I couldn't resist. Dumbass terrorists.

Bombers Killed: Three men were killed when the bomb they were carrying detonated. The bomb detonated after their bicycle went over a bump in the road in the central Pakistani town of Chechawatni. Their target was either a cattle market or the funeral procession of a recently murdered policeman. Pakistani Security Forces are on high alert following a series of suicide bombings and arrests through out the country.

So these three jackasses were riding one bicycle (I've seen that here) with their little homemade bomb strapped to the handlebars, on their way to become "martyrs" for Allah, when their bicycle hit a bump and BOOM! Now that's funny. I wonder if they got their 72 virgins?

This is my second attempt to write this entry. I had a beautiful literary masterpiece written previously, but the system crashed and I lost it. Last week I was thinking that my blog was looking a little bare and it was time to write something, but I was out of ideas. Mr. Big Hands was at the gate on Wednesday but I didn’t have my camera. I’m saving him for when I can get some pics to augment that story.

Thursday started out as any other day. Breakfast at 0530, then off to D-1 for more POI development, translation, and review. Strawberry, our crippled yard dog (sort of a cross between Pivo and Cooper), met me at the office for her morning snack. I always liberate a sausage link from the DFAC in the mornings for her. She must not be Muslim because she likes the pork sausages as much as the turkey ones. People that have been here a while told me that she used to be healthy, and would run with a beautiful athletic stride. Then one day she started favoring a hind leg, having apparently been hit by a vehicle. She still runs on three legs, like many natives of this country, adapting to her unfortunate circumstances.

Thursday, of course, is the beginning of the Islamic weekend, so we took off at noon and headed home. We always travel in pairs at least, with four vehicles and drivers dedicated to our section. Heading back along our usual route, we were stopped at a military road block on Jalalabad Road.

OK, Mom and Julie, stop reading now.

Mom, Julie, click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8MDNFaGfT4

There were about a dozen ANA soldiers with AK-47 assault rifles redirecting traffic down a side road off of Jalalabad Road. Our idiot driver at first attempted to go through the soldiers, at which they became extremely agitated. Dana and I quickly and unceremoniously corrected the driver and ordered him to follow the soldiers’ instructions. My heartfelt advice to anyone reading this: never argue with men carrying AK-47s.

We got out of that situation just fine, and were on an alternate route back to Camp Eggers, when we were stopped dead in traffic just before Massoud Circle. Massoud Circle is a traffic circle dedicated to a Kurd resistance leader killed by the Taliban. Massoud Circle is also the site of one of the worst IED attacks on a US military convoy. With Massoud Circle within sight, we were in a stand-still traffic jam, blocked in on three sides by other vehicles, and on the left side by the concrete barrier separating lanes of traffic. Normally, this type of activity would indicate that President Karzai was moving through the area. Traffic is typically stopped or rerouted to secure his convoy and escorts. But that day, President Karzai was in London meeting with Tony Blair.

We were starting to feel a little uneasy, blocked in traffic like sitting ducks. Some tricky and skillful maneuvering by our driver got us out of our position and heading in the opposite direction towards the airport. Our driver, Sharon, being a local and knowing the area, with best intentions (we presume) attempted to take a side road to get us back on track. The turn was into a narrow alley in a poor neighborhood. I say “poor neighborhood” to differentiate it from the safe houses. These were mud buildings, cluttered with daily activity of average Kabul natives. Not knowing what was ahead since we couldn’t see past the first turn about 20 meters in, we directed Sharon to back up and keep the vehicle on major, paved streets only.

He got us back on the main road and drove at breakneck speed in the direction of the airport. Keep in mind that there are no traffic laws in Afghanistan—at least I’ve never seen indication of any. Traffic circles are usually the most exciting, being congested with vehicles, pedestrians, donkey carts, trucks, soldiers, bicycles, and just about anything else you can imagine, intertwining in every direction with no clear right of way. It’s actually quite amazing to see, like a choreographed dance, all the players seem to move with an inherent grace, sort of like a school of shad or flock of sparrows shifting direction and skirting obstacles almost as one being, never colliding.

We made it back to the safe houses just fine. Never did learn what the detour and congestion was all about. After dropping Dana off at his house, the driver was going to my house and we were stopped for a short while in normal traffic. Kids, as usual, came up to my window to sell gum or simply beg. There was something I hadn’t seen before—a woman in a buqua leading a blind man. Impossible to tell how old she was, I got the feeling that the man was her son, as opposed to being her husband. I rolled down my window and gave her all the cash I had on hand—three dollars.

Friday was a better day. Went to Camp Phoenix with some other MPRI personnel and played racquetball, then went to the PX and ate pizza. Went back home and took a nap until suppertime. Fridays are a feast. This Friday I had steak and crab legs, with pralines & cream ice cream for desert.

Yesterday was a bonanza. I had two boxes in the mail. One was some PT shirts and shorts I ordered with the $30 Wal-Mart gift certificate I won in the monthly photo contest; and the other was from Julie. Valentine’s card & candy, magazines, headphones, an optical mouse for my notebook computer, and assorted mail.

Now it’s Sunday morning, a normal work day, and I’m sitting in my conex box/office writing this in MS Word to copy into the blog later. Has to be later because the internet is down. It’s snowing hard, and whenever it rains or snows, the internet goes down.

I added some new pics to the photobucket. You’ll see the burqua woman & blind man; my interpreter/translators Aimal & Abdullah; Dana; Dana’s driver, Sharon; and Strawberry.

Out.

Have you ever noticed how on TV shows and in the movies, the bad guys are always horrible shots? They can spray countless bullets at the hero and miss every time. There might be some truth to that. We get daily Security Reports on activities the previous day. Here's an excerpt of the one I received yesterday:

Rocket/Mortar Fire: 07 Feb, Kabul Province, Kabul District, Kabul City, Two sets, reportedly of two rockets each, were fired at Kabul City. The point of origin was determined as Bagrami District. The first set impacted in an area between the Airport and Camp Souter. The second set impacted on the ANA range. No casualties or damage resulted from either.

So four rockets were fired and they all missed... Now I'm not complaining, I am quite happy that the insurgents can't shoot. I just thought it was noteworthy.

Also interesting are the reports of suicide bombers. I think I have this suicide bomber thing figured out. The reason for suicide bombers is because the insurgents are such lousy shots. Since they can't seem to be able to hit the side of a barn from the inside with the doors closed, they use suicide bombers to increase the probability of a hit. However, what you don't hear about on the news, are those suicide bombers who also miss. Here are some fairly common reports:

BBIED: 31 Jan, Nangarhar Province, Muhmand Dara District, Torkham Border Post - A suicide bomber, wearing or carrying a device entered the border post building and detonated his device. Initial reports indicate that the bomber was the only casualty.

VBIED: 04 Feb, Kandahar Province, Kandahar District, Kandahar/Kabul road – An ISAF convoy was subjected to a VBIED attack. No casualties, other than the suicide bomber, were reported. Only minor damage to a convoy vehicle was reported.

So they can't shoot and even the suicide bombers often kill only themselves.See? Don't worry about me--I'm not in danger! Death to the Taliban!

Today was interesting.

Alex Henderson arrived in-country about a week after I did. A retired Army Warrant Officer, Alex is a confident, outgoing guy. He let it slip that his buddies call him "Hollywood". Easy to believe that--Hollywood has curly hair, baby doe eyes, and a girl in every port. Like many of the guys here, he worked for KBR previously, in Djibouti. His last assignment in the Army took him to Bagram Air Base, about 60 miles north of Kabul. He has a twelve-year old daughter living with his mom.

When new employees get here, we are all assigned a laptop computer, among other things. In our conex box/office at D-1, we have a wireless Internet connection. D-1 is where I work--it is the Afghan National Army (ANA) National Supply Depot. There are also two other National Supply Depots called D-0 and D-2. Those of you familiar with military logistics will probably point out that there can only be one National Supply Depot. I agree, but things are different here in Afghanistan. Don't even start on the problem of having a "D-0". Back to the story: Alex's computer was never able to establish an Internet connection. For reasons too involved to flesh out here, we were never able to get our sole tech support guy to fix it. So today our boss, Dana Cook, sent Alex & I out into the city to buy a new Internet card on the economy (reimbursable, of course).

Did I tell you about Dana Cook? He's a crusty, loud former Army maverick from South Dakota. In the few weeks that I've been here, working from a desk next to his, I know all I'll ever need to know about hunting buffalo, elk, coyotes, rabbits, deer, prairie dogs, and whatever else walks, runs, crawls, swims or flies in or around the Black Hills. His wife sounds like a sweet woman and she must be an absolute saint, I'm sure. Interesting also to get a local's perspective on Harley riders, the Sturgis Rally, and Indians. Don't get me wrong, I'm picking on him in case he ever reads this. Dana is actually a great guy and has invited me & my family to stay at his house next time we go to Sturgis to do some fishing, and perhaps consume some adult beverages.

Alex & I grabbed one of our Interpreter-Translators (IT), Gee, and headed out into town in an MPRI vehicle commandeered by one of our drivers, Abdul. Gee apparently knew where to buy a Internet card. The route started out fairly familiar--down Jalalabad Road toward Camp Eggers. Then we turned off next to the Ministry of Defense toward downtown Kabul. We started to see a lot of people walking alongside the road, and Alex asked the driver where they were headed. "Downtown" he replied.

There are pics in my photobucket album. I'm almost lost for words. Downtown Kabul looked like it was right out of a movie. The first movie that comes to mind is "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome", only the scenery in Thunderdome was cleaner and better organized. Throngs of traffic--everything from military vehicles to donkey wagons to people wagons to people. There seemed to be no order to the chaos. Everything from power cords to 'fresh' produce to fish was available to sale on the streets. Gee had the driver stop and let us out in the middle of it all. Then he led us into what I thought was a storefront shop, instead it was a doorway into a larger "mall" in the interior. Wow. It was an open courtyard, with about seven stories of shops overlooking a shabby-looking building in the middle, onto which trash and debris was deposited. The whole place smelled like urine, body odor, and marijuana. Could have been clover cigarettes, but it sure smelled like marijuana to me. We looked into several dirty shops cluttered with electronics, computer equipment, video supplies, etc., from every country and manufacturer imaginable. Gee asked for the part in about a dozen shops before we gave up and headed to another possible source.

That's when I realized that I made a mistake I will never do again. I had left the sanctuary of reasonable civilization needing to urinate. I asked Gee if they had bathrooms there. He hesitated, then led me to the rear of the mall and out into another adjacent enclosed area. There it really got ugly. Two boys, I guess about ten years old, were monitoring the "bathroom". As a stall became available, they handed me about four sheets of pink toilet paper and pointed to the door through which I was supposed to go. I walked into a 4' by 4' concrete stall with a 6" by 8" hole in the floor. The smell was almost unbearable. I skillfully aimed at the hole and completed my task. Through the hole I could plainly see the deposits of the visitors before me. I say "plainly see" because there was sunlight down there. I hesitate to envision what exactly was out there. On the way out, one of the boys had his hand out (imagine that!) and Gee gave him ten Afghanis (about twenty cents).

Our next stop was a smaller, dirtier mall, but we found the Internet card for $70.00 US dollars.

I learned some new words today. While getting back into the vehicle to leave, a police officer told our driver to "Bora, bora!" (Go, go!), and in traffic on the way back, Abdul called somebody a "kaka-e-khar" (uncle of donkey) and a "shadi" (monkey).

I added some pics of "jingle trucks". We get a lot of shipments through Pakistan. The Pakistanis like to decorate their trucks with bright paint and chains sort of like wind chimes. They jingle when they go down the road. Hence the name "jingle trucks"!