Afghanistan? Really?

So this whole story started about two weeks ago when I got back to the office after Xmas vacation. I was filtering through the pile of e-mails in my inbox and saw one from my boss that was titled "Opportunities in Afghanistan". Interested, I opened it up and saw that ATCO (our parent company) was shorthanded on engineering support to complete some contracts they have at Kandahar Airfield (KAF) and needed volunteers from Nasittuq to help out. Shortly after reading the e-mail, Jim came into my office to announce he was going and scheduled to leave the following week. While I was definitely interested in going, the time frame seemed too rushed, I didn't want to pick up and leave the country in less than a week. I'm too much of a planner for that.

When I started talking to people about it, the general consensus was that I had to go; that this was a great opportunity. While I absolutely agreed, I still didn't want to leave so quickly. I decided to give ATCO a call to discuss it and see if I could leave later, closer to the end of the month. They agreed and I scheduled my departure for January 24th. The deal we struck is that I will work for them in Afghanistan for 3 months and then I'll get a paid month of leave before returning to Nasittuq. It should give me a good opportunity to do some travelling before coming home.

The last couple of weeks have been understandably hectic. I've been trying to get my life in order so that I can basically walk away from it for 4 months without anything getting screwed up. The biggest thing was trying to find someone to take care of my house for me while I'm gone. I think I really lucked out that Lisa is going to be back in Ottawa for basically the same time period that I'll be gone. I'm pretty happy that worked out so well.

Anyways, I hope I've thought of everything. I'm sitting here in the airport waiting for my flight to Toronto. Once I'm there I'll catch an Air Emirates flight directly to Dubai. I'm pretty excited about that one, I get to fly on an A380! Unfortunately I'll be travelling in the belly of the plane with the rest of the cattle and not in one of the nice business class pods upstairs. The first class passengers actually get private cabins and have access to showers.

Looking forward to getting to Dubai, but I'll only be there for about 12 hours before I fly out to Kandahar and I would imagine after a 13 hour flight I'll be pretty bagged.

Can't wait to get started!