Overwhelmed With Kindness

No picture or words can begin to describe the awesome outpouring of care and support and well-wishes in the last few days of my stay at Bagram.

One of our contractors, EMTA, threw a farewell lunch for me on Wednesday.  Another wonderful Turkish meal followed by a badminton demonstration between our own Chief Cimmiyotti and a guy who is a shuttlecock champion back in Pakistan.  And I believe it, although Chief did well in holding his own against the kid.  Lots of fun and laughter.

Then I was given a surprise going-away turkish pizza party at lunch Friday.  This was awesome and a complete surprise – I didn’t have an inkling what was going on, but my guys in the bulk fuels office pulled it off perfectly.  After the Area Office’s weekly “town meeting”, I was heading back to the room to get a footlocker and several boxes that needed mailing on to my next station.  Dan (my replacement, new friend and all around great guy) came along to help with the carrying.  He helped me out so much the last week or so that I started calling him my sherpa (meant in the nicest possible way, of course).  

Anyway, the meeting had run late so we jumped in one of the Panjero’s (a junky, dust-filled Mitsubishi SUV) and headed over to the east side.  Dan was driving and I had mentioned getting lunch before loading the boxes and heading to the post office.  Dan appeared not to hear and went on to the billets.  I didn’t think much of it so once we got everything loaded we headed out again.  Hadn’t gone far when Dan turned in at the Zafer LSA (life support area) – I was confused but then figured we’d just get lunch there as they have a sort of catering business set up.

But no, it was a great gathering of most of the third floor guys as well as some of our Air Force staff.  The food was fabulous, the fellowship a blessing.  Even a little gift from my fuels guys (wrapped in a page out of a set of full-size construction plans) – a stuffed singing bear! 🙂

And lastly, another of our contractors, Serka, had a dinner in my honor on Saturday night.  A traditional turkish meal that once again left us all overstuffed with delicious if sometimes unidentifiable food.  More kind words spoken, a traditional “going away” dessert with magical properties presented only to me, and the amazing gift of a small bouquet of fresh flowers!  Zinnias, I believe they are, and even now are tucked in between the wood wardrobe and steel bed frame I’m using here in Pat 1. 

I look at them now, not wilting but drying and losing color, and am once again appreciative and thankful for the overwhelming kindnesses I have been shown by people of many nationalities.

Lots of parties given and much fun had by all, but not just any excuse for a party – I have been completely bowled over and overwhelmed by the kindness of my friends and co-workers, their appreciation for who I am and what I meant to them, declarations of the difference I made on those around me at Bagram.  My boss Ben gave me the highest possible rating on the performance evaluation, and said he’d give me higher if he could.  The area engineer told me to call him if  I ever wanted to come back. 

Lasting relationships, fast friendships – I’ll never forget my Bagram deployment.

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I’m now sitting in the basement of Patriot House, back in the 4-man (er, 4-woman) room where I started on my initial arrival in Afghanistan, here in Kabul, here in the Corps of Engineers’ Qaala House Compound.  The trip from Bagram to Kabul was fabulous, and I’ll go into that more in a later post.

Funny I mentioned in the previous post that deployment is just rolling with the punches…  The stay here in Kabul has not been the best so far – all is well, just reality and a few large snags I hadn’t been expecting.  One of which being that instead of spending one night here and heading on to Kandahar, it’s looking like I’ll be here several.

Think I flunked the “be flexible” test.  Again.