31 January 2010, Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

The bitter cold days and nights of the last week have finally pushed aside by a sudden wave of warmth and sunshine. I get up at 5:30 each morning and, after my teeth are brushed and my whiskers taken down to skin level, I walk to the A’la’too Dining Facility for a bowl of cereal and some fruit. This morning when I stepped out of my second story hallway onto the steel grate landing I looked up and saw the stars above me for the first time since arriving here. The air was frozen and I was glad to have my Head Gator to cover my neck and my knit watch cap to pull down over my ears. My breath was thick, white steam in the icy breeze as I climbed down the rusting steps to the gravel yard below. The street in front of me was lined with buses, empty but idling, ready to carry American soldiers and Marines to the flight line.

I arrive at the office at 6:50 each morning and I do my first walk-through of the day. I look for trash left behind by the servicemen during the night shift, I slide the chairs neatly under the tables and I check the AED, or Automated Emergency Defibrilator, to make certain that the battery is charged in case of some unforeseen heart event in our building. I greeted Akylbek and Jibek in Russian, “DOE-bray OO-truh,” Good morning. Akylbek asked how I was and I answered in Russian. Then I added my take on the weather, “See-VODE-nah-yah puh-GO-duh YAHS-nuh ee TYO-plah-yah,” Today’s weather is clear and warm. Akylbek looked with surprise and he told me, “Your Russian is pretty enough to speak.” I had to chuckle inside because I think what he wanted to say was, “Your Russian is good enough that you should speak it more.”

At eight o’clock I learned just how accurate my forecast had been. I walked with Jibek to the finance office to make the morning cash deposit. The sun was just breaking the horizon and in front of me I witnessed a spectacular sunrise on the tall Kyrgyz Alatou Mountain Range to the south. The jagged ridgeline was covered with snow and bathed in pink sunlight against a clear blue sky while a line of white-trunked, leafless Poplar trees pushed heavenward with branches laden with thousands of Hooded Crows. The Kyrgyz Alatou Range rises abruptly from the northern plain and forms the foothills of Kyrgyzstan’s Tien Shan Range that joins with the Karakoram, Kunlun, Hindu Kush and Himalaya Ranges to the south and east in what’s known as the “Pamir Knot,” Pamir meaning the “Roof of the World.” Alatou is a Kyrgyz word that simply means “mountains.”

My time goes by fast because I get to talk to the servicemen all day long. My job here is to make them feel at home, to give them a last taste of America before they move into combat and a first taste of America as they come back home. It's turning out to be a great job.

I've spent a lot of time reading through the Work Statement that outlines what my job is supposed to be and I know now how to set prices on merchandise like T-shirts and sodas. I know what to expect during a military audit of the facilities. I know how to close out the cash register and how to check out the movies and games. I've learned a lot in a week. I’ve learned that this is nothing like working in Iraq. The Air Force is good to its people and the PX and DFAC have items that are not found in a combat zone, things like soda and candy. One of the Airmen who works with us told me that the Air Force is all about the comfort and happiness of its people.

The end of my day comes at 7:00 PM when I usually sit down and look at my email and work on the blog before I leave. Shooter's is one of a handful of places where I can find WiFi access on the base. I leave the office and walk to my temporary housing about 1/4 mile away, take a hot shower and do my laundry, when necessary. I'm in bed by 9:00 or 9:30 each evening.
Salamaat and Midin, two of the other employees at Shooter’s are both teaching me Russian because they were both impressed that I could speak as well as I can. The signs are all in Russian, I hear Russian spoken all the time here, I've signed up for the military Russian language course on line (a benefit of working in a deployed area) and I expect to be able to start that in a couple of weeks. My immersion in the language isn’t quite the same as being a missionary, but it's close. I get a lot of exposure to Russian here and I’m sure that it will increase even more when I finally move into the city and off of the base.

The American contractors came face to face with danger this morning as they walked from outside the fence to inside the fence. A man who’d had too much vodka was yelling at them and throwing rocks at them as they walked the 100 yards to the safety of the fence. A Kyrgyz security guard finally talked the man out of his angry display and sent him peddling on his way back to the city.

I attended church this afternoon and found four other servicemen there. Three are pilots and are bound by their combat missions, making it impossible to attend on a regular basis. The fourth is the brand new base “mayor” who arrived last week. I’d seen the mayor, a Lt. Colonel in the Air Force, on several occasions and kept thinking that he could be LDS. There’s just something in his demeanor that telegraphs the fact that he’s a member of the church. It was good to meet with our little group and have an opportunity to participate and take the sacrament. I love you all! Jed