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Normally, "the Big Tent" would mean the circus. But not this time. Though sometimes things seemed circus-like.

So yeah, my teammates and I lived in a 20-man tent for 7 weeks. It was supposed to be temporary but since we were there such a short time they never moved us into anything better. The tent was designed to be temporary so there was no place to hang clothes, the bathroom was a porta-potty, the showers were in a temporary structure...it was like the thing was designed to say "thank you for coming, but now please leave." Which I was happy to do.

I used my top bunk as my closet.

There were only 5 of us from our team in the tent but of course there were other people. We got up to 16 people at one point, and that was a little much.

A bat flew in one night. That was annoying. And i found a dead cockroach in my bunk and I wondered, "what made him come up here just to die?"

We were living near the US Embassy and had access to an American dining facility where we had breakfast and dinner. Lunch was either with the Afghans or at a nearby NATO base that we could go onto. I preferred the NATO food, the European menu was nice. Afghan food tasted OK but I didn't trust it. They don't believe in thngs like "hygiene" there.

At bthe school where we worked they had traditional "squat toilets." I took photos but I'm not sure anyone wants to see them.

I learned that when Afghans are faced with Western-style toilets, like in a porta-potty, they will still squat over them. I know this because I saw footprints next to the seat in the porta-potties our Afghan guards used.

I tended to sleep through explosions. Sometimes I'd get up and people would say "it sounded like grenade went off nearby" and I'd missed the whole thing. Someone accidentally fired their rifle outside my tent one night and I didn't wake up. Hey, at least i was sleeping well.

I'd usually get up around 5:45, get cleaned up and go to breakfast, then we'd convoy out to work, about 15 minutes away. We'd be there all day, then come back around 5;30. I'd run to the gym, then try to get dinner before the dining hall closed. After checking e-mail (we were 8 1/2 hours ahead -- silly Afghans do that weird 1/2 hour thing -- so as I was getting ready to go to bed friends back home were going to work) I'd make my way back to my tent, take a shower, and usually be in bed by 9. I was generally pretty beat, and after getting over my initial jet lag I slept like a rock all through the night. As evidenced by my inability to hear explosions and nearby gunfire.

No one shot on me on the way to work. I was very happy about that. Plenty of bad things happened in Kabul, but not near me. It was a nice change from Iraq 3 years ago, where I got shot at every day. Silly Iraqis.

We had to brush our teeth with bottled water. Some guys didn't think they needed to. They soon realized their mistake, and the rest of us had to listen to them bitch about it. I had no sympathy for people who got sick through their own stupidity.

I'm happy to be in my own bed now. And I'm avoiding bottled water for the moment, just to avoid the memories.

Labels: Travel, Work