A new home

Matt here this time, with my first post in several weeks. I think the last post I made was from Kyrgystan prior to flying down into Afghanistan. A lot has happened and changed since then -- so here's a quick update.

I spent the first 4 weeks of my deployment in one city in northern Afghanistan. I did quite a bit of flying there -- much more than I expected to that soon in the deployment. All of my flights were training flights (no real life medevac missions), but it was good to get back into flying after several months off.

The best way I can describe the first place is hot and dusty, but actually quite beautiful at times. Here are a few pictures:

The view as I stepped out of my tent one evening

A view of the tents we lived in

A look inside the tent at my bunk...I hate the top bunk.

Getting ready for a flight

I recently moved to a new place though, which puts the first place to shame in a lot of ways. It might be that I have lowered my standards of living, but many aspects of this place are comfortable. It's about 5-10 degrees cooler, the camp is much smaller, the people are friendlier, and the food is excellent. Yes, excellent.

I'm not going to say the name of the city I am in, but it is one of the safest cities in Afghanistan. The people here are friendly and like the ISAF because we brought them electricity. We've also brought them a great deal of money in the form of leased land, building projects, etc. I don't have many pictures yet but here are a few:

The new place I live

My space in the tent (two cots)

The outdoor "indoor" soccer field. The Norwegians are good at soccer!

A look outside the interior perimeter of the camp

That same gate from a different angle -- those are village buildings on the other side of the fence.

One of the things I've done since getting here is taken over for the Air Force Master Planner who got pulled from his job a few weeks early. He was coordinating all of the building projects on the camp that were being done by the local Afghan people. How it got dumped on my lap I still can't figure out, but now I'm finding myself as a construction project manager in addition to medevac pilot.

Have you ever tried to explain what needs to be done on a project without using words? That's what I do several times a day now. Explaining that each floor needs two coats of polyurethane is not easy without words. It's also tough to explain that the two water tanks, which were included as part of the system, are not needed for the project but they must be left with us. I really need to learn some of the Pashto language. I'll be sure to post a picture next time of me with Rustam, the foreman.

I almost forgot the best part about my new location. Free wifi internet! We are only allowed to use it during certain hours of the day, and it's usually pretty slow, but it's been wonderful to have internet access again on a regular basis. I got to talk to and see Johnni and Joella a few days ago via Skype for the first time since I left Kyrgystan -- it was wonderful! Joella is getting so old! Johnni has been great about sending me photos/videos of her when she sends me packages, but those are always at least 10 days old due to the transit times. It was wonderful to get to see them in real time. Joella kept trying to hand me things, point to me, blow me kisses, and walk toward me. Yes, walk! I couldn't believe it. Johnni said she counted 14 steps in a row last week. crazy. It's fun that even if I have to be gone for so long I can still keep up with things back home fairly well.