Still New Stuff

I’ve talked to a lot of people about a lot of stuff since I got here. A whole lot of it I’m listening to, and some of it I disregard, but the nice thing about the job so far is that there are still new things. I’m sure that soon, the well of new things will dry up and I’ll have to really lean into the stuff that I brought with me, but for now there are still unique experiences that pop up each day.

The last three days have been solid training. I’ve had classes in how to stay alive in Afghanistan and how to use an M9 and M4. I’ve learned a schmidgen of Afghanistan history, especially the recent events that have shaped the country, and I’ve learned how to do counter-surveillance. I really liked that last class, and though a few of the others in the session fell asleep, I was eating it up. I didn’t always have the right answers, but I really like the idea of trying to outsmart the people that are already trying to outsmart you. And that makes it sounds tame, which for me it is since I don’t leave the base. I wonder if I would ever be able to stand up to the pressures of staying alert for all these hazards while traveling the countryside?

In any case, the bazaar came through the base yesterday and that was really really fun. I have been to a couple foreign countries where it’s expected that you will haggle endlessly over prices and I really enjoy the game of getting what you want for the exact price you are willing to pay. I didn’t have time to do any of that at the vendors who were here in Sunday, but there are a few things I saw that I’ll be ready to quibble over in the next couple of weeks.

Over the camp yesterday morning and this morning, there was a kite flying. It was amazing to see and to relate back to the Kite Runner movie, which, say what you will, was an amazing story. The crazy thing about this kite was that it was a small diamond kite, no more than two or three feet across, and it was doing amazing acrobatics at about 300-400 feet in the air – so high that you could barely make it out. I was in awe of this person flying because I couldn’t understand what kind of string they were using to get it so far up there – the string length had to weigh at least a  couple of pounds. Of course, I had just finished my class on combat mindset, so I quickly did a 360 radar check and looked real close at the kite to see if there was a camera or IED attached. It was clean, so I went about my day.

The attached picture is off the D7000 and is a duplicate of an iPhone picture I got a couple days ago. The mountains here are so beautiful, and this is a relatively clear picture of them, early in the morning, so the sun is shining real long, right on them. Surprisingly though, these are not the mountains that lead up to the Himalayas, so they are peanuts compared to the mountains further east. Really awesome site to see each morning on the way to breakfast.

Tomorrow, I get to shoot some guns, which I’m looking forward to because, of course, I’m a man from Idaho. I’ve never shot the guns that we’ll have the opportunity to fire off, so it should be exciting. And I like the idea that if I’m leaving the camp, at least on this trip, I’ll have a gun in my hand.

Lastly, I had a dream last night that I was climbing Borah Peak in the winter time. It was so real, and I was so pumped about it, that when I got up, I nearly posted it on Facebook and sent a message to Chad Berry to tell him so. I guess that means I should plan to do that someday because in my dream, it was amazing! Okay, maybe not a good plan, but I will probably look into it . . . .