How many people can say..

Yesterday afternoon we went to Duchanbe, Tajikistan. I have not seen many cities as beautiful. It's no Switzerland, but one day people are going to discover this place and it will become a major vacation spot. There are rivers throughout the city that run a blue gray color. It is tropical green and the city has statues and fountains all over the place. The buildings are all old and have a classic romantic feel.... Mariam will laugh at that because most of them are from the days of the soviet occupation.

I took this picture out the window on our flight in.



Diana told me that Duchanbe is the sister city of Boulder CO. It did look a lot like it, but with more deciduous trees.

We went to the opening of a new US Embassy building and got to greet the President of Tajikistan who was taller than I expected. He's been the president there for over 10 years now. That didn't actually seem so exciting because right before we left our office in the Kabul Embassy my boss was in a meeting with Secretary Rice. Seeing her was really cool.

I like this job.

Have you ever

Spent so much time with your boss you accidnetly refer to him as Dad?

Had someone ask you where your husband was, when they meant to ask where your boss was?

Fallen asleep sitting up with your hands still on the keyboard awaiting you to continue the email you are in the middle of?

Forgot to brush your teeth so you have to chew gum the rest of the day?

I caught a break for about 2 seconds

I got to spend a couple of days in DC with my hilarious parents and sister. But before I got there, I nearly offered myself in marriage along with 2 donkeys and three chickens to use someones cell phone. See, we were stranded in Doha, Qatar. Most of you probably don't know where that is, and guess what that means, no one knew where we were. It worked out. So did surviving a broken down bus in the taxi way in Manchester and missing a flight in Boston. I had to play the "We've been traveling 37 hours already from Afghanistan, PLEASE help us get home" card... and that worked out too. It always does.

Picking on Pilots

I haven't been into any mischief here at all so I guess I had a sneaky streak coming.

I drafted this email for a pilot who needs my boss to write him a letter the other day. His wasn't exactly what my boss would have written so I redid the whole thing.

He works in a section we call the JOC (said jock, for Joint Operations Command I think, not sure) and I added in two things to see if he'd notice. This was an email written by me for him to send to my boss, the General 1. The opening line said, "please put away all shiny things to aid in concentration." and 2. Instead of JOC I wrote, "We are facing potential manning problems in the Jock."

I found this to be very funny and was very relieved that he sent it to me, for me to send to my boss because they laughed at, and noticed my shiny things line, but left Jock in their message! TOO funny, Oh pilots. They make it so easy.

more things they say

"Isn’t it funny how we are at war and the two most delicious things are cookies and juice boxes? It’s like we’re 5 years old."

jo's inner monologue~ "yes, it sure is."

Not 10 seconds later another soldier came in and accused the kid just speaking of stealing his cookie. But then he found his and peace was restored.

Oh Marine

I was asking what boot camp was like to one of our Marines who just turned 21 a couple of days ago. He told me, “Take a port-o-john and put about 5 guys in it. That’s what it’s like.” Then he looked at his arm which he was flexing. So I guess it wasn’t much fun.

This guy will jump at any opportunity that might lead to him shooting his guns. He told me the trainers curse and drill the ‘you are a killing machine’ message into them. So I asked him if he used to be well mannered, calm and had a clean mouth. He told me he used to be really shy. The second marine pipes in and adds “yeah, he used to be the type of guy who didn’t kiss on the first date (pause) unless the girl was really cute.” Then the previously shy Marine makes an inappropriate comment about what he does now on a first dates. Insert more flexing.

The marines are my favorite, they are like kids who try soooo hard to be good but just are destined to do naughty things. Like a puppy who pooped on the rug, it feels really bad, but just couldn’t help it. You can’t be mad cause they are so cute. It’s hilarious. Oh yeah, and there is flexing.

An Article that doesn't make me nod my head

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/06/05/btsc.sadler.afghanistan/index.html

I don't hate you, I'm tired

If I haven't read or returned your email it's because we are working longer hours. Things picked up more this week and until it settles down, or my body gets used to these longer hours it will be hard for me to email. I am pooped. But I'm laughing all the time. I think I'm more witty when I'm sleepy.

A conversation I just overheard from two of our soldiers "Cake is a waste of bread or something, unless it's like icecream cake, then you eat the icecream. The only part of cake you should eat is the icing." The response from soldier #2, "Dude, you're destined to be fat"

Senators and Curse words

Congressional parties come through our camps to see our forward deployed military bases. They are kind of annoying because as neat as it is to meet your congressmen, half of them just make me want to do something a little crazy just so they remember me. I will leave all names out but if you know who I'm talking about then you are probably from DC.

I follow around the boss who was the military host. I held the door for them as they left meetings or entered dining halls... in the 3 hours they were on our camp the same congressman handed me his card 3 times. The third time I started giggling at him, and barely made out a "thank you".

Then another person who makes the news often, was talking to me and all I could think was "what are you doing here?" and "I can't believe you hit that guard!" This filled my head so much I felt like I was saying it out loud. The people who had to spend a lot of time with her said she wasn't very nice, I'm not surprised.

Some of them are really genuine though and they ask the right questions. So it's neat to meet those guys. Another party came through and left hours early because they wanted to go home.

One of the Marines next door to me has the dirtiest mouth. We were all playing with possible scenarios of what will happen when he met his congressman. We were all banking on him answering the "How are you today?" question with a "F#!*ing fine Sir", we were all glad it didn't actually happen.