BEEF STEW!...saved my life

So this week I decided to make some beef stew with the beef from my grandpa's cows (it is the best beef).  My mom so kindly loaded me up last time I was home, and this time I got a package labeled "stew meat."  I  like it when the meat tells me what  I should do with it.

Anyway the stew turned out pretty good, but as I was making it I was reminded of a time when beef stew really did save the day....

My senior year of high school I went to Tajikistan for the fall semester to live with my best friend Kelsi and her family while her father was on an assignment with the U.S. government.  While we were there we did online classes, joined a youth group, went to some embassy activities, attended a Marine corps ball,  hung out with a few really neat families, and went long-boarding and bowling a lot.  We did get to make some really neat trips with her family too.  There were a lot of historic sights around that we would go see and markets on the weekends.  Also, the closest ACT available was in Abu Dhabi so we HAD to make a little excursion over there too....dang.   But this story is about our trip through the Pamir Mountain Range along the Tajik-Afghanistan border.  We were travelling to this little town that took us two days of driving along a really sketchy dirt road..... where this was a common warning sign, there were bridges made of scrap wood or metal that I was sure would not hold a car as we drove over,and young armed boys patrolling the border asking for a cigarette.

Because the trip was so long we stayed in a hostel? at the halfway point where we had dinner, explored a little, and then played skip-bo by candle light (although I some how remember that not being necessary).    So  we continued on our trip and really had a great time.   The scenery there was absolutely beautiful with huge gray rock mountains coming right down to  meet the glacier water river that has a misty teal color.   We got to see a lot of neat things on that trip and some of my favorite memories from the whole stay.   However, on our way back we had a slightly unpleasant experience, where the beef stew actually comes into play (finally!).  We stayed in the same hostel thing and were fed dinner again.  This time as we ate dinner, one of us found a hair in our food,  and then another one of us did, and then kelsi cut  open a piece of her food and found a little meal worm.. or something.  The hairs were bad, but the worm was too much to handle, but we were hungry. Kelsi and I, trying not to be rude, played around with our food for a while and then left the dining area (which was also great because they were kind enough to turn on some tajik soap opera or something and it was getting weird) and headed outside to go "explore some more."  

 Really, we were just heading outside to eat some of Kelsi's father's, Kim, MRE's and one of them happened to be beef stew.   Maybe we just hadn't eaten very good food in the last few days, but those MRE's tasted like heaven in pre-packaged bag.   The beef stew was amazing and there were definitely enough calories in it to last me a while.... just like they are designed to do.   Beef stew actually became a little slogan of ours--didn't make any sense but to this day I sometimes randomly yell "BEEF STEW!"  I think we even made a movie about it.  Maybe it is on youtube, maybe it is not.

Do you ever start a story and it ends up being really long and turns out to not be a very good story.... ya, that just happened.  Sorry.

peace and blessings from Dubai