So, there I was... no sh*t... in Afghanistan...  

That's what my coworker always says when he begins to tell a story!

But that's not why I'm posting this note today... I'm posting it because, well, there I was, no sh*t, in Afghanistan... when I had a new memorable moment!  I was invited to play music again with the fiddler from USAID and one of his co-workers that plays guitar... we were playing for the fiddler's going away dinner... and my, what a dinner!  4 or 5 of the guys are from Boston and NYC areas - and are all of Italian descent.  One of them had a restaurant or market near his home ship in some pasta, sauce, fine mushrooms and all the seasonings necessary to make one incredible Italian feast!  Another guy made Italian bread - fresh!  But that's not the memorable moment... we played some tunes, ate some incredibly fine food, talked about music and enjoyed some time together.  They even hummed a few bars of an Italian melody for me to play on the mandolin - with tremolo and all that Italian sounding mandolin stuff... well, I shocked myself by being able to pick up the melody enough to play "Ole Sol Mio" or something like that... that was cool.  But that's not the memorable moment.

The memorable moment came to me as I walked home from the event... so there I was, no sh*t, walking down the street in Afghanistan, and it happened... >burp!<... oh!  what was that!!  oh!  wait!  I know that flavor...  it was GARLIC!!!!   a garlic burp!!   I rushed home to my BHut and called Jerry and told him of my culinary excitement.  I didn't realize that I missed garlic until that >burp<....   :-)

I left to come back from lunch before everyone else, today… good thing, too… got to see a Parrot!!  And I think it’s related to our dog Molly – here’s a quote from this page:  http://www.birdtricks.com/psittacula-krameri.html

“Indian Ringnecks are incredibly intelligent and must be kept active and engaged. When you’re not able to interact with them it is best to keep them in a large cage, preferably an aviary where they can fly and move about, with an abundance of toys for chewing, climbing, and puzzle toys to solve.”

http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/resources/p_tanaka/P_krameri1.jpg/view.html

Has a good picture of one – and I did see a male one, so it had that distinctive ring around its neck.  Needless to say, this made my day!

The reference to our dog, Molly... well, since we've had our new pup, Molly, she has eaten approximately 5 dog beds, a dog bowl, and some unknown number of sticks.  

Don't think I mentioned that one of my first memories in Afghanistan was waking up the first morning - to the sound of birds!  I think they were just the little sparrows, but, they were pleasant sounds for the ears.

Happy Thanksgiving!

At first I couldn't tell if anyone would be willing to "celebrate" this day or any of the upcoming holidays.  Fortunately they are more than willing - except for a few that decided waiting in line today for lunch wasn't worth it - they went to Burger King, instead.  I get to enjoy TWO Thanksgiving Dinners today - lunch and dinner times.  For lunch, I had a nice turkey dinner.  For dinner, I plan on having either ham or roast beast... and shrimp cocktail - they have a very nice spread setup and have tried their best to make chow hall food seem like it's alot better than usual - they succeded... kinda... I'll put a picture up on this site of my fine Turkey Dinner... you'll see what I mean :-)

Later this day, mail call brought a box from home - my hubby was sweet enough to make my mom's "nibble's" recipe.  Thank You, Jerry for cooking the Chex Mix and Mom for the recipe.  And Thank You USPS and US Armed Forces for timing the delivery to arrive on Thanksgiving Day!

Mail call also brought a big box for one of my office-mates - it had a small Christmas Tree in it - it's now setup and decorated in our office.

Thank You all for the emails, cards, packages, and warm thoughts!!  During this day, please remember to be thankful for all you have and are able to do.  Also remember those that are having tough times - both overseas and in the states. 

cheers!
-heidi

Thought I'd just drop a quick note to this blog... Don't want anyone to think I've gone missing or anything  :-)

Had the discussion today about the little things that make you happy when you're deployed - For soldiers that have to share a room - happiness is when noone else is in your room because they are working a different shift and you have a little bit of private time... even if it's only for a short time.

Happiness for many in our office is when a new movie hits the PX shelf and we schedule a "movie night" for a viewing.  For others that are headed home this holiday season - happiness is getting to single digits in their countdown of days til they leave - one guy is at 3 and a wake up (he flies on Sunday).

For me, happiness is sleeping throught he night without being woken up ... like by various loud noises ... from a roommate who slams the outside door ... from the new "giant voice" that was installed right outside my B-Hut (think of M*A*S*H and the loud speaker voice they use)... from the jets that take off and shake the entire building in addition to being VERY loud... and in addition to noises... happiness is not being woken up by that stupid biological thing - having to get up to pee which means putting on a coat, shoes and walking outside and up the stairs to the female latrine... walking back and trying to get back to sleep!  

It's the little things.
 

This post is actually a copy of an email I sent to some friends - I had asked for some mp3's of two tunes that we had learned at Winfield in Carp Camp - Ma Yofus and Hora ca din la Caval.  These tunes have been arranged for both regular C tuned instruments and for B flat clarinet. Here's my explanation of why I asked for these two tunes.

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As most of you know, I"m in Afghanistan supporting our company's software and supporting the efforts of OEF - I'm on Bagram Air Field, so it's pretty much like being stationed on a base anywhere in the world!  For my music fix, I"ve had trouble finding other fiddle tune fanatics, but I have found a rather ecclectic group of musicians - we meet on Sundays and Wednesdays in a warehouse like building.  Kinda like playing in a garage!  They play some electric rock/country  - mediocre singing with strumming guitars - there's one good bass and lead guitar player and decent drummer, the rest just follow along.  They also recently changed one night to be "acoustic"... more rock/country, but I've also befriended a Croatian guy named Samid - he wants to learn to play clarinet - I have heard that he's a very good classical style guitar player, but haven't heard that yet...

Well... as I said - Samid has a clarinet, so immediately I thought of the Hora and the Yofus... I showed him the sheet music and we spent last Sunday talking about music theory!!!  I learned about Gypsy Minor, Hungarian music (he thinks Hora is a Hungarian Gypsy tune - I think online, I saw it labeled as Romanian), Melodic and Harmonic Minors - and learned about it in a way that I may actually remember this stuff this time!!!!!!  I can kinda play Ma Yofus, but Samid would like to hear recordings of Hora and Yofus  - thus the request for mp3's (THANK YOU, again, Henry!!) 

One of the first things Samid did when looking at one of the pieces is decided that the chords weren't quite right for the style of tune.  It was facinating to be shown these things of theory with two musical pieces that I don't usually play.  Maybe it's being out here in the melting pot of Bagram Air Field, or maybe it's me taking advantage of a different musical setting!  I don't know, nor do I care!  I'm just enjoying the experience.

Last night, I met another guy, Stephen, who's from upstate New York - he gave me more of a Jazz overview of some interesting progressions and walk downs... My brain is still hurting from that exercise, but, again, magical experiences!!

For those that are curious, it's 6am here in Afghanistan - it's 6:30pm in Colorado.  Last week it would have been 7:30pm in Colorado, but since Afghanistan doesn't observer daylight saving time, the time difference changed form 10 1/2 to 11 1/2 hours ahead.  I have no idea why the half hour, either!

Well, time to get ready for work!
cheers!
-heidi

Beautiful sunrise this morning.  Too tired to get my camera, though.  I'm sorry I haven't gotten any  more pictures up online - I will try to do that soon.

Another earthquake last night - this time I was awake so got to feel it - it was very strange!  First a vibration - like a massage chair... (I was sitting on my bed watching a video on my computer when it hit).  Then it got a little more rocky and rolly before it just stopped.  It was centered probably 100 miles north east of here and was 6.0 magnitude there.  When things like that happen, though, I'm glad I'm in a plywood box - I don't figure I can get hurt if a really big earthquake hits... :-)

A cool site for tracking earthquakes is http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/

I don't think I mentioned this before, (forgive me if I did)... I was thinking about people that are here working - it's alot like Winfield - noone really cares what you do when you live in the states!  When I meet folks to jam with them - they don't care what I do here on base!  We just share a common bond in being willing to be here to support any way we can.

Other random observations - there are trees here - but they are very dusty after the long summer/fall of dusty days.  Across the main street from our office is a group of trees that play home in the afternoons/evenings to a ton of birds - very NOISY birds... no idea why they flock to this one area.  Haven't seen them anywhere else and they are not there in the mornings and early afternoons... The trees still have their leaves!  Evenings are down in the high 30's and 40's, I think.  Daytimes are sometimes cool enough to need a jacket - today I was in short sleeves midday.  A couple of nights ago we had rain for the first time since we had that rain that flooded our office.  It snowed on the high mountain tops we can see from here.  The mountains are in the distance like in Denver, but they rise higher than colorado mountains.  It's usually hazy/dusty/smoky here.  I think trash is mostly burned so there's often a smoke smell in the air.  The view to the mountains is usually fuzzy - because of the haze. 

Happy Halloween Eve - Hallowed Eve Eve? 

Dang... I continue to prove that I can sleep through just about ANYTHING!!!  There was an earthquake here around 12:30AM local time... and I completely missed it!  http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,569203,00.html and http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/us2009nbbf.php#details

The guys that were awake to feel it, said it really shook their huts - I guess I've gotten used to the feeling of jets moving rattling our BHut, so I just slept right through it.  They said that there was a quake here last year and that this one was bigger than that one.  Guess is that it was about 100 or 125 miles northeast of here.

Another week gone by... looks like once a week is a realistic time between posts - time seems to be going by very fast!

Two or three nights ago, I had to get up to go pee - have to walk about 20 yards from my BHut to get to the restroom facilities.  It was about 3am - and, oh my, there was one of the most beautiful moons I've seen in a long time!!!  it was a tiny slivver... probably just past the new moon.  Every time I see a good moon when I'm in another country, I think it soo cool that everyone on earth gets to see the same moon!

I hope to meet another musician tonite to play some music - a bunch of folks referred me to him!  All I know after a brief meeting with him a few days ago is that he's from Kentucky and he likes jazz, is learning mandolin and also plays guitar, bass and provided the drum set that's in the "MWR" that we'll be meeting in.  An MWR is the recreation facility for the troops - it includes TV's, ping pong table, pool table (with camo patterned table, of course), games and extensive exercise equipment/facilities.  I'll try to write back to this blog very shortly to let you all know how it went!

Wow... time flies when you're out here!! It's been almost a week since my last post. I'm getting all settled in my little "B-Hut" room... a B-Hut is a plywood shack, basically - there are 8 little rooms in each hut. Four on one half, four on the other half - a door on either end of the hut. The walls don't go up much past about 6 feet high. This means you can hear your roommates very well. It's a good thing I can sleep through just about anything. OK, I can't sleep through the jets that take off all night long! Some are not too loud, but some are so loud and close, they actually make our hut shake. If you look at Bagram on google, you'll see that there's a big runway and almost every building is within about 1/4 mile of the runways!

Weather is chilly at night and pleasant during the day - I have been in short sleeves mid day just about every day - but jackets at night. You can definitely tell winter is coming though... each day seems to be a bit cooler than the previous day.

The music scene that I've found isn't exactly "acoustic" nor "Irish" and not even "bluegrass"... it's basically electric old rock and country played loud and, well, played badly :-) Every one of the musicians in their own right is not too bad - it's just trying to jam with them becomes a loud cocophony of noise. I don't think I'll last too long with them as long as they are plugged in. I have asked some folks to introduce me to people they know that are in the band on base... I haven't given up hope, yet!

Really not much else new here. Tonite I'm going to relax with a movie!

Well, I'm getting settled into my new room - my home for the next 3 months is about 7ft by 10 ft - bed is raised about 3 feet or so - means I have extra storage under my bed - keeps the center of my room nice and open!  I'll take and post pictures eventually.

Speaking of pictures, I added an album to the Photos section of this site.  I really like the Kuwait Sunset - I couldn't decide which to include, so I included a few of them!  Also, the bar rules showed me the reality of different women's rights in other countries.  I find it sad.  Got to chat with one of the managers of the Marriott for a while - he is an Egyptian working in Qatar.  He told me about "the rules" and said that even he has been affected by them - he tried to go to the downtown area on a Friday during the day to show another co-worker the markets, etc.  He found out that Friday was "family" day and he was not welcome there.  But, it's their country and I respect that these are their rules.

Tomorrow night I hope to meet with some other musicians after work - they play on Sundays and Wednesdays - I couldn't make Sunday because I needed to unpack and setup my room.  (Steve, I practiced the new tune set a few times, tonite!)

Work has been fun - it is really like doing our normal coding job, but right there with the customers.  The guys and gals out here are also top notch and fun to be around!  They have been kind (so far) to me, the newbie who's never deployed ANYWHERE... most of our folks in the field have had prior military experience or have been over here for many months.

I said to Jerry earlier this week - this place is like summer camp and MASH all mixed up.  I think summer camp because some of Roots Camp's accomodations are just about the same as here!  MASH for obvious reasons...

Thank You for the comments on my last post!  I enjoy reading what you all have to say.

but now, time for bed...

I've tried 3 times to get this note out... having to rethink how I enter them - I keep getting internet or timeout issues.  sigh.  I guess it is pretty amazing that I can send notes out at all! 

I am safely here at Bagram Air Field - made it here in the wee hours on Wednesday morning... took a few nights, but last night (Friday night) I had almost a full night sleep - jetlag is a real pain!  It is noisy here, though.  Trip was mostly uneventful - flew from Denver to Washington Dulles to Doha Qatar.  Stayed Tuesday night in Doha, then on to milair waiting list - wasn't too bad.  Got on a flight about 6 hours later - guys here had put me on a waitlist on Sunday - that *really* helped!  Flight from Qatar to Bagram stopped in Kuwait - we were a bit delayed there, but I got to see a beautiful sunset - I hope to get pictures up somewhere, soon.

At Bagram, I move into my room today - I've been in a temporary hut for a few days until my room opened up - they are moving folks in and out of here at an amazing pace, from what I can tell.  I'll write more on what my room is like once I get to be in the room!  Tonite!

Weather here is very similar to Albuquerque or Pueblo from what I can tell...  I don't think it's as dry as Iraq, but definitely dry!  We had a little rain shower - it was hard big drops, but only for about 30 minutes - but long enough to start some pretty impressive leaks in our office!  On *my* desk... I wasn't at it at the time, but when we discovered the deluge, we had to climb on, under and all around it to get garbage bags on all the electronics - monitors, computers, speakers, etc.  Nothing seems to have shorted out!  Including this PC I'm typing on, now :-)  The "flood" totally reminds me of Winfield.

enough for now - hopefully this article will post.

Tomorrow starts my adventure!  My stuff is already over there - I got word that my boxes arrived and are in our office space. I will have internet while I'm overseas and will continue to do my best to stay in touch!  Feel free to email me.

Winfield was wonderful - except for the initial scare like we had last year - we almost got rained out AGAIN!!  Last year we had to camp in alternate locations because parts of the fairgrounds were under 10-20 feet of water!!  This year the water covered the area across the street from where we camp - "land rush" was postponed for 48 hours... after that, the next 8 days were perfect - highs in the 70's and 80's, lows in the 50's and 60's and almost no rain.  (again, for more on the festival in Winfield, KS, see www.wvfest.com)

I cannot thank enough the people who have wished me well on my journey!  Each of your wishes for safe, happy and wonderful journey have touched me.  As I said in the middle of Carp Camp when Jerry honored me (and my birthday which isn't til next month) and my Carp Camp family formally wished me well by giving me a "Sue-Rag" and napkin birka sendoff, "There are no words".  These words I stole from Beppe Gambetta when he stood at Winfield expressing similar feelings after his first trip to Winfield.  A "Sue-Rag" is a special flannel cloth thing that Sue Chrysler makes and hands out at Winfield and for which many people - or at least Dave Firestine - provide the fabric.   If anything in this paragraph doesn't make sense to you, sorry... it's a Winfield thing :-) I can explain in person someday if you ask.

I hope to be settled and back online by the end of the week - I may sneak in some "online" time during my journey, especially if I get stranded in Doha. Me and my ole red mandolin will try to take pictures and will try to figure out how to post them... 

Spent the weekend packing and boxing - my stuff will be going out ahead of me... no checked bags should make it easier to get from here to there... After I get back from my 2 week pilgrimage to Winfield (www.wvfest.com) I will have one more week of work then be off!  We leave for Winfield after work on Thursday!!!   I'm still excited about my upcoming adventure.  Here are some other random thoughts.

I have been having lots of Mexican food as I'm pretty sure that will be something I will miss greatly!  

I've heard that showers are to be taken much like they are in an RV - turn on water, get wet, shut off water, lather, turn on water, rinse, shut off water, conditioner, turn on water, rinse, turn off water, done... use as little water as possible.  Having spent quite a bit of time in an RV (see Winfield reference above :-)... I know that I'll miss being able to stand under a shower with the water running for minutes at a time! 

I'll also miss the "view" from our shower - our bathrooms each have a window where you can look out at Mt. Herman through the pine trees while showering!

Gonna miss the pups - Molly - our 7 month old puppy - and Betty - our 10 1/2 year old girl... I've taken a few videos of walks in the park near our house and of them "fighting" in the house - hopefully they will come in handy when I miss them. 

Gonna miss Jerry - we've been together since 1992 and never apart for more than 2 weeks since then!  

So my journey begins... I will be headed overseas on September 28...That's still over 5 weeks away, but it feels much closer.  I'm appropriately nervous and extremely excited!

Many friends and family have asked that I stay in touch while I'm away.  I thought this might be a good way to help to do that.  Mostly what I hope to capture via this site is my reactions and feelings towards being very far away.  Things like: what is it like to have a very small bedroom (or cell :-) ) for almost 4 months?  What things surprise me?  What kind of music will I find?  How the food is?  Weather?  What will I miss?  What will I learn?  Who knows.  There will probably be things that I write about that I did not expect to write about!  

I hope you all enjoy my ramblings...

cheers,

-heidi