The Holidays

Oh the weather outside is frightful... well, no, that's a lie. I can still wear short sleeves during the hottest part of the day, but at night it's consistently been below the freezing point, and I find ice on the ground as I walk to work whenever I have the early shift. All the same, the holidays are here, and it's been very evident since December started.

For instance I was walking to work early one morning when I noticed an inordinate amount of sweaty Santas walking away from the boardwalk as I approached. The Santas per sq. ft. increased steadily as I walked to work until I came across an army of santas!

It turns out there was a Santa/Christmas 5k benefit run that morning.

There were a lot of Santas.

The Education Center's halls were then decked:

Andrea and Muhammad decorating the tree.

I put up a little Hanukkah display as well.

Then we took a professional grade seasons greetings picture from the KAF Education Center.

Seasons Greetings from the Kandahar Education Center

Then Hanukkah came!

Good God! Is that what I look like?? I've got to shave!

The first night we did a more formal thing and lit many Chanukiot, but we had a pretty good turnout every night of the holiday! We even had latkes on that Friday night!

We sang some songs.

More singing.

Told the story of Hanukkah.

The focus was far greater on Christmas around here as you can imagine. One day I came across this flyer:

A flyer for a service inside the zombie church!

As I've explained before, I very much enjoy seeing how other people pray, and observe their religions, so when I saw this flyer, and with my fixation on there being an actual church here on base with a steeple and everything, I resolved to attend that service.

Conveniently, I also had the whole KAF schedule of religious services for December 24th and 25th delivered to me through the mass emailing system we've got here, so I also resolved to attend the Catholic midnight mass here that Saturday night.

Makeshift Altar with communion chalices.

When I told him I was going, my roommate and the new Text Examiner here, Bert, decided to come with me to the midnight mass. It was a nice service with a lot of focus on praying for world peace and juxtaposing those prayers against the backdrop of our locale.

Finally it was time to face my fears, and go to Romanian Church.

Who knows what I'll find on the other side of that barbed wire fence? Romania is where Transylvania is located...

Oh... this doesn't look too scary... I assume that means Merry Christmas.

So far it looks like a regular old church... no zombies to speak of...

Oh wow... not at all what I was expecting. 

The history of the Romanian Church on KAF.

I've been to a bunch of Eastern Orthodox churches in Bulgaria, and I know some of the traditions behind Eastern Orthodoxy, so it wasn't entirely alien to me. Some things are pretty obvious like the serious focus on iconography (the little paintings of all the saints/disciples/representations of god/angels seen in the picture of the sanctuary above). One interesting tidbit is whenever you see a picture with someone holding a model of the church you're standing in, that's a picture of the people responsible for the construction of that church being honored in a painting.

I assume they didn't actually dress like that, but maybe they did?

I didn't stay for the whole service, but that, too, was very nice. Then it was time for lunch and something caught my eye on the way in. Take a look:

Did you catch it?

Oriental bar! Clearly someone way up in the pecking order of whoever is in charge of what we eat around here was thinking about the Jewish residents of KAF, and making the oriental bar an option allowed us to celebrate according to our ancient traditions.

Once again in the DFAC we were treated to the artistic culinary decorations like the vegetable bouquet and so on.

And there you have it!

Happy Holidays from Kandahar!

NATO Forces

KAF is a NATO base. It's not just Americans. So far, I've seen coalition forces from Slovakia, Belgium, France, UK, Australia, Turkey, Romania, Kosovo, and Bulgaria. Definitely there are more Americans than anything else, but these other soldiers make themselves known.

Merukah!

This is the sign for the Romanian compound with the creepy church in it. Might as well say "Quarantine".

Every time I see a Bulgarian I want to talk to them, but don't. I visited Bulgaria as an Ohio State University International Affairs scholar back in 2008, so I know a lot about Bulgaria's history, landscape, and culture. But I know the conversation would go something like this:
Me: Hi! I've been to Bulgaria!
Bulgarian: Really?
Me: Yes! I've been to Sophia, and Plovdiv, and Nessebar, and Veliko Turnovo, and I know about Aleksander Nevski and so on and so on.
Bulgarian: Ok.
Me: Nice talking to you.

As much as it would be nice listing to a Bulgarian the things I know about and the places I've visited in Bulgaria, I think it's a conversation worth avoiding. Perhaps the urge will be too great and I'll have that very conversation some time - word for word.

Bulgarski?

Every time I go to the British compound's "Hero's Cafe" to get a bagel with lox, they're sold out. Their problems with restocking their lox stores aside, their cafe area is a nice place. Almost on par with the Tim Horton's the Canadians have. I'll continue checking in regularly in an attempt to eat some delicious, delicious lox.

The Royal Air Force has come a long way since the events of 1923.

What? Switzerland?! I thought you guys were supposed to be neutral! Oh wait, that's Denmark...

This is in the entrance hall to the building where the people in charge of KAF work. I had to go there to get my Flyer for High Holidays approved to post on the Boarwalk.

Slovaks are everywhere here. I haven't interacted with many of them, so I'll let Sarah Kemp's blog post about them suffice. Whoops! It was about Albanians... same thing, almost.

The inside of the Slovakian compound is guarded as though it were the nuclear launch codes.

There are too many of these country signs for me to take pictures of, so this'll be the last one.

What would one buy in a Canadian Store? Roots hoodies? Muskoka Bear Wear?

The Canadians are headed out of here, which is a shame. They're all very friendly, and on Canadian Thanksgiving we all got a great meal out of it. Also when they leave (which I'm told is going to be in about a month and a half) the Tim Horton's goes with them. This is a calamity! I should start a petition to keep them here. They have the best coffee and doughnuts on KAF. Maybe the Belgians will bring in a chocolate shop to replace it...