I get up around noon after a long night and morning.
This is not unusual for me. I stay up working a lot, and as I am largely my own boss out here, I can sleep late into the day without repercussions most days. There are some meetings I have to attend, that interrupt my slumber, but my only responsibility today is at 1900.
I meet up with our new colleagues after lunch, and take them for a drive around post, to show them the place, and to visit each of the three PXs in search of AAA batteries that one of the women, Jennifer, needs for her flashlight.
If the PX doesn’t have something in stock, you simply have to wait until they do. That could be days, weeks or months. I remember arriving in Iraq and seeing clothes hangers in the PX, but didn’t immediately pick any up. A week or so later, when I was moved into my room and needed some, they were nowhere to be found. I got into the habit of checking the PX for necessities every few days, just as a matter of course.
I finally saw clothes hangers again four months later.
There are no AAA batteries for sale today in on BAF. I suggest she just buy a new flashlight.
As we’re driving around, I’m pointing out different buildings or activities, and it’s not until halfway around post that Heather mentions Izzy took them on the same tour earlier in the day.
As we pass a point along the route that takes us past a high fence separating the post from the rest of Afghanistan, a point where you can see the village of Bagram across a rutted field, they tell me that when they drove there earlier in the day, children threw snowballs at them. They say that at first they didn’t know what was going on, but one had smacked flat on the side of the SUV.
I laugh at the story at first, then they point out that if the locals can throw snowballs, they can throw other things. Explosive things. It is perhaps too easy to forget about the dangers of just being in this country, even if we’re not rolling out on missions every day like the soldiers I work with.
We make it further around the perimeter road and fall in line behind a truck for a spell. The truck is carrying office furniture, and inexplicably a desk and chairs are set up in the back with TCNs sitting in two of the office chairs, as if they’re holding a board meeting. I snap a picture of them as they laugh and wave at us.
It seemed a poor way to transport the furniture – couldn’t they just lay the chairs down? – but there are many such things we just do because they’re easier here. I suppose the TCNs were going to have to ride in the back regardless, so might as well be comfortable, and they did have hardhats on.
PX = Post Exchange
BAF = Bagram Air Field
TCN = Third-Country National
