowing that we had to leave her. This time, I was the one who could not look back, and Emily was the one who had to leave.
Then I began a journey that would take me halfway across the world, being unable to change clothes or lie in a bed for 36 or more hours. I have never done anything like it, and what I now know is that I can, and that I will have to do it at least twice more before I come home for good.
I first flew from Savannah to Atlanta by way of Charlotte, because to fly directly would cost me an additional $250. I then waited at the Atlanta airport for about eight hours for the flight that would take me across the Atlantic to Heathrow in London. I tried to check in immediately upon my arrival in Atlanta at 1:00, but British Airways didn’t open its station until about 3:30, so I got to sit there for two hours. Fortunately, I had enough books to keep me company, but I wasn’t really happy because the lobby is not really very comfortable, which is the opposite of the gate lounge areas, which have ample, comfortable seating with nearby electrical outlets for our absolutely necessary tag-alongs: the phone and iPad. That being said, should you ever get a chance to fly British Airways, do so. They provide pillows and blankets (and toothbrushes and toothpaste), real meals, and get this, free booze. An added bonus is that the flight attendants are very efficient, and there is something exotic about being told in a lovely British accent to fasten your seat belt and that we will be arriving much earlier than expected after such a “sluggish start.”
I slept across the Atlantic, with the help of Advil PM and a headache, and then awoke to fly into Heathrow at 10:30, where I waited another two hours for the six- or seven-hour flight to Dubai, also on British Airways. My seatmates were charming; I had the aisle, but when I saw the young man who, at 6’5”, was doomed to sit in the middle, I gave him my seat, thereby sandwiching myself between a good-looking 32-year-old man and a man-of-the-world from Nova Scotia who was moving his family to Dubai for a new business venture. We held nice conversations while we did not sleep. Neither of them snored; I hope I did not. If I did, they were too nice to mention it.
We arrived in Dubai around midnight, and I dragged my bag to passport control and customs. I was taken aback by the number of people standing in line to go through passport control at that late hour. I believe there were six to eight lines, with at least 75 people, maybe more, in each line. As we stood and patiently waited our turns, young men whose job it is to expedite the lines roamed about in gracious white garb, headdresses, and sandals. At first, I thought they must be sheiks or something, because their posture was without flaw, they were all handsome and tall, and they had a regal air. Then I saw more and more of them and realized they were airport personnel. Oh, well.
Though my bags were not overweight, they were VERY heavy, and I was thrilled when a man offered to help me put them onto a cart, after which I pushed them outside to a waiting cab. The company had arranged for me to sleep at the Crowne Plaza in Festival City, about 10 minutes from the airport, and when I arrived, I wished that I didn’t have to sleep, because the hotel was so beautiful. It was very modern in design, in that all lights were controlled by sleek stainless steel buttons, and the bathroom was cool and white with a rain shower head. For the first time in around 36 hours, I took off my shoes and looked at my feet. Though I had taken off my shoes during flight, my feet had swelled, so much that they looked like buffoonish balloon animals. I showered in clear, warm water, and then I did sleep, and woke up in time to go downstairs for a buffet breakfast.
I could have been in any Sheraton in the United States, except that I was pretty much the only white person in a room full of people whose skin colors were different shades of brown. I knew then how it must feel to be the only black person in a classroom full of white people. Families were eating breakfast together, fathers were scolding children, children were running around, waiters were hovering attentively, and all were smiling. The smiles could have been because of the abundance of food, which was somewhat different – for instance, one line in the breakfast buffet offered baked beans and chicken, while another offered green salads. I had an omelette to order, some fresh-baked bread, brie cheese, and what was purported to be strawberry jam; however, it was blackberry. In re-packing for weight, I had taken out my French Vanilla Café, so I had hot tea and a small strawberry smoothie. That was the first real food I had eaten since leaving Savannah. It tasted good.
Then, I took another cab and went to the Dubai airport, this time, going through the passport control the other way. Though I thought I had packed well, my luggage was overweight for Safi Airways, the Afghan airline. “Miss Deborah,” the attendant said, “your bags are overweight. You will have to pay 500.” I thought she meant Five Hundred Dollars, and I just about croaked. She explained that the payment was in Afghan money, but she couldn’t tell me how many US dollars that would be. I had to go to another counter to find out that 500 Diri equals $142.
Then I had a couple of hours to explore, and found that the Dubai airport was both exotic and western at the same time. I found a Coldstone store, and a Citibank computer kiosk, but saw much written in some form of Arabic, and the design, while modern, encompassed some Arabian Nights themes. For those who feel sorry for the tobacco companies because Americans are quitting smoking in record numbers, stop right now. Marlboro and its friends are alive and well in the Middle East. Cartons of cigarettes were stacked high in the duty-free shop. In my favor, Afghanistan allows a person to carry in two bottles of liquor, but because of my packing fiasco, I would have room for only one – so Jameson’s from duty-free came with me.
As I boarded my last flight, my stomach was churning. This, truly, was the point of no return. I had done all of this so far alone, save for the nice people who helped me with my luggage, and I was relieved that I had come so far. Going even farther, I walked toward the jetway, and toward what I hoped would be a rewarding, challenging time. I sat down in my seat, and for the first time in every flight, had no companion. I stretched out and slept.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
As I prepared to head to Washington for pre-deployment training, I discovered that I didn’t know a lot about what would be expected of me or what I needed to take with me, and so I began, as I would in the law, a discovery process.
I sent e-mail after e-mail to the company representative to find out what kind of clothing I would need, where I would be staying, how much money I would need (as all expenses would be paid), whether we would have any free time, and the like. I got answers, but the most important questions did NOT get answered: 1) When did I leave; and 2) When would I return? My cousins Ryan and Sarah and their darling baby Lily were coming to see us on the Friday after the seminar was over on Thursday. I wanted to make sure that I would be leaving in time to greet them as they arrived at our house for their first visit as a family.
I finally got my travel arrangements – on the Thursday before I was to leave on Sunday. And the news was NOT good. I had asked to be sent from the Kansas City airport, which had a direct flight to Dulles on the Sunday afternoon I needed to appear, and a return non-stop on the Thursday the seminar concluded. I searched the flight, notified the company, and assumed that the ticket would be waiting for me. Wrong. For some still unknown reason, the company sent me out of Columbia, Missouri.
Columbia is a fine town. It is home to the University of Missouri, has a James Beard-nominated chef, and is large enough to have some entertainment and yet small enough to feel “home-y.” Unfortunately, however, Columbia is not large enough to have a really fabulous airport. When I say that, I do not mean that the people who work there are incompetent or unfriendly – quite the contrary. The people, all of whom, I believe, wear many different hats at the airport, are lovely. Lines are short, pat-downs few, everyone wears a smile: in general, a good airport experience. The only drawback, however, is a major one, especially for a person on a tight schedule. Columbia’s airport has one flight per day leaving for Atlanta, one flight per day leaving for Memphis, one flight per day arriving from Atlanta, and one flight per day arriving from Memphis.
None of those flights coincided with what I needed and had requested. Unless I wanted to pay an additional $250 per direction, which I did not, I was going to have to leave before church started on Sunday, meaning someone would have to take my place three days later on the piano at the praise service and on the organ at the traditional service. My good friend Sandy stepped up to help me at the praise service and to play the hymns at the second service, and my wonderful friend Jerree, who does not read music but who plays the organ beautifully, agreed to play the service music for the second service. I felt humbled and grateful.
What was equally bad about the situation was that my cousins would arrive at our house approximately five hours before I would. Because Max was on his annual teaching week “at the Ranch” in Wyoming, he wouldn’t be home until Saturday. Someone would have to let Ryan and Sarah and Baby Lily into the house!
That someone was my good friend Kim, who first bought some snacks for them that Friday, and that was when she discovered that the air conditioning at our house wasn’t working. I cannot do comedic justice to the scenes that followed as she called me frantically to tell me that the house was HOT. I was in the Atlanta airport waiting for the plane that would take me to Columbia where my sister Libby would pick me up, and I tried to tell Kim how to re-set the thermostat. I assumed that Max had simply adjusted the temperature when he left for Wyoming, not realizing that I wouldn’t be back in time to get the house cool. She followed my instructions, and told me that nothing was happening. She did not feel an immediate flow of cool air. I figured that I left something out, and so tried again. Again she followed the instructions, and again felt no cool air. I thought I was not being clear. I asked her to take a picture of the thermostat and text it to me. She did. Then she sent another text of a picture of the second part of the thermostat. Then I called her back. At some point, we figured that the air conditioning wasn’t working properly. Then I couldn’t remember the name of the company that put in our air conditioner, so I had to look it up - except that the Atlanta airport DOES NOT have wi-fi. Can you imagine? Eventually, I got the White Pages app on my phone to work, and found ACR, and remembered that they had installed our air conditioner and maintained it.
So I called them, explained my situation, and they went immediately to the house to fix the problem. Unfortunately, the house wasn’t yet cool enough for people to sit in it, so Kim and her family then hosted MY family for a couple of hours and then for dinner. What a good friend! Everyone should be so lucky.
I wish I could tell you that the problems ended there. But they didn’t. For some reason, the air conditioner was still not working upstairs where we would sleep that night, and so for the second time that day, I called ACR and told them about the problem, and for the second time that day, they came right away to fix it. Sometimes, nothing beats living in a small town.
I wondered that night, after 12 days in Washington, D.C., where I first knew no one, and left having 17 good friends, whether leaving that small town and those people who would give so much for me would be worth it. I became afraid yet again about leaving - my leaving would change me and my life, them and their lives, and maybe nothing would be the same ever again.
I didn’t pay much attention to that thought, though, thinking that the company had not really offered me a job, and so this might not even happen. I think I was right then hoping that it wouldn’t, that I wouldn’t have to face the fear that could soon overwhelm me, that I wouldn’t have to endure such upheaval, that I could rest in the comfort that was home, in the comfort that nothing would ever change.
But then, I got the phone call. It was right after Court, the very next Wednesday. I just happened to look at my phone, which was on silent, and saw a number coming in from Virginia. I could have ignored it. But I took the call.
I sent e-mail after e-mail to the company representative to find out what kind of clothing I would need, where I would be staying, how much money I would need (as all expenses would be paid), whether we would have any free time, and the like. I got answers, but the most important questions did NOT get answered: 1) When did I leave; and 2) When would I return? My cousins Ryan and Sarah and their darling baby Lily were coming to see us on the Friday after the seminar was over on Thursday. I wanted to make sure that I would be leaving in time to greet them as they arrived at our house for their first visit as a family.
I finally got my travel arrangements – on the Thursday before I was to leave on Sunday. And the news was NOT good. I had asked to be sent from the Kansas City airport, which had a direct flight to Dulles on the Sunday afternoon I needed to appear, and a return non-stop on the Thursday the seminar concluded. I searched the flight, notified the company, and assumed that the ticket would be waiting for me. Wrong. For some still unknown reason, the company sent me out of Columbia, Missouri.
Columbia is a fine town. It is home to the University of Missouri, has a James Beard-nominated chef, and is large enough to have some entertainment and yet small enough to feel “home-y.” Unfortunately, however, Columbia is not large enough to have a really fabulous airport. When I say that, I do not mean that the people who work there are incompetent or unfriendly – quite the contrary. The people, all of whom, I believe, wear many different hats at the airport, are lovely. Lines are short, pat-downs few, everyone wears a smile: in general, a good airport experience. The only drawback, however, is a major one, especially for a person on a tight schedule. Columbia’s airport has one flight per day leaving for Atlanta, one flight per day leaving for Memphis, one flight per day arriving from Atlanta, and one flight per day arriving from Memphis.
None of those flights coincided with what I needed and had requested. Unless I wanted to pay an additional $250 per direction, which I did not, I was going to have to leave before church started on Sunday, meaning someone would have to take my place three days later on the piano at the praise service and on the organ at the traditional service. My good friend Sandy stepped up to help me at the praise service and to play the hymns at the second service, and my wonderful friend Jerree, who does not read music but who plays the organ beautifully, agreed to play the service music for the second service. I felt humbled and grateful.
What was equally bad about the situation was that my cousins would arrive at our house approximately five hours before I would. Because Max was on his annual teaching week “at the Ranch” in Wyoming, he wouldn’t be home until Saturday. Someone would have to let Ryan and Sarah and Baby Lily into the house!
That someone was my good friend Kim, who first bought some snacks for them that Friday, and that was when she discovered that the air conditioning at our house wasn’t working. I cannot do comedic justice to the scenes that followed as she called me frantically to tell me that the house was HOT. I was in the Atlanta airport waiting for the plane that would take me to Columbia where my sister Libby would pick me up, and I tried to tell Kim how to re-set the thermostat. I assumed that Max had simply adjusted the temperature when he left for Wyoming, not realizing that I wouldn’t be back in time to get the house cool. She followed my instructions, and told me that nothing was happening. She did not feel an immediate flow of cool air. I figured that I left something out, and so tried again. Again she followed the instructions, and again felt no cool air. I thought I was not being clear. I asked her to take a picture of the thermostat and text it to me. She did. Then she sent another text of a picture of the second part of the thermostat. Then I called her back. At some point, we figured that the air conditioning wasn’t working properly. Then I couldn’t remember the name of the company that put in our air conditioner, so I had to look it up - except that the Atlanta airport DOES NOT have wi-fi. Can you imagine? Eventually, I got the White Pages app on my phone to work, and found ACR, and remembered that they had installed our air conditioner and maintained it.
So I called them, explained my situation, and they went immediately to the house to fix the problem. Unfortunately, the house wasn’t yet cool enough for people to sit in it, so Kim and her family then hosted MY family for a couple of hours and then for dinner. What a good friend! Everyone should be so lucky.
I wish I could tell you that the problems ended there. But they didn’t. For some reason, the air conditioner was still not working upstairs where we would sleep that night, and so for the second time that day, I called ACR and told them about the problem, and for the second time that day, they came right away to fix it. Sometimes, nothing beats living in a small town.
I wondered that night, after 12 days in Washington, D.C., where I first knew no one, and left having 17 good friends, whether leaving that small town and those people who would give so much for me would be worth it. I became afraid yet again about leaving - my leaving would change me and my life, them and their lives, and maybe nothing would be the same ever again.
I didn’t pay much attention to that thought, though, thinking that the company had not really offered me a job, and so this might not even happen. I think I was right then hoping that it wouldn’t, that I wouldn’t have to face the fear that could soon overwhelm me, that I wouldn’t have to endure such upheaval, that I could rest in the comfort that was home, in the comfort that nothing would ever change.
But then, I got the phone call. It was right after Court, the very next Wednesday. I just happened to look at my phone, which was on silent, and saw a number coming in from Virginia. I could have ignored it. But I took the call.
Friday, August 24, 2012
Spending the Night Away from Home
When I was ten or so, my best friend Susan asked me to go with her to Camp Zoe, somewhere outside Salem, I think. She had been there for a couple of summer visits with her cousin Sally, and loved it. I thought it sounded like fun – canoeing, swimming, hiking, and the like. Mother and Daddy said I could go, and I planned and packed and anxiously awaited our departure date. And then, I realized I couldn’t go. I couldn’t imagine spending two whole weeks in an unfamiliar place, with people I didn’t know, eating food that I might not like, sleeping in a strange bed. I couldn’t leave home.
Later that fall, Marilyn Cover (the woman whose child I should have been, believed my mother) had a special treat for me. She had tickets to see Rudolf Nureyev in St. Louis. We would leave on a Friday, drive to her sister’s house, where we would stay for the weekend, look around the city on Saturday, see the magnificent dancer on Saturday night, and then drive back to Thayer on Sunday. I was terribly excited until, you guessed it, the time came to go. And I couldn’t. I couldn’t go with one of my favorite people to do something she knew I would love (something I came to regret deeply after I went to college and watched danseurs of similar notoriety and quality), because I couldn’t go away from home to stay in a strange place, be around someone I didn’t know, sleep in a strange bed, or eat possibly weird food.
Then, the summer after my sophomore year in high school, our band director, Mr. Oliver, wanted several of us to go to band camp to study for a week under his leader and mentor, Mr. Mason, the band director at Southeast Missouri State College (SEMO). No one really wanted to go, but I, who would have done practically anything for Mr. Oliver, talked Nancy Martin into going with me. She played drums; I played the clarinet. Our mothers drove us over to Cape Girardeau, where they moved our suitcases and necessities to the third floor of an un-air conditioned, old dormitory, that was nowhere NEAR as lovely as our own homes. They left us, although we looked, I’m sure, stricken, and drove the 3 ½ hours back to Thayer. I’m sure you can guess what happened next. By now the theme is clear. We called our mothers and asked to be taken home. So, bless them, they drove BACK over to Cape the next day, picked us up, and drove us home. They were none too happy about it.
Ergo, you can probably understand my internal conflict as I sit here in Atlanta, at the international terminal, waiting for a plane that will take me away from my home for a year – and not to some “garden spot” of the world (from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), but instead to Afghanistan. You heard right. The thing is, I never have really left home. I did go to college, but I went home every weekend. I moved to Sedalia, but that was to marry my husband, and it was not long after that that my mother, and then eventually my sister, came to live in our town. Except for a couple of continuing legal education seminars that lasted three weeks and one week respectively, I have spent nearly all of my life in the comfort of my own home, making and eating my own food, sleeping in my own bed, and being around the people I love and who miraculously love me back. So how did this departure come about? What could possibly have possessed me to say that I would take such a leap to go to a third-world country for a year of my rapidly passing life?
The story started a few years ago: I am municipal judge, and have been since 1996. I am elected every two years, and I take my responsibilities to the voters very seriously. They have entrusted me with the job of finding and administering justice – even though most of my cases deal with relatively innocuous infractions: speeding or people beating up on each other on a Saturday night. I try to do the best job I can. Unfortunately, the City Council, a few years ago, decided that they didn’t like some of my decisions, and that the best way to replace me with someone who would see things more their way was to remove the position as an elected one, and appoint the judge instead. Being a generally smart girl, I knew they were NOT going to appoint me. And so I started looking for another job.
I was somewhat disillusioned with practicing law, and I was very disillusioned with the Council’s idea of separation of powers, so I decided to take my job search far and wide as well as close to home. I checked into getting a Master’s degree in criminal justice at our local University in Warrensburg, because I could not teach criminal justice at the University without a Master’s degree, regardless of the fact that I have a juris doctor. I looked into teaching elsewhere, but refused to consider teaching English at the high school level. I had one disastrous year of that and was not willing to subject myself to that stress again. Around the time I was feeling low, my husband got an e-mail from a colleague at the Trial Lawyers’ College who had just returned from a stint in Iraq – not carrying a gun, but instead mentoring defense lawyers in Iraq’s justice system. What an opportunity! To be a part of a nascent justice system, to do something that I believe is really important, to use my talents to make a difference, not just in my community, but in a different part of the WORLD! Max told me I should apply; I told him HE should apply. So we both applied.
In the meantime, the people rose up in revolt against the City Council and demanded that their right to elect their judge be reinstated, and feeling somewhat sheepish, the City Council complied and rescinded its decision. The next April, I was elected by a huge margin. I’m sure the Council was elated (add: dripping sarcasm).
So back to the story. For a long time after we submitted our applications, we heard nothing. And then I got an e-mail from a recruiter from an international company known for “logistics.” That means the company can put people on the ground, feed them, house them, protect them, and do a job – all over the world. The recruiter asked me to re-do my resume to fit a particular format, and to get it back to him ASAP; however, the company was re-bidding the contract, and it wasn’t due for several months. Then I heard nothing. I checked with him later, and he said the contract was delayed. Then I heard nothing.
In January 2010, I heard from him again, and he asked me to send my updated resume ASAP. I was in Las Vegas at the time, celebrating our daughter’s 21st birthday, but I was able to ship the resume via e-mail. Then I heard nothing. About six weeks later, I received an e-mail saying that I was going to be invited to a pre-deployment seminar in Washington, D.C., and you guessed it, then I heard nothing.
Last October, when I was celebrating my 40th high school class reunion (I graduated YOUNG!), I got an e-mail asking for my latest resume, and so I sent it, expecting to hear nothing. However, I did hear back: the company asked me to attend a pre-deployment seminar in April, but I couldn’t go because the substitute judge couldn’t take the bench for the two Wednesdays I would be gone. So I declined, explaining that for me to be gone from my life for any time at all, I have to find a substitute pianist, organist, judge, and teacher, and need more than two weeks’ notice to do so. I received a reply telling me that perhaps the company’s customer would no longer be interested in me. Boldly, I retorted that I believed I would be very interesting to the customer, because I was not interested in ducking out on commitments. I suggested that with more than two weeks’ notice, I would be happy to attend the next seminar. I heard nothing.
Then lo and behold, six weeks prior to the next seminar, I received what would be my final invitation to a seminar, this one to be held late July. It was somewhat miraculous, if you believe in miracles. It was the best of fate, if you believe in fate. And if you believe in the idea that, given enough time and God’s discernment, things generally work out for the best, then God was granting me discernment to see what could be a wonderful opportunity: I was not teaching, and so did not need to find a substitute teacher, the choir was not singing and so I did not need to find a substitute accompanist, I had only one trial scheduled for the day the substitute judge could not attend, and so it could be continued, and the substitute organist and praise band pianist were both available for the one Sunday I would be gone. It was obvious to me that it was meant to be.
And here is the kicker, and the one that truly makes me cry: I went to the City Council to tell them that I would probably be requesting a year’s leave of absence, and instead of greeting me with little-disguised glee at their opportunity to get rid of me, the current mayor and Council members congratulated me on my achievement, told me they were proud of me, and wished me well, hoping that the year would bode well for me, and as a result, for the city. I was overwhelmed with their generosity of spirit and their support, and figured that the way it worked out, this was obviously the right and best move for me at this particular time. I went home in tears, both because of the support I felt, and because I knew that there could be no option for me other than to do well at the seminar and then go on the deployment that would most likely be offered. As many of my friends would say, “It’s a God thing.” And at this point, I think I tend to agree.
Later that fall, Marilyn Cover (the woman whose child I should have been, believed my mother) had a special treat for me. She had tickets to see Rudolf Nureyev in St. Louis. We would leave on a Friday, drive to her sister’s house, where we would stay for the weekend, look around the city on Saturday, see the magnificent dancer on Saturday night, and then drive back to Thayer on Sunday. I was terribly excited until, you guessed it, the time came to go. And I couldn’t. I couldn’t go with one of my favorite people to do something she knew I would love (something I came to regret deeply after I went to college and watched danseurs of similar notoriety and quality), because I couldn’t go away from home to stay in a strange place, be around someone I didn’t know, sleep in a strange bed, or eat possibly weird food.
Then, the summer after my sophomore year in high school, our band director, Mr. Oliver, wanted several of us to go to band camp to study for a week under his leader and mentor, Mr. Mason, the band director at Southeast Missouri State College (SEMO). No one really wanted to go, but I, who would have done practically anything for Mr. Oliver, talked Nancy Martin into going with me. She played drums; I played the clarinet. Our mothers drove us over to Cape Girardeau, where they moved our suitcases and necessities to the third floor of an un-air conditioned, old dormitory, that was nowhere NEAR as lovely as our own homes. They left us, although we looked, I’m sure, stricken, and drove the 3 ½ hours back to Thayer. I’m sure you can guess what happened next. By now the theme is clear. We called our mothers and asked to be taken home. So, bless them, they drove BACK over to Cape the next day, picked us up, and drove us home. They were none too happy about it.
Ergo, you can probably understand my internal conflict as I sit here in Atlanta, at the international terminal, waiting for a plane that will take me away from my home for a year – and not to some “garden spot” of the world (from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid), but instead to Afghanistan. You heard right. The thing is, I never have really left home. I did go to college, but I went home every weekend. I moved to Sedalia, but that was to marry my husband, and it was not long after that that my mother, and then eventually my sister, came to live in our town. Except for a couple of continuing legal education seminars that lasted three weeks and one week respectively, I have spent nearly all of my life in the comfort of my own home, making and eating my own food, sleeping in my own bed, and being around the people I love and who miraculously love me back. So how did this departure come about? What could possibly have possessed me to say that I would take such a leap to go to a third-world country for a year of my rapidly passing life?
The story started a few years ago: I am municipal judge, and have been since 1996. I am elected every two years, and I take my responsibilities to the voters very seriously. They have entrusted me with the job of finding and administering justice – even though most of my cases deal with relatively innocuous infractions: speeding or people beating up on each other on a Saturday night. I try to do the best job I can. Unfortunately, the City Council, a few years ago, decided that they didn’t like some of my decisions, and that the best way to replace me with someone who would see things more their way was to remove the position as an elected one, and appoint the judge instead. Being a generally smart girl, I knew they were NOT going to appoint me. And so I started looking for another job.
I was somewhat disillusioned with practicing law, and I was very disillusioned with the Council’s idea of separation of powers, so I decided to take my job search far and wide as well as close to home. I checked into getting a Master’s degree in criminal justice at our local University in Warrensburg, because I could not teach criminal justice at the University without a Master’s degree, regardless of the fact that I have a juris doctor. I looked into teaching elsewhere, but refused to consider teaching English at the high school level. I had one disastrous year of that and was not willing to subject myself to that stress again. Around the time I was feeling low, my husband got an e-mail from a colleague at the Trial Lawyers’ College who had just returned from a stint in Iraq – not carrying a gun, but instead mentoring defense lawyers in Iraq’s justice system. What an opportunity! To be a part of a nascent justice system, to do something that I believe is really important, to use my talents to make a difference, not just in my community, but in a different part of the WORLD! Max told me I should apply; I told him HE should apply. So we both applied.
In the meantime, the people rose up in revolt against the City Council and demanded that their right to elect their judge be reinstated, and feeling somewhat sheepish, the City Council complied and rescinded its decision. The next April, I was elected by a huge margin. I’m sure the Council was elated (add: dripping sarcasm).
So back to the story. For a long time after we submitted our applications, we heard nothing. And then I got an e-mail from a recruiter from an international company known for “logistics.” That means the company can put people on the ground, feed them, house them, protect them, and do a job – all over the world. The recruiter asked me to re-do my resume to fit a particular format, and to get it back to him ASAP; however, the company was re-bidding the contract, and it wasn’t due for several months. Then I heard nothing. I checked with him later, and he said the contract was delayed. Then I heard nothing.
In January 2010, I heard from him again, and he asked me to send my updated resume ASAP. I was in Las Vegas at the time, celebrating our daughter’s 21st birthday, but I was able to ship the resume via e-mail. Then I heard nothing. About six weeks later, I received an e-mail saying that I was going to be invited to a pre-deployment seminar in Washington, D.C., and you guessed it, then I heard nothing.
Last October, when I was celebrating my 40th high school class reunion (I graduated YOUNG!), I got an e-mail asking for my latest resume, and so I sent it, expecting to hear nothing. However, I did hear back: the company asked me to attend a pre-deployment seminar in April, but I couldn’t go because the substitute judge couldn’t take the bench for the two Wednesdays I would be gone. So I declined, explaining that for me to be gone from my life for any time at all, I have to find a substitute pianist, organist, judge, and teacher, and need more than two weeks’ notice to do so. I received a reply telling me that perhaps the company’s customer would no longer be interested in me. Boldly, I retorted that I believed I would be very interesting to the customer, because I was not interested in ducking out on commitments. I suggested that with more than two weeks’ notice, I would be happy to attend the next seminar. I heard nothing.
Then lo and behold, six weeks prior to the next seminar, I received what would be my final invitation to a seminar, this one to be held late July. It was somewhat miraculous, if you believe in miracles. It was the best of fate, if you believe in fate. And if you believe in the idea that, given enough time and God’s discernment, things generally work out for the best, then God was granting me discernment to see what could be a wonderful opportunity: I was not teaching, and so did not need to find a substitute teacher, the choir was not singing and so I did not need to find a substitute accompanist, I had only one trial scheduled for the day the substitute judge could not attend, and so it could be continued, and the substitute organist and praise band pianist were both available for the one Sunday I would be gone. It was obvious to me that it was meant to be.
And here is the kicker, and the one that truly makes me cry: I went to the City Council to tell them that I would probably be requesting a year’s leave of absence, and instead of greeting me with little-disguised glee at their opportunity to get rid of me, the current mayor and Council members congratulated me on my achievement, told me they were proud of me, and wished me well, hoping that the year would bode well for me, and as a result, for the city. I was overwhelmed with their generosity of spirit and their support, and figured that the way it worked out, this was obviously the right and best move for me at this particular time. I went home in tears, both because of the support I felt, and because I knew that there could be no option for me other than to do well at the seminar and then go on the deployment that would most likely be offered. As many of my friends would say, “It’s a God thing.” And at this point, I think I tend to agree.
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