For anyone who missed the memo, I arrived back in DC on the 24th. All of my photos from the trip can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2178318&id=7408617&l=cfd3064410
-Anna
Monday, January 25, 2010
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
More lessons
So I think I mentioned in a previous post that I got my housemates to play the board game I brought with me? I lied. I was embarrassed that I brought this stupid game all the way across the world and couldn't find a SINGLE person who would play with me.
Well last night there was a bit of an incident in town, and my security team wouldn't let us go to Salsa Night. Oh no! What can we do to entertain ourselves all evening? Settlers of Catan!!! The game is like a combination of Risk and Monopoly and we had a nice group of 5 play. All were new except for me, and I assumed my victory was certain since there is a rather steep learning curve.
Unfortunately, I did not take into consideration that I was playing against 1. a renowned international trade economist and 2. an amazing agricultural trade economist. Oops. Number 2 won pretty quickly.
I don't think anyone was hooked, and I bet we don't play again while I am here, but at least I wasn't embarrassed when everyone was bored silly after I have talked it up for the past month.
Well last night there was a bit of an incident in town, and my security team wouldn't let us go to Salsa Night. Oh no! What can we do to entertain ourselves all evening? Settlers of Catan!!! The game is like a combination of Risk and Monopoly and we had a nice group of 5 play. All were new except for me, and I assumed my victory was certain since there is a rather steep learning curve.
Unfortunately, I did not take into consideration that I was playing against 1. a renowned international trade economist and 2. an amazing agricultural trade economist. Oops. Number 2 won pretty quickly.
I don't think anyone was hooked, and I bet we don't play again while I am here, but at least I wasn't embarrassed when everyone was bored silly after I have talked it up for the past month.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Nickname update
We can now add "Anna Spanner" to the list (it only rhymes if you are British) and "Miss Missy," which differentiates me from Martha who is "Miss Miss"
Speaking of which, I realized how boring it is going to be to go back to a country where everyone has the same accent. Making fun of how Jim says "water" (that's been funny for 4 years now...) is nowhere near as funny as making fun of how a Brit says "Your-I-Nal"
And secondly speaking of which, Martha leaves in a week and I don't quite know what I will do with myself. She has been such an integral part to how pleasant this trip has been. Professionally she focuses me, stops me to think about priorities for the day and resources I can tap to get things done. Away from work, she is one of the most fun people I have ever traveled with and is always ready for a game of pool when I get stressed out. She strikes a perfect balance between enforcing healthy behavior like a Russian Mother (drink lots of water, and it should always be room temperature) and encouraging terrible behavior (Vodka must be drunk warm as well, and with a pickle) We are already plotting how to get another assignment together, preferably in Kabul again.
Speaking of which, I realized how boring it is going to be to go back to a country where everyone has the same accent. Making fun of how Jim says "water" (that's been funny for 4 years now...) is nowhere near as funny as making fun of how a Brit says "Your-I-Nal"
And secondly speaking of which, Martha leaves in a week and I don't quite know what I will do with myself. She has been such an integral part to how pleasant this trip has been. Professionally she focuses me, stops me to think about priorities for the day and resources I can tap to get things done. Away from work, she is one of the most fun people I have ever traveled with and is always ready for a game of pool when I get stressed out. She strikes a perfect balance between enforcing healthy behavior like a Russian Mother (drink lots of water, and it should always be room temperature) and encouraging terrible behavior (Vodka must be drunk warm as well, and with a pickle) We are already plotting how to get another assignment together, preferably in Kabul again.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Cravings
I could really use a BLT today. Or a glass of Cabernet that doesn't cost 8 dollars and taste like water...
Monday, January 4, 2010
"Learning from the life, hardworking, honesty, tolerance and creativity are the values I want to be decorated with"
That is the opening line of my favorite resume of the day. I think I will print it out.
Life has been good. Our team is starting to come together and it is really fun to see which of the people I have hired have turned out well. I had a hunch about our accountant and he has proven to be a rockstar who isn't at all timid about contributing his opinion on non-financial things as well.
It is funny that they only thing I have really missed so far is starbucks and my favorite leather boots. I can't think of any modest-Kabul-friendly outfit that would work with knee-high leather boots, so it is probably best that they stayed at home.
We had dinner at my friend's house a few days ago, it was amazing. His family was in town from up North and his mother and sisters were fantastic cooks. It was really nice to have a family dinner. You can see photos from my previous link to Facebook.
In other news, you might realized that I am having a fabulous time here, and wondered how it could even get better? Well the other night Murphy pulled out his guitar and we had a ourselves a singalong. He and Martha tend to like the 80's stuff more than I do, but he pulled out a Jason Mraz song or two so "Anna Montana" was quite happy. I am frequently reminded of the fact that I am the youngest person around, and the nicknames I have picked up, "Annie Banannie" "Anna Montana" haven't helped matters. As of last night I was called Pocohontas, but I doubt that will stick.
Life has been good. Our team is starting to come together and it is really fun to see which of the people I have hired have turned out well. I had a hunch about our accountant and he has proven to be a rockstar who isn't at all timid about contributing his opinion on non-financial things as well.
It is funny that they only thing I have really missed so far is starbucks and my favorite leather boots. I can't think of any modest-Kabul-friendly outfit that would work with knee-high leather boots, so it is probably best that they stayed at home.
We had dinner at my friend's house a few days ago, it was amazing. His family was in town from up North and his mother and sisters were fantastic cooks. It was really nice to have a family dinner. You can see photos from my previous link to Facebook.
In other news, you might realized that I am having a fabulous time here, and wondered how it could even get better? Well the other night Murphy pulled out his guitar and we had a ourselves a singalong. He and Martha tend to like the 80's stuff more than I do, but he pulled out a Jason Mraz song or two so "Anna Montana" was quite happy. I am frequently reminded of the fact that I am the youngest person around, and the nicknames I have picked up, "Annie Banannie" "Anna Montana" haven't helped matters. As of last night I was called Pocohontas, but I doubt that will stick.
Friday, January 1, 2010
Happy holidays!
Sorry for the long gap in posts. Between much celebrating and a shortened week to get everything done that needed to be done at work, I haven't had much time to put pull my thoughts together in a blog.
Christmas was a lot of fun, we had a Christmas Eve party at our house, with Posole and dumplings made by our Nepalese staff. It was quite a mish-mash of food, but of course was amazingly delicious. Christmas lunch was at the other company house, and we had just about everything you could want, turkey, ham, stuffing, cornbread pudding, sort of a French Onion casserole.
Martha and I were in charge of the pies, though our attempts at making the crust ran into some problems. Finally, our brilliant cook (a guy about my age) stepped in and made his own crust for us. After looking in every single expat grocery store in town, we established that there was no canned pumpkin in all of Kabul. So Chef picked us up a "pumpkin" at the market. It certainly looked nothing like a pumpkin, but we figured that any hard squash would do the trick. So we hacked into this huge squash, wrapped half in tin foil, figured out how to work the oven, and popped it in. Nearly 2 hours later, the squash was mostly cooked. As soon as we tried scooping out the insides we realized that this veggie was much closer to a spaghetti squash and REALLY didn't look anything like pumpkin. Martha had the brilliant idea of putting it into the blender so that no one was picking spaghetti-like fibers out of their teeth. Ultimately it was pretty successful, tasted enough like pumpkin pie for all the gringos. I made the apple pie, and with Chef's piecrust made a very pretty laticework top.
Boxing day we had another little party, the weather was great and we decided to BBQ. We had heard a lot of South African barbecuing pride from one of our team and he did his country justice. I contributed some grilled zucchini to balance out the massive amounts of marinated beef.
We had a very nice New Years, went to a restaurant and did some dancing, came home and did the usual playing pool until the wee hours. Today we are having a big New Years meal any minute now, ham and black eyed peas, mashed potatoes. Should be delicious.
Per usual, this blog is ENTIRELY about food, but if you want to see the photos, I am having a hard time posting them here, but they are all viewable on facebook, here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2178318&id=7408617&l=cfd3064410
Christmas was a lot of fun, we had a Christmas Eve party at our house, with Posole and dumplings made by our Nepalese staff. It was quite a mish-mash of food, but of course was amazingly delicious. Christmas lunch was at the other company house, and we had just about everything you could want, turkey, ham, stuffing, cornbread pudding, sort of a French Onion casserole.
Martha and I were in charge of the pies, though our attempts at making the crust ran into some problems. Finally, our brilliant cook (a guy about my age) stepped in and made his own crust for us. After looking in every single expat grocery store in town, we established that there was no canned pumpkin in all of Kabul. So Chef picked us up a "pumpkin" at the market. It certainly looked nothing like a pumpkin, but we figured that any hard squash would do the trick. So we hacked into this huge squash, wrapped half in tin foil, figured out how to work the oven, and popped it in. Nearly 2 hours later, the squash was mostly cooked. As soon as we tried scooping out the insides we realized that this veggie was much closer to a spaghetti squash and REALLY didn't look anything like pumpkin. Martha had the brilliant idea of putting it into the blender so that no one was picking spaghetti-like fibers out of their teeth. Ultimately it was pretty successful, tasted enough like pumpkin pie for all the gringos. I made the apple pie, and with Chef's piecrust made a very pretty laticework top.
Boxing day we had another little party, the weather was great and we decided to BBQ. We had heard a lot of South African barbecuing pride from one of our team and he did his country justice. I contributed some grilled zucchini to balance out the massive amounts of marinated beef.
We had a very nice New Years, went to a restaurant and did some dancing, came home and did the usual playing pool until the wee hours. Today we are having a big New Years meal any minute now, ham and black eyed peas, mashed potatoes. Should be delicious.
Per usual, this blog is ENTIRELY about food, but if you want to see the photos, I am having a hard time posting them here, but they are all viewable on facebook, here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2178318&id=7408617&l=cfd3064410
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