Hokistan Photos 2
Pictures from some more outings
Views of the city on the way to Pristina
I think these stoplights are for decoration only because they sure don't seem to matter to the drivers.
Common style of house in the rural areas
These are the sea huts we live in
The esteemed hospital/clinic I work at
This is a photo from the hospital of Mt. Duke. It looks more impressive in person, but I certainly wouldn't recommend planning a vacation here just to view it. Take my word for it...
My neat and tidy room. I made my be to strict military standards.
Picture of the countryside on our way to do some medical mission work for civilians.
A church on the road trip.
We located ourselves inside of a Kosovar school to do our medical work. We provided medical, dental, optometry, and pharmacy to the civilians.
Another picture of one of the classrooms. This was the one I worked in and appeared to be for younger kids.
Anothe classroom picture. They had recently gotten new windows installed here, and I was told that this is one of the nicer schools in the province.
This is a picture of one of the nurses helping me to provide medical care. The other doctor wasn't able to make it with me.
I'm pretty good at reading body language, and this lady's thinking that she definitely wants her picture taken with me...
Clearly, this girl doesn't want her picture taken. I'm pretty perceptive, huh?
After I took the picture, I took my cookie back!! Just kidding.
I got to treat this whole family. Only one wasn't camera-shy, but I'll let you guess which one...
She said she'd vote for me in my takeover. At least that's what the translator told me she said.
OK, kids, smile. Oops, let's try that again. At least grandpa smiled with me.
Yes, even worlds apart, Spider-Man continues to unite different cultures. I'm thinking this kid could be the class clown, which is why we probably got along good.
Time to leave for the day. The kids hung around to get free food and candy from us.
I think this is called a "church," but I'm not sure. Been a while since seeing one...
I can just imagine the Kosovo planning meeting when they decided to blow a hole through this one isolated rock rather than lay the tracks on the other side.
If you could get a closer look, you'd see that there is no regard to traffic laws...
The black grids are the results of their controlled field burns. The smoke got so bad throughout the region that you couldn't see the mountains outside of the hospital on many days. I'm not sure when Al Gore is coming to lecture them on global warming.
This is the entrance to a small cave in Kosovo. I went to tour it with some aviators in Eagle company that day. After a long and painful day with those guys, I earned a set of wings and am now part of their company (which had more fun than my current company, Med Falcon).
Col. Montgomery making sure that I'm staying with the group in the cave...
Unlike US cave tours, in Kosovo they allow you to touch the formations and take as many pictures as you want.
After listening to their "Deliverance" threats all day, I realized the safest situation for me was to not let any of these guys stand behind me. This plan was made difficult when the cave experienced a power failure for a few minutes.
Some more cave formations
CW2 Shane Hesse (on left) took a small group up to get a tour of the Apache gun ship. This is by far the most needed accessory for deer hunting. I was able to meet up again with Shane a week later, and I got to go through a pre-flight check and then start the APU, the jet engine that then fires up the two 1400HP Apache engines. I got to sit in the cockpit and look through the infrared and video goggles. Most definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience...
Another view of the Apache
Group shot of myself, Col Montgomery, and SSG Schneider at the Italian camp. The pilots had to leave us there for a few hours, so Schneider decided to entertain us with a few of his favorite showtunes.