Day 26 (155 days to go…)

Well a shout out to my friend Bonatz. He sent me a care package and it arrived today. Thanks man! Included in the package was some Clorox wipes (a must with all the dust here!) and a bunch of delicious treats. He sent some doughnuts but they got a little crushed. They still tasted AWESOME!

Here is one last picture with some of the guys before they leave. No that is not beer on the table… ok well it is beer but it’s NONalchoholic. Again… General Order 1…

One more thing, I finally got my first FULL 2-week paycheck for being out here. I’m not going to lie; it was pretty nice! I think I can handle being out here a bit longer. ;-)



~David

Day 25 (156 days to go…)

Today some of my colleagues that are leaving decided to go to an Italian restaurant right at the edge of the green zone. This was the first time we ventured so far from the base. To get there we had to pass through what I guess was some kind of neighborhood. It was pretty run down. There were Afghan guards every 50 feet or so. We finally got to the checkpoint at the edge of the green zone where they made sure we had our badges to get back in. We then proceeded to the building on the corner. The outside looked like the rest of the buildings - run down, dirty, and overall uneventful. You would never guess there was anything important inside.

We stepped inside, then went through a big blast door. We then had to empty our pockets and go through a metal detector. Once we went inside another door the entire atmosphere changed. Inside was a very nice restaurant. It was well decorated and completely out of place from the look of it outside. It was kind of like a combination of the Olive Garden and the Cheese Cake Factory in how it looked. I ordered chicken parmesan and it was absolutely delicious. Below is a picture taken with a coworker’s camera. No, that is not wine in the wine glasses, it is just coke. While this was ACTUALY one of the few places anywhere around here where you COULD buy alcohol, we were all good and obeyed General Order 1...

The meal came out to be 40 to 50 bucks a plate, but worth it. After the meal we headed back. By now it was dark making the neighborhood all the more dingier. It was pretty surreal as we trekked back to the base. We got back safe and sound though. It is definitely not something to do all the time, but it was a very nice little adventure and some awesome food. 



~David

Day 24 (157 days to go…)

I would like to take time in this post to offer my condolences to everyone affected by the wildfires in Colorado. My heart goes out to everyone. We spent the day tracking the one encroaching upon Colorado Springs. Our company headquarters is in Colorado Springs so many of my coworkers live there. It was very scary watching the fire and the footage of it as it came rampaging through the outskirts of the city. It was very surreal. I personally have been around some of the areas during business trips to Colorado. People here know people whose house was literally burnt to the ground with nothing left. Even both of our company buildings in the area are in the mandatory evacuation zone and are in the direct path of the fires should it continue. All we can do is hope and pray that the brave firemen and firewomen are able to beat back the flames. 



~David

Day 22 (159 days to go…)

Had an interesting little event today. While in the DFAQ (the dining facility) for whatever reason you are not allowed to wear a hat. They get pretty anal about it too. The first week I was hear I got caught twice and told to take my hat off by one of the high ranking US officers here. SINCE then I have been very good and have always taken it off. Well today for lunch I forgot. Oops. A couple minutes after sitting down this older civilian who I have never seen or noticed before aggressively comes over and chews me out for wearing my hat, saying that I had been warned before and that he BETTER not catch me again. I was more surprised than anything. I was like, who the heck are you? Jeez, you would think I committed a major security violation or something. In any case my coworkers and I all had a good laugh about this guy’s over reaction as we retold the story to everyone. I guess I’ll be extra careful about my hat from now on. I am also very careful to gleefully tip my hat to him every time I see him NOT in the DFAQ. He kinda just glares at me with this disgusted look… it’s great. 



~David

Day 21 (160 days to go…)

Well I FINALLY got my package. It only took almost a MONTH to get here. Ah well. I was very excited though. Unfortunately while lugging it all the way back to my room, I somehow lost my badge. I felt like such a complete noob >_<. I don’t know exactly where I lost it; I tried to retrace my exact steps to no avail. So I had to get in contact with Amanda and go through all this paperwork to get a new badge. How frustrating.

Well after I finally cleared all that up I went to my room to unpack. It had been so long that I forgot some of the stuff I had packed. Was very good to see all my stuff safe and sound though. It was mostly clothes, an extra towel, and toiletries, but it was very much needed items. I was glad to get the rolls of paper towels I had packaged. You would be surprised at some of the things you take for granted that are hard to get out here. I had been rationing a half roll of paper towels for the past 3 weeks. Well no more going to the laundry building every day now ^_^.

In the evening I went to a going away party for some fellow coworkers. We went over to the Destille Gardens for some burgers and steak. It was a fun time and I know the four will be glad to get home. Somehow I will miss them though. Below is a photograph of me and all my coworkers. The ones leaving are the three in the middle row on the left (Gustavo, Kevin the Theater Lead, and Wally) and the one right behind me on the right in the orange shirt (Brad the Tech Lead, AKA my direct boss). They will all be leaving within the next week or two, one at a time.

 

Here are some more pictures during the event. We presented a few things to Kevin. One was an old map of Afghanistan with all of our signatures on the back.

  


~David

Day 19 (162 days to go…)

I was up late last night as we were pushing a release. Everything went very smooth which was good. I got to bed at around 3:30am or so. Unfortunately I didn’t wake up in time to go to the Embassy to eat. Ah well we will go over there another day. 



~David

Day 16 (165 days to go…)

Today was pretty cool. A few of us went to the US Embassy grounds to pick up a lunch ticket so we can eat there on Friday. The Pizza Hut I went to the other day was on the outskirts of the US Embassy grounds but this time we went right up to the US Embassy and the nearby condos. It really was like I was back in the US again… which I guess technically I was. It had beautiful buildings, green grass, nice landscaping. There was a standard rec-center size in ground pool. The people walking around wore nice suits or dresses, except those at the pool which wore bikinis or swimming trunks. It was like night and day compared to the base I stay on. You really couldn’t tell you were in a different country, and Afghanistan at that, while there. Unfortunately pictures were forbidden so I can’t upload anything. The restaurants there were all nice, and even served alcohol unlike everywhere else. (Course we still couldn’t have any… General Order 1 and all that >_<) It was a very nice change of scenery.

Later on I found out that my package was STILL sitting in Bagram. I honestly don’t know what is going on there. Luckily the main guy down there got back from leave, and he promised to take care it the next morning. Guess I will wait another 3 days or so and see what happens…



~David

Day 15 (166 days to go…)

Well I got a package in today… It wasn’t the package I have been WAITING For but the second package, the one my parents’ sent out about a week ago. It contained a couple things I couldn’t fit in my carry on stuff, plus some good snacks my parents packed in. The Texas Cinnamon Rolls they packed in tasted awesome after having been here for 2 weeks without proper snackage. They also packed in a wireless router for my room which will make chilling on my top bunk much more easy. I have been watching Big Bang theory on my lapdock (that my phone plugs into), but I have had to run a cord all the way up to it so I can stream it off the shared drive. This box certainly was appreciated. I thank both my parents and my sister. Still, it would be nice if at some point my box I sent out about 3 weeks ago now would arrive…



~David

Day 12 (169 days to go…)

Well I still have not received my package. It has been over a week and is still not here. I got in touch with Bagram and it turns out that for SOME reason it is still at the Bagram post office. I guess the guy we talked to previously tried to fill out a change of address form, which is silly because it’s only one package. I don’t know why they just didn’t slap a new label on it. They said they will look into it in the morning. It is just getting annoying at this point though. I have to do laundry every day. If I forget to pick up the clean clothes before they close (which I did once) I have nothing to wear except the previous day’s clothes. LUCKALLY this base has a one day turnaround on laundry unlike many others. I would have been screwed. Also I am just about out of shampoo but Dani was kind enough to give me her travel one to use.

Later in the day I went over to the Bazaar that the locals host every Friday. There is all assortment of local items, scarves, jewelry, rugs, knives, and all kinds of other stuff. They are very aggressive about selling you their items too. I would say take a regular sales person in a Best Buy or something and multiply it by 10. If you shake their hand they will grab on and not let go until you buy something, or forcibly remove their hand. At one table I assumed the owner was away so started looking through some interesting knives. It turns out that this little 10 year old boy was running the table. He was one of the best salesmen I have ever seen, relating to me, showing exactly why I needed this one knife, cutting down the price, and trying every technique in the book. I probably would have bought it if it wasn’t for the fact the knife was a switch blade that I wouldn’t be able to bring back to the U. S. It was definitely an interesting experience though. Below are some images of the event. At one point some helicopters decided to land in the field, much to the annoyance of the shop owners trying to keep everything from blowing everywhere.

 

 

~David

Day 11 (170 days to go…)

Well I got my blizzard account unlocked today. Yay. What a hassle. For the occasion I took my laptop into the one “sports bar” (a “bar” with no alcohol since no alcohol is permitted on base… ) on base which has Wi-Fi. I tried playing a couple of my online games just to see how bad it was. The Blizzard games (Diablo and StarCraft) were absolutely unplayable. I then tried League of Legends. That (which is oddly much more interactive online than either Blizzard game) was actually ALMOST playable. I played with some random people against some bots. There was about a half second lag which was annoying but I could still compensate reasonably well; just had to predict a half second ahead. What made the game UNplayable though was the fact that during a 30 min game I got completely disconnected about five times. If the internet was a LITTLE more reliable it would be just good enough to somewhat play. Ah well. I still got a double kill so whatever. :-P

I also said hello to some of my gamer friends on Teamspeak.   A shout out to you all, Pawnage (or Luxid.. w/e), RainInDeath, BreathrenAm, TheGrail, and DrBamBam



~David

Day 10 (171 days to go…)

Well I have been unable to contact Blizzard through their phone number. Apparently they are swamped from tons of people calling for assistance with Diablo 3 which they just released. You call in, navigate through the list of options, then when you finally get to the right place, is disconnects you saying they are too busy to service you at the moment. WONDERFUL customer service. Course I am trying to do this all through Gmail on my Google voice account on a finicky internet connection. Fun fun. My final solution was to create a new Blizzard account so I can log in and submit a trouble ticket about my ACTUAL account. See what happens… 



~David

Day 9 (172 days to go…)

Well I after trying a few I think I found the best shower. There are some pictures below. Yes this is the BEST one I have found. An entire corner is all rotted out but that means it gets good drainage unlike almost every other shower. I have no idea where the water is going and frankly I don’t care. Out of sight out of mind. This shower also has pretty good pressure so I can actually get the shampoo out of my hair. Enjoy.

Also here are some pictures of my room. I am room number 235 on the left. I have the top bunk. As you can see it is pretty cramped. There is room for one more bed behind the curtain in what is called the ‘Cadillac’. Both my roommates and I are all on different schedules so there is someone sleeping 90% of the time. They both seem pretty cool though. One is going to be leaving in a couple weeks.

 

 .


~David

Day 8 (173 days to go…)

Had a bit of an interesting day. In the morning we had a small earthquake. It occurred somewhere up in the mountains, apparently also causing an avalanche. It was just a bit of vibrating, not like the DC/Virginia Earthquake a few months ago. (I know anyone living in like California will mock that earthquake but hey, it was my first and only one up until now so it is the only thing I can compare to lol.)

Then later in the evening I experienced my first lockdown. The alarm came on and an email shot out telling everyone to just hold their positions in the closest building. It stayed on for a couple hours but was otherwise uneventful.



~David

Day 7 (174 days to go…)

Today I went with some coworkers to go get some Pizza Hut pizza over on the US Embassy grounds. Because of construction, we had to go the long way around. It was a nice walk though, and it was some good pizza. Afterwards I had a nice talk with Kevin, the Theater Lead here in the office (AKA ‘The Guy in Charge’). We talked about policy and basically life here in Afghanistan.



~David

Day 6 (175 days to go…)

I got an email today that my Blizzard account (used to play Star Craft, Diablo, etc.) had been locked for ‘suspicious activity’. It was probably when I tried to log in from Dubai. They want me to go through the steps to reset my password. Unfortunately I need to put in either a license key from one of my games OR answer a security questions. I buy all their games online so I don’t know the license key, and I don’t remember what I put in for the security question. (I hate those things because someone can easily compromise your account with them, so I usually put in something weird. What is more, I cannot submit a help ticket unless I log in… which I can’t. Awesomeness… I tried to call them but being Saturday their lines were full. I guess I will try again Monday… 



~David

Day 5 (176 days to go…)

Went with the group outside the base over to the neighboring US base, Camp Eggers for steak at dinner time. Both Camp Eggers and the base I stay on, ISAF HQ are contained in the Kabul Green Zone as well as various other places like the US Embassy. This zone is patrolled by the Afghan Military with checkpoints and searches. You also have to have a reason to go into the Green Zone. In this way it is relatively safe. Below is a map showing the various places in the Green Zone.  Camp Eggers is located where it says "Coalition HQ".

They do allow the local school children in the Green Zone though. On the way all these afghan children hound you trying to get money or other things. You aren’t supposed to give anything out though because then there will just be more. People do anyways though. The kids take various approaches. Some are very aggressive. Some are the best salesmen/women you can find anywhere. They could seriously sell someone lakefront property in Arizona; someone needs to hire them. Some of them will be your bodyguard, shielding you from the rest. It is very interesting watching them. Apparently, according to a news article that came out, some of these kids make about $15 a day. That is about 5 times what many adults around Kabul make apparently.

At the US base there was steak, friend shrimp, macaroni and cheese, baked potato, and other good food. Best of all it had actual sweet tea… WITH ICE. It was really good and the best meal since I had been here. Even the fried shrimp was really good even though I am usually not a big shrimp person. I went back for seconds… which you could do here. Having a taste of US food is a nice change after eating at the mediocre DFAC for a week. It will be something to look forward to on Fridays.



~David

Day 4 (177 days to go…)

We had a new person come in, Dani, so technically I am not the ‘newb’ anymore. Everyone else was busy so I showed her around a bit and took her to the DFAC for some food. She is pretty cool. At some point I lost my sunglasses though and couldn’t find them anywhere. Luckily later that day when I went back for more food, one of the chefs recognized me and returned them.

My package I sent out about a week before I left that has all my living supplies in it arrived today, but it arrived in Bagram where I THOUGHT I was going and not Kabul. I had Amanda talk to them over at Bagram and they are going to forward it to me. It shouldn’t take too long, around 4 days or so. Hopefully it comes soon as ATM I am living off of like 4 shirts and 3 pairs of pants. Also I only have the little travel bottles of like shampoo and deodorant and stuff.



~David

Day 3 (178 days to go…)

Completed my first Jira issue today (AKA a bug that I had to fix) so that felt good. I also -finally- got my official room so I could finally start ‘setting up’ and unpacking. I’m starting to get in the system of things here and settle in.



~David

Day 2 (179 days to go…)

This morning I took my first shower here in Afghanistan. It was not a pretty site. Without going into too much detail, the shower was pretty bad. It was pretty dirty, small, and didn’t drain. The water output was also poor. I am pretty sure showering is going to be on my all-time top 3 things that I hate the most out here. I also laugh at the 3 minute shower policy. With the water pressure it took me about 3 minutes just to wash the shampoo out of my hair. I guess this just shows again how great we have thing back home.

After the shower, I walk out of the bathroom, only to find my shoes gone. I had placed them right by the bathroom under this table in the hallway. So here I am, second day here, standing basically naked with my towel around my waste with my (now dirty) shower shoes on my feet, wondering just what to do now. I decide to do the only thing I can think of, pace up and down the hallway asking anyone and everyone if they had seen my shoes. I was about to give up (and do what, I do not know) when I finally found someone who knew where they were. It was an Afghanistan worker. He got them and gave them back. It turns out that the TABLE I had set them under was the ‘free give-a-way’ table and the worker just assumed someone was giving them away and snatched them. I now know not to make THAT mistake again and to avoid that table. I was thankful to have them back though. I did also loose a pair of socks in the whole ordeal, but I can deal with that.

Later I decided to treat myself to some pizza at the pizza restaurant on base here. This time I got a whole pizza to myself, cheese only of course. It brightened my day and was really good, or as a coworker would say “It was Delish! And Nutrish!”.



~David

Day 1 (180 days to go…)

This was my first full day here. I spent most of the day walking around with Amanda doing paperwork, and a lot of it. It gave me a chance to get to know the base. Around the edges there are 5 little restaurants and 4 little shops on the base. There is also the DFAC (dining facility where they feed you), the laundry building, the park area, and various other buildings. Each country also has their own building with their flag on it where only people of that nationality can enter. The US building has an official US Post Office on the ground level, complete with a typical blue USPS mailbox.

Most of the buildings (including where I am currently sleeping) are just built out of what seem to be shipping containers, all welded together with modifications. The office building I work in, for example, is in a house-sized 2-story building. Looking down at it from above, the hallway through the center is just these shipping contains laid end to end vertically with the front and back cut out with drywall put up. Then more containers are laid horizontally on both sides. The office that my company is in is the space of three of these containers, just with the sides cut out. You can see the ridges in the ceiling and floor of where the sides would be. The top floor is essentially the same design. Below is a picture of the living quarters I am staying in. You can see the containers welded together in a similar design as the office space. Each container is one room which sleeps three people.

 
Kabul is located in a valley surrounded by mountains covered in snow. The temperature is great, about 70 degrees, but the air quality is a bit bad. It is very dusty and to make matters worse, the locals burn everything (plastics, sewage, all kinds of nasty stuff). There are also a bunch of cats on base so I have to keep my allergies in check. They use the semi-wild cats to keep down on the rodent population.

The running water here in non-potable so you have to be careful not to drink any. I don’t really like the fact that I still have to use it to wash and shower with, but I don’t really have a choice so I try not to think about it. Luckily there are pallets everywhere full of 12-packs of bottled water. Most buildings have fridges that are continuously stocked with the water. This means that there is always plenty of nice cool fresh water around.



~David

Day 0 (181 days to go…)

I took a taxi back to the airport. It cost 11 Dirham which is like 3 Dollars. Not a bad deal. I then left for Bagram, Afghanistan on a small commercial plane. After landing in Bagram, I transitioned to an even smaller plane that would take me to Kabul, Afghanistan (after stopping briefly in Jalalabad). This was the smallest plane I had flown on. There were less than 20 seats, including the 2 pilot seats. The place where the pilots sat was not even separated from the rest of the cabin. It sat one person on each side of the (very narrow) isle. There were no places to put you bags except on your lap.

After arriving in Kabul I expected to pick up my body armor, and fly back to Bagram. Turns out plans changed while I was in transit and I was now going to be stationed In Kabul. Surprise! Amanda, a coworker, greeted me and helped me load my stuff in the company SUV. We drove through Kabul, and let me tell you, what a ride. Apparently there are no rules for driving, even though there are quite a bit of cars and traffic on the roads. There are no speed limits, no stop signs or stop lights, no pedestrian walkways, no turn signals, there weren’t even any lanes on the roughly 4 to 5 lane road. Everyone just kind of “figured it out.” Cars, bikes, pedestrians, carts… goats… all vying for position along this road, some going quite fast. It was kinda scary at times.

Eventually we got to the base, NATO ISAF HQ. The base is basically a square with the secure part in the center. Amanda signed me in and got me into where the office is located. I met all my coworkers and got a temporary space to set up. For dinner, Amanda brought pizza from one of the restaurants on base back to the office. It was pretty good, though it had peperoni on it… At night I was supposed to sleep in the transition tents because my room was not ready yet, but one of my coworkers was on leave so I got to stay in his room. This was quite a lucky break as the transition tent has about 20 beds with no privacy at all. I settled into my temporary bed for my first night here in Afghanistan.



~David

Day -1 (182 days to go…)

Talk about a long flight… over 14 hours in economy class was very agonizing. Why did the policy have to change? Six months ago I would be happy in first class. Luckily Delta has little screens in front of every seat with a bunch of free movies on them. I watched MIB, MIB2, Horrible Bosses, How to Train your Dragon, and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. The Bose active noise canceling headphones I bought for the trip work amazingly well. When listening to something it blocks almost everything else out completely. I wouldn’t even notice the steward asking me if I wanted something to drink until he/she would tap me on the shoulder.

I finally made it to Dubai, stumbling my way through the airport trying to figure out where to go. This was my first international flight and it took me a bit to figure out where to go for passport control, customs, etc. After that was all taken care of I started trying to figure out how to get to the hotel. Luckily I met a couple other contractors who had the same flight in the morning and were staying at the same hotel. We took a cab together to the hotel.

Dubai is an interesting city. Much of it, from the highway to the buildings felt just like any other large city I had been to in the US. There were definite differences though. Many of the stores were unfamiliar though every so often there would be an American restaurant stuck in the middle. One interesting thing was that almost everything, from menus to road signs to building exit signs, was in both Arabic and English. There was all assortment is the way people dressed. Many wore western style clothes but others wore more Middle East style clothes.

The hotel was nice. I hit up an Italian restaurant with the other contractors I had met. I had the lasagna and a nice glass of wine, and everything was very good. After that I headed back up to the hotel room to get some sleep. One interesting thing to note about the room was the bathroom layout. Inside was the toilet, foot washer, sink, bathtub AND a separate shower. Outside the bathroom was another sink. Never seen so much in a bathroom.



~David

Day -2 (183 days to go…)

Today I left Virginia at around 8pm. It took forever to make sure I had everything packed or ready to go. Even then I am sure I will miss something. I greatly thank my parents for all of their support and help. They were there to help in whatever I needed. They will also be looking after my place from time to time. I also thank my friend Andrew for coming over several times helping me pack and prepare. I fear several times I bored him to death which is like his own personal version of hell. But he was there for me and he has my thanks. I also thank everyone else who helped or provided support like the McNeeleys and my friend Freddy.

My little adventure got off to a bit of a rocky start. The plane to Atlanta was about 40 minutes late and was stuck ‘parking’ for about another 10 minutes. This meant I had about 20 minutes to get from one side to the other of the Atlanta Airport to board my plane to Dubai. In transit I checked the app on my cell phone, and Delta had already reassigned me to a flight the next day. Not wanting to reschedule EVERYTHING I pressed on. I got to the gate JUST as they were about to give up my seat. I had made it, just in time. I found my seat and settled in for a ‘nice’ long flight to Dubai.



~David

The Beginning

This Blog is about my Trip to Kabul, Afghanistan. The company I have been working for for a couple years is deploying me out there for six months. It will definitely be a new experience; I haven't even been out of the US yet. I have wanted to become a world traveler though so I guess you have to start somewhere. This blog will document my adventure here both for others and for me looking back. I dislike writing though so don't be surprised if I fall far behind. Even now I am writing this after having been here for three weeks already... The blog posts will be from the point of view of the day they specify though.



~David