Subject: Update from Afghanistan

Greetings from Kabul!

I’m not sure if all of you are willing to be spammed by my periodic updates, so let me know if you want off the mailing list. :)

Life is good so far in Afghanistan. I’m one week down in my 16 week deployment. It’s actually been very productive so far. Today I held meetings with the president of the Afghan Geodesy and Cartography Head Office to discuss how we want our partnership to proceed. Everyone is incredibly friendly here. I’m even picking up a fair amount of Persian. I can say Hello, Goodbye, Thank you, How are you? I am fine, excuse me, etc… I hope to be able to be conversational on a rudimentary level before I leave.

It’s actually very peaceful where I’m at. Though a lot of bad things are going down in other parts of the country, I haven’t heard any sign of the war that’s going on around us. When I was in Bosnia in 1996, we went to sleep to machine gun fire almost every night. That’s not to say we’re not being careful around here. We’ve all been issued body armor and weapons.

So far I’ve been working 14-15 hour days with an hour break to go to the gym. I’m hoping to participate in a 10k run when I get back state-side.

Anyway, that’s about it for now. I’d love to hear from everyone, if you have the time.

Talk to you soon!