Happy Birthday to Katie!

Hi everybody! Since the last posting, I have worked, had 1 day a week off, and attended scouting again.

Now that I'm settled in at the chu ("home") and at work, I thought I'd share a typical work day with you. Each person has had to decide how to work PT (exercise) in to his/her day, and many have different work schedules than I, so this is my day:

The alarms go off and I'm off to the shower, through river rocks (about 50 yards) in PT uniform. Upon return to the chu and a change to ACU (camouflaged) uniform, grabbing my weapon (rifle), the bicycle and I walk up the dirt burm, over the bridge (big ditch w/ water), and pedal about 3/4 mile to work. On the way, at 2 locations, Ugandan guards raise a bar so I can pedal through. We greet each other in English usually.

At work I am either teaching a class on some satellite equipment (to bring telephone and internet to soldiers in the "boondocks") or studying and writing slides for a computer class I'll teach in March. There is a lot of material about the insides of a computer and a printer that I must be able to tell students (American soldiers, airmen, and marines) about. I bounce between some slides, 2 books, and Google to get what I need.

Lunch and dinner occur the same way, so I'll mention them once. The DFAC (Dining FACility) has a lot of choices for food. Some of it is very good and some is so different that I don't care for it. The fun of meals is to greet the guards in Swahili while they answer in Swahili or practice their English. "Jambo, jambo" I say ("hello") sometimes adding "Raffiki" ("friend"). Now I know how to say "How are you?" ("Habari?") and we all say "Mzuri" ("fine") or "Hakuma Matata" ("no worries")! Does that last one sound familiar, Lion King fans? It's for real. The other nice thing about meals is finding friends from my unit with whom I do not normally work and sitting with them.

After the afternoon work, mixed in with dinner somewhere, I am spending an hour in the gym 3 days a week. I gave up the yoga, except maybe on Fridays, because of the time schedule. At 8pm (2000hours), I attend the unit summary of how our mission went for the day and ride back to the chu. THIS time, as the guards raise the bars for me, they have learned the mottos of our higher unit, so they holler out, "Make it happen!" and "Hooah!" Exchanging this with 3 sets of Ugandans within about 100 yards is fun. They get a kick out of it as I do.

Some evenings I get to see Al and Tess (dog-handler, grandfather to some OPE students, and his wonderful side-kick German Shepherd). I'll mention that Tess is recovering exceptionally well from some unexpected surgery. Once recently, I was told that Tess wasn't real interested in her and Al's evening walk until she recognized my door and started acting a little happy. (She and I had thrown her frisbee in my "side yard" one day until it landed on the roof.) She proceeded to wash my face. It was great to see her feeling better! Oh, and it was nice to see Al too.

Other evenings I spend at work using the internet for phone calls home and movies; then to the chu for tv (not many channels, but ok); and stimulating conversation with my Air Force roommate (no sarcasm). We talk about math (her work), computers (my work), perfume and knitting (her hobbies), Max (my hobby - horseback riding), and/or our families and friends.

With some variation, most days the next step is listening to our personal entertainment devices and turning lights out for the night.

I hope this was somewhat entertaining for you to read; I'm off to the afternoon version of the equipment class. Soon, I'll describe an "off" day (shorter version) and the recent scouting event...boy did I get myself into an activity that was more than I thought to handle. Now, I'll see what pictures I can include and be off to work.

Well, today just turned a little "untypical". I will now exit the class I was helping with, study the class I'll give on computers, then teach an unexpected equipment class from 4pm to 10pm for the next 3 nights. As all the service members know, we must be flexible with our schedules. There was a mix-up with some soldiers who have to go through a lot of trouble and uncertain travel to get here. They need the class, so we decided to have a special one for them.

I also chose 2 pictures (above) that are of a grilled lunch we had here at the schoolhouse one day last week. That is not a picture of the normal DFAC! [I need to master those photos so they lie next to each other next time. :-) ]

Have a great day while I have a good evening (add 8 hours to EST)!

BTW: The birthday girl is on the left in the profile picture.