All signs point to the end of my time in Afghanistan drawing closer and closer. Fall has arrived, officially. The air is getting cooler, the pomegranates are ripe, and the grapes have been harvested. Snow is beginning to cap the mountains that loom over the city. The last batch of my office mates to go on R&R have just returned. And I now have less time remaining than I have accumulated. Though the days are still going by quickly, in truth, they can't go by quickly enough. Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying this assignment. The work I do here is extremely satisfying, and my co-workers keep me sane through the long hours. But I can only stand being half a world away from home for so long.
In celebration of my halfway mark, I'm looking forward to the end. Here are some things I can't wait to get home to, and some things I can't wait to leave behind. Some are big, some are small, some are obvious, but none of them can come soon enough.
Things I'm looking forward to at home:
- My wife. Going to bed alone every night sucks. Being limited to 10-15 minute conversations over the phone every day sucks. Throwing up for two days without anyone there to take care of you sucks.
- My kids. My three little girls are growing fast, and I'm missing a lot of milestones while I'm over here. First day of kindergarten, first day of pre-school, first gymnastics meet, first soccer goal scored. I'm hopeful that I'll be home before Christmas to spend part of the holiday season with them and catch up on all I've missed.
- Normal work hours. The fewest hours I've worked in a two week pay period while deployed has been 156, and that included the first days I was on camp and was allowed to sleep off my jet lag. This pay period is going to be close to 170 hours. I get paid overtime, so the money is great, but stringing together 80+ hour weeks for 26 straight weeks is brutal. Thankfully, I get a weekend to recharge...
- Weekends. About those. The weekend here lasts from end of work Thursday evening (whatever time that may end up being) to 1 PM Friday afternoon. I sleep through most of it in order to recharge my batteries from 12-14 hour days. Time to myself that doesn't come at the expense of sleep would be awesome.
- Fast, unfiltered, cheap internet. The internet at work is approaching fast, but most sites are blocked, so no surfing even after work is done. The internet you can pay for (at $100 a month) is unfiltered, but it can take a minute for a site to load, and several hours for videos on YouTube. Don't even think about trying to download games or movies or music. Skype video freezes up and becomes unuseable within 5 minutes. Yes, I am aware I am complaining about having crappy internet in the middle of a combat zone. I am glad that it exists, and it is better than nothing. But I want my cable internet back.
- A good storm. Unfortunately I'm going to miss all the fun, noisy, summer storms, but at this point I'd take snow just the same. The weather here is BORING. Cloudless and sunny 95% of the time. I want some overcast, rainy, mellow days to break up the monotony. My home in the Midwest has plenty in supply. Here, not so much.
Things I look forward to leaving behind:
- That Afghanistan smell. Dirt. Sewage. Hash smoke. Dead flies rotting in the fly traps. I border on vomiting from the stench a few times a week on average. Will. Not. Miss.
- The air. The air quality here sucks. Kabul sits in a bowl, much like L.A. All the smoke produced by the locals burning things is trapped, contributing to the problem. I've heard it gets worse in the winter, as people will burn anything they can get their hands on in order to keep warm. On top of that, an air quality study done here shortly after I arrived found that 17% of the particulate in the air was human feces. Yummy. The one time I went for a run outside, I got sick the next day, and I'm convinced it was from sucking down the dirty air in large quanities.
- Dirty looks when I use my camera. People are super paranoid about cameras here. It's either someone that believes taking pictures of the cats at the DFAC is a violation of operational security, or shows obvious disdain because photography lowers me to "tourist" status. I had one Army sergeant make fun of me because I went through a lot of effort to get pictures of the Secretary of Defense when he visited a few weeks ago. I know what I'm not allowed to take pictures of, and I don't point the lens in that direction. The people that try and control me beyond that are extremly irritating.
- Football games at midnight. I like the NFL, but I just can't stay up that late to watch the games. We do get to see some of the replayed at more sane hours of the day, but most of the fun is taken out of it when you already know the final score.
- Guys with guns guarding where I sleep. I am thankful they are there to protect me, but I will be happier when I am sleeping in a place where the protection is not required.
- Politics. I'm tired of my analysis being used as a weapon to further someone's agenda. Analysis should be objective, and speak the truth, not subjective and speak the catch phrase of the week.
I could probably come up with a lot more, but those are the highlights. I am thankful that I am on the downhill slide to seeing these things come to pass. The thought of home is staving off burn out from the long hours. I am hoping hard that that continues.
Happy Autumn everyone. Out here.
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