The sharp knife of a short life

I am not naive enough to believe that I was going to come to Afghanistan for a year and not lose someone I knew.  I could have never imagined it would be Daren.  He was so full of life I didn’t think a full head on collision with a speeding train could stop his heart.  In a world where most people I meet can seem very one dimensional; they’re a soldier and not much else, Daren was like one of those pop up books with the gorgeous pictures that jump out and grab your attention and maybe even has some sound and lights and somehow the batteries just never need to be recharged.

“I knew he wouldn’t die, because his life was like the roots of a tree that went miles into the soil and miles around its trunk and came up in my cousins in their faces and their voices and their character.  I didn’t think you kill a tree that big.  Not even God could kill a tree that big.” - Donald Miller discussing his uncle’s death in A Million Miles in a Thousand Years

Daren making me laugh on Halloween.  I had asked him to pose with some decorations that my friend Carri had donated.  

I had met Daren Hidalgo a time or two before when he first got in country before pushing out to his COP.  I vaguely remember making a dumb joke about Hidalgo and that being the name of a horse (thank God he didn’t hold it against me).  Then a few weeks later on Halloween night he and some other soldiers from his company volunteered.  It was my first holiday away from home and he made me forget that I was in Afghanistan.  By the end of the night I thought holidays will not be so bad with my new family out here.  He was hysterical.  His huge dimples reminded me of an athlete who has huge muscles because they work out so much, he had these huge dimples from smiling so much.  Everyone was drawn to him like mosquitoes to a blue light, they can’t quite pinpoint why but they were captivated.

He was at KAF because he had escorted the belongings of a fallen soldier in his platoon.  That night we talked about death and how no matter how much ‘training” he had, he was human and felt emotions about his buddy dying but that he had to be strong to lead his men.  That’s the kind of guy Daren was, he always, without a doubt, put others first.  

We spent a lot of time that week just talking about everything: growing up in PA and WV (we both liked pepperoni rolls), being Catholic, choosing the military or me choosing to come out here, and especially about missing our families and friends.  We debated whose mom sent better care packages.  He insisted his mom was “The Queen of Care Packages” because she had so much practice with him and his brothers all in the military.  He said she clearly topped all other care packages because sometimes she even put in magazines with hot girls in them.  He was so proud of his brothers Miles and Jared.  He joked about the “rank race” between them all.  He claimed it wasn’t really that fair because Jared was in the Marines and they have different criteria for promotion.  He loved his sister and getting to be an uncle.  We shared stories about our nephews and the joy of being able to give them back after playing with them.  He also talked about learning Spanish and how one of the most favorite moments he ever had was when he finally learned Spanish well enough to have his first real, actual, deep, involved conversation with his Dominican grandparents.  

Although I may have only known him a few months, I feel like I knew him for years.  Time plays some funny tricks out here.  Daren brought out the best in me and in everyone he knew.  He encouraged me to write.  My entire post about “No Washers Available,” was about him.  I said I was feeling uninspired and he told me he wrote every day.  I said I’d feel stupid I had nothing exciting to write.  He read me one of his journal entries and then told me even if I just wrote about being pissed there were no washers available I should write something down because life’s too fast you don’t want to miss it.  So many people spout logic about live life like you are dying or make the most of each moment, but Daren is one of the only people I’ve known to actually accomplish it.  I talked about trying to learn different languages so I could greet every person that came in the center, but that Pashto was too difficult.  He said, “You’ll learn it, I know you, you care too much.”  He made me want to live up to what he saw in me.  I understand why his soldiers loved him so much.

He was so funny and full of life.  Soldiers from his unit are always coming through the center when they rotate into KAF and Shaw (one of his soldiers) told me a couple weeks ago that he had to wake Daren up and he said, “LT get up!” and that Daren immediately sat up and karate chopped his way out of his sleeping bag.  Shaw said it was hysterical.  I can picture it, and it makes me laugh.    Gentry who volunteered with Daren at the center and was in his company said, “He could always bring a smile to anyone’s face and it was contagious.  You couldn’t help but be around him and be in a great mood.  He was one of the best leaders I have known in the Army.  He never looked at anyone any different regardless of rank.”  Another soldier Cooper said, “He was a hell of a man, and everyone that knew him is gonna miss him.”  My roommate/coworker/friend Sarah York said, “You know I’ve only known 4 men in my entire life that I consider GREAT men.  The kind of man that every man should aspire to be.  Hidalgo was one.”

I feel incredibly blessed to have known Daren.  I am positive that anyone who met him will say that.  I’ve talked to soldiers in his company the last few days and it is as if I’m trying to ingest every last tiny morsel of Daren I can, trying to hear every last story and have every last image of him making every one smile and laugh.  

His last messages were that he was going to be coming through KAF soon for some scheduled maintenance.  He was supposed to come on 21FEB.  On 20FEB11 Daren was killed by an IED.  I got a text that night at 2324 from my coworker, “Showtime is 0340 for 1 US Army.”  I had no idea how that text would impact me.  As a USO staff we try to have at least one person attend every ramp ceremony for a fallen soldier at KAF.  I had been to about 4 or 5 previously, and since I just finished up my shift, it was my turn.  I didn’t see the text until 0300.  It was bitterly cold that night and I was tired and honestly did not feel like going, but knew I would be honoring a fallen soldier so I got in the truck and drove to the flight line.  I was wearing a ridiculous hat with flaps on it that I felt a lil funny for wearing, so I took it off when I arrived.  Soldiers from every country were chitchatting quietly before the ceremony.  I spotted the general who is in charge of KAF, the one who watched me sing like an idiot to Kix Brooks a couple months before.  I looked and saw the MRAP waiting on the flightline to bring forth the casket.  As I looked around with my hands in my pockets fidgeting to stay warm I saw the 6 soldiers assembling to walk out to carry the casket and I stopped moving, I stopped looking, I stopped everything when I saw their unit patch: “TOUJOURS PRET”  Always Ready.  My heart sank into the pit of my stomach, that was Daren’s unit.  Although I wouldn’t allow myself consciously to acknowledge that it could be him; somewhere, somehow I knew something wasn’t right.  This was going to be someone I knew.  I walked out onto that runway and stood in line at attention across from a line of soldiers.  I was concocting in my head the angry e-mail I would send Daren.  I would yell at him for not responding to my e-mail from 2 days prior and making me worry that it was him.  I’d ask about the deceased and hope he wasn’t close with him.  I’d see if he was coming soon.

The wind was whipping through the flightline.  The speaker for the mic stand was swaying.  I couldn’t see the chaplain but I heard him speak some bible passage that was meant to give us hope that the deceased is in a better place.  Sometimes they say the name of the fallen soldier, and other times they don’t.  This time he did.  The chaplain said, “First Lieutenant” and my mind sighed with relief because I had momentarily still thought Daren was a Second Lieutenant, but then I remembered he had just been promoted, “Daren” and I knew it right then and there, there are not many Darens, it was him, “Hidalgo.”  Honestly I’m not even sure I heard the Hidalgo part.  I gasped aloud and saw the worried look of the soldier across from me whom I could tell was thinking, “This chick is gonna lose it.”  I had been to ramp ceremonies before, I usually spent my time praying for their family and friends who knew them.  I would look out at the fallen soldier’s unit with pity, and ache in my heart for their pain.  Always in the back of my head, I was thanking God I didn’t know the deceased.  My worst nightmare was imagining attending one of those for my friends.  My nightmare was coming true and there was nothing I could do to stop it.  I quickly told myself to get the F over it because it was happening and the ceremony would be over before I knew it and I would miss it.  I would miss honoring him.  I pulled it together and I stood there and I saluted him.  I watched the soldiers hold him while holding their arms around each other’s backs.  I can still vividly see his steel casket with the flag draped over, the two female soldiers at the front, the one male soldier who looked no older than 19, the gleam off the second soldier on the right’s gold wedding ring as he grasped the back of the blouse of his fellow casket carrier so fiercely his knuckles were white, the fancy writing of Mississippi on the back tail of the plane, the slow haunting music of Amazing Grace.  I couldn’t bring myself to turn my head and watch him be placed into the plane.  I stared out into nothingness.  Then it was over.  We were dismissed.  I thought this can’t be happening, it’s not real, this is a nightmare, I’ll wake up.  I looked back three times on my walk back across the flight line, just to make sure the plane was still there and the soldiers were still there, and this was still my life.  I made it to the car and immediately dialed one of my coworkers, “It was Daren” was all I could get out.  

It was a shocking way to find out.  But I would not want to change it.  I got to stand there and honor my friend.  I got to give him one of the first goodbyes.   I got to stand there and honor him not just as a representative of the American public or as a USO staff or as a DOD civilian, but as his friend, someone who knew the man who just sacrificed his life.  I will always be grateful for that.  Being over here I don’t get a chance to attend his funeral or go to a showing and see pictures and talk to his friends, all these things that bring solace in a time of a grieving.  I’ve struggled with what to write in this post.  Finally, yesterday morning I woke up with the feeling that this post isn’t about me, it’s about sharing with whomever will listen what an amazing man I came to know.  I have loved reading other posts Daren’s friends have put on his Facebook.  It brings a smile to my face to get to know the non-deployed Daren.  In each note on Facebook, each comment on a news story online or interview on a news station, people always say the same thing  about Daren, it’s about what Daren did for them, what Daren did to make them happy to bring a smile to their face, because that’s what Daren did.  He lived for others.  He died for others too.

I spoke with the brave soldier who was blown up next to Daren.  He said that after the explosion while Daren was lying there he was joking with him the whole time.  He was telling Daren to cut it out, but Daren wouldn’t stop.  That’s the kind of guy he was, trying to make everyone else feel better  and laugh and making sure everyone else was okay, while he was the one hurting.  I know that’s what he’d be doing today.  If somehow he could pop down here just for a lil while, he’d be telling jokes and trying to cheer us all up.

The last time I saw Daren one of my favorite earrings had fallen out and he had helped me look for it, and we found the stud but not the back to it.  I have since then found another back and still wear the earrings.  The day after Daren was killed I worked all day and held it together.  I knew he’d want me to.  I did my job and helped the troops with a mostly smiling face.  That night after my coworkers and I locked up, I stood at the front desk where Daren had sat and helped so many days and I lost it.  I began crying.  My entire day of pent up emotion came crashing out in waves of tears and sobbing.  Then I heard the tiniest sound, just a lil ‘ping.’  I looked down at the counter and there was my right earring, the same one I had lost and Daren found.  I looked for the earring back on the floor and in my coat.  It was nowhere to be found.  I touched my ear again and broke out in a huge shit eating grin.  I looked to the sky and said, Damnit Daren, I’m running out of backs.  I shook my head and laughed, with tears streaming down my face and one earring in I whispered to him, thank you, thank you for reminding me you’re still here.

I’ll be seeing you.

Hope

Every Saturday on KAF (Kandahar Air Field) there is the bazaar.  Local Afghanis set up booths and sell everything from belly dancing outfits to burkas.  The bazaar begins at noon and before then the young boys can attend a school.  A friend of mine actually helped out with it once and loved every second of it!  I originally wanted to help with it but found out that it takes a crazy amount of training, and I’m pretty sure they don’t allow females.  After school, the children then help their fathers run the booths.

A couple weekends ago I arrived just as the bazaar was beginning.  As I was wandering through the booths, I saw an older Afghani man bending down seemingly enraptured by something his son was saying and gesturing him to continue.  I blocked out the rest of the bazaar that was shouting bargaining prices, and I heard the little boy in his tiny child voice with a thick Middle Eastern accent continue, “G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P.” 

It would be such a common scene in an American household at about 5:30 p.m.  Dad returning from work and his son rushing to proudly recite the alphabet he learned in school that day…only,  I was in Afghanistan, in the middle of a warzone, where just a few days prior people there had shot a rocket onto the very base I was standing on to try to hurt us.

So many people question why we are in Afghanistan, and if it will be worth it, and don’t they hate us, but for that one moment the rest of the doubting world was silenced and I was filled with a sense of hope.  Hope that this boy instead of growing up in a culture that breeds distrust and hatred of Americans, he would feel comfort and strength from our presence and come to crave freedom and work for it.  That’s why I believe education is the most powerful tool we possess.  I hope that we use it more.

The Kandahar Kid

This is a story I helped write!  (and I took the picture).  It is on USO's homepage.  It is about a soldier who got to witness his first child being born in the states via Skype.  So far it's been my proudest moment of working for the USO.  :)

Here is the link: The Kandahar Kid

REPRESENT

Through the four years of my education at Central Catholic High School a few things were repetitiously ingrained in my brain:

1. The sun shines inside you and me.
2. Always leave enough room for the Holy Spirit while dancing
3. You represent CCHS when you are in uniform, no matter where you are, so do us proud.

While working as a recruiter at Marshall, the same mantra was in place.  I represented Marshall to students who may have never even heard of it, so I needed to make Marshall proud.

Now in Afghanistan, I represent so many things.  I represent the USO.  Even when in a PX buying laundry detergent, someone will say, hey USO girl.  I represent WV.  Countless soldiers have told me they have never been to WV, and they’ll ask what’s it like.  When I go to big social functions, a different nation’s DFAC (dining facility) or to the French compound I represent the entire United States!  It’s sometimes exhausting to constantly feel “on.” 

That’s why I’m so glad to have some genuine friends here.  That way I can belt out any song that pops in my head, or horribly imitate Shakira’s dance moves with some mangled gyrations, or wear bunny ears for no reason all with lots of laughter and little judgement.

In other news, I am SUPER excited to be going to Uganda at the end of this month to see Natalie Committee!  When Natalie first told me she wanted to go to Uganda I was so excited for her!  I told her I’d come visit, but at the time I thought, yeah I have no money to do that.  I’m so happy that I’ve been blessed to now be able to visit and see the work she’s been doing.  When Natalie was gearing up to go to Uganda and I was first going through my interview process for this position, my sister Gretchen was in India, and I was bursting at the seams to tell someone who would think what I was doing was sane!  Natalie was my go to gal.

I’m also looking forward to experiencing a new culture, possibly going on a safari and just playing with kids.  It’s kind of odd here to never see a kid, never hear a cry or giggle while at the restaurant or at the PX.  Most times I don’t realize it, but then after I call Ang or Erin and hear the chattering of kids in the background, I remember.  I’ve babysat all my life, then was a live-in nanny for Christian and Faith, and proceeded to live a block down the street from them for the past 2 years.  I miss chasing them, laughing with them, and hearing their crazy stories.

Three and half months in and it’s still super hard to say goodbye to people.  Since we are a large base, troops that are redeploying (going home) or just getting here before going downrange (out to FOBs or COPs) are usually stuck here for a week or two.  They usually don’t have missions to go on, so they are free most of the day.  Some will volunteer at the center.

So just imagine getting a new coworker, work directly beside them at a shared desk for 10 hours a day for 2 weeks straight, train them, develop a repertoire where you know what tasks they prefer and which you prefer, eat meals with them, joke together, talk about family, friends, and your favorite things, maybe even experience a bonding experience like a fire alarm (or rocket attack) where you have to stand outside in the cold for a half hour.  Now say goodbye and probably never see them again…EVER.  It’s a little jarring.  I always wonder who will stay in my life and who will slowly inevitably fade away.   What’s the quote?  Even though they may stay for only a moment they can leave an impression on you that lasts a lifetime. 

"Real life"

I believe that the kind of people you surround yourself with is the kind of person you want to become.  Obviously, you share some similarities with them, some common interests, or you probably wouldn’t’ have met them to begin with.  I look at my closest group of friends and not one of them is exactly like me, because I admire qualities in them that I don’t possess.  They all have qualities that I strive to obtain. 

In elementary school I was in a class of 10.  We were all friends; if not for any other reason than necessity, there were only 10 of us.  Then once we arrived in the big scary world of high school there were choices!  What lunch table you sat at became your label as flagrantly as if it were stamped on your forehead.  My girls were nicknamed, “The Jesusans.”  Now if we were nicknamed The Jesusans at a Catholic high school, you know we must have been some good kids.  Through those pivotal adolescent years they were my stabilizing force, my moral compass, my peer pressure, my sounding board, in short, my life.  They were my girls I went to with every question, and we experienced every coming of age moment together.  I am so thankful that it was those girls; I know I chose wisely. :)

Some of The Jesusans

Then came public university time.  Without knowing anyone but my sister, I was in a brand new world.  This was the time to truly “find myself.”  Without the preconceptions of my high school persona, I could invent myself.  The first two years I stumbled around with different friends, but I think I finally found my footing by Junior year and had my core group of close friends.  Again, they shaped and molded the person I became.

All throughout this time of course I had the constant encouragement and love of my mother, father, sisters and extended family.  More than anyone else, through their own example (and basically not putting up with any of my other bullsh*t) they have been the ones to keep me in check to ensure that I am open-minded, slow to anger, quick to forgive, caring, compassionate, happy, and humorous.

So now that I am in Afghanistan, thousands of miles from every single person that has shaped who I am…who am I?  I was eating brunch today with a new friend when he asked me, “So what are you like in real life?”  Real life…real life, what is that?  It seems everyone over here uses the term, it just rolls off the tongue when referring to life where you pay bills and live in an apartment where you have your own bathroom, and go to work during the day, and make dinner at night, and oh yeah, aren’t in an active warzone.  Anyway, I started thinking, am I different here than stateside?  If I am, then why?  According to all those pretty cards and magnets and calendars and facebook statuses, I should “be true to myself and not apologize” or some witty variant of that.

It’s just an odd world to be without anyone who knows me and more importantly has played an integral part in what I have become.  To add to that, the people that do know me are amazingly supportive, but they haven’t been where I am, they can’t truly 100% grasp what is going on.  So the question remains how do I stay true to my genuine self and not get lost by adapting in this crazy world.

Well, sorry, if you’re expecting a emotionally gripping Hallmark movie conclusion to this post, because I don’t have the answers.  I’m still trying to figure it all out.  What I can come up with so far is to surround myself with people here who mirror people I know back home.  It wasn’t a conscious effort.  It just sort of happened, but when I talk to someone and think, wow, they really remind me of Luke, or that sounded like Emily, or they just checked my attitude like Beth, that’s my reassuring sign.  For better or worse, I’m still me.

 And I choose to be the best that I can be.

I choose to be authentic in everything I do.

My past don't dictate who I am. 

I choose.

Because you never know where life is gonna take you 

and you can't change where you've been.

But today, I have the opportunity to choose.

Release the guilt about why things happen the way they did 

cuz life is gonna do what it do.

And everyday, I have the opportunity to choose.

-India.Arie “I Choose”

Love actually is all around.

I was feeling pretty down about Christmas.  Being in Afghanistan can do that to you.  I was missing my family and friends.  I was trying to decide whether or not to go to mass tomorrow morning.  Part of me wanted to go to experience Christmas mass in Afghanistan with other soldiers who are missing their family and friends and praying for peace and holding onto that precious glimmer of faith...while the other half (the louder more obnoxious half) was screaming: just try to forget it's Christmas at all and pretend it's just another day!  I knew that living and working here would be a lesson in selflessness, but man, I wanted to be selfish!  I wanted my parents to send me presents, I wanted some sort of surprise, I wanted a grand Christmas just for me!  With none of that occurring, I was feeling crappy and started getting ready for bed.  I also put, "I'll Be Home for Christmas" on repeat on my laptop.  Very bad idea, very very bad idea.  Have you really listened to those lyrics?  It's depressing!  I'll be home for Christmas if only in my dreams...I mean that's the stuff of popping some sleeping pills and trying to forget the next two days!  Anyway, I decided to check my e-mail and had one from my friend Steph.  She wrote the following:


I know you're probably having a really hard time right now with Christmas being tomorrow...I know I would be. But I'm glad you decided to work tomorrow instead of sitting in your room by yourself. I know you will make the Soldiers so happy on Christmas just by being your happy, bubbly self. And that's what they need now, but you do too. You guys need one another on the holidays.


She's right.  That line, "you guys need one another on the holidays," hit me like a sack of bricks.  I immediately thought of all my guys and how excited they'll be tomorrow and how I can't wait to hug 'em and give 'em a present from the USO.  I thought of how I'll wear some antlers and the Christmas trees I helped re-decorate today will be glowing.  I thought of how they would smile and then I thought of how it would make me smile.  Earlier today a soldier said, hey, can I have a hug, my sister told me I should get a hug for Christmas.  It was funny, so Cindy, my coworker and I gave him and his buddy a hug before they left and they were smiling from ear to ear.  These thoughts  started to reassure me, but not completely lift me out of my funk.


I closed the e-mail and walked down the hallway of my mod (modular housing unit) to the bathroom to get ready for bed and on the way back I saw a pair of combat boots outside a bedroom door.  I saw them earlier and thought why are those there, but ignored it.  This time it hit me.  I think I remember something about shoes outside doors on Christmas...something about St. Nick filling them with goodies!  After a quick google to make sure I wasn't making things up and this was a tradition, I started tearing through my drawers looking for treats from care packages others had sent me.  I found the M&Ms Lauren sent me, the peppermint patties Sarah Y gave me, the granola bar Sarah Y's mom sent me, the candy canes Sara D sent me, the chapstick Sarah R sent me, and the rice krispie treats Ang sent me.  The Rice Krispie treat wrapper had a section to write on it.  I scribbled, "Merry Christmas! Love, St. Nick."  I got so excited to fill those boots!  It filled me with so much giddiness, like a child opening their presents on Christmas!  I got to give someone else the feeling of Christmas.  They could've opened up their door to disappointment, but I got to help renew a lil hope.  

Now maybe I'm totally off course, and they really just had smelly boots, so they put them outside and they're going to say what in the world?! when they open the door and see the candy filled shoes, but maybe, just maybe, they were hoping for some sign of goodness and I confirmed it.  Maybe, God works in mysterious ways, and my horrible mood was first shifted by Steph's email that reminded me of why I'm here and then I was presented with an opportunity to fulfill that work.  Those boots had been there for hours, but I had been to ignorant and too self-involved in my own pity party to really see them.  


Life is full of boots in hallways, these signs that are unobtrusive in our world, but if we just quiet our selfish, busy, skeptical, selves for a little while we can truly see what they are there for.  


Merry Christmas!

Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaky feeling you'll find that love actually is all around. - Hugh Grant in Love Actually

Young American Girl Lost in the Middle East

This would be the headline that would run across the bottom of the screen as the hunky Anderson Cooper would rattle on…from a small town in West Virginia where the local airport has only one gate to the streets of Dubai where she was never seen again…

Stuck in Dubai without a working phone, any of the local money or any idea of what was going on, I started to ponder, I wonder what Facebook profile pic my parents will chose to use on my missing ad.

It all started when I decided to be cheap.  I wanted a cheap ticket to Miami so I could go on a cruise with my parents and sister.  It costs $1000 just to get from Kandahar to Dubai alone, plus the flight from Dubai to Miami; therefore I was pretty dedicated to my mission of a cheap ticket.  I scoured the internet to no avail, until a Special Forces guy volunteered to help me and found a ticket for a really great price!  Mistake #1 NEVER trust a guy in the Special Forces.  The ticket looked simple enough: I’d fly from Dubai to Abu Dhabi then to London then to Miami.  I even read it aloud (Mistake #2 ALWAYS have someone LOOK at the ticket prior to purchasing) to my seasoned veteran world traveling coworkers to make sure it sounded correct to them.  I purchased the tickets and I’m on my way.

I fly out of Kandahar, no problem, get to Dubai at 7:30 pm. Then my Cheap Tickets Itinerary says and I quote:

“Etihad Airways 5529/Economy/BUS/1 hour 20 mins

11:30 pm Dubai

12:50 am Abu Dhabi

Your flight is confirmed.  The airline will assign seats at check-in.

Connect from bus.”

I assumed this meant I go business class (BUS) on a short 1 hour 20 minute FLIGHT to Abu Dhabi and then have to take some shuttle to a different terminal.  I follow the flow of traffic, I even double check with a woman worker at the airport who assures me to go to Abu Dhabi I need to go through customs.  I retrieve my luggage, go through customs, and WHAM!  I’m outside.  Ummmm wait, where’s my connecting flight?

There is no information desk, just some rental car hubs.  I suck in my breath, tell my self to stay calm and go up to the woman who looks the nicest, the Budget counter.  She looks at my itinerary and says, oh this is leaving from Abu Dhabi, you need to take a bus or taxi.  Say what?  (Mistake #3 BUS does not mean Business Class, it means literally a bus, that thing with wheels that transports people).  She said you need to call them.  I explain I don’t have a phone, she says okay I’ll call what’s the number, ummmm I don’t have a number to call.  (Mistake #4 ALWAYS have a phone number for your airline).  I open my laptop to try to google it, and there is no wifi in that part of the airport.  Thankfully, my phone works to text.  I text my coworker, Joan in Afghanistan and ask her to google the number to Etihad, my airline.  Meanwhile the wonderfully sweet Budget worker calls her personal friend who flew Etihad recently and said yeah, you have to take a bus.  Crap.  I don’t have that much time, I can’t miss my flight to London and then my flight to Miami and then I’ll miss the cruise ship!!!!  Deep breath, don’t go there, you can handle this, I repeat silently.

Okay, well where’s the bus station?  “Near Applebees,” she replies.  Dubai is huge, I’m pretty sure there is going to be more than one Applebees, hell there is more than one in the greater Wheeling area!  Budget worker woman lets me use her phone I call Etihad and they say that I don’t go to the bus station, I go to their headquarters on Shegzai Street.  All seems well, but I think more about it and realize, do I really want to jump in a cab with a driver who probably doesn’t speak English in a middle eastern country as a single female by myself and go to this “headquarters” to hop on a “bus” to go to an “airport” all because one strange voice on a phone says, yep that’s what you should do.  I feel like this is a lesson in How to Get Human Trafficked 101. 

I have my trusty coworker Joan text me the phone number of essentially our boss’s boss who lives in Dubai.  I debate on what is the best wording to convey, “Can you help me, I’m an idiot, who is totally screwed, but I swear I’m still a totally competent worker!”  Luckily, she assured me that what the Etihad woman had told me on the phone was correct and this was the correct procedure.  Good, phew, good to go.  Then Budget worker asks me if I have dimars to pay the cab driver.  What?!  I didn’t even think of that.  She assures me it won’t cost more than 100 dimars and shows me where the money exchange place is.  Money exchanged, address in hand, girl with a plan, I’m ready to go.  I look up to figure out the name of the Budget worker who has literally just saved my trip for me, “Grace.”  My saving Grace.  So I’m not so good at always realizing the blessings in my life, but I got the pretty blatant sign big man, thank you God!

In the end, I made the bus, and the connecting flights and spent a blissful cruise week with my mom, dad and Gretchen.  It was exactly what I needed and wanted. 

God Bless you and yours this Christmas season!  May you not ignore the blessings God has provided for you!

Hugging my family in Miami after almost 3 months in Afghanistan.