Blisters and Singing in Pashto

So, this week is done and I'm exhausted. I'm sitting on my bed in Navy PT gear surrounded by piles of clean laundry that I just can't bring myself to start folding, and listening to MOTAB Peace Like a River and writing my blog. (By the way, civilian clothes are not authorized while in training with Army, so I'm either in uniform or Navy PT gear.) It was a very long week, with lots of new information and some very hard to face facts of deployed life.

I've heard Christmas carols a couple of times this week and it just blows my mind that it's really Christmas time. My mind and spirit are somewhere else completely different from Christmas and I'm finding it really hard to believe that it really is Christmas. There are lights and other decorations up on Ft Bragg, but it's still so weird to me. Hopefully, in the next few weeks I'll find Christmas somewhere in my heart. It's there, I'm just focusing so hard on what I'm doing right now.

I didn't get to go to church today, because we had briefings all day today. I really miss not taking the sacrament and being in church. Capitol Hill Ward I miss you guys! It's gonna be a couple more weeks before I get to go church again, so everyone please keep me in your prayers. Pray that I find Christmas here somehow.

As I mentioned before my day starts at 0530 with some really great Army PT. In addition to running a couple of miles, we also do a stretching warm up, and we alternate between running or doing some sort of calisthenics. On Wednesday morning we did pyramid pushups. Basically, you start by doing 10 push-ups, move to your knees to 10 arm lifts, back to do 9 push-ups, move to your knees to do 9 arm lifts and count down to 1... and then you count back up to 10. How many push-ups is that you ask? Oh, that's 110 pushups, cause in the Navy you always do one more for the Marine Corps. My arms are still killing me.

I got the first of about 7 more anthrax shots in my right arm three weeks ago, and I have a lump in my arm still from where I got the shot. Those pyramid pushups aggravated that lump in my arm, and now my tricep is so tight, I can't life my arm above my head or even just hold it on my lap without pain that goes right up in to my shoulder. I'm told this is normal for some people. Yikes! Vitamin M (Motrin) is my new friend the past couple of days. If this keeps up I'll talk to the Doc and get it looked at.

Thursday morning for PT we went for a 2 mile march in our Army Combat Uniforms (ACUs) and boots. Army boots suck! I was gonna try to be tough and do the whole march, but my CDR noticed me walking funny and made me stop. I wasn't the only one walking funny who had to stop. There were a couple of others whose feet were in way worse shape than mine. The Colonel in our group ran back for his car and drove back for all 3 of us who couldn't walk. I got back to my room and peeled off my socks, which were bloody, and found a lovely sized blister on each heel. I'll spare you the details, but it wasn't pretty and they HUUUUURT! On the plus side I did get to wear my running shoes for the next couple of days to give my heels a rest from my boots.

The first couple of days of training this week were brief after brief of really boring, applicable information that my team needs to know delivered by the driest presenters ever. On Thurs and Fri we finally broke out into groups for job specific training. I think I said in an earlier posting that I am the S1 for my team, which means that I am the admin/personnel person for approximately 100 Navy and Army personnel on my team. (Basically, I'm Radar for my team, except I won't be swindling other units out of their supplies, someone else will do that. Remember, he too had a teddybear.) So, for two days I learned the Army's personnel system for evaluations, awards, personnel accountability reporting and casualty reporting.

The casualty reporting section was really depressing. It was really hard for me to even begin to imagine having to fill out the paperwork for someone who gets hurt or killed. It's not something I even want to be thinking about. Even though the PRT's primary mission is assisting the Afghans to be able to provide basic services for themselves, there are still Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters who do not want us there. So, the possibility for casualties exist. There were about 12 of us in this training and we all left pretty depressed that day. Those of you who know me, know that I am pretty strong, and that I am also a softy, so this was a really hard day for me. I got back to my room that night and sat down and had a good cry.

On a lighter note, I started learning Pashto this week, which really gets me excited. In addition to learning useful phrases, such as: Show me your identification, please and Drop your weapon; I am also learning simple medical phrases. My primary assignment when we go out to on missions, will be to speak with the women and children. Yay!! I'm really excited about this. This is where I'll be in my element. I was bored during one of our briefings, so I took my phrase book and translated the Primary song Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes into Pashto, and have been memorizing it.

For those who don't know it, here it is in English:

Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes, knees and toes. Head, shoulders, knees and toes, eyes, ears, mouth and nose.

In Pashto (please, excuse the pronunciation guide):
Sar, wuga, zangun, da p-hre gota, zangun, da p-hre gota, zangun, da p-hre gota. Sar, wuga, zangun, da p-hre gota, stargey, ghwag, khulah, pasa.

This is so cool! I love it! Can't you just see me singing this with kids at one of the medical clinics or schools? The Doc in our group was pretty impressed with this and even tried to learn it with me this afternoon. My hope is that when the women and children remember me, they remember me as the nice American girl with the big smile who sang and laughed with them.

This is the part of the mission that I get excited about. The purpose of the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) is to assist Afghanis in providing basic services for their communities and assisting the central government in having a presence through out Afghanistan. While the PRT coordinates several aspects for the projects and missions throughout the province, our goal is to work ourselves out of a job. Instead of our projects and missions having the stamp of the US government all over it, our goal is to have Afghanis out in the forefront where possible, while we are in the background assisting and advising.

Our job for the next year is not to score major touchdowns, but to score first downs. We are helping to continue the momentum in the right direction and planting seeds for changes to come further down the line. Changes will not happen overnight. It will take a couple of generations before we see the effects of our efforts in some cases. I believe that the younger generations who are starting to receive an education will be the ones to demand and make them in the future. The children now will be the adults taking Afghanistan to the next level. So, right now patience, hard work and sacrifice are required. Plus, any of the small human touches that each of person on my team brings to the table will be what the Afghanis remember, and hopefully they remember us with a smile on their face.

So, maybe to you this sounds a bit idealized and maybe it is. However, the PRTs are doing great work there and we are helping a lot of people to have a better life and to have more opportunities to choose what their life will be. It's not without mistakes, because we are learning just like the Afghanis are. More often than not, we do get it right. This to me is a really great thing, and I'm just thankful to be a part of it.

Follow up on comments:
In my last post I mentioned IEDs. For those of you who don't know what this is, IED is Improvised Explosive Device. I know, it's scary. But like I said I have faith in God and in the training I'll be receiving.

My teddybear's name is Spencer Herbert. Spencer 'cause that's what his tag said and Herbert 'cause my dad said so. So, no Cheryl L., I won't be changing his name to Mohammed, because neither he nor I want to get in trouble. Besides, Spencer Herbert is a much better name. And in case you were wondering, Radar's teddybear didn't have a name.

For those of you who asked about where I'll be spending Christmas, I will be out west the majority of the time visiting my family in Washington state, Idaho and Utah. More than likely I'll be back in DC for New Year's to get the rest of my stuff out of my apartment. Anybody doing anything fun for New Year's in DC?

Many thanks to Andi P. for featuring me on her blog: Independence Kids. You are awesome!!

I also changed the settings so anonymous comments can now be posted to my blog. Thanks to Cheryl B. for pointing that out to me.