/boggle

As I write this I lay in my cot in my tent. It's almost 11 o'clock at night. Normally at this time the lights are off, everyone else is in bed, and I'm whispering into my computer's microphone talking to my family, or tapping away at the keys, talking to all of you. But tonight is not a normal night. Tonight the lights are on. Everyone is awake. One guy is watching The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King on his laptop. Another is Skyping with his family. Several are outside watching the spectacle. What spectacle you ask? Oh, just the building being built next to my tent.

Watching the Afghans construct a building in the middle of the night is a spectator sport.

I'm not kidding. 11pm. Building a structure. Less than 20 feet from my tent.

Now this isn't a normal building. This is temporary housing. Remember that picture I posted of some of the construction around here? These buildings are built out of metal shipping containers. They are moved by crane. As such, there is currently a crane lifting multi-ton metal containers less than 20 feet from my tent. In fact, an Air Force technical sergeant just came in and told me that it's possible that these multi-ton metal containers may actually pass over the corner of the tent closest to me, and that if it gets too unsafe he'll come in and let me know so I don't run the risk of being crushed to death.

Seriously. I can't make this stuff up. See for yourself.

Apparently this doesn't fall under the Air Force definition of unsafe. Ummm...yeah. The area of the tent this is hanging over is right about where my head should be. I'm outside now.

Unfortunately, this really isn't anything new. They've been building this thing almost since I got here. My first day, it was a gravel lot. Shortly afterward, men with pick axes and wheelbarrows began digging the trenches for the concrete foundation.  The next week they were back with wood, rebar, and handsaws to start building the forms.  The only machine I ever saw them use during this process was the cement mixer.  Thankfully, all of this work was done during the day.  You know, when normal people work.

The next phase of the project was to put in the septic tank. The sewers here are already so overloaded that there wasn't any point of hooking the new bathrooms into them.  Either way, septic or sewer, it would have to be drained by a truck each day.  The ground around this area is all poured concrete, so in order to put in the tank, they had to jackhammer before they started digging the hole.  Guess what time they started jackhammering?  Midnight!  It went until 2:30 in the morning before I was finally able to get a little sleep.  But that didn't last too long, as the backhoe was here at 6 AM to start digging the hole underneath all the newly-broken concrete. 

A few days later they were back, this time with multiple truckloads of gravel to dump and smooth in the spaces of the foundation (they didn't lay a solid foundation, just the outline of the boxes they've been setting on top).  All night long, trucks driving, dumping gravel, people shouting, shoveling, smoothing.  Right next to my tent!  Where I'm trying to sleep!  What gives?!

And of course, then they had to start bringing in the actual pieces of the building, the metal containers.  This is the third night they've been here doing this, spread over the last 2.5 weeks.  They started building at the far end and have moved closer and closer to my tent, so tonight is the first time that they've actually dangled instruments of demise over my head, but it's the third time they've kept me awake long past my bed time.  Work from here will consist of wiring the rooms for electricity, building the roof and the hallway floors, and dragging in the furniture.  The insides of the boxes are already finished, so at least there's not that.  I'm soooooo hoping that they do most of this work during the day.

Now for the reason I'm really ticked about this situation: I shouldn't even be in the tent at this point.  I've been at Eggers since June 21st.  I'm number one on the civilian waiting list for a room.  The military guys have separate waiting lists, divvied up by rank.  The longest any one of the military guys has been waiting for a room is July 10th.  That's 19 days less than me.  In fact, its less time than 33 other civilians on the wait list.  And why have we been waiting that long?  Because the people responsible for room assignments have been passing us over.

For some reason, the Billeting Office has decided that it will no longer place civilians on Camp Eggers proper.  We are only allowed to stay across the street.  It is their vision that when the building that I'm currently watching being stacked together is completed, the occupants of the tent will simply move into that.  Remember all that work I said remained to be finished?  We're at least a month from a move-in date, more likely two.  That means, if the Billeting Office has its way, I'll spend approximately half of my tour in a tent.  A tent that has no one assigned to clean it.  That is positioned so as to require I cross an extremely busy, locally traveled, street twice a day.  That has mattresses that could pass for hammocks made out of wire mesh.  And where at least once a week, I don't get to sleep because of the construction site.

I was fine with staying in the tent temporarily, especially when I could watch the waiting list move and know I was getting closer to the end.  I'm not fine with being told that I am so unimportant that I am required to put up with these living conditions indefinitely.  I understand that, generally, our soldiers make greater sacrifices than I do, and that they need to be taken care of.  On this base, that isn't the case.  I do the exact same job, with the exact same hours and responsibilities as the green-suiters I work with.  There's no reason for me to get shoved to the back of the line for a room, and be forced to watch people who haven't even been at Eggers a week get a place to stay. 

Tomorrow I'm talking to my Colonel.  I don't know if I'm going to get anywhere, but I'm too fed up to keep quiet any more.  I, of course, will let you know what comes of it.

*****

I've had two posts planned for multiple weeks, and haven't been able to complete them due to unforseen circumstances.  The first is to be about getting my permanent room, and the differences between where I'm staying now and where I'd be moving to.  Unfortunately, that post seems like its now on indefinite hold.  The second post is about the weekly bazzar held on Camp Eggers.  However, due to security concerns surrounding the recently held Kabul Conference, the bazzar has been canceled for the past two weeks.  It should be running this week, but there's no way to be certain until I see people setting up tents in the MRAP parking lot Friday morning.  In any case, those posts are on the horizon, and will eventually be published, just as soon as the world cooperates with my writing plan.

Until next time, take care, and watch for falling shipping containers.  Out here.