Snakes...Yikes!!!!

Here's another one for my boys. We've had a couple of reptilian encounters lately. The other night, one of our interpreters was coming out of the bathroom and almost stepped on this...

He came running in shouting in Pashtu and finally composed himself enough to blurt out "SNAKE" in English. This is a Saw-Scale Viper (Echis carinatus). It is one of the most dangerous snakes in the world. In fact, some argue that it is THE most dangerous because of its combination of a potent venom and generally grumpy disposition. It's venom is a highly potent hemotoxin and it has a really short fuse. To tell the truth, it has short-man disease. They only get about 2 feet long at most and I guess it feels like it has something to prove. I didn't get a very good picture because I didn't want to get too close for obvious reasons.

The other snake is this one...

It's an Indian Rat Snake (Ptyas mucosa). It's essentially the Afghani version of a chicken snake. At first, we thought it might be an Asiatic cobra (Naja oxiana), but it's not. It's about 5 feet long. The Afghan guys who do security here caught it and are keeping it as a pet in a box.

Guns

This post is for Charlie. I asked him what he wanted to see about Afghanistan. Duhhhhhh...guns. Well here you go buddy.

Today, several of the Border Police came over to try out some new machine guns they got and also to train some of their newer soldiers. We were more than happy to arrange the use of our range.

This first video is of them firing the PKM. These weapons are all Russian made. They fire 7.62mm rounds. The commander is giving them a countdown before they fire..."Yo"..."Dwah"...."Drei"...which as you can probably guess is pashto for 1,2,3. I did get to shoot the PKM with them, but it's hard to shoot video and a weapon at the same time. In this video, you can hear the rounds impacting on the metal targets which were between 150 and 300 meters away.

This next video is the same guys firing the AK-47 and the AMD-65. The AMD-65 is a shortened version of the AK-47 and is made in Hungary. Both operate identically and both shoot the same round. I didn't get a chance to shoot one of these but I'm sure I will before I leave here.

More Afghan Roads

I was talking with Mom the other day and told her that it would take about 3 hours to get to Gardez which is about 30 or 40 miles away. She asked why in the world does it take so long?

Here's why....

Mom also wondered if there was anything green here. Here's a short video of us riding through a rice paddy on the way back from Gardez. You can see how bumpy the road is....and this is a good stretch.

Me and My Ride

Hey everybody. Well I got a little break so I thought I would add this one. This is my ride, Bumper # H107. It's an 1151 model uparmored humvee. It's got a lot of factory extras (and a few homemade extras) including Frag 5 armor package, navigation and communication system (think Magellan dash mount GPS on steroids), two radios but no CD player, and A/C believe it or not. The A/C works most of the time. But there ain't one cup holder in the whole thing. I'm thinking about adding spinners to it.

I'm going to bed now....

Camel Cavalcade

I promised Charlie and Luke I would post this. We ran into a temporary road block the other day on the way to Gardez. Can you imagine having pet camels? Well that's pretty much what these are...sort of. These people are Coochies. That's right...I said Coochie on my blog site. I swear that's what they're called. They are nomads that move their herds around and sleep in big tents with their whole family. Their camels, sheep, and goats just follow them around. Well anyway, after a few encouraging words and whacks with a stick from the Coochies, the impediment to movement was resolved and we continued on our way. Is it just me or are the two up front giving us the eye?

On a side note, communication is gonna be a litte difficult for about the next week. I was about to get into a discussion on time differences and stuff, but I haven't gotten enough sleep to figure that out yet. Suffice it to say, my schedule is a little different for a while. Also, we're gonna be doing a little traveling, so I may be out of the loop. I'll holler at everybody when I get a chance. Love you all.