Friday...Our Day Off!

With our day off, I slept in a little and then went to the boardwalk for a coffee at Tim Hortons...Yum!!!  This is the view while sipping my coffee today.

 I then went to the carpet shop and bought a 1x3 meter or 3x9 foot runner. The price started at $500, but we agreed, after a lengthy discussion, on $350.  I took it straight to the post office and mailed it home...it was $45 w/insurance.  I didn't get a pic of the rug, but it was similar to the one below. It wasn't a top quality carpet, since it'll be used near the entry way and in high traffic areas.

On my way to back to my base after shopping and coffee, I saw a nicely painted jingle truck.  He almost got away, before I snapped a pic of the back end. You can click on it to make it bigger, as you can with all the pics.

I also was driving by the Afghan Police with their mounted weapons.  They always make me nervous, because they're not as safety conscious as we are with weapons.  They have a lot of accidental discharges.  Here he's riding standing up, hanging on to the weapon, with his hand very near the trigger. ..don't hit a bump. This is a very common picture.

Back to the village.  We had to do this operation on Thursday afternoon/Friday, so we wouldn't have any Afghan National Army (ANA) interference (it's their day off).  We moved the toilet and shower units off the location to junk them...they were falling apart and not usable.  They were spilling sewage onto the ground and were a biohazard; 90 percent of each unit was non-functional.  The ANA personnel wanted us to keep them, so someone (meaning us) could fix them. The ANA didn't want to do anything with them to include stopping the soldiers from using them.  The septic tank was full and dried into an un-pumpable brick and they offered no help...now they're gone to the junk yard.  The ANA will typically not let trucks with garbage leave their base, because they want to sell it...My team got'em off the base and here's the before and after pics.

Saturday is Bazaar Day in more ways than one

Today my friend was here so we toured the Afghan operation, since he does the same job at a different location.  We spent some time with the Afghan Colonel and toured the facilities.  There was continuity between both locations, so that's a good thing.  At least they are being consistent.

We went for a driving tour and came across these guys washing their vehicles in the river.  Who would think to back up two big rigs in the river and wash them?  Too funny!

Then we came across this guy who was doing de-mining operations.  He flagged us down and at first I thought we were driving in the direction of mines, so we stopped.  He spoke english very well and told us the history of de-mining and how long he'd been doing it (since 1991).  Interesting conversation...he hadn't found any mines in the last week.

We spent some time after lunch at the bazaar, but didn't buy anything.  Since it was so hot, we drove by Tim Horton's for an iced cappuccino...too refreshing and they went too quick!

On our way back to FOB Lindsey, we stopped to take a picture of the apartment building.  Not sure if it'd been bombed in the original attack in 2001 or if it is just falling apart.