Climbing The Ghar

"Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So. . . get on your way. "

-Dr. Seuss US author & illustrator (1904 - 1991)

I went to the post office last night after dinner and, I am not kidding, I had about 30 different care packages waiting for me. It was very overwhelming. The people over at the post office usually want you to open your packages before you leave to make sure that no contraband is being shipped to you. This time when I asked if I should open them up the person jokingly said, "No, just take them... just go!" I smiled and laughed. The last thing he wanted was to wait for me while I opened up all 30 of my boxes. I had to make 2 trips back to the office with the help of a dolly. Boxes were falling everywhere because the cement is full of pot holes. Random people were grabbing boxes as they fell helping me out. It was a funny site. Here is a pic. You really cannot appreciate the number because there is a whole back row that you are not seeing.

The majority of the boxes were toys and medicine that was sent for children from the Zonta Club of Marathon. I need to google them to find out who they are and them send them a really big thank you note. I also got a few care packages from very wonderful soldier support people back home. We got sent a a ton of games- scrabble, chess, dominoes, different magazines (about 30), and way too much candy and snacks. If we were to eat all of the candy that people sent us we would not be able to fit into our uniforms. Everyone, thank you all very much for everything. I have a Community Medical Assistance (CMA) coming up and I plan to distribute all of the toys, medicine, and some of the candy to the local underprivileged children. I will be sure to take plenty of pictures.

I also received another package of letters from the Middle School in South Carolina. I tried to load a web cam thank you video with a bunch of Q&As but the file was too big and it took too long to upload. Let me work out the kinks. I promise to have the video technology perfected sometime in the near future. Stay tuned. I also bought all of the students nice presents at the bazaar today. I will not say what I got them since I know some of them read this blog. It should take about 2 weeks for the gifts to arrive so be on the look out.

Today we climbed "The Ghar." The Ghar is a 1,500-foot rocky mountain that sits on the compound of the Kabul Military Training Center. It was really fun. The last 20 feet are the scariest. There is a very narrow part that you have to climb to reach the top. I just tried to not look down while I did it. The view at the top was spectacular. I took a ton of photos and loaded them onto a picture book on the right column. I encourage you to take a look. After we finished with the Ghar we visited an old Soviet military junk yard. We saw a bunch of old tanks and other vehicles. It was very interesting.

Thanks for reading. Take care.