Operation - POS to Palace

*Disclaimer - I should mention that I am thankful for a shelter and the ability to build it up, considering the living conditions off base. This of course is where my blog theme comes from. Also, keep in mind that there isn't a sarcasm font.

My first welcoming to my new home for a year was just that - my new home for the next year. To say it is "lacking" that home feel would be giving it more credit than I believe it is due. We live in barracks huts, or as the locals call them - B-Huts.

These shanty shacks are long plywood buildings with rusty metal roofs placed in rows in the middle of a gravel lot.

When you step inside, you're welcomed by a near-pitch-black hallway with no light at the end (somewhat symbolic).

Typically, the B-Huts are divided into 8 rooms separated by more plywood with makeshift plywood panels on hinges acting as doors. To secure the "doors," we have a latch and lock. The only air conditioning units are above the doors at either end of the hallway with the tops of each room's walls cut away to allow for airflow. The beauty of this is I can hear and smell my neighbor - which is why I have an air freshener and use a fan at times for white noise. The hallway has lights, but due to the fact that they cut into each room about 3 inches, no one turns them on to avoid annoying their neighbors. I should probably mention that they don't segregate the B-Huts by day and night sleepers so there are only a select few hours a day that you can make any noise.

I realize I already posted a video of my room, but I'm shooting for a TLC or HGTV style tour of my B-Hut, so here's some photos to help break down the different areas of my little piece of heaven. First, my room is 7 by 7 feet with a sloping ceiling that is 10 feet high at the apex. The light in my room is a clip-on light that uses a dial to turn it on, so no light switch. This means I get to trip over the chair and blindly fumble for the light.

 Ahhh - where all the "magic" happens... By magic, I mean where I pass out every night. You may notice they don't turn the sheets down here or put a mint on my pillow. I wisely put my sheets and blankets in my foot locker, which is still sitting in Delaware with the empty promise that it will "head out on the next plane" - a promise we've heard for nearly a week now.

Here is what the wall above my bed looks like. That wavy mess is the sheet barrier that separates my neighbors room from mine. I never thought I'd sleep with a sheet between me and another man... hopefully my neighbor doesn't buy into the "what happens in Afghanistan stays in Afghanistan" theology. To fix this, I'm thinking about cutting more of the sweet plywood material to block up the rest of the wall so I can comfortably raise my bed up to 5 feet and move that annoying chair and desk underneath as well as all the other items that litter my room thus clearing enough space to begin training toward my goal of being the next World Break Dancing Champion. The only potential problem is that blocking off the wall might interrupt my neighbors airflow from the AC and cause some strife.

 Next is the entry to my castle. I already took the door off the wall and remounted it to swing into the hallway since that added quite a bit of space to my room. My next project over here is to add a shelf above the door next to the cut-out next to the air conditioner so I can put a fan up there and hopefully shoot more of the cold air into my room. Once I'm done with that, I plan to run an extension cord along the wall and over my door to create a closer outlet with a switch so I can eventually mount lights and turn them on and off. You may also notice the white boxes on the wall. Those are the wireless routers for the area. Monthly cost is $90 and while I have no intention of paying that much for shotty Internet, it is running off the power of one of my only two outlets. My thought on this is to charge my 7 neighbors $10 per month rent for my power outlet. It's kind of like that really successful food for oil program.

I'm not sure I can pull this off given my lack of carpentry knowledge or skills and the fact that I have to scavenge for tools, material and work during the limited hours of authorized noise. Wish me luck and pray my tetanus shots are up to date as I bring my hut from a POS to a local Palace. What could ever go wrong?

And now...  I leave you with a beauty shot of our local boardwalk.

Here we go again.

When I enlisted into the Army I never thought in a million years I would ever deploy to Iraq, let alone deploy there *and* Afghanistan just a few years later. But here I am, no longer a stupid Walmart cashier trying to get college assistance, but rather a senior NCO in a combat zone with a Public Affairs unit that used to spend its one-weekend-a-month sitting around drinking coffee.

And now after nearly 13 years I'm sitting in an office covered with the day's dust and listening to the air conditioning flow through a makeshift tube contemplating my next year in Afghanistan, a place that has me shaking my head and musing "I never thought I'd miss Iraq."

There are a lot of differences and yet when I first arrived I had a sense of nostalgia. There's that sandy grit slapping you across the face, shooting up your nose, in your mouth and my favorite - in the freaking eyes. There's also that wonderful porta-potty chemical smell mixed with burning plastic and diesel exhaust.

But all the similarities fell apart after 12 hours of living here when I realized I missed Iraq's many "comforts" of living. I started to mentally make a list of the things that irritated or frustrated me about my new home for a year, which can be dangerous because I don't want to be focused on the negative.

One thing stuck out to me though... all of my complaints paled in comparison to the living conditions outside the "wire" or border of my large compound. It was this realization that prompted me to create yet another blog to share my observations with my Western friends and family so they can see what it's like here, all while seeing the irony of my complaints and hopefully get some amusement from my current situation.

So get ready America... because I'm about to unleash my first world problems in Afghanistan upon you...