![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
20 MAY
Another move, but much smaller. This time it was just across the airstrip, because the Air Force will want/wants the airplane revetments for, of all things, airplanes. The Engineers have started to pour concrete in the runway's
holes and so, in a month or so, planes will start to land here.
Which means we can be jealous of the Air Force. That's a typical situation. When people say the AF is the place to be, for quality of life, they are right. Hot chow (which we are getting twice a week), real showers, phones and internet, a PX (which we will be able to use) and other Morale, Welfare and Recreation(MWR) facilities will be here soon. Alas they will be for the AF, and not for us.
To add insult to this injury they AF limits deployment rotations to 90 days, (I think the it's 180 for reservists). We've already passed that (though in-theater we are at about 65, so were we in the AF we would have 25 days left).
This side of the base is better. It seems cooler. That may be because we have shade, thick walls, and breezeways, where before I was in a tent, on a road. It may be because we are acclimating (and that tent was one Hell of a climate).
Yesterday peaked at 97F and it was comfortable, hot, but acceptable.
The flies here are worse than they were on the other side. Some of them bite.
Rumor has it the mosquitoes are also bad, but the breeze has so far made it so that I've not yet dragged out my mosquito net. I didn't pull it out at Al Sahra either. Others were plagued but in the two-weeks or so I was there I had maybe
half a dozen bites, and they did not really itch, so I forwent the hassle of having a mini-tent draped around my bed.
I will trust in my drugs until I start to become their movable feast.
We have fewer birds here. Some swifts, and the common sparrow. I think I saw a humming-bird. I thought there was a wasp near my knees, but as it dashed away it seemed too fast, and to have the wrong sort of wings. It was a drab thing
though, grey as moleskin.
We've also had a poisonous snake. Our vet killed it (one of our interpreters, anative speaker, passed his exam just before he was deployed). Related to cobras it is moderately deadly, mildly aggressive, black and nocturnal. I took a look
at the head (using a stick as a probe) and it obligingly opened it's, not quite, dead mouth; short fangs, perhaps half an inch. Anyone in boots is probably safe. The problem is that many of us go to our shower point in sandals, flip-flops, bare feet, and if it is stepped on, well the result would be bad.
We have been spread thinner. Corps decided one of our teams needed to go South and help the 4ID, so instead of three teams, we have two. Personally this is unpleasant, because we'd had one team covering walk-ins on the post, so there
was always someone to talk to (other than the rest of the team I belong to), and now there is no one to do that. If my dearest friend in the country were not on the team that left I'd be less put out, but this still is a bad idea, in my
opinion.
Another move, but much smaller. This time it was just across the airstrip, because the Air Force will want/wants the airplane revetments for, of all things, airplanes. The Engineers have started to pour concrete in the runway's
holes and so, in a month or so, planes will start to land here.
Which means we can be jealous of the Air Force. That's a typical situation. When people say the AF is the place to be, for quality of life, they are right. Hot chow (which we are getting twice a week), real showers, phones and internet, a PX (which we will be able to use) and other Morale, Welfare and Recreation(MWR) facilities will be here soon. Alas they will be for the AF, and not for us.
To add insult to this injury they AF limits deployment rotations to 90 days, (I think the it's 180 for reservists). We've already passed that (though in-theater we are at about 65, so were we in the AF we would have 25 days left).
This side of the base is better. It seems cooler. That may be because we have shade, thick walls, and breezeways, where before I was in a tent, on a road. It may be because we are acclimating (and that tent was one Hell of a climate).
Yesterday peaked at 97F and it was comfortable, hot, but acceptable.
The flies here are worse than they were on the other side. Some of them bite.
Rumor has it the mosquitoes are also bad, but the breeze has so far made it so that I've not yet dragged out my mosquito net. I didn't pull it out at Al Sahra either. Others were plagued but in the two-weeks or so I was there I had maybe
half a dozen bites, and they did not really itch, so I forwent the hassle of having a mini-tent draped around my bed.
I will trust in my drugs until I start to become their movable feast.
We have fewer birds here. Some swifts, and the common sparrow. I think I saw a humming-bird. I thought there was a wasp near my knees, but as it dashed away it seemed too fast, and to have the wrong sort of wings. It was a drab thing
though, grey as moleskin.
We've also had a poisonous snake. Our vet killed it (one of our interpreters, anative speaker, passed his exam just before he was deployed). Related to cobras it is moderately deadly, mildly aggressive, black and nocturnal. I took a look
at the head (using a stick as a probe) and it obligingly opened it's, not quite, dead mouth; short fangs, perhaps half an inch. Anyone in boots is probably safe. The problem is that many of us go to our shower point in sandals, flip-flops, bare feet, and if it is stepped on, well the result would be bad.
We have been spread thinner. Corps decided one of our teams needed to go South and help the 4ID, so instead of three teams, we have two. Personally this is unpleasant, because we'd had one team covering walk-ins on the post, so there
was always someone to talk to (other than the rest of the team I belong to), and now there is no one to do that. If my dearest friend in the country were not on the team that left I'd be less put out, but this still is a bad idea, in my
opinion.
