Grubby kids and tall mud walls...

11 23 11

I was at COP Kandalay for the past 4 days. It felt great to get back to Pasab and have a shower...5 days without bathing was a bit much...on the other hand it is a 'dry heat' and I do not think I smelled any worse than anyone else. I stayed in a tent with my 'bodyguard', three members of the military's CA (Civilian Affairs team), and an Air Force dog handler and his dog. It was an interesting mixture. We went on several patrols through and around the town of Kandalay. Narrow roads with sewage running through the center ditch surrounded by tall mud/straw walls...most of them at least 10' high. We could tell that we were safe because the kids came out in droves and asked for pens or candy ("Chocolat Nishta" means that I am out of stuff to give away, especially candy.) We are kind of the roving 'trick or treat' patrol for them. The outfits were cute and the girls wore much nicer stuff, for the most part, than the boys. Lisa would look great in one of the colorful outfits. "Ma noom James dai' (My name is James) is one of the answers I had for their questions...I do stand out with my beard and digital patterned uniform parts. And I did feel like boiling my hands when I returned to the FOB...the hands asking and grabbing candy and pens weren't the cleanest...Weird stuff, we started to give out candy in one alley and the kids were handing us what we found out were non-functional fuses (detonators)...Yikes, weird kind of stuff to be finding in your backyard. I helped the military by telling them how to kill trees with Roundup, girding and blowing them up. The Taliban uses trees as cover for organizing attacks and denying them cover is an important order of business. I wrote the Stihl company for a really tough chainsaw and got turned down...I think I'll write again...Think of a chainsaw as a 'tool of war'...and the ad with a chainsaw lined up with all of the weapons being used here...a bizarre thought. "Sthil, helping to eliminate the Taliban, one tree at a time". Maybe a second appeal will help.

I am still doing well, but missing the traditional Thanksgiving feast with the Ebeling clan! I'm pretty sure the food at the DFAC will be good, but not the same as home.

Love, -Jim-

11 27 A Variety of Projects

Well, they have certainly started to use me for a variety of projects. I went to the COP at Now Ruzi with Wilson and MJR Reyes to inspect and evaluate the entrance for the Pashmul Canal. Remember that the canal is named for the town at its terminus not its beginning. We were gone for 2 and a half days. The COP was by far the nicest I've been to, the soldiers there were polite and in awesome shape. The food was as good or better than that of Pasab, the cook really tried to make stuff that we would enjoy eating. The beef stew we had last night was as good as I could make. The only complaint that the Major and I had was the lack of fresh fruit. Anyway, I have to step back a bit. I forgot about the visit to the 'peanut factory'. Prior to leaving for the Now Ruzi mission I was asked to accompany the CA (Civil Affairs) team to the location of a peanut processing facility. The facility was situated on about 6 acres of land and consisted of 4 completely empty concrete and steel buildings about 75' x 200'. Our mission was to evaluate the site for potential for future manufacturing businesses. One we are considering is an unfired clay brick factory. MGR Freeburger gathered a soil sample from just outside the compound and tested it (sedimentation test... fill a container about halfway with soil and the rest of the way with water and shake... it will settle into strata that tell you what the solids in the soil are... rocks, sand, clay, silt... etc)… the soil there is around 75% clay and almost too rich for bricks to dry quickly and with that much clay they may shrink too much. There is also the possibility of a sewing factory and a poultry production facility. The buildings were stripped, but serviceable and clean... the site entrance had a small contingent of ANP posted there.

Back to Now Ruzi...We took a long walk...more of a bushwhack through farm fields, orchards and scrubland. Over walls, hopping irrigation ditches, walking under tree branches and all kinds of stuff. It was great. We finally arrived at the Argandab River near to where we were going to meet an Afghan engineer. We'd initially talked to him at the COP and we finally spotted him...unfortunately for us he was on the other side of the canal inlet. The entire patrol (consisting of 15 US Soldiers and 12, or so ANA, plus me waded across to the canal entrance. It was about 15' across and got to just over 2' deep...not bad, but everyone had to walk back with wet feet. Up until now the canal was controlled by the locals, under the direction of the local 'murab' (water control official) would block or unblock the canal inlet with rocks and gravel depending upon the need downstream. The engineer wants to use US funds to put in walls on either side of the canal entrance for 100 meters and some kind of lock system to control the water. Most of the construction would be 'gabions' which are rock filled cages of fence material...you see them in the US as retaining walls along highways and waterways. I wasn't impressed with his knowledge (or lack thereof) about water flow rates, peak water heights, soil shear and stuff like that. What will really tick me off if it is another one of those multi hundreds of thousands of dollars projects that wind up making the rich richer here. I've more than paid for my trip by going over really terrible plans from the local engineering companies and telling the military 'check writers' exactly what they are getting for their money. I mean the plans are so bad that I wouldn't have given a 9th grader in my drafting classes a "70" on them and the budgets are fictitious...$11,500 to empty the dump trucks, and the same to fill them...and the same to drive them.

I spent the afternoon today chasing around the materials and tools to make the holes in the walls of the NGO Vocational Training Center. We think we have it together to start soon. I also got grabbed by another Major who is interested in 'powering up' two of the local villages with solar electricity. This promises to be a big and productive project!

More on these and other projects as they develop. Love, -Jim-