Our OMLT has been living and working together for over a month now and in that time have gotten to learn a lot about each other and the small group that we have created. It has been humorous to observe as there have been what I shall call hetero deployment couples. There are some people that it seems as though they are almost married, that if you see one odds are the other is not to be found too far away. Odds are I might be part of a hetero couple, but I would never admit to it, because that would be a little fruity! Another fun aspect of the team building is some of the nick-names that have come from working with one another. Some of the tamer names are 'Master P', 'Doc', or 'Lumpy'. One is a simple play off of his last name, and a couple of names are probably not appropriate to share outside of the team circle.
Because of our training we have been spending a lot of time in the classroom learning, or at least attempting to learn 'Dari', one of the primary languages spoken in Afghanistan. From some of the frustrations of learning such a foreign language one phase has become part of an innocent inside joke. "Chai Menoshi" in Dari simply means "Would you like some Tea (Chai)?" For our team 'Chai Menoshi' has now become a Noun, Verb, Adverb, or Pronoun. Much like the classic television show "The Smurfs" used the word smurf, five times in one sentence we do the same thing with the phrase Chai Menoshi. Mostly though Chai Menoshi has become a positive expression replacing the word "cool" or "good" in typical English sentences.
I'm hoping that at the end of the deployment I will be able to share some of the practical jokes that have taken place taken place during the deployment. Right now I know of at least one that is on-going that I dare not write about for fear victim(s) might find out!
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