Waiting

With less than four months to go (fingers crossed everyone), the major theme now is waiting. For the last eight months Valli and I have been working for our futures. We have been working and saving all year in preparation for all the cool stuff we want to do when this deployment is finally over. We are so close to both meeting our financial goals, and more importantly- getting back home so we can put them into practice.

I left for Afghanistan in January. At that time it was all about getting out of debt. You might remember the motorcycle conversation. sniff. Then around April we made The List. We listed everything we could think of that we wanted or needed. Then we organized them by priority. Any time either of us gets money it goes towards the list. Funds get set aside for the highest priority items first. First was remaining debt. We were able to knock that out a few months ago. Next came "needs", like money to finish remodeling our crappy house so we can sell it when I get home. We just got that part taken care of about a week ago. And thanks to the state of Alaska for the awesome dividend this year we have a good portion of the fourth catagory filled: The downpayment on our next house.

Every day we are inching our way closer to the last catagory. All the work and all the waiting- every day a few dollars closer. This is my favorite catagory. Wants. Our wants list has sensible things on it. Things like home furnishings, a modest vacation, food storage, etc.

But there is this one thing. At the bottom of the wants list is something superfluous, immodest, insensible and expensive. Most of my free time is dedicated to thinking about, or corresponding with, my wife. Honey- I hope you know that you are always number one. What I think about most after her is the next motorcycle. Especially on warm sunny days. There are about 300 warm sunny days a year here. Everytime I go up in the air and see the long dusty roads stretching past the horizon, or the twisties carving over mountain passes and descending into deserted canyons, I see myself back home on my bike. And not just any bike either- a Hayabusa. The bike.

But there is still more waiting and saving. About three and a half months worth of waiting. Waiting until I can go home and be with my wife. Until I can sleep in my own house. Until I can eat good food and ride my bike. And do all those other things on the long, long list we've made. But first- more waiting.

(Sigh) Waiting.

Summer Reading Program

A list of the books I have read this summer in no particular order.

The Kite Runner
A Thousand Splendid Suns
The Pillars of the Earth
Every Living Thing
The Lord God Made Them All
Storey's Guide to Raising Sheep
Storey's Guide to Raising Beef Cattle
Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens
The Host
The Thief Lord
Keeping Bee's
Basic Butchering of Livestock and Game
The Aurther Spiderwick Chronicles

Books to read by October-

Inkspell
The Good Earth
Storey's Guide to Raising Pigs

And the one I am working on now has a story associated with it. Or rather, the continuation of a story.
I just finished my awesome massage at the barbers and went by the little AAFES store next door. I needed some pretzels or something. The lines there can get really backed up with the Afghani dudes working the credit card machines and American money. I often grab a periodical to pass the time in line. The suprisingly large magazine rack is dominated by publications devoted to only a few topics. They are: guns, video games, fitness, the vehicle genre (bikes, planes, trucks and cars), and boobs. There is also a slim section of paperbacks containing the usual bestsellers, militaria, and sleazy black romance novels (read: chick porn). Wedged between the erotica and the guns was something I never would have expected to find- Stephanie Meyer's newest and worst-reviewed novel. Breaking Dawn. I had to do a double-take. It was the only hardback book on the wall, and that big white queen stood out like a beacon.
"Holy crow! What are you doing here?" thought I.
There was only one mildly abused copy. I bought it.
I have been reading a few chapters a day with Valli via phone. It's hard on the phone cards but it's been really fun. We both love the book so far, and agree that it's pretty rediculous. We have to stop frequently and ask ourselves why we are still reading when it waxes especially stupid. We skip around when Meyers goes off on things like "loving Edward more than anyone in the world has ever loved anyone on the world" and "burning pain" for seven straight pages. And we just call the mutant "R" because reading the name outloud makes me cringe. Even so, we still lose hours and hours of sleep and plan our whole day around reading about Bella and the gangs (hopefully) last adventure. We are slightly more than halfway through.

As for the livestock stuff- it's pleasent research. The book I most enjoyed reading this summer was the one on cows. I highly recommend it. Cows rock.

How Spend 20 Bucks

Give it to the Kyrgystanis.
The other day I went to the barber on the north end of Bagram. It's operated by 6 or 7 girls and one dude from Kyrgystan. One (much needed) half-hour back and neck massage put me out only 10 bucks. The girl working me over knew very little english but did a great job. And we didn't feel obligated to keep up a conversation the whole time since we hardly understood each other anyway. After my massage I got my hair cut, not shaved or buzzed, but actually cut, styled and shampooed by another friendly person there. Seven bucks. Plus 15% gratiuty put me right at 20. More evidence supporting that things are looking up in Afghanistan. With all the soldiers spending money and the multitude of cheap services available I frequently wonder what some people are so pissed off about.

America Needs This

I spent a few hours in Jalalabad this morning and went buy the hadji-shop for a snack. I didn't find any snacks, but they had an amazing collection of DVDs for sale. The DVDs are produced by a company called World Movie BBK. I bought three for a dollar apeice. They each come in their own brightly coloered, glossy cardboard jacket which is covered in little thumbnail pictures representing their contents. Each disc holds about 30 hours of program. I got one featuring the Discovery Channel series called Wild World, A Disney disk that has a dozen or so full-length aminated classics and every Pooh movie ever, and a Kung-fu disk full of Bruce Lee, Let Li, and Jackie Chan. There were maybe 40 different disks on sale.

What is wrong with you America? I never thought I would say this, but Afghanistan has you spanked. At least in the cheap movie department. About 50 movies for 3 dollars, and I didn't even haggle with the guy.

Perspective

Sometimes I think that I should focus more on positive things. Peoples accomplishments rather than their failures or pain. Someone reading my blog might get the idea that I am a negative person who delights in embelishing on the suffering of others. I want to say that this is not true. I am a very positive person. I am an optimist. And I do not enjoy watching people suffer. Perspective is what is needed here.

As a flight medic in Afghanistan, I see people at their lowest. The service we provide brings me close to suffering, injured, sometimes dying people on a daily basis. These people are innocent victims of cruelty, or brave volunteers who accepted the mortal risks of being a warfighter. Only a small percentage of our clients deserve to be in their situation. Being a medic can be really difficult sometimes. Pain is never funny.

Or is it?
Being able to compartmentalize makes things easier. I take one part of a situation and put it in the serious drawer, and another part of the same situation goes into the hilariously ironic drawer. Today for instance:

This afternoon my crew got a call to fly to Jalalabad and pick up a young woman with burns to her face, right arm and hand. On the way there, we were guessing how she got burned. We were pretty sure it didn't have to do with fighting because of the place and manner in which we were picking her up. Was it from a hot coffee spill, an accident in the shower, did her clothes catch on fire somehow? I found out when I arrived. Apparently she was trying to burn some pieces of wood, and they weren't burning as fast as she wanted. So she decided to dump gasoline on them and light it with her cigarette lighter. Um... duh. Back to that perspective thing. On the one hand- oh, sad. On the other- Friggen awesome with a side of serves you right. Taking into account that she's fine- no permanent damage, and she gets a free trip the Germany for recuperate for a few weeks. Like free leave! So yeah I think it's funny, and I'm sorry you were hurt because you did something super-retarded.

The story gets better/worse.

While the doc and I were getting her all ready to go, we got another call. There was a second helicopter on it's way to Jbad with a middle aged local guy for us to take to Bagram, with gasoline girl. He had some bad eye and face trauma and a big laceration on one of his arms. So I'm thinking- was in an I.E.D., a mine, some kind of industrial accident, or was he kidnapped and tortured by the taliban? Nope. And I kid you not... Mauled by a bear. I didn't find much funny about this one. But it brought a bunch of questions. We have bears here? How did he manage to find one? How do you get it to attack you!? Flying around the mountains out here I've never seen or heard of anything accept goats and camels. And the biggest question of all- How did I wind up with these two bizzare cases on the same day, even on the same flight?

I have no doubt that this is the weirdest job I will ever ever have. Good thing I'm so positive.

I Will Never Learn

I got a call on my radio today to get ready for an urgent mission. When I ran up to my room to grab my jacket, gun and drug bag, I discovered that I had locked myself out.
My door is a flimsy sheet of half-inch plywood hung on two hinges. It is secured on the outside by a hasp and a little masterlock. I checked my pant pockets again to be sure. Then I kicked in the door, grabbed my stuff, and went out to the aircraft. The mission was cancelled before it started on account of bad weather. I went back upstairs to fix my door. I wasn't at all perturbed because this is the fourth time I have had to kick my door down. After the last time I started keeping a hammer and nails in my room just for this purpose. It only takes a minute to bend the latch and hinges straight and nail them back on the door frame. My key was on my desk, right where I always leave it.

What just happened?

A couple months ago in a weekly servicemens group meeting we discussed the possibility of initiating an addiction recovery program. The group leader got in contact with some people at LDS family services to get some more info. About the time I got back into country he asked if I would spearhead the program and think about holding meetings during the week on days I wasn't flying.

The next day: somehow we were mentioned in the Church News.

Crazy crazy.