Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

I'm 13 hours ahead of Utah time here, so I'm a little more than half way around the world. After over 20 hours in the air and one long layover I'm in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

The flight to London was very nice. I had an aisle seat and an empty seat at my side. I was able to stretch out and catch a little nap as we flew across the Atlantic. I think I slept for about four hours of the seven hour stretch.

Leaving London on the long LONG flight to Kyrgyzstan I knew that I'd be in trouble. My seat was hard, like the cushion was gone and I was sitting on the steel frame. I sat on my little back pillow for the entire flight. Next to me was a large Russian man and his girlfriend who laughed and drank vodka for the first six hours of the flight. When meal time came around he ordered a beer with his meal and managed to spill the entire can on me.

The red-haired Russian man across the aisle from me started the flight by stripping down to his underwear before pulling the airline blanket over his legs! He looked like he hadn't bathed in days and he had more long hair in his armpits than I've ever seen in my life. He wore a military green wife beater undershirt and a pair of white striped boxers. I have to admit that I was in a little bit of culture shock on the flight. Someone nearby kept unloading his gas, too. There were several times on the flight when I thought I'd blow chunks! I buried my face in my leather jacket and it helped, but the smell was unearthly rotten! (Buddy's gas is nothing compared to this guy's!)

There were three of us in our little group and we had one stop scheduled in Almaty, Kazakhstan before flying to Bishkek, but as we made the approach to the airport there, the visibility was below the minimum so we circled for about a half an hour before flying directly to Bishkek. We landed in Bishkek at 2:30 this morning, an hour ahead of schedule, and had to stand in a long line to wait for someone from the ministry to open the office so we could get our entry visas. We stood for an hour before anyone showed up and then it was a painful process as he looked over our paperwork again and again. We finally got our passports stamped and picked up our luggage.

Our next step was to wait for a ride from the air base. Our ride never showed up. But we were surrounded by local taxi drivers who were relentless in their begging for us to hire them to get a ride to the base. We stood our ground and waited. I looked around at all of the Russian signs and listened to the endless Russian being spoken by the locals. This really is a convergence in my life. Finally, an Air Force sergeant came through and saw us there. He called someone on the base and we were soon on our way. The drive took us about 300 yards, past the guards and through the main gate. Had we known just how close it was, we could have walked!

We checked in at the base inbound center and were sent to billeting for temporary rooms. My two travelling companions are going on to Afghanistan this afternoon, so they had to check in at the passenger terminal, too. We finally arrived at our rooms at 7:00 AM! I set my alarm for 8:00 AM and grabbed a quick nap before walking to the gym where I would find my first IAP employee. He directed me to someone else who, in turn, directed me to the office of the Deputy Site Director. The woman stared at me and said, "I had no idea you were coming!" She made a couple of phone calls, had me fill out some paperwork and said, "What do you know about cash registers?" I told her that I've used them before. Then she asked me, "What do you know about bars?" I said, "I don't know anything about bars. I don't drink at all and I've never been inside a bar." (I guess that was a lie, but I didn't think about it at the time. My dad took me to a bar once when we were rabbit hunting and bought me a stack of pancakes for breakfast. How he knew that the bar served breakfast is still a mystery to me).

The Deputy Director shook her head and added, "I don't have a thing for you to do until tomorrow. Come back at 8:30 in the morning and we'll have something for you to do." This doesn't instill a great deal of confidence in this company, but as long as they pay me a check I guess I'll make the best of the situation.

After checking in with the office I took my first shower in three days. Man, that felt good! Water is a little harder to find here because they keep it all inside the buildings, not like Iraq where you could pick up a bottle of water at hundreds of outside water points, so I had to make a special scouting trip to find a bottle of water just to be able to brush my teeth. (Can't drink the water here.)

I walked by the chapel and learned that the LDS service is at 4:00 this afternoon, so I'm excited to attend church here for the first time.

I talked to another IAP employee this morning and he told me that I should buy a "Magic Jack" for my computer. I can talk on the internet for hours and hours for only $40.00 a year! I thanked him and said that I'd check into it. The problem is that I'm sitting in the only place where I can hook up to the internet and it happens to be the video game room for the military, so there are loud explosive noises of guns and bombs going off, all in surround sound. It's a very noisy place. I don't know yet about other options for making phone calls, but I'm sure that I'll find out over the next few days. For now I'll plan on emails and chats until we can figure out a schedule that works.

There's snow on the ground and the air is white with haze. The base is a very busy place with servicemen moving in formations from building to building as they prepare to fly off to Afghanistan.

I pray that everyone is well back at home. I know that it's the families of the men and women in uniform who suffer the most from deployments because they deal with the everyday problems. All I have to do is concentrate on doing whatever job they're going to have me do. I'm feeling the weight of this deployment. This one feels more like a sacrifice to me than the last one did. It's 11:30 AM and I think I'll go take a short nap before church. I'm whipped! I love you all! Jed

UPDATE: I went to church at 4:00 this afternoon and I was the only one who showed up. I waited until 4:30 but no one else came. I'm either the only member on the base or the schedule was changed without being posted or everyone else was just too busy. I was sorely disappointed.