And around the woods… a little backwards, but nonetheless what we did. I went on a few journeys in the past week, both west and north. Some stories may not be for sensitive ears, of course… but all I have is a little budding gangreen and a broken sinus cavity, and that was from before I left, so it was overall successful…
Just to clarify, the gangreen is still a work in progress. If i nurture it just a little more, I can go to Germany for a week! Sure, I would lose the tip of my thumb, but still… The medic doesn’t think I can do it, says the infection isn’t bad enough. Sounds like a dare to me…
The broken nose makes time number six. I don’t know how I got so awesome…
Now there are a few things I should mention about missions. First thing is driving. Let’s put this into perspective. Take a wooden roller coaster built in maybe nineteen aught-six. Lots of hills and bumps and none too smooth. Then put square wheels on the cars. Then put obstacles on the tracks like donkeys, jingle trucks (to be explained further), and really really stupid people. Then make it all last about nine hours at a shot. Really, all SUV companies should look into sending prototypes to Afghanistan, because if we can’t break their car within three missions, it’s good enough to call a true sport utility. We go over rocks, through rivers, around turns, up and down embankments… a blast for oh, about an hour. Then, you kind of want to die. Or throw up. I actually tried to do some reading on the way back (a no-no, but I wanted to see if I could accomplish such a task). You wouldn’t believe how fun that was…
The roads wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the dust and the jingle trucks. To explain jingle trucks, combine a large dump truck and a clown car. Size of a dump truck, fits a small city. They put chains and fuzzy colored things on the mirrors and along the bottom so it jingles and looks pretty. They come in the shape of dump trucks, buses, cars, bikes… rarely do you see a bike with one. Four max, I think, before it gets wobbly… Buses are double-decker, only with one inside seating area and whoever else on the roof. Donkeys cost double because they take up two seats.
Then, you have the fact that you are in a third world country, and that outside of the main cities, there is no plumbing system. Oh, wait. We did have a bathroom two nights, with a working sink. The toilet, though, was fun. This is the part where the faint of heart and stomach may want to bypass. We had what you call an Afghan toilet. An Afghan toilet is a glorified indoor hole in the ground with some porcelain. No flushing mechanism, essentially a urinal installed (recessed) into the floor that you hover over. You want to have exceptionally good balance, and good quad muscles. Flushing? Ah. There is a water jug that you fill from the tap and you pour it in until you can’t see anything anymore. That is, unless there was already too much so it just kind of floods. That’s when you go outside.
But we stayed at a fancy house. There were outside toilets! Mud huts, no door, hole in the ground that were cut conveniently shaped like the recessed urinal that we found inside. All the conveniences of home…
You want a shower? Why be so picky. There is a water pump out back.
Now this place wasn’t really too bad, though. There are, however, wild dogs around, so pulling guard shift was interesting. One came onto the compound while I was on guard. I mentioned that if the thing came closer (they are, approximately, the size and shape of a medium-sized, mean, ugly-looking bear), I was going to put my rifle on burst and have some hot breakfast. My guard buddy said he’d back me up. I’ve seen him shoot… I’d have to take my chances. We had good campfires going from wood we bought in town. I picked up an interesting habit from our local nationals: burning water bottles is not only bad for the environment and your lungs, but it makes a neat green color and the coating it leaves on the wood will help it to catch and make a better fire! These things have it all! We burned just about anything we got our hands on as shifts got later and later… I think they are sending me to detox over the weekend…
I could go on… I didn’t even get into the actual fun times we had… More entries for this weekend, I suppose! Time for some much-needed sleep… after a nasty prank, I have been up for 16 hours already at 7:00pm (1900 hours for those of you keeping track in the military), and I will probably be up awhile still… story for another day…