Ingenuity

The Afghan contractors make do with what ever they have. I have not seen one contractor use an OSHA rated ladder on the job. The majority are made from scraps of 2x4s, see the picture above. This one was not only made from scraps, but it also was spliced together to make it taller or to repair it after it broke. The other picture shows a ladder made by Afghan Ready Mix. They don't have as much lumber, but they do have plenty of re-bar, so their ladder is made from that. That's the ladder leaning against the concrete barrier. It's a good thing most all of the Afghani's are thin, I'm not sure what the rating is on those ladders.

The paving contractor fired up the plant today, the rain finally quit and it dried out enough. I was watching them put it down today and thought I'd take a picture of the paving machine. We are paving a 24' width, the machine doesn't quite reach that far, so they shovel it out to the edges. Also the auger that pushes the asphalt out to the ends of the screed is short by about 3 feet on each side, so two guys have to shovel it out to the edges. The other picture shows the guide bar, which is a couple pieces of re-bar wired together. The driver of the paver uses this bar to follow the line for the edge of the pavement. Their guide bar was a little short of the line so they extended it with a little splinter of wood and tied a rock off to the end so the driver could use the rock to guide him along the line.

The one I like best was the little campfire I found at one of the job sites. The contractor built this little fire pit to heat the roof tar he was using to patch the roof on some new brick and mortar facilities. I didn't see how they were getting the tar up on the roof, I'm sure they were carrying it up the wooden ladder in a bucket.

In the military we call that contingency engineering - it may not be the best approach, but whatever works to get the job done.

Sunday

Go Cyclones! I was able to watch the last 5 minutes of the ISU/Michigan State women's game at breakfast this morning. What a finish!

Thought I would include some pictures of the Mosque on base and the Chapel. The Mosque is here for the local nationals on base to use. They pray often throughout the day, most at lunch time. So, many of the contractors and the local nationals that work on the base go to the Mosque for prayers. There is a tent set up outside the Mosque for them to wash their feet and hands before they go for prayer. They have prayer mats and either kneel on the porch or inside. They go through several ups and downs, they stand up, kneel down, put their face to the ground and then stand up again. They repeat this many times throughout their prayers.

The Chapel is in one of the multi-purpose B-Huts. It is the only building on base with glass in the windows and they have been nicely painted to look like stained glass. The inside has been nicely trimmed out and does kind of look like a church. They provide services for most faiths, they have a contemporary service on Saturday night, traditional protestant on Sunday morning, Gospel service Sunday afternoon and Catholic mass throughout the week. There is a pretty good sized crew of chaplains, but today there was only one and he had to cover all the services for the weekend. The other chaplains were out visiting the surrounding outposts.

Boom Queesha

We had some fun today, we went to see the big guns fire. They were calibrating the Howitzers this afternoon. The gun is a Howitzer M777A2 and is named Boom Queesha (no idea what that stands for), if you blow up the picture, you can see the name stenciled on the gun barrel.

They even let us pull the lanyard to fire the gun. That was fun! They have a big boom and you can really feel the concussion when it is fired. Louder than fireworks and just like fireworks they ended with a finale, firing 8 rounds one right after the other. In the bottom picture, if you blow it up you can actually see the mortar shell in the upper right of the picture. I can't take credit for this picture, someone else the group got this shot.

Next on our agenda of fun things to do is be the dummy in the padded outfit for the military dogs. They are always looking for volunteers.

The other pictures are from a couple days ago. Afghan Ready Mix was setting the big 18' barriers on the flight line to protect the adjacent buildings/tents from the rotor wash of the helicopters. The workers climbed up top of the barriers and sat on them to attach the chains from the crane. They would step from one barrier to the next as they set them. When they were done they would just grab onto the crane chains and ride them to the ground. Also, I had to get a picture of the helicopter while I was out on the flight line.

Happy New Year!

Saturday was the Afghanistan New Year's Day, it's the year 1388. Their calendar started when Mohammad completed his mission trip from Mecca to someplace (I couldn't understand what they were saying and gave up after asking three times). All the Afghanis (except the paving contractor) took off Friday for the religious day and then they took off Saturday for the new year. Many of them also took off Sunday. We could hear horns honking and a little bit of gun fire, they shoot their guns in the air, in celebration of the new year. With binoculars we could also see a large gathering on top of one of the mountains/hills outside the base. I guess it's part of the celebration to climb to the top with your family and have a picnic lunch on New Year's Day.

Sunday was moving day for one of the buildings on base. This type of building is a "B-Hut" and can serve a number of functions, i.e. living quarters or office space. It is similar to a plywood shed and is an intermediate structure between tents and more permanent brick and mortar structure that we are living in which provide more protection. The building was being moved for a new brick and mortar building that is being built on this site. The B-Hut will be relocated and used for another purpose.

The other picture is the line up of trucks waiting to enter the base. The trucks must be parked in the "jingle" yard for a day before they can come on the base. "Jingle" is a pretty common term around here, we have the jingle yard, jingle gate, jingle road, jingle air, jingle on the trucks, etc. "Jingle Bells" will have a whole new meaning for me next Christmas.

Graffiti

The top picture was my view as I walked to work yesterday morning. It's not a bomb, it's the burn pit on base. All garbage is burned in an open pit and they must have been burning the plastic water bottles yesterday morning or a few tires. We have plans to install an incinerator which should help with the air quality, but the problem is shipping it to this location. Part of it arrived a few weeks ago, but we have been unable to find the rest of it. The blue building in the picture is the mosque, I'll talk about it in a future blog posting.

Also, yesterday we had the opportunity to wear our body armor and helmets for about an hour right after lunch. You can probably guess as to why. In the picture with me is Eric, the surveyor. His armor was back in his living quarters, the civilians have something similar to ours.

While at the paving job yesterday, Eric and I saw several vehicles drive around the concrete barriers we used to block off the road being paved. We had to leave an opening in the barriers just big enough for the contractor's trucks to haul in the gravel and asphalt. Evidently, everyone else thought it was OK as well. So, we decided to have a graffiti contest with some of his surveyors paint. Eric has more experience in the graffiti department than I do, so you can probably tell which one is my work and which is his. However, everyone in the office thought my work was better since it was more visible. Would you expect a different answer from a group of engineers?

Laundry

What a job, these guys do laundry all day long, every day. With 2-3 thousand soldiers and airmen on base they do between 300 nd 400 bags of laundry a day. It's quite a service to us, we put our laundry in a bag, no more than 19 items per bag, drop it off dirty, pick it up clean in 2-3 days. I usually end up with 3 or 4 bags per week.

The picture is of the pick up side of the building, the other half looks about the same and is the drop off side. I'm amazed at how they can keep it straight and to this point I have gotten all of my clothes back that I have dropped off. Nothing extra and nothing missing. Some days I've stopped in and there are two and three laundry baskets on top of each dryer and washer. I've tried to count the number of washers and dryers and I think there are about 25 on each side.

There is also a "do-it-yourself" laundry on base if you don't like having other people handle your dirty clothes. I don't see too many people using it, why would you if you can get someone else to do it for free. This will be something I better not get used too, I'm sure Amy will break me of it pretty quick when I get home.

Also, as part of the laundry service they have a couple guys that sit at sewing machines all day long and do repairs to what ever we bring in. I've had a couple things repaired - my t-shirt after I ripped it flexing my muscles and they also fixed my "jamay" by opening up the neck a little more and adding two more buttons on the other side. My head isn't as big as everyone says, the "jamay" was supposed to have buttons on both sides, Mike must have picked it at the factory outlet store. Actually it was hand tailored, but the tailor must have been asleep the day he did mine since he forgot the other buttons.

Busy Weekend

This weekend went by quickly, it was one of the busiest 2 day period since I've been here. The contractors kept me busy with questions and requests, so I did not spend much time in the office, but I did cover a lot of miles on foot around the base.

I asked Mike what the Afghani called "man jammies", it's very similar, "jamay". Someone else in the office had a list of questions for Mike from his daughter's 6th grade class. I thought there were some good questions and Mike's answers were interesting. They asked about the Afghani houses and Mike will try to bring us some pictures. The houses are built like compounds, they are walled in and usually quite big. They have to be for all the children and other family members as the whole family lives together. Every compound has a guest house for the guests. The whole family sleeps in the same room, on their own beds. The men usually eat in a group and the kids are not allowed to eat with them until they are 6 or 7 years old, then it is only the boys. Both boys and girls go to school, but separately. In some locations where the schools have limited resources, the boys go in the morning and girls in the afternoon, others have separate schools for the boys and girls. School is only 4 hours long. Outside of school the kids have chores to do, working in the compound, but they do get some play time after their work is done.

The paving contractor is now on their 3rd project manager since the contract was awarded last fall. They finished their first delivery order this week and the new manager showed up on Saturday. He is a hard driver and is pushing the workers harder. He is asking a lot of questions and keeping me busy, but he is only supposed to be here for 2 weeks, he is more of a regional manager and someone else will be taking over the on site duties. They finished the road that originally had the tree in the middle of it. The top picture shows KBR setting the barricades along side the new road to help direct traffic. In the picture the guy, a local national, in the background behind the loader is looking in his cargo pocket on his pants. I saw him do this several times while they were setting the barricades. When I was talking with them, they told me he had a couple small lizards in the pocket and he was checking on them. The lizards were hiding out in between the barricades and he caught them as they moved the barricades around.

The other picture is an example of the equipment the contractors have to work with. In the picture is the arc welder being used by the fencing contractor. There are several of these around the base and I'm amazed at how the contractors seem to keep them running. They don't look like they would even start.

Afghani Contractors

Contractors in Afghanistan are not the same as US Contractors, you probably already figured that out from my other postings. More examples of how they differ, the Afghani men we work with on the crews are very meek and low key, they don't get excited or worked up about anything. The contractors do not get upset when we tell them they can't work that day or we don't have something ready, it's not the microwave society of the US. They just say, "no problem" and go about their business. When we have a small change in the contract, they do it without asking for a price increase. When something isn't as it is shown in the contract plans, they don't ask for more money, they just make the change and go on.

The workers are very eager to learn, for the most part. I have noticed some that just don't like to work, we have those every where you go. But, when I go out to visit the job site, I feel like a movie star. When I show up, I search for the one guy on the crew that speaks English. When I find him and start talking, many of the workers gather around and try to figure out what we are talking about. One day I took a new drawing out to the road project and I think every worker on the site gathered around when I pulled the paper out. They all wanted to see what was on the paper. They are also a very friendly group, my visit starts with a handshake or wave and a smile from every one of the workers I walk by and then the same when I leave the work site.

The other thing we have noticed, from day one, there is no OSHA in Afghanistan. These contractors get away with things here that would bankrupt contractors in the states after OSHA levies their fines for safety violations. You can see some of these violations in the pictures above. The traffic control tower was started before we got here, it is a 4-story structure. In the picture the workers are installing the roof, corrugated metal, without being tied off and no safety landing at the edge of the roof. The other day, the guys on the top floor were chucking wood scraps over the side, when another worker stepped out of the door at the ground level. The wood missed him by less than a foot. This got him pretty excited and he started yelling at the guys up top. Note, they do not wear hard hats.

In another of the pictures, a local contractor is taking down a guard tower with a crane. In the picture one of the workers is riding the crane to the top of the tower to connect the cable to the top of the tower. To make matters more interesting the person taking the picture asked him to wave, so he is only hanging on with one hand. And, this particular individual's nickname is "crazy eye", because he has one glass eye that doesn't follow what he is looking at.

Also, the quality of construction is not quite the same. We haven't determined yet, but the control tower sure looks like it is leaning, the "leaning tower of Salerno". We don't think it is, but I took a picture for the project manager to prove to him it was. I tilted the camera just a little to make it look like it was leaning in the picture. In the other picture, one of us noticed that the contractor had a little extra entrained air in his concrete soffitt on one of the new buildings. There was an empty plastic water bottle in the concrete and when we looked a little closer, we also notice a big chunk of cardboard in the concrete. The stucco finish will cover them.

I'm sure I'll have more for a later posting as we see new things every week.

New Uniforms

A couple of us bought some new uniforms today, I modelled in the pictures above. This is the traditional attire for the Afghani men. There are a couple different styles of hats, I chose the one that covers more of the top of the head, for obvious reasons. The clothes are called "man jammies" or "man dresses" by us Americans. I'm not sure what the true name is for them, I'll have to ask Mike. I like "man jammies".

You definitely need a belt, the pants are made one size fits all. I think I could fit in one leg of the pants. Very loose fitting, and cool in the hot summers. I'm going to have to send the top/shirt back to the tailors, I evidently have a larger head than most Afghanis. When I put it on I could barely get my head through the neck opening and I popped the seam a little. I'll ask them to add another button for the neck.

Maybe I'll have to wear my "man jams" to work when I get home, maybe not. I think it will be an around the house outfit for those relaxing evenings later this summer.

No Volkswagens Here

Still snow on the mountain tops, it was an exceptionally clear day Sunday and these mountains stood out more than usual. I'm told they are in Pakistan.

There are no Volkswagens here, so the other day, we made the attempt to see how many Afghani men we could get in a dump truck. Not really, it was an opportunity to avoid the walk to the gate, so they all piled in the back of the dump truck. One of the contractors parks his equipment in the bazaar parking lot at night and then takes his workers to the gate in one truck. The other day he happened to be parking his trucks just as the bazaar was closing and all of the workers were starting their walk to the gate. They were offered a ride and all accepted. There had to be 40-50 men in the back of the dump truck and another 7 or 8 in the cab.

Another vehicle story, on me this time. We have two rented Toyota Hilux SUVs (similar to 4-Runners) for us to use in getting around to projects. There is something wrong with these vehicles - the steering wheel is on the passenger side of the vehicle. I don't use them very often, but once again today I got in on the wrong side. This time I noticed before I shut the door and I think I got out before anyone saw me. The first time I got in on the wrong side, I shut the door, reached for the steering wheel and tried to put the key in the ignition before I noticed the steering wheel was in front of the seat next to me. Luckily, I was by myself and I don't think anyone saw me that time either.

Also, with the steering wheel on the wrong side the turn signal lever and wiper lever are also reversed. I usually turn the wipers on more times than I signal my turns. By the end of the six months I'll have it figured out and when I get home I'll just act like I'm the passenger when I get in on the wrong side.

The FET and Afternoon Golf

The picture above is the team, left to right is IhWahd, Azghar, Frank Harrold, Justus Upperman, me, Tim Crosnoe, Russ O'Daniell, Aaron James, Dave Wilde, Dave White, Eric Gonzalez, Nait, and Nick. Ihwad, Azghar, and Nick are the local national engineers who do quality assurance/quality control for the contracts, and they serve as interpretors for us with the local contractors. Dave White, Eric and Nait are KBR employees that take care of drafting and surveying. Tim Crosnoe also has a blog and he posted a more colorful introduction of the team today. His blog address is http://www.crosnoe.blogspot.com/

Today started out to be a very nice day, seemed a good day for some golf, sunny, 60's, no wind. Perfect for golf, but no golf course. Past teams built a small driving range, and since it is right outside our office door, very convenient for Friday afternoon break. Dave and I went out to get in a quick nine holes before the rain started this afternoon. I shot a very respectable 39, that's all the golf balls we had, and then the rain started. If I keep this up all summer I should be in pretty good golf shape by the time I get home. You have to be careful when you hit the ball as it might hit the 2x6 structure and come back at you as fast it left the club. I had to scramble a couple times. Might have to wear my protective equipment, IBA (individual body armor) and kevlar helmet with goggles, especially if I want to practice with the driver. Combat golf, gotta make do with what you got!

School Bus

Today I came across this old school bus that is now being rented by the Army to transport soldiers on base to the airfield. I'm not sure how many modifications have been made since it was used as a school bus, or if this is how it looked as a school bus, but the license plate in front says "Taxi". Every seat is numbered and the #1 seat in front has a heart and arrow painted on it. That must be for the "well behaved" child, none of the others had hearts.

I asked Mike about school for the children, do most of them go to school? He said it depends on the financial situation, many of the children in the poorer families have to work and do not go to school. The kids start school when they are 7 or 8 and graduate from school when they are 18. They go to school every day, but Friday, and their school day is 4 hours long. They have a 2 or 3 month break, but it is not in the summer like ours. It is in the winter, when the weather is bad and it is difficult for the children to get to school. With the weather I've seen here at Salerno, the kids could go to school year round, as they don't get much bad weather in the winter.

Once they graduate, they can go on to the University. In the past that meant the University in Kabul. Now there are more universities around the country. In fact Mike told me there is a very nice one near here in Khowst City. It was financed and built by the President of the United Arab Emirates and is named after him.

Another example of how slow things move here, today, Mike was taking some scrap metal off the base. I had to take him to the gate and also had to meet him when he returned. He left around 10 am for what he told me was a 15 minute trip each way. I began to wonder if he was coming back today when he called and said he was at the gate. It was 2 pm, 4 hours later. I asked him if he stopped at home for lunch, he laughed and said no. The US forces had blocked off the only road available, so he decided to drive down the wadi (dry river/creek bed). He said that was not a good idea, it was rough and slow. And we complain about 6-8 lane freeways that are congested during rush hour.

When Mike got back to the work site at 3:00, all his workers had left for the day. I told him, when the boss is away the workers will play. He thought that was pretty funny, though he seemed truly surprised his guys had left.

Compaction/Moisture Testing

We are making some progress, the paving contractor finally has their "engineer" back on site to do some compaction testing. This is good as we have built much of the road on existing road bed that has been compacted over the years by heavy military vehicles, so we haven't needed much for testing, which is good since they have not done any. The road they are working on now is on new alignment and has not been driven on, so we wanted to get some compaction testing done before they started to pave.

The pictures above show how they use the same methods we do, maybe just a little dated compared to what we use today. The picture with no one in it is the sand cone device that is used to determine the compaction/density of the in place material. In the other two pictures the engineer, one with the beard, is conducting a test to determine the moisture content of the material. This was a test of my education/memory as we had one class/lab on soil testing and it was probably 26 years ago. I had to do some searching on the internet to determine if they conducted the test correctly. For the most part, the tests were good and the results indicate that the old method still works. They achieved the required compaction and it was done by the supervisor walking the grade telling the roller operator where they needed more compaction.

On another note, Mike the contractor stopped in today and one of the guys in the office asked him about his family. He has one wife and one daughter, we then asked how many children he wanted, his answer, 14 or 15 (he has a cousin with 28 kids). I asked him how old he is, he is 25 (he had to think about that one). We've noticed they don't really track their age very closely, it's a ball park figure. I'll have to adopt that practice as I get up in years, +/- 10 years, but I will error on the minus side.

I told Mike he's going to have to get busy to attain his children goal. He said he will be looking for a second and third wife (not uncommon in this country, his cousin has three). He better also look for a second or third job as well. He's always the business man, looking for new ways to earn a living, he not only has to support his wife(s) and children, but he is the provider for all of his family, parents and siblings, and their children. Some of his siblings work for his contracting business. He has accomplished a lot and is a very confident businessman for only 25 years of life.

Kids

For lunch today, I thought I would take the advice from one of the Kindergarten Valentine's Day cards. From the February 8 posting - "Do you miss us? Does the cook over there make corn dogs for you? That will make you feel better." They had corn dogs on the line, I had one and I did feel better, even on a cloudy dreary day. I will think of that valentine card whenever they have corn dogs on the menu.

Before lunch we went out to the perimeter fence near the runway to take a look at it. In this area there is a village near by, the pictures above show some of the homes. When we first got out to the fence there were only two kids out behind the houses. You can see them in the picture by the water, they looked to be about 2 and 4 years old. Before long they had crossed the water and were up by the fence. In no time at all, more kids started to show up and by the time we left the area, there had to be 20 or more at the fence, all ages.

The kids have picked up on the important English words - "Throw me a biscuit", "Throw me a dollar", "I'll be your good friend if you give me a dollar". A biscuit is a cookie or candy to them. We did not have anything with us and we're not supposed to throw anything over the fence to them. Though some must be as they sure came running when they saw us up by the fence. I'll have to try to get some pictures of the kids the next time I'm out there.