TRAVEL TIME

Another busy couple of weeks. It is amazing that there are times when I don’t even have time to post an update. The week before last was spent trying to get ready for my next trip while also hosting the Operations Officer for the unit that will be relieving us. It was hard to balance giving him the information he needed while also making sure all the projects were in order for when I was gone. I have a new Assistant Operations Office named Ensign Heather Hess since we had to send LT Wainwright out on a new mission. She is getting up to speed, but Ben was only able to give he one day of turnover so she has had to learn on the fly. Heather is from North Carolina and has been with the Battalion for just over a year now. She loves horses and being in the outdoors so the Seabees is a good fit for her. She has been doing great since I have been gone and I know she will continue to do well in the Navy.

The trip began at midnight after working all day and it has been interesting to say the least.
Week One of our trip saw us in the Horn of Africa. For those that don’t know, the Horn is the north-eastern portion of Africa and includes all the garden spots such as Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, and Djibuti. Our first stop was Kenya to go check on our water well mission. This ranks up there with one of the most interesting life experiences I have had. The well team is drilling near a town called Garissa which is a good 6+ hour drive from the capital of Nairobi. Nariobi itself was fairly clean, but even in the main city there was lifestock walking the streets and an atmosphere of people carrying everything they owned. I saw a bunch of people pushing the two wheeled carts full of goods to sell or almost like a rustic fedex. Once we were outside the city the population dropped significantly and it turned into small villages along the countryside. We would go for an hour without seeing anyone and then a small group of huts would appear. There was lifestock all over the place to include beef (very thin), goats, sheep, camels, and stray dogs. There was the occasion small Africa-looking animal that you would see on National Geographic, but I was not sure what it was. The personality of the people changed as we went farther north as well. I was talking to the driver and he said that the majority of the country was very Christian influenced, but as you got closer to Somalia it turned Muslim. You could see the change almost immediately as we passed through one small town. The churches were replaced with mosques, the dress of the people went from Western(ish) style to the women wearing berkas and covering themselves. The people almost started to glare vice glance at us as well. The first well they completed was in a town called Raya and it was everything you would imagine in a magazine. There was one small school and the rest of the structures were made of sticks and mud. The people literally had nothing at all except themselves. They had been walking for miles every single day for some water and now they can go to the tap and fill up their buckets in town. That is what makes me proud to be a Seabee. Even with significant flooding in the region which prevented the team from moving to their next location they were able to deliver food for the world food bank and even rescue some stranded villagers. A great mission.

From there we went to Djibouit for a couple days and saw the progress they are making on the school bathroom facility and dormitory renovation. This time we were able to have dinner at a local Ethipoian restaurant which served an authentic dinner complete without silverware. We had to eat with our fingers and share the same plate with the group. After dinner they had a musical program highlighting the local dances of Ethiopia.

It is hard to explain, but they focus on moving their shoulders and necks in a rhythmic almost painful way. As luck would have it the last dance included attempts by us to join them and it was not pretty. None of us could get our shoulders to do what they were doing, but it was a great experience. As we flew out of Africa we spent 12 hours in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and had the opportunity to take a bus downtown and eat at a hotel. The food was not very good, the hotel was substandard by our normal likes, and their were beggers everywhere. Addis is a much larger town and it had a big, distant feel, but there were still cows tromping through the main streets. We were glad to get in the plane and continue our trek to Spain.

It was really neat - my friend Erik Karlson was in Djibouti the same time I was. We ran into each other in Bahrain and now Djibouti. It just reminds me on how small the world is.