Good day, MATV, dust, and sin

Among the days so far, this: good. Began with a 600 meter walk to work on a relatively clear morning; the lonely jagged brown rocky mountain jutted into the blue sky from the sandy horizon about three miles north. There have only been two days out of twenty-one where you could even make out the mountain. One can imagine this place as Scottsdale, Arizonish except for the huge vehicles straight out of Star Wars that drive by and lift thick dust. Constantly trucks drive by, construction relentless, huge fields of concrete for foundations spreading behind fences, Third Country Nationals (TCNs) from India, Bangladesh, and Phillipines working long hours, huge mobile crane-like contraptions that look like industrial praying mantises carrying ship size containers from this to that place, 

other great machines beep, beep, beep backing up. Here, the mass of men lead loud lives of desperation, except employed by the U. S. government and making a good wage. But what made the day good: headway on a project. Am charged with putting together a big wall chart (8’ x 16’) that shows what we, the Coalition (U.S., U. K., Denmark, Estonia, Georgia), have done in development and governance projects in Helmand over the past couple of years in order to project the next year. Came up with a catchy title for the board, “Strategic Delivery and Effects Design Matrix.” It’s all in the marketing. Anyway, the headway was arriving at an organizing principle that selects what goes on the wall. Otherwise, the wall becomes just another brick in itself for having overmuch; information spews no meaning. This task has consumed most of my waking and sleeping hours while here, so far. That plus hours spent in meetings with the Plans section as we look into not only the next six months but the next three years, and the Ramp Ceremonies. My hours have been 8 a.m. until 10 p.m. pretty much every day except Fridays, we come in at 1 p.m. and work until 10 p.m. and Sundays 10 a.m. until 10 p.m. Not much else to do but work. And do yoga. And eat. This good day ended at 9:30, so I was able to get to the showers and be in bed by 10:30.  

Day before I got to drive a Military All Terrain Vehicle (MATV) through a serpentine course and up and over steep sand hills. There should be a picture with this to give you an idea of what an MATV looks like. I must admit it was a kick in the butt. The opportunity came from running into a buddy with whom I went through flight training twenty four and a half years ago; hadn’t seen him since and of sudden he was across the table from me in a Planning meeting; he invited me to ride the MATV with him and another FA-18 guy. We remembered good and bad flight instructors, laughed hard at how we were at age twenty three (so damn sure we had it figured out), had a cup of coffee and talked about our kids, realizing that kids teach you you never have anything figured out; humility is endless. With age, am more convinced that time is not real. 

Dust is, though, its consistency much like talcum powder, moon dustish. To live here, one must get over the notion that dust is dirty for it floats and blows in the laminar layer next to earth and comes to cling to everything everywhere. If one cannot get over dust being dirty it would be too much to bear, like failures/sins for which we cannot forgive ourselves. They’ll always be there unless one just lets go; gotta find a Way. Doing my best, am clean with dust. Miss you all. Love you all. Tim