December 4 - 10, 2006
Wow, these weeks are flying by for me. I’m on Week 5 already and everything seems to be a blur. OK, let’s see, where did we leave off on Week 4? Oh yeah, Craig D was due in, the weather was arctic-like, and I was suffering without my super jacket.
Craig D arrived here in Afghanistan about 0700 this morning, the 4th of December. I had been back and forth to the air terminal all night so the phone call on my local cell phone woke me up at 0720. I threw my clothes on and went back to the PAX Terminal for the umpteenth time in the last couple of days and, lo and behold, there stood Craig Dobyns. Not only was it good to see him, but he had supplies, to include my jacket, that he had brought from Kristine.
I gave Craig the quick tour of the area, introduced him to the right people, and got him his NIPR, SIPR, and ID badge all before noon (it took me over a week to get mine). We ate, ran around the base, showed him the shop, and his new living quarters. We finally started unpacking his stuff when Craig told me he FedEx’d some of his and all of my stuff from Bahrain a few days ago. What?! Craig explained that he had too many bags when he transferred planes in Bahrain and he had to FedEx the remaining stuff courtesy of our company. Everything was due to arrive on the 5th of December.
Initially, Craig was not impressed with his plywood 6’ by 12’ room in the “B” Hut next to mine. I had managed to grab three rooms when I initially moved into B Hut #55 (the upper mucky-muck B Huts only have six rooms) and the other two rooms are currently occupied by Ed and Greg. However, once Craig had the opportunity to see some other rooms, his 72 square feet of living space seem to be just fine now. You may remember my discussion of CHUs in the Week 1 memo. There are CHUs (or as they call them here: C Huts) here, but they are few and require an extensive waiting list. Someone has to will them to someone else and in any event, they are not modifiable.
The B Huts are 20’ by 30’ plywood buildings shaped kind of like an old canvas Quonset hut with a door at each end. The outsides are painted that fabulous light Army brown color that has been popular in the last decade and are fitted with a Carrier heater / air conditioner the size of a compact car. The inside of the hut is constructed of unpainted plywood with a 3’ wide hallway separating the three rooms on each side. Each room has a 7’ ceiling and a cheap Afghan carpet on the floor with a plywood bed tall enough to slide your crap underneath. Finally every room has a window that opens (plexi-glas with a wood frame that I have covered with green tape) and a armoire made of particle board. From that point on, personal modifications are added to each individual room. I even have TV cable in my room, but have yet to splurge for a TV, probably because I am not a huge watcher of TV anyway.
One of the things that I have already taken for granted that Craig pointed out was the hand-washing sinks outside of the DFAC. Yes, two sinks with anti-bacterial soap sitting all over them are attached to the OUTSIDE back wall of the DFAC. You are expected to wash your hands before entering the facility. This means walking up to them in this blizzard (there is a slight overhang from the roof over the sinks), removing your gloves, washing and then drying your hands, and then entering the DFAC. Simple. However there is a new rule posted above the sinks and it is: ‘Do not turn off the faucets completely. Let them trickle to prevent freezing.’ Yeah I know, amazing. You certainly cannot ignore the spread of bacteria in freezing weather in the middle of a combat zone.
It stopped snowing today and finally just turned cold. Our high yesterday was about 20F. We are expecting the same cold weather over the next couple of days. Our snow went from pliable to downright hard. Everything has frozen. To embrace this new change, I coerced Brian Nelson to go running with me this morning even though it was 14F. He whined and cried the whole three miles although we finished in a pretty respectable time. To somewhat allay his complaining, I bought him a Mocha at our little coffee shop just outside of the PX at the conclusion of our run. Suddenly, all was well.
We went to the FedEx location today to see if the tracking information was correct. Sure enough, it was (my Pashtun is improving weekly). I was presented with my new super jacket and the most beautiful down comforter I had ever laid eyes on. Kris told me she was sending me a decent comforter to add to my fleece blanket, but this was truly more than I had imagined. It’s amazing how little things like a down comforter can truly change your outlook about things. Now I may not have to wear thermal underwear to bed anymore. Yeah I know I described my B Hut with a Carrier heater, but since the weather has been freakin’ cold, our interior temperature peaked at 58F. I like sleeping in cold weather, but that temperature is neither cold nor comfortable which creates some challenges. I looked at the thermostat; it was set at 65F and requires some magical key to access it. Today, I submitted a maintenance work order to get the thermostat increased. We’ll see how long that takes.
You know it’s cold when you flush the toilet in a building that is supposed to be heated and the water that flushes the toilet gives off steam. Really! Sure you get steam as you’re doing your business and it is weird wearing a jacket and gloves while inside an indoor bathroom, but one thing that really helps is the 17 layers of toilet paper I place on the seat before sitting down. Those seats radiate the cold right through a couple of layers of toilet paper. Right now having my own personal toilet with my mother-in-law’s Toto heated seat is something I dream about. Wow, how did my forefathers make it in outhouses?!
Speaking of outhouses, the Afghanis here do not have them. They also do not have plumbing or heating. We can view huge mud buildings (multiple houses in a kind of tri-plex or more configuration) and occasionally see locals coming and going in and out of their buildings. I do not know what they do for wood as the land is void of any trees. The mountains surrounding us are tree-less as well. I am sure they have some way of staying warm, but to date I have not viewed any smoke or other visual clue to a fire of some sort.
Something else I recently discovered while doing my laundry is using warm or hot water during the cycles. Normally I am a cold-water-only guy to prevent any unwanted effects to my clothing, however cold water freezes easier and faster than hot water. The ice crystals on the washer lid and around the top of the washer drum should have been dead give-aways. When I returned about an hour later, my clothes were cold and very stiff. I recognized the problem right away and contemplated running a hot water rinse over them, but decided I could pry them out and put them into the dryer. Since the dryer already takes forever, would it take longer if your clothes were partially frozen? Hhhmmmm. “Alex, I’ll take What is an Eternity for $1000.”
Hey, someone asked me about a day in the life of Craig in Afghanistan. Well, it goes something like this (I haven’t established a rigid routine yet):
0630-0700 Wake up (0630 on running days)
0700-0800 Shower, Dress, meet the other guys
0800-0830 Breakfast (Class I for you military folks)
0830-0900 Get our stuff together, head to the shop
0900-1130 Work, work, work, FedEx, etc.
1130-1230 Lunch, run by the PX or the Help Desk, etc.
1230-1730 Work, work, work, etc.
1730-1800 Dinner
1830-2100 Find a place to email, follow-up on computer-work
2100-2300 Personal time
2300-0630 Sleep
There, nothing glamorous, but it works (no pun intended). That after-dinner time includes finalizing some of the graphics templating, organizing panels, reviewing orders and upcoming shipments, and the like. Twice a week (Tuesdays and Thursdays) we have a telephonic conference call with our Company (1945 L or 0715 PST). I cannot wait until we get our phone and internet lines hooked up. That will save so much time that we currently spend floating between the MWR (Morale, Welfare & Recreation center), the USO, and or the SPG in search of an open internet line or wireless connection. We schedule the telephone conferences with the J6 in advance so we have a DSN phone to use at their location. Like I said, I am so looking forward to autonomy!
The weather has changed a little. It has been in the low 30s the last two days and the only real noticeable difference is in the bathrooms. Those Chigo’s (heaters in all buildings save my B Hut) crank out enough heat to just keep the frost out of the bathrooms and showers. Although my jaunt to these facilities is a mere 25 meters, it’s worse than unzipping a camping tent in the Cascades in early Spring. I check the temperature outside on my wireless Oregon Scientific weather station and determine if I am going to wear a coat to the shower or bathroom. On a couple of occasions I have worn gloves and a hat. Once I wore my slippers to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Never again; you either put shoes and a coat on or pee in an empty bottle. And on a couple of occasions I have worn my shower shoes (flip-flops) to the shower in the snow. Convenient maybe, however, not very bright. Mostly though, I put on the clothes that I intend on wearing for the day, head to the shower, and put those same clothes back on at the shower building. It cuts down on the amount of stuff to take to the shower and in the case of this weather, makes the most sense.
Alright, this has been an incredibly busy week and as I creep into Week 6, it is very busy as well. I’m gonna have to shut this one down and get it out before I begin to overlap weeks.
Thanks for reading!
Craig
