I've gotten lots of emails related to must-have music for my nephew, Henry. Thanks everyone, keep the recommendations coming. I think I've decided on a few must-have full CDs and then some mix CDs that have a few songs from lots of artists. I'm working on it and will let you know as I get a little further on the project. I've heard from at least one person who wasted an entire day online going back to listen to music that they hadn't heard in quite some time. Glad I helped some take a walk down memory lane.
Things are up and down here. I went outside the wire again yesterday to go look at a few construction sites: a water treatment plant, water tower, and a new police station. The sites were off the beaten path and the roads to get there were crazy. Potholes were so big they our big Excursion was bottoming out.
The first place we went to see was a water treatment plant that is almost completed. The are having some trouble with the tanks leaking a little so they decided they needed my "expert" opinion. It is laughable that they would ask me, but we did the best we could to help them out so this project can get completed in the next couple of weeks.
They fed us lunch...my first sampling of Afghan cuisine. We had mountains of wonderful rice, beef stew, fruit and turkish coffee. It was very gracious of them to provide us with such a wonderful lunch.
After lunch we went to look at a water tower that may need a little assistance. I got to climb to the top of this thing. For Corps employees that read this...don't bother asking about EM-385...
This is a water storage tank that is at a rural police station in surburbs of Kabul. There are some concerns about how well this was constructed, so I climbed up to take a look. The tower itself is great, but the tank itself needs some help, I'm not sure what we're going to do about it.
As I've mentioned before, all business happens out of small stalls throughout the country. We passed by an area that appeared to be the main place to get your car fixed near this village; there were about 15-20 little stalls where everyone was working on cars. The craziest part of this was that whenever they needed to work on the underside of the car, they would just move it over to an area where they had dug a pit about 1-2 feet deep. Move the car over the pit, slide down and lay in the bottom of the pit and work on the car. Based on the dry, sandy soil in this country, it is amazing that the sides of the pit don't just cave in.
I'll attache a couple more pictures without much explanation...it is late, I need a little sleep.
Gas Station
Car Repair Place
House on a Hill
Kevin, keep the blogs coming. It's fun to read about what you do. Even though I am sure it may seem like you have nothing to report, it's always interesting on our end. I also love the pictures. What a typical Afghan lunch looks like, etc. Also...I love the discussion regarding the music for Henry. I can't wait to see what the final result is. He is asking me on a daily basis to add more songs to his itouch. You'll definitely have a lot to talk to him about this summer.
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