Purim is a Jewish Holiday celebrating the events described in the Book of Esther. Basically, evil guy named Haman tried to convince the Persian King Ahasuerus (who in fact historically syncs up with King Xerxes who most people will know from the movie 300 as an impossibly large guy with an impossibly deep voice - anyway...) to kill the Jews. Esther, who had become queen by being the most beautiful in the Kings eyes then reveals herself to be Jewish and exposes Haman's evil plan. The holiday subscribes to the adage that follows most Jewish holidays and that is this: "They tried to kill us. We survived. Let's eat."
Purim is all about hiding ones identity - Esther hiding the fact that she is Jewish, Haman hiding the fact that he is evil, Ahasuerus hiding his secret obsession with gold jewelry, Mordecai (Esther's righteous cousin and adopted father)'s behind the scenes helping people like he's Batman... and so a central pillar in celebrating Purim is dressing up in masks. Jewish Halloween, essentially. Exhibit A - Chareidi guy talking to a crazy dressed person:
Picture worthy.
Theodor Herzl is largely considered the founding father of the idea of a modern Jewish state. He looked like this:
Those far-seeing eyes see a new state on the horizon.
Anyway, he's a very recognizable figure here. I happen to have been blessed with a natural talent for looking like him upon my arrival, so all it took was a couple of wardrobe changes to bring Herzl back to life.
"If you will it - it is no dream" - Thejoshdor, Herzl
A couple of Israelis commenting on my beard before Purim even began brought up Herzl's name so this was a no-brainer for the first "day" of Purim (Purim was actually Wednesday night-Thursday, but here it was celebrated Tuesday-Saturday!).
There was a massive zombie walk that started near King George Street, and there you could see just how much Purim is related to Halloween and how much Israel is connected culture-wise to the rest of the world, what with the zombie craze and all that going on. There were lots of zombie versions of pop-culture figures. I thought of going as Zombie Herzl, but in the end chose not to.
Your brains are in another castle.
Oh... I'm sorry. In my last post, did I make it seem as though I shaved off my entire beard in one day?? No no no nooooo. My bad. I made as much use out of the facial hair as possible throughout the week.
Jolly good! Eh, what?
Exactly like Halloween back home.
The spirit of Purim is evident everywhere. In malls, on the streets, on the beach.
Here Adrian brings the magic of costumery to the beach.
I should also note here that Purim is also a holiday known for merry making. It is, after all, a commandment to be so "merry" as to not know the difference between haman the evil and mordecai the righteous. Just food for thought while enjoying the following pictures.
Just a couple of circus freaks.
Risky Business.
Risky indeed.
I come from the distant past to investigate how humanity evolves in the futah!
To industry!
When I wear two hats I become doubly fancy.
Friday during the day there was a large street fair near the Tel Aviv museum of art. When I say large I mean it was completely packed. There was live music, and plenty of creative costumes. By this time I had devolved into the Pringles guy.
Once you pop... you know the rest.
Some guy dressed as a GIANT Smirnoff bottle.
I believe that Beast and the rest of these princesses converged on this spot independent of one another.
That a pretty excellent rendition of a pretty crappy Willy Wonka.
That Beast and Belle seriously went all out.
Stewardesses.
This Captain America was pretty miserable - probably because he misses his country..
I've come across a few people here whose personalities make it a surprise for me to find them here. Not wanting to use any real names I've chosen to use the euphemism "Dexter".
If you bring a (large) set of matching luggage filled with mostly clothing that needs to be dry cleaned- you might be a Dexter.
If you can't stand to have your living quarters inspected/electrical work done in your corner of a shared room... you might be a Dexter... (see below)
Apparently the Dexter in this case couldn't handle the idea of his area being violated in order to install internet in the room...
... so he made these feelings clear by spelling them out with sticky notes on his walls.
If you make more or less a speech about how much you've grown in your experience in Afghanistan especially in your teamwork skills, and then not more than a half an hour later say that you don't care what the majority opinion is, or the fact the no one else wants it - for movie night we are watching an artsy french movie that my girlfriend sent me because it's my choice and only mine... you might be a Dexter...
If you are so passive-aggressive, that one might call you aggressively passive-aggressive... you might be a Dexter.
I guess it's not too surprising that personalities like these crop up downrange. You have to be a little wacky to even consider doing something that takes you to Afghanistan for 4-6 months at a time and the people who are a little wacky in one way may spill over in their wackiness into several other categories of wackiness.
That having been said, to successfully traverse a situation in which you may be both working 12 hours/day with the same people AND sharing living quarters with the same people, one must have impeccable compromising and accommodating skills. Skills that I've found are not possessed by everyone.
Imagine, if you will, a community. This community consists of people from all over the world. There are barely any members of the community under the age of 18, or over the age of 60, with the vast majority of its members falling within the ages of 20 and 40. There is no unemployment. Obesity is extremely low. The passport ownership rate is nearly 100%. Men outnumber women 8 to 1... maybe by even more.
This is what the population of KAF looks like to me. I didn't perform a survey or anything, the data is simply drawn from estimates from my observations. Also, it's now been four months since I've been outside the 1-mile radius circle with my bedroom at its center, so I've become intimately familiar with the landscape within that circle. Some faces stick out - like the ones I pass at the same times every day.
Before I came here it was suggested to me that life here would be like Groundhog Day, because of the repetitive schedule. I'll sometimes extrapolate the deep thoughts I've had on that film into my experience here. For Instance: How long would it take for me to punch my equivalent of the Ned Ryerson in the face?
It would probably take longer than I'll be here so you shouldn't worry, KAF version of Ned-the head.
In Groundhog Day, Bill Murray is trapped, if he tries to leave Punksatawney the snowstorm traps him there and no matter where he goes, he always wakes up at the bed-and-breakfast with "I Got You, Babe" playing on the radio.
Even if I wanted to, and I'm not allowed to leave KAF, but sometimes when I look outside the base into the haze of dust that limits the visibility I think that if I were to head straight out into that mist, I'd wind up face to face with KAF again not unlike the TV show LOST wherein whenever a character tries to leave on any sort of craft they end up back at the Island, or (another obscure reference) that movie Identity in which the multiple personalities of a mind affected by multiple personality disorder meet at a motel and kill each other off one by one. If any characters in that film tried to drive away from the lonely motel, they'd wind up back at the motel. What I'm trying to say is, it's an overused trope, but applicable to my situation. If only there were a giant unexplained four-toed statue here on KAF...
I sometimes get the feeling that when I do leave here I'll have a sort of time management superpower, at least for a few months before I get used to regular life again. I've often run the scenario in my head of being in a job interview somewhere down the road and the interviewer telling me that I may be asked to work at odd hours. In the scenario I just laugh at this interviewer, because no schedule of hours could be odder than the one I've had here.
My Brother-in-law Paul and I had this conversation online a few weeks ago:
Paul: What do you do on weekends
Me: What's a weekend?
Right now, the concept is mind-boggling. Do you mean to tell me that there are two whole days at the end of a week, with nothing planned out? At this point, the lengthiest amount of time that I've gone without working has been 18 hours. That was way back during the government shutdown, and that was probably a one-time thing. By my calculations, the total number of hours I will have worked in seven months will be the same as working one and a fifth years of a 40-hour-a-week job. I think I'll deserve a bit of time off, but will I be able to handle time off? I won't know what to do with my time. I may have forgotten how to relax!
I'm sure I'll figure it out. If the worse comes to worst I'll just watch Groundhog day a hundred times. I friggin' love that movie.
Devotees of my blog will know that for the first two or so months of my being here I would often say that time was flying by very quickly. I'm not sure of the reason, but this is no longer the case. Time has slowed down. Maybe it's because I've gotten used to the routines, or perhaps it's the amount of time I've spent away from home.
Recently, I crossed my longest-I've-ever-been-outside-of-the-united-states threshold, and it reminded me of this scene from Lord of the Rings, where the characters are first setting off on their journey, and Sam stops and says to Frodo, "If I take one more step, it'll be the farthest from home I've ever been". Aside from thinking that if Sam makes this speech every time he takes another step away from home that it'll take forever to get to Mordor, I also empathize with the thought that crossing these thresholds is meaningful on some level. Here's that scene:
Being reminded of a scene from a movie reminds me that I'm often reminded of another scene from another movie. You know in the beginning of Casablanca there's that bit of narration in which the entire phenomenon of Casablanca being a refugees' city is explained? Well if you don't here it is:
Soon after the opening there's another scene in a central area of Casablanca in which a plane takes off - the plane that all of the characters wish that they were on themselves. They all turn their heads to watch as the plane takes off. I feel like those characters every time I see the planes taking off from the airstrip - which is often as the airstrip is very busy. I hear the narrator's voice in my head at the end of the clip above saying "and wait... and wait... and wait..."
Wow that makes it sound like I want nothing more than to get out of here. No, I'm not miserable - in fact it looks like I'll be extending my time here by a few weeks, so this isn't even the half-way point for me just yet (another week and a half, or eleven days, or 264 hours, or 33 meals, or 1 laundry periods, or... (see? I'm not desperate to get out of here...) until the halfway point).
It's raining right now while I write this post... for the second time the entire time I've been here. The first time it was torrential and lasted all day. Pools of water gathered in ditches and stayed there for weeks. You'd think in this dry atmosphere it would evaporate in a day, but no. We're entering the rainy season, so we can start to expect more days like that, but it's still hot during the day and can break 80 easily. At night it's cold, sometimes in the 40s.
Mail/Packages.
My mom did not think that this suitcase was going to make it to me mailed as it was.
Over the last couple of weeks I got a few huge packages in the mail. Two of them came just today (Nov. 7th). It's really exciting to get mail, it breaks up the monotony as I've said before.
Seriously there was a windfall of awesomeness recently.
Even a simple card or photo (or a photocopy of a photo) brightens my day.
My desk isn't normally this messy, I just wanted to take a picture of all the mail.
If you squint, or click and enlarge the picture, you can see that the only one of my cousins with adorable children that has sent me adorable pictures of themselves and/or their kids has been Suzanne and Lee Appel. Props to them. If you're feeling guilty for not having sent me packages and/or pictures of you and your adorable kids you can feel free to send such things to:
Joshua Kramer
Kandahar Education Center
APO, AE 09355
It costs the same to send to that address as it does to anywhere in the US.
Before, when I had a smaller beard and shorter hair, and apparently didn't mind having a picture taken of me with earbuds.
After, I have a bigger beard and longer hair.
I painstakingly arranged it so the flyswatter, the pipe, and my position in relation to the chair made for an accurate before and after setup - just thought you should know.
The other day, a guy laughed out loud when he came to me for help with something and I had no accent. True story.
OK, so there are these emails that go through a sensor on the special computer system we have here on KAF to make everyone aware of the same things. "KAF-all" emails. We get to send out information about programs and classes available at the Ed. Center once a week. This week, Christian included, sandwiched in between a couple of other bullet points, "everyone is invited to the Ed. Center to pet Josh's beard." The bullet point made it through the sensor, so either he wasn't reading it, or he thought it was funny. Hopefully he thought it was funny, because, you know... he's a censor. So far, there have been no takers, next time I think Christian is going to include something about it being good luck to pet my beard... we'll see how that works.
Recently, Major Kraus, friend of the Education Center offered to have the Ed Center team over to his side of the base for a tour of the Army helicopters and a movie night in their rec room. It was a fantastic experience. Took a whole bunch of pictures. First we walked around the hangar where the skeletons of helicopters sat waiting to be put back together.
Helicopter skeleton.
Explaining things.
You see, after every so many hours of flight time a helicopter needs to be completely taken apart and put back together.
Looks like this one's got some sort of steam-punk rocket booster on the back.
From the hangar we went to the vast expanses of helicopter fields. Must've been hundreds of them spaced far apart - so it covered a couple square miles.
Looks like a helicopter version of Russian dolls.
We were there right around sunset, so it made for a good picture.
Ohhhhh.... ahhhh...
That little unicorn horn thingy there? That's in case the chopper flies through a place with wires - to cut them.
Wire cutter up close.
Castro reviews the troops' performance... Acceptable.
Fields and fields of helicopters.
Then we watched the sunset from their second story deck. Sandy sunset.
If anyone was on the edge of their seats waiting to find out what movie we watched afterwards - it was Bad Teacher. Just as funny the second time (I saw it in theaters). I guess working at the Education Center has some advantages - you meet people from every part of the base, because someone from any part of the base is trying to get an education - and in doing so you have some sort of a connection with the whole base.
