Greetings Again Friends,

It seems like a long time since my last update. Maybe it’s just that a lot has happened in a short amount of time. First I can tell you that what I gave up in creature comforts with my move has been made up for – at least to some degree – with ambiance.

My new home in Kunar Province is located near Asadabad and is surrounded on all sides by mountains. They are beautiful during the day as well as in the moonlight. Though it’s possible that time will lessen the deep feeling of awe that comes from looking at these wonders, for now I can simply gaze upon them and – for a moment at least – be transported to a different place and time. If Afghanistan ever becomes truly stable and safe, I believe there could be a huge tourism industry ready to unfold.

With the beautiful scenery, however, comes a change in climate. Apparently it will still not get too cold in Asadabad (ABAD for short) because it is in the Kunar River valley so the elevation is not much more than JBAD – and I have been told by one of the locals who works on our FOB that there won’t even be snow accumulation. But we have had substantial rain for two of the past three days – often times a hard rain with thunder storms. The entire time I was in JBAD we had two rain storms neither of which lasted more than an hour or so. Of course, what was rain here was something else in the higher elevations; yesterday morning’s sunshine and blue skies revealed snow covered peaks to our north – and I am pretty certain they will remain snow covered from now until next summer.

The rain also turned the Kunar River into a muddy brown. One of the worst results of the wars, droughts, and poverty in Afghanistan over the past few decades has been the destruction of some of its greatest natural resources. This includes the vast forests in this part of the country. Apparently the wood from Kunar is prized because of its quality. But between the need for firewood to cook and stay warm, cutting of trees for legitimate sales, and cutting of trees for smuggling, the ground has lost much of its means of avoiding erosion. So the rainstorms wash a great deal of dirt into the river. And given the rocky terrain, there’s not much topsoil to be lost.

Given the many other challenges being faced in Afghanistan, teaching about environmentalism – and the need to apply conservation principles to the forestry industry – isn’t a high priority right now. There are both military and Non Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) who are filling some of these niches. For example, I understand a team of soldiers – National Guard I believe and with a background in agriculture – went to one area of the country to help the farmers improve their productivity in crops that are legal. This, as opposed to raising poppies, which grow very well here and are very lucrative but, unfortunately, are used mostly for making illegal narcotics (and which the government is trying to eradicate). I think we need some people from Wisconsin to come and help them with their dairy industry.

Now the rain has been accompanied by a drop in temperatures. It is getting rather chilly in the evenings and at night and will likely get more so. This has provided me with some ideas for those who have been asking what to send in care packages. Later – in this update or another – I’ll try to tell you a bit more about our FOB; for now, I can tell you that we really have most everything we need – at least from the standpoint of things that can be sent through the mail. There are a couple things, however, that I think would be appreciated.

While we wear uniforms most of the time and these include cold weather gear (“snivel gear” as we affectionately refer to it), there are times when we throw on civilian clothes such as at night when sleeping or needing to use the latrine. With the drop in temperatures, sweatshirts and sweaters could come in very handy. Similarly, the Army has given us sleeping “systems” that are great for a wide range of temperatures – including very cold – but we do have beds and most of us have sheets and light-weight blankets we use. Here again, with colder weather coming, extra blankets would be rather welcome so people don’t have to buy them.

So if anyone is looking for care package ideas, good condition sweat-shirts (L, XL, XXL) and blankets would be a really good possibility. I know these are bulkier items so not as cost-effective to ship, but there are literally shelves filled with hygiene items, candy, magazines, puzzle books, games, playing cards, and a lot of other things that are regularly shipped in care packages.

Within the realm of easier to ship items, my suggestions would be jerky, beef/sausage sticks (ones that don’t need to be refrigerated), nuts such as peanuts, cashews (my personal favorite), pistachios (favored by many Afghans), mixed nuts, etc., candy bars (now that it’s cooler these won’t melt), and Wii games. Yes, there is a Wii system here. It’s hooked into a projector so there is a big-screen effect, though it’s not great quality. It appears there are only a few games, so if anyone has Wii games they no longer want, I am sure they would be a welcome addition to the collection here.

Although I did send it previously, here is my address if you should want to send something:

Kevin Miller
Kunar PMT/Fiaz
C/O Asadabad PRT
APO AE 09354

There are a few things people have asked about that I want to try and address. Then, if I have time, I’ll touch on what I’m doing here in Kunar compared to in Nangarhar. One thing I’ll note right away is the spelling of various cities, districts, and provinces. Because the Afghans use a completely different alphabet then we do for English, names are translated in a way that should help us pronounce them as they sound in Dari and Pashto. That means there are variations in the spelling when looking at different sources. Kunar is often found spelled as Konar, so you will see me spell it both ways. In English, Kunar is probably closer to the phonetic spelling.

As for addressing questions I’ve been asked, there are some I got early on that I think I’ve touched on such as climate, terrain, time difference, and food – both our Army chow and that served by the Afghans. I should note that the time difference between Wisconsin and Afghanistan – since the day-light savings time change a couple weeks ago – is now ten and a half hours. I’ve actually gotten very good at doing the conversion to know if it’s a good time to call home.

There has also been a rather large change in regular meals (that is, Army chow) for me with the move to Konar. At Site 2 (where I was in JBAD), we had a Dining Facility with three meals every day prepared by a contractor. Here we have no contracted cooking. We get food weekly from another base that is sort of the support base for all the units in the immediate area. That includes prepared foods that just need to be heated, fresh fruits and vegetables, frozen meat, eggs, beverages, and a mix of other items. These are stored in a cooler, chest freezers, and a large pantry of sorts. We have a kitchen that is minimally equipped with a small stove/oven combination, some counter space, a sink, cupboards with spices, sauces, etc. and plenty of pots, pans, and utensils. The primary means of “cooking” food is over a large gas grill or a fire/coal grill.

Individuals are welcome to prepare whatever they want whenever they want (depending on mission schedules and such) with the supper meal being prepared for everyone every day. We actually have a schedule that dictates whose turn it is to cook. Our FOB population is small enough for this to work, though we are still cooking in pretty large quantities when it’s our turn. It’s kind of cool as people pitch in to help the person cooking and whenever the food is ready, someone goes around to our quarters and makes an announcement; then everyone comes out and dishes up. So, for the most part, we all eat supper together every day.

I have been asked several questions about the people here. One was about the ratio of men to women. In Kabul, you will see a lot more women than the other areas of the country in which I’ve been (which is, granted, pretty limited). The women in Kabul are also much more likely to be wearing western clothes (this is true of the men, too) and/or to have their faces exposed. In Jalalabad, the men outnumber the women in public by a substantial margin; and while we would occasionally see a women with her face exposed, it was rare. Most of the women in public still wear the light blue burkhas and, if they are not wearing a burkha, they will have a scarf covering their face. In ABAD I have seen far fewer women and I’m not sure I’ve seen any whose face was exposed.

I was asked whether or not we could talk to Afghan women. It would generally not be acceptable for us to talk to women here. Women are not supposed to talk to or be with men to whom they are not related. However, we would sometimes talk to the women police officers who worked at the PHQ. And, in fact, the Nangarhar Police Chief is pretty progressive when it comes to equal rights – at least relative to many Afghans. He has actually started a recruiting program to get more women police officers in the province. They only had six out of over 2,000 police. Part of this effort was probably prompted by some of the challenges faced by the police with the cultural norms for women. All civilians entering the PHQ are subject to search. This is not an intrusive search by American standards, but by Afghan standards there is really no choice but to have women searched by women, so the police need females to do this. The country is currently going through voter registration. At each voter registration site, the people have to be searched, and there has to be a separate place for women to be searched by a female police officer. Therefore, more female police will be needed.

Related to this question was one about men and women seeing each other socially. This really doesn’t happen throughout most of the country – again, Kabul being the primary exception. Men and women don’t date or even go out as friends. Marriages tend to be between relatives and, at least to some degree, are often arranged. Of course, much of Afghanistan is still very tribal. Consequently, people tend to live close to many relatives and those are the people with whom they grow up. Once they get to the age where they are thinking about marriage, they consider the women they know who are, of course, their relatives. Then they work through their immediate families to explore the interest by the woman’s family of a possible marriage – and, yes, often the woman’s own opinion is not a big factor.

Interestingly, in discussing this with my former interpreter, he noted that one of the benefits of marrying a relative was that the man could know he was marrying a virgin. This is an important consideration for many Afghan men. I’m sure there is a double-standard as the women’s families are unlikely to be concerned about the virgin status of potential husbands, though the more devout Muslims would avoid any intimacy with a woman before getting married.

On another related note, there are U.S. military members who are women and who work directly with the Afghans in various roles. So far as I’ve seen and heard, the Afghan men don’t have a problem with this. Their issue – as I see it – is with Muslim women in certain roles and/or interacting with unrelated men.

Something else I was asked about was the feeling of the soldiers here to the presidential election outcome. There was a generally mixed reaction from what I could see. Although the military population in general tends to be more conservative – and some polls of military members I saw in Army Times a few weeks back showed strong bias toward McCain – I think most military people are going to wait and see what happens. There was certainly no collective groan as if the Obama victory would be disastrous for the military or our operations here in Afghanistan. I did hear a few people comment that we would get smaller pay raises under a Democrat or that taxes would go up, but those were not very common sentiments.

I would like to write more but have a lot of other things I must get to, and I don’t want to wait any longer to send this out. So I will end here and hope I can get to another update faster than I did this one. I think I also have another photo album link and narrative that can go out in the next day or so. Thanks to everyone who has sent a note of any kind. I truly enjoy hearing from you and getting updates on individuals, families, friends, and just general goings on.

Take care until next time.

Kevin
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