Day 1 (180 days to go…)

This was my first full day here. I spent most of the day walking around with Amanda doing paperwork, and a lot of it. It gave me a chance to get to know the base. Around the edges there are 5 little restaurants and 4 little shops on the base. There is also the DFAC (dining facility where they feed you), the laundry building, the park area, and various other buildings. Each country also has their own building with their flag on it where only people of that nationality can enter. The US building has an official US Post Office on the ground level, complete with a typical blue USPS mailbox.

Most of the buildings (including where I am currently sleeping) are just built out of what seem to be shipping containers, all welded together with modifications. The office building I work in, for example, is in a house-sized 2-story building. Looking down at it from above, the hallway through the center is just these shipping contains laid end to end vertically with the front and back cut out with drywall put up. Then more containers are laid horizontally on both sides. The office that my company is in is the space of three of these containers, just with the sides cut out. You can see the ridges in the ceiling and floor of where the sides would be. The top floor is essentially the same design. Below is a picture of the living quarters I am staying in. You can see the containers welded together in a similar design as the office space. Each container is one room which sleeps three people.

 
Kabul is located in a valley surrounded by mountains covered in snow. The temperature is great, about 70 degrees, but the air quality is a bit bad. It is very dusty and to make matters worse, the locals burn everything (plastics, sewage, all kinds of nasty stuff). There are also a bunch of cats on base so I have to keep my allergies in check. They use the semi-wild cats to keep down on the rodent population.

The running water here in non-potable so you have to be careful not to drink any. I don’t really like the fact that I still have to use it to wash and shower with, but I don’t really have a choice so I try not to think about it. Luckily there are pallets everywhere full of 12-packs of bottled water. Most buildings have fridges that are continuously stocked with the water. This means that there is always plenty of nice cool fresh water around.



~David