First Day

Today is my first day of work back in Afghanistan again. Instead of sending long annoying emails to my friends I've decided to start this blog to share my sixth trip to this country.

Coming in last night was a little scary as there was a huge storm over Kabul and the clouds were thick and grey as the plane bucked its way through the mountains. We got in a little after 7:00 PM where I was supposed to meet up with my colleague Hans, and travel to the house together with our driver. I had asked all of the guys on the plane that looked like they might have a name like Hans (basically all of the blondish Euro looking guys), but only received scared looks and shaking heads in response. I finally went through customs alone and started working with the driver to find my extremely heavy bag. We got the bag and started heading to the door without finding Hans. I felt bad, but there was a steady stream of rain, sleet and snow coming down on the dark streets and I just wanted to get home. If Hans didn't make his flight it wasn't my fault, right?

As we made our way through the flooded pot-hole ridden parking lot we noticed our other driver coming up behind us with two black bags and a man that I assumed was Hans. It turns out this guy had been sitting next to me on the plane for the whole trip and we never put it together. Figures!

So Hans is this older man who retired I don't even know how many years ago. He seemed in pretty good shape which we later learned is from the boat he lives on and captains around deserted islands in the south Pacific. Despite Hans' good shape, he still seemed a little slow and old to be working on this project. The last time he had been in Afghanistan there were many more freedoms and he kept asking us about certain restaurants being open and if the old Chicken Street shopping was still open. Unrenowned to him, we aren't supposed to go to any restaurants anymore and Chicken St was forbidden after a bombing 4 years ago. I got even more concerned when old Hans couldn't even figure out how to use his super easy little cell phone.

My other team member, Dave, and I concurred on this concern and he assured me that the old guy had 30 years of experience building systems. I tried to look at the positive and figured he'd be able to help in some regard at some point; even if it was just to keep me and Dave from killing each other after 45 days of straight working together. So as the afternoon meetings went on we assessed the database and talked about the schedule in the days ahead. Hans seemed to give some contribution, but nothing that was really significant or logical.

We ended our day working on adding info to the database model that we had been presented. I wasn't thrilled with the data entry side and was definitely leaning more towards working on the mapping side. Since Dave had started the process it was mine and Hans' turn to contribute to the database effort. I took a long break and dreaded the questions that might come from Hans when I got back in our tiny office to start working on the database. When I did get back I saw Hans typing furiously at his computer with a stern look on his face.

After a few minutes I asked him if he wanted to start working on part of the database. He looked up at me from his screen with surprise and a furrowed brow say "Yeah, that's what I've been working on". I was taken back and didn't know what to say as he started typing again. Figuring I might as well get going I asked him if it was ok if I took the mapping side. He completely agreed, admitting that he didn't know the mapping side anyway and he had a good head start on the data entry side.

So here I was worried about the guy all day and whether he would be able to help us out, and it turns out our skills seem to compliment each other pretty well as a team. Guess that's my fault for jumping to conclusions and I'll try to be more careful about giving people a little better chance next time. :)

I haven't had chance to see how much of Kabul looks quite yet, but from what I can tell it looks cold and wet out there. More to come!