BAND AIDES, A PEN, MUD AND A SOCCER BALL

It's 0515 hrs on Monday morning, I just finished a four mile run and wanted to send out some thoughts for the blog. This past week was a baptism by fire so to speak. We visited a village that we hadn't been to in a while. This is my first visit to this particular place. Unfortunately, our driver got our humvee stuck in the mud trying to position it. When people say this place gets muddy, they do mean muddy. The more he tried to power out of the mud the deeper it sank. Our intention was to visit for about 15 minutes and no more than half an hour but that turned into close to 2 hours. We had an MWRAP with us and they tried to use it to pull the humvee out but that got stuck too. The interesting thing is, these vehicles are so heavy with armor that no average sized vehicle can tow them or pull them. Luckily we had another MWRAP with us. In the mean time there we were, two of us and a linguist trying to accomplish what would take only 15 minutes but instead having to fill two hours. In a place like this you don't want to stay in one spot too long for a couple of reasons. One, you become a pretty large target the longer you stay in one place and two you can wear out your welcome pretty quick. So you have to make the best of it and try not to do anything stupid. We met many interesting people while there, and a few mistakes along the way that created a slightly crazy situation.

While hanging around waiting to get our vehicles unstuck I had a chance to interact with the locals quite a bit. One kid, about 10 came over and showed me a cut he had on his hand. I knew what he needed so I retrieved my backpack from the stuck vehicle. Unfortunately, one of the kids spotted the soccer ball in humvee and that is where it got nuts. One of the security guys suggested I just give it to them so they will move out of the way, which turned out to be a bad idea. I ended up having to give it to the man who was helping to dig us out, who in turn gave it to his son of about 5 years old, who in turn quickly ran away with it into his mud hut. That was the last of the soccer ball. I expected the man would have given it to one of the older kids and told him to take the group and go play, which would have made a lot of sense, but that didn't happen. Back to the hurt kid, I happened to have band aides and topical antibiotic with me because I had a cut on one of my fingers. So I patched him up and off he went only to return sometime later to show me he placed the band aide on his forehead. Why he did that I don't know. But one thing I learned over here is the fact that kids are the same no matter what country you are in. Funny dude.

An older man in the village had fallen and hurt his knee. We didn't have any ice packs with us but we did have a bandage so we wrapped it for him for support. There were about 50 kids hanging around with us the whole time begging for everything we had on our person. They wanted our knives, flashlights, guns, pens, everything. And what you didn't have strapped down they would try to lift off of you. One kid begged me for my pen as he slowly removed it from my flight suit shoulder pocket. I'm a sucker for a kid looking at me with sad eyes, no shoes, little food and water asking me for a cheap pen. So you know what happened next. I found another pen to write with. Some of the other guys would have made an issue of the kid trying to take their pen, but geeze, a stinkin pen, what the heck. When I said he could keep it he was happy for that moment. I don't know how long that happiness really lasts, but even for a minute or two was worth the sacrifice of a near worthless pen. Of course the other kids asked for my watch, and that is where I had to draw the line, I use it to keep track of my running and heart rate. those features wouldn't be too useful to them and besides it is digital and in English. Funny dudes.

Finally, the vehicles were pulled out of the mud. We said our goodbyes, gave the man who helped us 10 cases of water, which he probably won't share either, and off we went.