Cold and dark. Rain and mud and dust.

The days are on the warm side, quickly rising towards the 90^s these days at peak. The sun beats hard on the unprotected noggin, and scorches the neck and arms. The mornings, though, are still nicely cool, and a couple of sweatshirts are needed to keep in the body heat while I sit in an open space towards the middle of camp and type and try to surf.


I’d complain more about the dust, but that won’t take care of the dust. Heck, I’ll complain anyway, ‘cuz that’s what we do here. We also curse like drunken sailors here (making up for the lack of Navy personnel this far inland), ‘cuz that’s just guys being guys away from the moderating influences of home. The dust is everywhere and all of the time, unless it’s raining like a son of a bitch (that one slipped).

I had some errands after work yesterday – first a walk to the barber shop via one of the project locations. I wanted to see what level of demolition might be required once we get the site to accommodate our proposed improvements. This put me down around the poo pond (I could have said shit pond , but contained myself) (d’oh!) where you can probably imagine the smell if not the scene.

Just off wind is the barber shop, where I cranked the tunes while waiting an hour for one of three chairs and one of three Slavic barberwomen, who chatted and laughed in their own tongue while I reminisced about other, more comfortable barber chairs in other, more comfortable surroundings.

Now armed (or headed) with an appropriately short mop (one on the sides, three on top, don’t you dare touch the beard), I started the walk back north, trying new short cuts that would direct me to the PX. I had a list, and found a third of it. Then added another third, made up of the stuff that looked good at the time. This is a typical PX experience. I would have liked a broom, but settled for a six pack of Lowenbrau N.A.

And “settled” is the term, as Lowenbrau has never gotten good, with or without alcohol.

While standing in line at the registers, chatting with an Army Sergeant, we noticed an increased tap, tap, tapping on the metal roof of the store. Since it’s a rather large space, we couldn’t tell if it was just a couple of big raindrops, or actually a shower. As it happened, it was neither. Instead, my first step outside greeted me with 30-40 mile per hour winds that nearly ripped the door from my hand. The rain was sideways at this time and treated my shopping bags as little sails.

I pressed on, as it was only a kilometer or so back to the hooch. Around five steps into it, I was pleasantly soaked to the skin and unpleasantly bootsodden with rather sticky mud. More specifically, it’s loess. Less specifically, it’s oozy, sloppy, but not too slick. However, it was everywhere, as Kandahar Air Field does not drain, ever. When it rains, water puddles everywhere. When it rains big, like on the night described, the puddles are really big. Wading through them seemed the most expedient solution, so pressing on was pressing on. And I let the winds in my Lada bag sails guide me home, where I strung some of the 550 cord I just picked up and draped my sopping clothes to dry, sitting on the rack and sipping on a lukewarm Lowenbrau N.A.

Hoist a real one for me, would you?