Crazy Days

Ok, so it's been a whopping 10 days since my last post, sorry to have deprived you all from my earth shattering ramblings. But before we get to the good stuff...a bit of housekeeping.

First- a new photo gallery (KAF 2) was added over yonder not so long ago, enjoy.

Second- in an attempt to stop you from having to sit in front of your computers constantly hitting the refresh button to see if I have added a post, you can sign up over the other yonder to get email alerts.

So, everybody caught up? Great, cause this blog is going to come blasting out, I actually have so much to say that I may have to make this a double blogger night, we'll see how it goes...

No good way to start this one but to just jump in. The past few days have been insane...not insane, more like crazy ninja insane if that phrase is even legal. Monday started off as any ordinary Monday does...groundhog day. I was coming off a fairly light Sunday that saw me actually take about half the day off, I know, how crazy of me. It was just the second time so far that I haven't set my alarm, just too bad the guy who I took this place over from had come back from his R&R on Saturday, he woke me up at 7:15am looking for the truck keys...you know, the keys that are hanging in the office on the hook labeled "Truck Keys". Sometimes I ask too much I know. Good thing he is being shipped out in a week or two to another location!

 Sorry...back to Monday. The dust had finally cleared, it had been extremely dusty the past week or so, just miserable. Too dusty for the planes and choppers to fly, too dusty to stand outside for more than a few minutes without a scarf over your face, looking down the street nothing was in focus, just plain dusty. About the only thing nice about it was that it kept the sun completely blocked most days and the temperature actually fell about 15 degrees. So on Monday when I woke up the dust was completely gone and the sun was back in it's usual spot just inches above the earth. With temperatures reaching 112 by 11am, my 24 hours of craziness began when the generators that provide us our power from the neighbor broke down. Both of them at the same time. No power, no AC. To say that these steel containers we live and work in heat up fast in this heat is an understatement. I left for lunch and when I got back the inside of the office was so hot that the bottle of water I had on my desk was too warm to drink. After a few hours of no power, it finally came back on, it took almost the remainder of the day to let the AC catch back up.

Fast forward to around 9pm on Monday. I get a call from an Air Force Engineer that sometimes stays here when he is passing through. We have Air Force contracts and as part of the contracts we must supply temp housing should they be in need when passing through. No biggie, usually the same guy and he's pretty cool. Well this time he wasn't able to get a truck, so he called and asked if I could pick him up. No problem right? Well when I picked him up he told me that he had a 1:30am flight out, arggg....So at 1am I drag my butt back out and take him to the airport. Tired and slightly annoyed I slide back into bed and finally go to sleep. 4am...my phone is ringing.....his flight was canceled and they couldn't get him out on the next one either....sooooo.....back to the airport. But how do you complain to him when we were just awarded a $20million Air Force job in Kabul that he is part of?

I know what you are thinking...."boo hoo, you had no AC for a while, you missed some sleep, that's not crazy ninja insane!". Well here is where things started to go wild. Let me back up a second to better set the stage. Things here are a cash existence, locals get paid cash only, unless they are a large contractor that you can have funds wired to their accounts. More established "western" contractors don't need cash in hand, but everything else works on only cash. Monthly truck rentals...cash, cell phones...cash, meal cards for the cafeteria..cash, utilities....cash, etc., so as I have taken things over here we have had to catch up on a lot of those bills that had been slipping. Therefore I needed a fairly large cash injection. So on Monday night I got a call from our head of security saying that he would be on a commercial flight into the airport here at 7am from Kabul with money for me. Only thing is, the commercial flights are not allowed to unload and enter the base, they get released outside the wire. No big deal really, just a mile or two and it borders the base the whole way, still under the watchful eye of the guard towers and the endless stream of troops entering and leaving the base on patrols. So we headed out there this morning and parked in the lot next to where the people come out. The plan was to meet, get the money, and he was turning around to catch the flight back out. Kinda like a drug deal minus the drug part. Well as we sat there, things began to get real sketchy. The Afghan Police patrol the terminal entrance, and as you might know, they're not exactly the most trust worthy bunch. The head policeman was walking around in body armor, grenades hanging on his chest, and a hand gun in each hand, not in the holsters, in his hands. So you might think that at least he must have the upper hand in the situation should something bad go down right? No way, we saw more guns and firepower in the back seats of the locals that were showing up than what the Afghan police were showing. How messed up is that? The locals just driving around with AK47's in their cars, in plane view. They even had to go through a checkpoint run by the Afghan Army to get to where we were. Most of them are private security companies that people can hire to take them around, and man are they shady looking, All of them just watching us trying to figure out what our deal was.

So after a good 45 minutes waiting or the plane to show up late, he finally came out and it was game on. To say I was shocked at what happened next is the understatement of the year. Our head of security walked over to us, shook our hands, and held up a bag about the size of a shoe box, just as I thought he was handing the bag over, he unzipped it and pulled out the money! My heart absolutely stopped. Every single person there had to have seen this, and to make things worse, he announced "here's your $xx g's", like some sort of mafia don or something! We grabbed the money and threw it straight into the glove box and got the hell out of there.

So now I bet you're thinking that was pretty crazy, well now comes the absolute scariest part of the whole ordeal...the old timer was driving, well he freaked out, gunned it, and we soon were doing close to 80mph! Now there are many things that you shouldn't do as you drive towards a heavily guarded security entrance to a major military base in the middle of an active war zone. On the top of that list is drive like a mad man as fast as you can directly towards the guards. I have no idea what got into him, but he officially lost it. I was screaming at him to slow down, but he was like a possessed madman. We even passed a full military convoy! He finally slowed down with about 1/4 mile to go before the mandatory stopping point where it clearly states you will get shot should you not stop. I could feel the snipers in the guard towers bearing down on us. So now we are at the stop zone, third in line to go through, and guess what, the convoy has the right of way, so we now have to sit there and wait for 10 minutes for them to go through. And now we have caused a major scene and attracted all sorts of attention to us, we might have been at the gate, but technically we could still be detained by the Afghan Police or Army since we were still under their watch. That would not have been good under the circumstances.

Once it was our turn to go through, we held up our badges as required for the guards to see through their binoculars from the tower, they turn a light green when you can proceed- keeps them away from the vehicle should you be there with the intent to blow yourself up, lovely thought huh? Finally we got green, entered into the transition area, and slowly drove by the troops that await you around the corner. Once through the gate, we drove the 100 yards or so to our compound where I got out and sat at my desk and after a few minutes of clarity seeking, sent an email to my bosses and the head of security explaining just how badly that went down, while he went out and grabbed breakfast. Holy crap that was crazy ninja insane. Needless to say we had a little chat when he got back with his full belly. Like I said, good thing he is leaving soon.

Just so we can end with a laugh, cause you have to around here. When I went to lunch after the drama, I noticed that they started putting up street signs....finally. Well they have named a section of streets after US States, and here is your tax dollars at work my friends......do they not have spell check???