The rain washes against the tin roof of my hooch.
It can be soothing sometimes, and I admit I like falling to sleep in my darkened little room – closed off to the rest of Afghanistan – with the only sound being that rain. Well, the rain and the occasional jet, cargo plane, helicopter, garbage truck, practice munitions, planned detonations of enemy explosives, foreign nationals yelling unintelligibly on the telephone, and the amplified calls to prayer from the neighboring Afghani town.
But mostly I like the rain.
Tonight it’s really coming down and from inside my room, even without windows, I can tell exactly how strong it is. It seems the perfect night to just work at my computer before crawling into bed with a book, perhaps seeing what’s on television. I would also, however, like to eat dinner.
Dinner is at the DFAC, a 10 minute walk through the pouring rain and deep puddles. I consider not having dinner, though of course I have no food in my room and don’t relish going to bed hungry. Relish makes me want a hot dog, which they have at the chow hall.
Luckily, the dining hours for dinner are from 1700-2100, and within a couple of hours the rain lets up. I quickly put on my boots, knock on my neighbor’s door, and we slosh our way up to dinner and back – I end up getting a Philly Cheese Steak sandwich, one of the things the DFAC prepares reasonably well. Having never lived in Philadelphia, my standards may be too low in this regard, as they are undoubtedly too high for seafood due to my growing up in New England.
Izzy and I make it back to our rooms just minutes before it starts to pour again, having timed our dinner just about perfectly.
It is definitely something I had to get used to out here – being dependent on the meal hours and location of a DFAC for your meals. It’s hard to complain about free and abundant food, of course, but our hours don’t always match the standard 3-meal a day schedule. They try to be flexible, having a ‘midnight chow’ from 2330–0100, and that definitely helps.
Until recently, I didn’t keep any snacks in my room, but Izzy would always pick something up when we would swing by the PX, and I have taken to following his lead. A bag of chips or some crackers go a long way to cutting the edge off of waiting for the chow hall to open – or filling those long hours overnight working until 0400. They also serve as a backup for the many times I miss a meal.
The DFAC has some snacks as well, and it’s common to see soldiers filling the pockets of their uniforms with something to eat on mission, or back in their room.
I do that, too, but no matter how many breakfast bars, chili-flavored potato chips, or bags of Famous Amos cookies I have, sometimes I just want a hot dog.
Sometimes you just have to walk through the rain to get what you want.
DFAC = Dining Facility
PX = Post Exchange
