First and 10

We cross into double digit months today. I celebrated by taking a nap, and the camp celebrated by losing power for 3 hours! It also decided to pour today, it was almost a flood worthy rain.

We were informed they are adding a guy to our room. We were hoping to ride out our remaining time with just the three of us, but as I've mentioned in previous posts, the people just keep coming. I don't know the guy, but Bob seems to think he is okay. Shouldn't change all that much, just a little less room for everyone.

I think I have mentioned before the big plotter that we have in the S-6 office. It is slowly getting out that it exists and people keep coming over trying to use it to print huge pictures of themselves. Needless to say, I am not breaking out the cable (which I keep in my truck) for that nonsense. We did however have the education officer come over and want to print out legitimate stuff, so I was helping him the other day. Zak was out, so I had a different interpreter who isn't up on tech language and doesn't have a clue how to work a computer. As I was setting up his document to print, I asked him to go over the document and ensure it was correct, because I didn't want to have to re-print. He said it was fine, and I went to load the printer with paper. Seconds later, I am informed that something is missing, so we managed to figure out what, and fix it. I ask again about the correctness of the document - it's in Dari, I certainly can't spell check it. He tells me yes and I head back over to load the paper, which I am most of the way through when he tells me something else is missing. This little event happens TWO more times, for a total of 4. Originally I asked him to just look it over and find mistakes and he gave it a quick glance rather than read it and said it was okay. I did everything just short of begging to get him to just read the document. Irritating. We finally get to the point where I print - the first page comes out and he has this look on his face that I immediately recognize - it's that same face a kid makes when he is on the bus and realizes he forgot his homework. It comes out and he tells me the title is missing. I really wanted to shoot him. Of course, as I mentioned before, I have an interpreter who doesn't know much about computers, doesn't know how to type, so we had to go find another interpreter that can type to get the title on a page so I could print it. I gave this printer a loving nickname the first day it arrived, I call it the Piece of S**t. I think it still applies.

This week is the Afghan new year. Those very familiar with the signs of the Zodiac will know their calendar already as it follows it to the letter. I find that odd. The current month is Hamal (no idea on spelling) which translates to fish. Next month is called whatever the Dari word for Ram is. Happy 1386 everyone. Good news about all this is that the terps are off a good chunk of this week, which means I am off a good chunk of this week!

61 days to go.


Gary