Thanksgiving in Afghanistan

A little change of pace here today with a Thanksgiving theme, so today I’m posting pictures of our Thanksgiving Feast in Afghanistan. We opted to eat at Camp Dubbs, out near the Afghan Army base where we work, rather than come back into town to fight the crowds on the larger Camp Eggers.

Camp Dubbs is a smaller outpost on the edge of town occupied by French, British, American, Turkish, Italian and Australian troops. As a general rule the smaller mess halls like this one (these days called dining facilities) seem to serve the best food and the staff (always overworked) tend to be a lot friendlier.

KBR is the company contracted to provide the US dining facilities here in Afghanistan. At Camp Dubbs they do a very good job. The pictures below show the great effort they put out on Thanksgiving to bring a little more cheer to all the prisoners soldiers and civilians.

The mood was a little more somber and all flags are at half-mast due to a training accident that occurred earlier in the week. French soldiers setting up training for the Afghans ran into an old Soviet minefield. (Remember, Afghanistan is the most heavily mined country in the world.) Two were wounded in the first blast (one lost a leg below the knee) and the medic who ran to help them was killed when he hit a second mine. The event was more poignant given that these soldiers are rotating back home to France in two weeks.

Before I forget, I've noticed that lots of blogging buddies are listing things they are thankful for. Here's mine: I'm thankful that I haven't been shot or blown up yet. Life is good!

Belated Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Waiting for the doors to open.
French, US and Turks chatting in the warm sun.
It was about 60 degrees Thanksgiving afternoon.

OJT for WalMart greeter.
The Command Sergeant Major greeting everyone for dinner.

The Servers.
The Brigade Commander and his staff served up the food.
They didn't work as fast the regular mess hall staff.

Roast Beast.
I think I knew that cow.

Small Space.
The next two pictures give an idea of how small this mess hall is.
It seats fewer than 100 at a time.
Turkish flag and French flag on back wall.

The Bar...sort of.
Fizzy juice and near beer as close as we are allowed to get.

The Desert Table.
Speaks for itself.

Cornucopia.
Unfortunately, the ice sculpture eagle had already lost his head.

Camp Dubbs Model.
Not to scale.

The other Cakes.
No one wanted to be the first to cut into them.
Finally one of the KBR staff cut a piece off each.
And then they went pretty fast.

Answering Some Questions

I'm going to start this post answering a couple questions that came up on the previous two posts. Ello asked if people minded getting their picture taken or if they didn't notice me.

It depends. Younger people are less hostile to picture-taking (the under 30 crowd) than the older generations. As I try to take mostly candid shots rather than poses, I try to be inconspicuous and I'm usually not noticed. Some situations can be downright dangerous taking pictures, such as when photographing a warlord and his security team. That is best done at long range with a concealed camera.

Ello also commented that my pictures contrast to the reported violence. On purpose for sure, but violence also isn't as widespread as often reported. Typically there is a flurry of activity, and then weeks of relative quiet...apart from the normal crime one would expect in a big city filled with people trying to scape a living together.

For a while the Karzai government was trying to bow to Westerners who did not want the death penalty in Afghanistan. A week ago he basically said he didn't care what Westerners thought and hanged ten criminals convicted of multiple murders and three serial rapists. In the eyes of the locals, that was justice. Sorry, but they just don't care about liberal ideas when it comes to convicted violent criminals. The general attitude here was that finally some criminals got their due.

Now what did she want me to get?

Security team outside a house.
Even people who are not "warlords" employ armed security
if they can afford it.
There is no shortage of armed men willing to provide security.

Waiting for a ride.

Donkey dumpster diver having a snack.
With all the trash on the streets you'd think there were no dumpters.
In reality what happens is that the dumpsters get dumped
to feed the goats and other livestock.
The humans take anything else useful.
This donkey's owner was collecting soft drink cans.

Veggie vendor having a snack.
Note the size of the red cabage!

Road up into the cliff houses.

Oops!
This driver tried to take a shortcut around the "roadblock."
This was a dirt road that was being paved.
They often use dirt or other debris to block off construction.

Getting the meat to market.
Any and all means of transport are used.

Market at the lower end of cliff house neigborhood.

Big sis and little brother.
Little brother seems surprised by something.

I've had a bad day!
Man on "beggars row."

Been Offline for a Bit

I've been offline for a time, busy doing other things. Since the last post, two Westerners were shot in front the DHL office where they worked, but that was a case of an employee going "postal" though the media tried to speculate that it was indicative of the "Taliban closing in."

Then we had a suicide bombing at the Ministry of Information and Culture, which is located at a busy market intersection right across the road from the "Bin Laden Mosque" from two posts ago. We drive past both the Ministry and the mosque almost every day. By the way, the association of that mosque with Bin Laden is actually an urban legend.

The Information Ministry was a target because it was a government building and it had very light secturity...past tense. There are now blast walls and more security personnel, so it is unlikely that that particular style of attack will work again on this particular office.

Finally, we had a French woman abducted late last week. An Afghan who tried to help her was shot to death. The other French person and their driver escaped. The Taliban issued and immediate vehement denial of being involved.

This in part because shooting the British woman (the story in the last post) turned into a public relations backlash for them. The woman was very popular with the locals and hundreds attended her funeral. Local mullahs denounced the killing and the killers at the funeral.

Without further comment, here's a new batch of pictures.

Sunrise over the demining camp.

Hindu Temple in Kabul
Listened to my driver, a Tajik who doesn't like Pashtuns.
Actually, this is the tomb of Timur Shah Durrani (1748 - 1793)
His father, Ahmed Shah Durrani is considered the father of modern Afghanistan.

School boys horsing around. Just like at home.

Massoud Day was in September.
Massoud posters are up around town all year.

"What do you mean you don't want to haggle?"

A corner bus stop.

A cookie shop.
Just starting to fill the window displays.

Hiding behind the bananas.
The military term is "banana defilade."

Location, location, location.