Xmas in KAF part 2

Well its after Midnight here in KAF and Xmas is done for me. We have been told we can come in late tomorrow if we like as a last gift. Speaking of gifts I was sitting on my bread last night about this time when a one of the decorative Xmas stockings was flung into my tent space by a passing manger in a hat. Turns out its full of swag from the different parent companies. One more little thing to try to make xmas here a little better. I can't fault them for the attempts.

We did get to have a turkey dinner on the customary paper plate and plastic utensils. It was surprisingly good, turns out they brought out one of the Canadian cooks from the FOBs to cook for us. It had all the fixings like cranberry sauce.

Did turn out I spent a good chunk of the day sitting around and taking pictures of aircraft going by. The big show was some US warthogs doing fly-bys and dropping flairs, kind of air force fireworks display. Warthogs are know to be one of the uglier air plans on the ground but in the air they are graceful like none of the other aircraft here.

Any way here are a bunch of pictures from today including a bunch of KAF Santas.

A Xmas on Afghan Land

Well its Xmas-eve, we called it a day early with a lunch for the department made up of food horded from the snack food orders and stuff from families and friend care packages. Some of us went down to the little concert down at the board walk, nothing too special, recorded it on the camera. Then back to the tents

As much as we try to make xmas special here and distract our selves this place likes to remind us in cruel ways. We lost a solder yesterday and had the ramp ceremony this afternoon. One of they guys in my office will have to be sent home as his kidneys decided to stop for a while, I'll talk more about that later.

There was a barbeque and I made it my best to literally miss the bus. It was not at the Oasis as usual but some large storage building at the south side of the base, so people going had to be bused. Content with my microwave Kraft dinner and cake sat down to watch a few BBC documentaries downloaded last week. Tomorrow Xmas day we have the day off, think I'll spend most of it sitting on the second floor oasis patio taking pictures of the aircraft going by.

The the night before we had fencing and the English fellow was out one last time before he head back home. Did quite well ageist him this time and held my own. It did help I spent the last week and half practicing two of the master strokes and there displacements, as well trying to clean up my basic guards. Hate to see him go as we the only good long swordsmen here. Quest that means I have to bite the bullet and start teaching.

As part of this prepping I had a little 2 by 3 inch notebook picked up in London. So I been making little Cole Notes of the two Christian Tobler books I have here. The notebook original use was to write out little notes on how to find different places in London. After my return the original purpose done and only a few pages used it needed a new purpose. Menken had told me once how one of the better fighters in Ealdormere had written out and diagram a mass of fighting moves and this was a contributing factors at his advance level of skill.

My office will be short for a few weeks. Stephan been suffering head aches for a few weeks and went to the Canadian medical role here. The first time he went they gave him some unknown shot that cured the head aches for a few days. When they returned they did more test then sent him to the larger NATO role. Turned out his kidneys were shutting down and had stopped working. Some more drugs and they were working again. He is to be sent home so a specialist so to fine tune the medications. Repeated dehydration, high levels of salt used in the food, and his high blood pressure before even coming here combined to take beating on his kidneys.

Another week had started... Had one of my more better days off. Spent most of it sitting on the deck of the oasis taking pictures of the air craft flying by.

The day ended with staying up to the wee hours trying my best to get a chat going with Will laptop at Kes and Menkens household Party... It was so Frustrating... I get little 2 minute snippets of audio from there end, my end would not send at all. It was truly nice to here there voices even for those little windows. The internet limitation here did not favor a real connection and had to give up … Beginning to worry I was greatly damaging Wills ability to enjoy the party. It's only 2 and half months.

There is a little voice of insecurity in my head when I'm here that when returning that some permanent damage will have been done to my personality that cause other to cringe at my presents. The voice is easily gagged with past experience from my vacations that this darkness shakes off like the dust. It only exists as a temporary adaption to my surroundings.

Tonight was a hour lesson with the maestro with saber. That went well but going to have problem remembering the positions by the terms they use and the funky scoring system used in competitive fencing.

When ordering things from the military it wise to remember not to expect any thing specific. That the short description line you get to chose from can be interpreted many ways by the repurchasing agent and that this interpretation can and will change from order to order. Lets take two case studies. And before any one asks i'm not complaining as this is one of the little things that makes the sand box entertainer.


In case study A we have description ”Salad, Fruit preserves”. We have learned that this will get you Fruit Cocktail and most often come in small little individual containers of six, not unlike found in any cafeteria fridge. Some time we get name brand cups that a bit larger and come with little folding spoons. And once we got 2L Cans. Don't Worry we are saving the cans for the xmas party.




In case study B we have description “Air Compressor, with Tank”. We have two air compressors we use to blow dust out of computers that are more or less the same size. One we kept at the office and one we take with us in the gator. Well on vacation the office one blew a seal, and a new compressor was ordered. Looking at the inventory two viable description for air compressor, one with the word “portable” and one with out. The person knowing the one being replace was going to stay at the office choose the one with out the word “portable”. I'll let the picture speak for itself and the wood structure is to hold the tin roof for it




Its xmas in KAF So every one having little xmas parties the best they can. The Americans like to have music and this will yield little surprises like having a brass band in the defac or as in today having the air board quire on the stage for 30 min just as I was getting off of work. Just one of those little surreal moments. Record about 20 min of it to play when I get back to show people the eclectic nature of this base. The files a little too big to post on the site today.




We have the little health clinic built at the tents. Its empty now but will get filled we have a nurse coming some time soon.

Warning, If you are not schooled in the combat arts the following post may not make all that much sense.

Well we had a fight practice last night and one of the English brought a pair of bamboo wasters normally used for kendo but had been adapted with hardwood cross guards for long sword. So the two of use decided we give them a try starting slow…

Turns out he had formal training in Italian long sword so started what I considered one of the best fights I had. AS you can tell the “slow” didn’t last long. Everyone else starred as they had not seen anything like this before as we mostly do rapier and saber at this point. What long sword that’s been done were by people who watched too many movies and swung too many sticks in their back yard.

The fight consisted of each taking a formal guard then the other would change guard to counter and then repeat over and over till one of use did not counter and bang there be some swing of swords and one of us ended up getting hit… Turned out to be mostly me. I got schooled, he used some counter attacks that I’m not familiar with and as I’m still just starting to research the master swings I have little for counter attacks experience …

Like I said it was one of the best fights I’ve been in and has motivated me into research. I have my copy of Christian Tobler thick book here and throw myself back into it. The English chap is only staying a few more weeks so this is going to be a limited window.

The rest in the group were puzzled, to their eyes it was somewhat boring. The two of us just standing there every so often moving our swords from one positions to another for unknown reason, and after a few min of that a sudden furry of swords motion that lasted at best a few seconds.

So I conclude that I will see little long sword after this as most seem to be intimated by this chess game ware you have to guest the other persons stroke and such pick a counter guard/stroke knowing he will do the same to that and so on.

The Night was also made interesting as this older British officer walked up with this big smile on his face. Asking about the swords we were using and the styles. He could not get over the weight of the Schlager. I explained the SCA and concept of rapier reproducing 16th/17th century styles and techniques; he looked at me like I was some young child with some quaint idea picked up at the school yard. Turns out he was the officer in charge of the British inter-service fencing and such his experience was mostly in the foil.

At the time I didn’t know fellows rank, and I sort of notice our British fencer who is a corporal, trying to be invisible. I have yet figure out the European ranks insignias as its quite different than ours and varies between countries and branches. Turns out he was an Air Vice Marshal, aka a general. You never know who you’re going to meet here.

I need to get back into the habit of writing these little adventures. But like before I have follen back into a rut of living here. Get up, go to work, go to the DiFac (Dinning Facility) find something to do after dinner and then go back to bed.

I know a lot of people have offered to send things to me for xmas but I am doing really well. Between Kes and Laura I am well supplied for the winter here.

Turns out the van halen concert was a hoax, just another example of KAF’s rumor information system at work. But I won’t gripe too much about that. I have 80 Days left in my contract. And I have officially said “no I’m not staying after that”.

One of the Lines men came up with a brilliant plan. He asked if one of the Stone merchants if they would cut a stone block into thin slabs and polish one side to make marble tiles. The merchant said sure 1$ a tile 1 foot square. We are all curious if this will actually work or just work. If it does he will have a marble floor Kitchen at a 2$ a square foot after he ships them back. It just seems too good to be true situations.

Been back at the Shutter Bug, took some good pictures of the camel herds that wonder by the camp every so often. There is a move to tighten up the rules on the camp. The reason we are told is trying to deal with the additional Americans moving in.
Any way that’s my Life in a Nutshell.

It's December

Oh to Money as we don’t have any. The “rumor” is the Afghanistan national bank office on base that has the only two bank machines has forgotten to renew their employees ID badges to get on base. This process for Afghans can take over a month, until that is done there is no one who can come and refill the bank machines. Not a big deal as we can eat at the mess and such but no buying extras. Now some have brook down and are sending western union to themselves and eating the quite large service fees. I can wait as I done most of my shopping already.

The fencing is going well. We have one who is a baronial champion back home from the out lands here but he’s only here once in a while. Its nice taking on some one of that skill level as Eric and Fred are now rotated out. Most of the people at fencing have done little to no sword practice before coming here other then on their D&D character sheets or swinging sticks with friends in the back yard.

Well December is looking good any way. There is a poster being sent around proclaiming we will have Van Halen here sometime this month. Most are a bit worried as the poster looks a little bit too amateur to be real. The Rumor got strength when we got a Email from the company in which it listed it as “Van Halen the Magician”. We are going to get a double ration of beer this month as well and a few extra barbecues. As this is cheap beer I don’t actually drink I’m not too excited about that but others are.

The other rumor of the day is that one of our competitors may lose the NATO contract for the base. They have a habit of bringing in top experts from N. America and Europe when they first get a contract then about one third of the way in they replace them with untrained personal they recruit from third world nations paying them about 1/5 the amount. From what I can see this is actually a common practice among the industry. Before anyone asks my company and other Canadian Forces contractors don’t for most part do this as CF is quite anal on contract quality assurance. Not to be confused with Canadian Companies that do contracts for other nations and NATO who do this practice all the time.

The example of this is the FOOD; yes I’m back at the food thing as its less disgusting then the bathroom cleaning example. The NATO mess here is staffed mostly from India and South Asian countries. Originally they had people from England and the US but after six months of getting the contract they were phased out. That’s why we say you get better food from the small Canadian base camps out in the war zone then you do here at a camp the size of a small city.

Oh on a final thought I been told from a friend sending me stuff that you get free shipping to military personal for December. SO PLEASE send things if you know anyone in the sand box as it does make a big difference getting stuff from home.

Well back at afghan land. I found out when I got here that well I was gone we had a bit of a swine flu outbreak… An outbreak being one person… But it meant my first day consisted of getting a flu shot in each shoulder while I was replacing a video card in one of the hospitals machines

Another addition is that they are building a small health clinic here. The company has decided to hire a doctor and a nurse so they can have more than 300 people on the ground. The forces have told them no more than 300 till we do. My only surprise is that the clinic is right ware we had our little outdoor movie theater. That’s been replaced with a big screen TV in the top floor room of the Oasis. (the companies little club house) You can sigh out the room for two hours at a time in the evening to watch moves. It didn’t take long for people to notice that you can lock the upstairs door from the inside so it’s now the “Choice” spot. And remember fraternization is forbidden.

The poor Oasis, it was packed on Sunday night to watch the Grey Cup. For us that started around 4 am Monday morning and its surprising how many went, you could tell who stayed up to see it at 8 am by the number of people with bags under their eyes and muttering or cheering “too many players” depending on what side of the country they were from.

I got told that we are now actually planning to shut down the place in 2011 with the understanding that the military may change their mines at any time as it has a tendency to do so. You can tell on the faces of lots of the long term people are now a little lost trying to figure out what they will do next. Many of them are in denial and just say things like some will have to stay or that the U.S. will start another war. For me it gives a natural breaking off point where I have to stop playing in the surreal sand box and get back to the real world. It really sank in when they asked us to look for things we don’t use much as things that can be sent back early.

If you’re a bit confused I may have said this in the past but this place is very much like a very large prison except the guards looks out not in. And like they say in Shawshank redemption some people become institutionalized. But you get vacations and your bank account gets bigger every two weeks. Some people have been working here for years and worked in Kabul before this and Bosnia before that. Yes Institutionalized to this life style. (WARNNING the following sentence may break your brain just a bit) That reminds me, the London underground has lots of posters on the walls for the live stage performances in London and one poster was advertising the soon coming “Shawshank Redemption” the stage musical… That broke my brain a bit too.