Sunday Feast

Sunday lunch with the Afghan heavy equipment operators. They invited us to lunch today, they put out a lot of food. That's the cook in the background, sitting, in the blue man jammies and vest. The guy with the beard standing by the table is Rock Man, he is kind of the #2 guy in charge of the crew. We call them by the equipment they drive, more than by their names, it's easier to remember and say. Rock man usually drives the dumptruck hauling rock around the base. It helps too that Rock Man's real name is also similar, something like Rahman.

For lunch we had the flat bread, fruits (apples, oranges, bananas, and some unknown fruit from Pakistan), raw vegetables (lettuce, cucumbers, radishes, peppers, onions), rice, cooked and seasoned cabbage, cooked/seasoned okra, barbecued chicken, cabob and goat. The chicken and cabob (beef) was cooked yesterday and served cold. The goat was served warm, not sure when it was cooked. I don't usually like cooked cabbage, but the way they cooked it seasoned with a little curry and onion, it was good. The okra also had some seasoning and something else in it, but I'm not sure what. The cook is called Cookie, no idea what his real name is.

This is Mohamadullah (Supervisor) kneeling and facing the camera, Rock Man and Bobcat, kneeling with his back to the camera, taking the food out of the pressure cookers and putting it on the plate to serve. Guess what piece of equipment Bobcat operates - the Bobcat skid loader.

The crew waiting on lunch. They always serve us first and only a handful sit with us to eat. The others sit together on the other side of the conex on a mat on the ground to eat their lunch, then play cards. After everyone is done eating they serve hot green tea, with lots of sugar.

Preparing the table for lunch. A nice little set up, they have scrounged from all over base to create this environment. The benches on the left are cots with old mattresses on them, the benches on the right are made from scrap plywood, the table clothe is the green screen fabric used on chain link fence so you can't see through, and the shade is provided by an old camoflouge net. And, the floor is old airfield matting that was used for the landing zone on the gravel runway here (it is broken or worn out, they didn't take it off the runway).

It was a very good meal and more than enough to eat. Hard to fight off that Sunday afternoon nap today.