Day 339: Goodbye...again!

Goodbye’s are never fun. They are especially not fun when they involve little girls crying because they can’t quite understand why daddy has to leave...again. Today marked the ending point of my fifteen days back home for leave as I stepped on a plane heading to Dallas. It was a great break. We were able to pack a trip to Disneyland, an overnight getaway to Midway, an 8 year old’s birthday party, Abbie’s baptism, 10 plus episodes of Lost, bike-riding and playing with the kids, a trip to Thanksgiving Point, family get togethers, visits to the girl’s school classes, and even a little work around the house into this short period of time.

In some ways it is hard to believe that I am really going back to Afghanistan. It felt so good and right to be home with my family. I’m sure the reality of returning will hit me once I get to the dust of Kuwait and they give me back my body armor and send me to sleep in a tent. The good news in all of this is that the journey is on its last leg. Nearly a year ago I left home and now I only have a few more months until, as Eden would say, “daddy comes home forever.”

So although today is a sad day, it is also a happy day as it marks the beginning of the end of the journey. To my family today, I want you to know how much I love you and miss you. Smile and be happy. Remember that today was the last goodbye of this 452 day adventure. I will see you all soon!

Day 333: There's No Place Like Home

Well the reason I haven't posted for a while is because I have been busy...busy coloring Easter eggs, riding on Space Mountain, celebrating my cute little Abbie's 8th birthday, and escaping for a getaway with my Susie. That's right I am home. I'm back in the States for my 15 days of leave and will be here in "paradise" for a few more days. It has been amazingly nice to be home with my wife, kids, and family. I am grateful for the time back home. I have enjoyed every moment and am cherishing the last few days I have left. Here are a few highlights of the trip so far.

Day 318: Vision

Shortly after Brigham Young arrived in the Salt Lake Valley, he went to a nearby mountain that overlooked his new home. On this mountain, known as Ensign Peak, he had a vision of where the Temple was to be built and of a city that would someday fill this desert land. Despite the desolation and harsh land that lay before his eyes, he had faith that the vision that he had seen was inspired and that the Lord would help it come to pass. With faith and dedication, the prophet and his people, made this vision a reality.

Nine years ago today, I took Sue to that same mountain. As we sat there that night, I knelt down and asked Sue to marry me. My hope in asking her there (besides the romantic atmosphere that it would provide :), was that we too might have a “vision” of what our life together might bring. I think that night, mixed in with all the excitement of our new engagement, we felt a glimpse of what our future might hold and the happiness our marriage would bring to us.

Little did we realize at that time the adventures that the subsequent years would bring. I am sure neither one of us ever thought that nine years later I would be writing about the event while sitting in a wooden hut in Afghanistan. Yes, there have been a few bumps along the road. However, overall the memories of these past nine years are full of joy and happiness.

I am grateful that in this life we are able to have “vision”. To see beyond what is in front of our mortal eyes, and view ourselves, our families, and life’s circumstances with an eternal perspective is a great blessing. It helps us to keep going, even when we think our strength is gone. It straightens us when our natural tendencies would try to detour us down crooked paths. It allows us to see the light in even the very darkest of nights. It reminds us of who we truly are and of the love that our Father has for each of us.

Sue, thanks for saying yes those nine years ago and helping to create this vision that will ultimately lead us to happiness in this life and eternal joy in the life to come. I love you!

Day 317: Parallel Parking

I still remember my driver’s ed driving test. Everything was pretty easy...except for the parallel parking. I still remember well my teacher sounding out instructions over the radio and the orange cones being knocked over one after another. Ultimately I was unable to get that “big” car into the small, tight parking space. Despite my poor performance in parking, I still did well enough to pass my test and get my license. Consequently, parallel parking was quickly chased to a remote part of my memory and was replaced by the excitement of finally being able to legally drive. Little did I realize however, how handy the parallel parking skill would later become.

Flash forward eight years to the day Sue and I arrived in Washington D.C. to start medical school. I remember well arriving at our Capitol Hill apartment and finding that the only parking available was on the street. With Sue in the passenger seat and my landlords watching, I was once again asked to parallel park and put our Camry in between two other vehicles. This experience went about as well as the driver’s ed experience...although my failure this time was a little more embarrassing. Luckily after this second disastrous experience, I had four years of congested D.C. streets to help me master the art of parallel parking.

Well, the last few days I have felt like I was back in driver’s education class. I decided to take a three day course to qualify to get a license for our new uparmored vehicles that we are driving out here in Afghanistan--the Cougar. I have mentioned these vehicles before in previous posts. When I first arrived there were essentially none of these here at Camp Stone. Now, almost everyone drives them. They are huge compared to the Humvee. Most importantly, they are safer than their predecessors. Outside of the risk of rolling this top-heavy giant, you are pretty safe once you are strapped down inside one of these monsters.

It has been an interesting course and valuable to learn more about how to drive, maintain, and evacuate yourself from the vehicle. Tomorrow is the driving portion of the course. We will be “tested” on what we have learned and our ability to traverse the dusty Afghan countryside. Hopefully I will pass. I should do fine...unless parallel parking is on the agenda!

Day 313: The Afghan National Dance

Every once in a while I get a phone call from one of my Afghan counterparts. I always laugh when they call me because they should know better by now not to call me directly. I can speak well enough in Dari or Pashto to say hello and greet my Afghan friends. I can even follow it up with a few simple phrases. I can understand quite a bit when they talk slowly and talk about medical stuff. However, once they start really talking, our conversations don’t last very long.

For moments and phone calls like these, I am very grateful to have interpreters to help me out. I have three interpreters I work with on a daily basis. Many others I know and work with on occasion. They are generally good people who fill an important role for us out here. Without these guys there would be a lot of Americans and Afghans sitting around each day playing charades or pictionary in an attempt to figure out what the other was trying to say.

Well today, to show appreciation to our interpreters and the important job they fulfill, we had an interpreter appreciation ceremony. All of the interpreters lined up and were presented certificates and letters of appreciation. Afterwards, we had a brief lunch and then the Afghans treated us to a rendition of the Afghan National Dance. It was pretty entertaining to watch them dance. Some were pretty good, while others looked like me out on the dance floor (well maybe not that bad).

Overall it was a nice afternoon, and a good opportunity for us to tell our interpreters tashakor (thanks) for all they help they provide us.

Day 310: 1000 Patients

Back at my clinic in Fallon it would take all of our providers about a month to collectively see a thousand patients. Well, today a group of doctors, nurses, and medics from the US, Afghanistan, Italy and Slovenia accomplished in just a few hours what would take weeks of effort back home--we saw and treated 1000 patients.

Today kicked off a new era in our mentoring mission here in western Afghanistan as we performed our first ever US led medical humanitarian assistance mission in the region. Our goal was simple...go to a remote village in outer Herat and see as many patients as we possibly could in a single afternoon. After driving down bumpy, dusty, dirt roads for nearly 2 hours we arrived at our venue. It was a school on the outskirts of a large village where hundreds of people had gathered in anticipation of our arrival.

After setting up some security, we got busy doing what we were there to do--see patients. On one side of the school we gathered the women and on the other side we lined up the men. Children were mostly with the women, but some made it over to the male side where I had set up shop. One by one the patients came up to be seen (okay, who are we kidding, it wasn’t that orderly...imagine Walmart on the day after Thanksgiving). At times it was pretty crazy. We had only about 8 or 9 medical providers and even fewer interpreters. The Afghan army with the aid of some of the coalition guarded the perimeter and helped with crowd control.

As I saw patients, I was struck by how lucky we are to have good medical care back home. Most of these people had common complaints...headaches, arthritis, stomach ache, and sore throats. For these people it was pretty easy to give them a few medicines and send them on their way knowing that what we had given them would be very helpful for them. Other patients were more complicated. We saw patients with epilepsy, developmental problems, birth defects, amputations, suspected heart disease, etc. Unfortunately, there was little we could do with these patients. We referred them to their public health hospital (knowing that they probably couldn’t do much for them either), gave them some vitamins or tylenol and sent them back home. It was frustrating to know that many of the patient’s conditions would be easily treated back home, but here nothing could be done for them. I saw several people, including both children and adults, who probably will not live long due to their conditions. Again, it was frustrating to feel so helpless, but the reality is that there is really nothing you can do given the lack of resources in the country.

My favorite patient of the day was a five year old boy with skeletal dysplasia (I’m not sure of the politically correct non-medical term these days, but essentially he was a midget). This kid was tiny. My little Eden back home was twice as big as this little guy...which says a lot if you know Eden. He was very cute. You would never guess that this kid could talk. But he could understand and respond even to my broken Dari. The cutest thing about this kid was that every 20-30 seconds he would smile, stick out his hand to shake mine, and then in his little “munchkin” voice say “hi”. Hard to really convey the experience in words, but honestly it was a heart warming encounter.

After 4 or 5 hours we had finished seeing all of the patients we had come to treat. So we jumped back in our vehicles and headed back home to Camp Stone. It was a good day. Hopefully some of the people we saw benefited from the care we provided. Hopefully it helped convince the people in the village that the Americans, Slovenians, and Italians were there to help them and their country. Hopefully it helped make the Afghan army a little stronger and a little more legitimate in the eyes of the Afghan people.

1000 patients...wow, I don’t think I can ever complain about a “full schedule” back home again.

Day 307: All Around the World

One of the most rewarding parts of this deployment is the interaction I have with people from many different countries and many different backgrounds. Daily at Camp Stone, I work with, eat with, and play basketball with people from Italy, Spain, Afghanistan, New Zealand, and Slovenia (well maybe I don’t play ball every single day). Luckily most of them speak a little English which facilitates our ability to communicate. It is interesting to see the differences between us but also neat to see how similar people from all over the world really are.

Today was again one of these culturally diverse days as I met with three other people for church services who come from completely different backgrounds. First, was my regular church companion Roberto. Roberto was born in Nicaragua but has lived in the US for most of his life and became a citizen around 2001. He speaks perfect English and is obviously also fluent in Spanish. He is an engineer working with an international aid agency here in Herat. Second, was Radek, a member of Eupol (European Police) from the Czech Republic. He was baptized into my faith in 2003 while back in his home country. He and I were introduced earlier this week and luckily he was able to make arrangements to come to Camp Stone today for Church. Finally, we had Alfonso, who is a Spanish citizen and who works closely with Radek in the police mission. Although Alfonso isn’t a member of our Church, he was willing to come join with us for a quick Sacrament meeting this afternoon.

It was fun to have different conversations bouncing back and forth with English being mixed in with some Spanish. I even learned a little Czech (Ajot...pronounced Ahoy...it means hello...or goodbye).

One thing I am reminded of frequently here in Afghanistan is the goodness of people throughout all the world. Sometimes we get so America-centric that we forget just how many amazing people and cultures are found on this Earth. Despite the differences in our languages, cultures, religions, and appearances, we are all brothers and sisters, children of the same Maker, and consequently our similarities bind us together in ways that our differences, no matter how great they appear, can ever overcome. I am grateful for moments like today that remind me of this important fact.

Ajot! Adios! Ciao! Later dudes!

Day 304: Happy Birthday Ammon Boy!

Today is Ammon’s second birthday. If all goes as I hope, this will be the last family member’s birthday I will miss due to this deployment. If the stars align just right, I should make it home for Abbie’s birthday in April, when I take my mid-tour leave, and then for Ellie’s in August when this deployment finally comes to an end.

So today, I will unfortunately have to miss the celebration back home as my big guy transitions from the one year-old stage to the wild and crazy two year-old stage. Ammon, probably more than anyone else in my family, has changed during this past year. I look at the pictures of when I left and compare them to what I see over the webcam now and I am amazed at how much he has grown up. I love to hear the new words he has discovered. I love to watch him play with his big sisters. I love that he is a mama’s boy and wants to always climb up on Sue’s lap. I can’t wait to get home to start his basketball training--although, maybe football would better suit the big guy.

Ammon--happy birthday, pal. I can’t wait to see you next month. I love you and I miss you!

Day 301: Happy New Year...Again?

So I know you are thinking it is a few months late to be writing about the New Year. Trust me, I am not trying to start 2009 over again. I am the last person who would purposely rewind the clock 3 months and add more time to this 452 day odyssey. However, today really was New Year’s Day...at least for the Afghans.

The Muslim World uses a calendar based on the migration of the prophet Mohammad from Mecca to Medina in 622 AD. Consequently, today started the year 1388 in Afghanistan. Because it was an Afghan holiday and everyone was out partying, we spent the day getting some admin. work done in the office. Honestly, for me, it was just another typical day. Here are three of the highlights:

First, I arranged for $3000 to be spent to build the first Afghan National Police “hospital” in Western Afghanistan. $3K for a hospital...talk about a bargain. Maybe I ought to go into real estate. Actually, the “$3K hospital” is a long story. I will explain it in more detail on another day.

Secondly, I transferred 100-plus first aid bags from one part of Camp Stone to another. This actually has become one of my most common past-times--moving supplies around the camp. If the real estate agent thing mentioned above doesn’t work out, maybe I could look into becoming a professional mover.

Finally, this evening while I was talking to Sue, I was called by my boss to help find some emergency medical supplies to be sent to one of our downrange locations. When I arrived on the scene and started gathering the needed supplies, I found that one of the “emergency medications” was ear wax removal drops. Emergency ear wax removal--yet another first here in Afghanistan.

So as you can tell the year 1388 started off with a bang for me. It is always promising when the first day of the year is filled with so many successes and accomplishments. If I can get this much done on the first day of the year, just imagine what I am going to be able to accomplish in the 150 some odd days of the year 1388 that I have left in this journey! Happy New Years everyone.

By the way, the picture posted here was taken today with a group of the medical folk who work with me here at Camp Stone. As I’m sure you can imagine, it was tough to break away from my busy schedule to find the time to pose for this picture.

Day 300: The Refugee Camp

It is easy in life to forget how blessed we really our. Despite recession and financial hardships in our current economy, as Americans, we generally have enough money to feed our families, live in nice homes, drive around in cars, and go on an occasional vacation. Being here in Afghanistan has reminded me that many of the things I consider essentials (electricity, plumbing, health care, a roof over my head, etc.) are luxuries to a large percentage of the people of the world. It is so easy to get focused on ourselves and our financial concerns that we forget how little some of our brothers and sisters across the world have.

Yesterday, I was reminded again of this as I went out on humanitarian assistance mission to an outlying Herati village. These poor people were living in a “refugee camp” after being displaced from their homes in the north due to conflict and war. Our mission was to deliver some flour, rice, clothes, coal and stoves to these poor people. My job on this mission was to scout out the site for a potential medical assistance project in the future.

As we pulled up to this mud-hut village and watched the people flock towards us, I was humbled by seeing them and the conditions in which they live. They were obviously poor. Some had shoes...some didn’t. Many of their clothes seemed worn. Most were thin. Some of the older people were hunched over and seemed to be just barely limping along--I can only imagine the years of hardship they have endured. I didn’t see even one person walk out listening to their new iPod or talking on their Blackberry. None of them were driving BMW’s, or any car for that that matter. I did see a few bicycles.

Despite their obvious poverty, I was touched by their seeming happiness. I watched kids running around playing...oblivious to the fact that they didn’t have a Wii waiting for them back home. People smiled. They seemed grateful for the assistance they were being given.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there is anything wrong with having a few of the “luxuries” of life--I have more than my fair share of them. However, I think it is important to remember and help those who haven’t been blessed to the same extent that we have. I am grateful to so many of you for the donations and support you gave this past winter for our “Afghanistan service project.” Your donations will help people like this enjoy a little more dignity, will help them stay warm, and will help their children to gain an education.

Life is much more than the possessions we acquire in this life. It is about learning, growing, and loving others. Some will be rich in this life...some will be poor. It matters less what we have, then what we do with what we have been blessed with--whether that be a little or a lot. I am grateful for days like yesterday that remind me of these important truths.