December 27, 2014

Zadok celebrates his first Christmas...or rather, we celebrate and Zadok comes along for the ride.

December 19, 2014

Traveling the world...

Catching the opium smugglers...

Always being the hero...

 Is sometimes just exhausting.

December 15, 2014

Splash...

And with that, Amos is a King Air captain at last.

December 12, 2014

 Amos views the lavish lunch spread at a friends house with amazement and anticipation...

...While Zadok is equally delighted with the loads of Christmas cookies we made together.

December 10, 2014

Zadok has become much more vocal in the past couple of weeks, experimenting with grunts, gurgles, loud "moos," and sounds reminiscent of bombs and gunfire--sometimes from both ends. Are we raising a mini Muj here? Possibly, but more likely just a little boy.

On that note, I am sorry to inform the public that we will not be offering private flights to Iraq for wannabe founders of the New Caliphate. No exceptions. No matter how much you want to go, or how beautiful you think al Baghdadi is.

December 6, 2014

"Courage is fear that has said its prayers."

Winston Churchill

December 3,2014

Zadok being his interesting little self, in his special Snowflake Suit. It's like a Super Suit, except better.

December 2, 2014

Amos hard at work on the King Air, doing one of the many things he does best.

November 29, 2014

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all!

Zadok celebrated his first Thanksgiving appropriately attired. Amos wanted you to note the turkey on his rear.

 The weather, which is unseasonably warm, was perfect for the team to enjoy a delicious Thanksgiving potluck in the yard.

 My rolls were deemed worthy of a photograph by...someone.

This picture is a little too small to tell what we are holding, but they are Thanksgiving turkeys, artistically created with apples, marshmallows, raisins and toothpicks. Don't ask me why.  Zadok is wearing a paper Pilgrim hat, which can be better viewed in the picture below. Again, don't ask me why. Maybe just because it's cute...

November 24, 2014

Here are a few snapshots from the happenings over the past week or so...

The beautiful henna-inspired cake Erica made for Marian's goodbye party. The text says "Goodbye Marian," (literally, "God guard you.")

From right to left, Erica, Marian and myself at another farewell/memorial party for Tom and Marian.

 PACTEC's latest pilot gets jumped in. For some reason, this nearly always seems to happen in the winter time.

 All the foreign airport staff plus some national workers after the dunking (dunked pilot Andrew is in the middle.) Amos looks so pleased because he got in an exceptionally good hit.

And last, but not least, two of the team's newest impersonating sausage rolls at another farewell function.

November 22, 2014

Two of the most important characters in the drama entitled "Winter in Kabul" are...

 Our trusty wood-burning bukhari...

...And Gul Zamon, Zadok's Pashtun  hot water bottle.

November 16, 2014

 Here's the same, or almost the same, crowd on a different day...

...The day that Zadok met his future wife.

November 12, 2014

The other  day I bought a dozen eggs from the little corner shop where I usually buy eggs...the big, white, imported-from-Iran kind. So far every egg I've cracked into from this dozen...five so far, I think,  has been a double yolker. They're probably radioactive.

November 7, 2014

http://thehardplaces.com/2014/08/19/the-teapot/

November 6, 2014

Zadok  loves spending time with his honorary Aunt Zak.

November 3, 2014

I'm a soldier of freedom in the army of man
We are the chosen, we're the partisans
Our cause it is noble and our cause it is just
We are ready to pay with our lives if we must

Gonna ride across the river, deep and wide
Ride across the river to the other side.

I'm a soldier of fortune, I'm a dog of war
And we don't give a damn who the killing is for
It's the same old story with a different name
Death or glory, it's the killing game

Gonna ride across the river, deep and wide
Ride across the river to the other side.

Nothing gonna stop them as the day follows the night
Right becomes wrong, the left becomes the right
And they sing as they march with their flags unfurled
'Today in the mountains, tomorrow the world.'

Gonna ride across the river, deep and wide
Ride across the river to the other side.

November 2, 2014

Random snippets from my day...

 Pakistani style trousers prior to the insertion of an elastic waistband. With all those pleats, Probably I'll end up looking like a Pashtun Kuchi from the sticks, but after all that work getting them to fall right, I don't really care.

The aftermath of some drop in tea guests--neighbors I hadn't seen since we returned because they had moved a few blocks away.

The enigmatic, and slightly disturbing slogan on the baby gift they brought for Zadok. Chinese English at its finest.

And finally, Zadok keeping warm with the best of them under Grandmother in Law's quilt.

October 29, 2014

He'd love to grab those toys, but he's just not quite sure how yet.

P.S. Apologies for the artistic angle of this video....

October 27, 2014

When you can vacuum the paint off your walls, you know you have a Situation. However, we tend to roll so fast, (even when the wheels don't go) that remedying this Situation by painting our house is not likely to happen any time soon...or ever.

I've decided to call this particular formation the Loch Ness Monster...unless someone comes up with a better name.

And speaking of spots, I fail to understand why baby spit up washes out of every garment fairly easily, with the prominent and visible exception of the chador namoz. I guess you haven't really lived until you've gone head banging and chest bashing down the street on Muharram with a spit-up covered chador namoz.

If I'd gotten my way and Zadok was Hussain then I'd be yelling the same thing everyone else is, but for slightly different reasons.

Oct 25, 2014

Zadok enjoys the last of our summer weather with a bath and "sun session" in the yard.

What can I say? He's cuteness personified.

October 23, 2014

Zadok isn't quite sure about his new friend--the BLiSS program training doll, complete with placenta and detachable umbilical cord--or maybe he's just a little tired and overwhelmed after a solid week of new faces, new voices, and new places.

He was as good as he could possibly be the entire week during the class time and we both learned a lot.

October 21, 2014

Bright and early at the airport...

 The guy standing behind Amos is the airport cook who cooks everyone breakfasts and lunches every day.

October 18, 2014

 "Sweetie" in her Eid finery. She wasn't sure about posing for her very first photograph...

...Having her brothers with her helped her gain confidence.

October 14, 2014

I am sure Messers Naseer and Ali are fine, upstanding gentlemen, despite the fact that their creative use of the English language would lead one to suspect otherwise...

October 11, 2014

Here's a video especially for Grandmother (Zadok's, that is.) I don't know if it will actually work or not, but it's worth a try.

October 10, 2014

This past Thursday we threw a huge "Welcome Zadok" party for many of our Afghan friends and neighbors...at least it felt like a huge party for us. It was actually rather a small affair by Afghan standards. Following are a couple photos of the preparations. There are no photos of the actual party because once things got going neither of us had the time.

 

Fun was had by all except unfortunately, Zadok. After a few minutes he had all that he could take of large, loud ladies in bright clothes and alarming makeup, and started a meltdown that lasted the rest of the evening, further complicating an already frantic event...

But here he is the day after, with a little Nawruz outfit to grow into, courtesy of one of Amos's coworkers at the airport, who has been praying for a son for Amos since before we married.

October 6, 2014

This weekend (Thursday) we're having a "Welcome Zadok" party and inviting a bunch of friends. I think it will be fun, but the delicate problem of coming up with the hinder end of a sheep in the nick of time is still plaguing us. We'll see how it goes.

October 3, 2014

This is us, for now...what's left of us. And a deep, gravelly male voice intones "The few, the proud..." but is interrupted mid-sentence by Nashville Westian laughter.

October 2, 2014

Her name is "Golden Girl," apparently, and if she were worth her weight in gold, we would never be poor...nor our childrens' children to the third and fourth generation. However, her stay in our house will most likely not be long--even after several hours of cleaning. oiling, poking prodding and coaxing, she still ate thread ravenously and at maniacal speed...and there doesn't seem to be much we can do about it.

September 28, 2014

Killing hornets with a blowtorch...#DoingWhatWeDo

And what else do we do?

We wash diapers. Lots and lots of diapers. It's a bit alarming that one tiny human can produce so much liquid waste in a twenty four hour period.

September 24, 2014

For the inspiration of any potential collage makers out there (Sarah?) and in celebration of our anniversary, I present the "Three Wonderful Years Collage."