Flat Stanley

Guess who is going to have the BEST Flat Stanley display at school.
My oldest daughter sent Flat Stanley to me,
so I've been taking pictures of him around our base, Camp Arena.
Everyone has been really cool in helping me out.
Here are some of the things that Flat Stanley has done.

visit our hospital

pose w/ some of our American soldiers outside their armored MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected)

pose w/an Italian soldier in the gunner's position on his armored Humvee

meet a Lithuanian member of the ISAF (Intnl. Security Assistance Force)

attend the Real de la Feria (April Seville Fair) on base

meet local Afghanistan girls who appeared to be sisters
Their attire was more modern than some of the other girls who I´ve seen come through the hospital. The mother wasn´t wearing a traditional burkha, just a head covering, so they must be more influential and feel safe enough to do so.
The little girl was very shy and not enthusiastic about taking a picture
until I gave her a tootsie pop.
Her face lit up when I gave it to her.
I wish I could have taken a picture of it.
I later brought her a little gumby figurine that was sent to me from my coworkers at Camp Pendleton (I assume from CAPT Mortensen)
and she was again very happy. You could tell it made her day.

pose on an old tank stationed at the base

meet more Italian soldiers and see their armored Humvee

Flat Stanley is ready for hibernation after all he experienced. I wonder if he is the first to visit a NATO base during war time.

Sundays

I am able to hold church services here at

we pass the sacrament, listen to and discuss talks by General Authorities, and sing hymns
below are some of my coworkers- one other guy on base is LDS- the others are friends who are also interested in a healthy dose of religion

below is what i like to call my reflection wall
we have a lot of time to do just that, reflect

a week can pass when I don't do a single case in the OR
(then in one day I can admit as many as 5 patients at once)
I look forward to adding more artwork and pictures as they arrive in boxes from home

Family is where it's at!

anesthesiologist

doing what I do best
(airway)

good vs. bad

This is what the sky looks like on a good day.
(This is a main thoroughfare on base.)


This is what it looks like on a bad day.

This kind of sky brings with it some strong winds and loud thunderstorms with heavy rain. The skies looked like this off and on throughout March. We couldn´t figure out how Afghanistan is so barren when it rains as much as it did in March and February. It is so nice to be living in hard structures when these storms hit.

So far, in April the temp has been in the 80´s and occasionally in the 90´s with no rain. The humidity reminds me of the heat in San Antonio. I hear it gets into the 120´s here in the summer. When the hot of the summer is peaking, that is about the time when I´ll be heading back to the more ideal weather of San Diego.

Today is day 75 of my 180 days here. 105 more joyous days to go!

All About Afghanistan ... things

On the weekends they have these bazaars where you can buy things from local Afghan vendors amongst other useful and usual stuff like cell phones, watches, etc.

I purchased some necklaces and asked Jen to choose which one she likes.

Jen here- I said, "None, thank you though."

Gee, I can't understand why she doesn't like them. Don't they look alluring to you?

(Jen here- the necklaces above remind me of a hospital floor -enlarge pic to see shiny detail- and the one below -with all the color- reminds me of something our girls would make. They're cool enough, but I'd rather spend my money on new clothes! Like I said to Drew, "You're my Afghanistan souvenir." Doesn't get much better than that!)



the girls love to play dress up, so I bought these traditional Afghan dresses for them



Since we're on the subject of Afghanistan things, this is the perfect place to post pics of my favorite meal so far- a traditional Afghanistan B-B-Q.

I'm too sexy for my black hat
(Jen here too, can you tell?)


it cost $14 and was worth EVERY penny


above is a funky rice dish
but below ... come to daddy!
REAL meat = heaven


and for the after-dessert treat, traditional hooka
(smoking a pipe of flavored tobacco- I did NOT take part in this)

(btw-these women are on the Bulgarian surgical team)

the best thing about the meal, next to the meat, was that I did not get food poisoning.

I suppose though if one had a negative reaction to the hooka, finding Kleenex to handle the mess would be no problem because they sell this -

Mansize tissues: only in Afghanistan!

Food, Glorious Food

Do not be deceived by the title of this post.
The food we eat while deployed is less than glorious.
It's less than desirable.
It just barely does the job.

Since I'm on the Spaniards base, they run the kitchen.
Spain is a coastal country.
What kind of food do you think they prefer?
My least favorite kind is your hint.

This is the salad bar that I live off of. The picture is deceiving. The salad on a good day is as brown as it appears below. I don't know if you can really see how brown it is in this picture. The thing they run out of most often is the salad itself.

If you haven't already guessed, Seafood is always the main dish.
And this is exactly how it's served up.
That's my buddy's plate. I can't even attempt to stomach this stuff.

So basically when Jen and my parents send boxes from home,
I'm in heaven.