another day in another week

I am starting to run out of topics to write about. I mean there is only so much life in the middle of an Afghanistan desert to talk about. I don't (and you wouldn't want) me to get too philisophical and I know there is only so much medicine I can write about without boring you to death.

We do get brillant stars at night out here since there is not much big city (actually no city) lights to obscure one's view. I have a star chart that I reference. You know you have been here too long when you can start to name the stars (Rigel, Betelgeuse, Sirius....). We also get some good sunsets and sunrises. Nature has a way of coming out beautiful no matter where you are.

We had 5 corpsmen with birthdays this month and 3 of them are here at the main BAS. We had a little birthday celebration for them. MWSS supports the MAG (Marine Air Group) with messing (cooking). We have befriended the cooks and they hooked us up with a cake made from scratch as well as some quesadillas. They will spot us in the chow line and give us some extra food (sometimes good food not necessarily on the menu that night). I am finding out more and more that it is who you know and what you have to trade that gets you places while deployed.

I do not know what it is with Filipinos and duct tape. I have a few Filipino corpsmen in out BAS and one of them did a fine fix it with duct tape. The picture is below and it is in honor of my father-in-law.

My mom wanted to know what they did with recycling and my daughter is a huge environmental citizen so I thought I would submit a picture of the local nationals picking up cardboard. The downside is to the best of my knowledge they are picking out all the cardboard because they burn that in a separate burn pit form the rest of the trash.





Me up close.












That is a rice cooker with the electrical duct taped to the side.
Notice the New Orleans spice next to it.















Recycling?

Tasty cake.