My little corner of Kabul

Kabul is a huge city, with 3 million inhabitants. The attached aerial photo is Kabul, and the markers on it show, from left to right, the villa where I live, Camp Eggers, the National Military Hospital and the Airport. Aside from the aiport, these other three places are my whole world right now. If you use Google Earth and take a look at the city of Kabul, you will see how very much more of it there is. I probably will travel through the city on some major streets to get to some base locations where we are preparing master plans. I probably will never go to any of the buildings or sites in the rest of the city.

If you would like to see exactly which villa I live in, please send me an email or comment on this blog and I'll send you a file that will open Google Earth and zoom right into the block with a marker over the rooftop! Pretty neat huh?!

I like the work I'm doing. It has so far consisted about 35% in meetings with US military engineers from the navy, airforce and army. They make up an organization called AFCEE and it is to them that MACTEC is contracted. AFCEE is a part of CSTC-A, which stands for the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan. This organization is made up of military leaders from the US and several other European countries and Japan. On Camp Eggers, I regularly see soldiers from France, Germany, Holland and Estonia. There are also Afghan soldiers everywhere, as well as body-guards (we have two) and retired soldiers who are working as mentors among Afghan organizations.

When I'm on the base, I can eat and drink all I want, courtesy of our tax dollars. There is also a gym, library, post office, PX and several hang-outs there, in addition to offices of AFCCE, CSTC-A, other military organizations and barracks for the soldiers. These soldiers are often seen decked out in their battle dress, with body armour and machine guns. Wow! Lots of Hummers are parked there too... most with gun turrets on top and heavily shielded windows. I'll try to get a photo of this stuff soon.

The rest of the work I do has so far been architectural design work on a dormitory and institute to be built beside the Russian-built hospital. I've also done some site planning for a set of 5 support facilities that will provide vehicle and equipment maintenance to the divisions of the Army spread around the nation. Another project looming nearby involves planning a military academy (Afghan's "Westpoint") and a series of branch schools that will train soldiers in various trades within the Army. My job description doesn't include 3d modeling because there are many Afghan staff working with me who do this. I have just begun a model of the NMH work so that I may have an idea what it is like to build a master-plan in Sketchup. I get along well with the Afghans. They are Godly people. More about them soon.