Happy New Year!

Happy New Year from Afghanistan!

This will be the first year that I am not with my wife during the entrance of the New Year, and the first time her and I will not share a kiss to start the New Year off wishing for luck and happiness.

I can't help but wonder what changes this change in routine will bring. And I can't help but appreciate all the times we spent New Year's together, even those where our "New Year's Eve" was a dinner at home and falling asleep before 12 midnight.

I can't go into a lot of detail about being here, but the hours are long, and the work can be frustrating, irritating, and interesting all in the same day. It takes a special kind of person to work here, and an even more.....special person to thrive here. Note I said "thrive" instead of "succeed" or "do a good job".

I wonder what the New Year will bring? I have watched how the Health Care reform has turned into a circus, despite efforts from so many. And the news brings info that we can expect health care costs to rise. It's simple, those in control, on both sides, don't want anything to change, especially how much they make off of US.

I will travel home in the near future, even though I look nothing like any terrorist, the simple fact of the country I am departing from will cause me much grief during my travel home, I imagine. And the simple thing of packing to go home. Here, it is simply a part of everyday life to carry at least one decent-sized knife, unusually two. I will have to be careful on my way home, and hope they are not confiscated from my checked baggage, and hope my baggage makes it.

It will be nice to see green again, even if it is winter in the US. There is very little green here, and if there are trees and grass surviving, they are covered with dust. I hope it will be cool enough for a fire, I would love to sit by a fire once more. With luck, my wife will join me to share a few quiet moments by the fire, away from the chaos of this world, and the constant peril that is Afghanistan.