So on to the entertaining stuff. Most days are pretty routine around here. I am rudely awakened by the stupid chick that turns on her light at 5am, I put my sleep mask on, roll over and go back to sleep. My alarm goes off at 7, I hit snooze a couple of times, roll out of bed around 7:30, go take a shower, get ready for work, drop my stuff off at work, go to the d-fac to grab a bowl of cereal and some milk, go back to the conex/office, and settle in for a day of mind-numbing ... uh ... work. It's pretty uneventful most days.
Every now and then, we get a little excitement. No new incoming to report since the first one, but outgoing is always fun, because it still freaks people out. I have learned to tell the difference, but only after the first one has already gone. One day, the camo folk decided it would be a nice time to install some more in-ground swimming pools in the area. So all evening, we had outgoing. Sometimes there would be a break between sets and they would announce over the base loud speaker that there was outgoing, before the next set. Usually, we can't understand a damn thing that comes out of the speaker. Most of the time it is just too quiet. Other times, I am pretty sure the guy making the announcements has the microphone actually in his mouth when he makes the announcements. Well, it was a "microphone in the mouth" announcement kind of night. We heard the siren part ... that's the "hey, we're about to say something that may affect your life" alert ... and then some garbled English. We'll assume it was English, anyway. When I heard the siren, I stuck my head out the door of the conex, so I could hear the announcement. I heard the announcement, didn't understand it, and one of the boys said, "I'm pretty sure they just said we have outboard motors". Naturally, we wondered where they were getting the boats, and then we heard the mortars. Outgoing mortars sound totally different than outboard motors. We chuckled, and realized they said "outbound mortars". No boats, though they would have come in handy a few days ago.
So the mortars continued on until about midnight that night. I was trying desperately to sleep, but after the mortars stopped, the construction started and continued until around 3am. Good times. Here's where it got funny. Around 5am, Instead of being awakened by the stupid chick's light, I was awakened by the siren. We can't hear what it says in the tent, but then I heard a boom. "Ah, outgoing mortars", I thought to myself, as I rolled over and closed my eyes. A couple of minutes later, a lot more outgoing mortars started leaving. Then I heard a ruckus. There are 9 women in my tent. 7 of the 9 freaked the hell out, grabbed their vests and helmets, and ran out to the bunker in a panic. Security Lisa and I stayed in bed and yelled that they were outgoing, a couple of times. Then I saw Lisa's feet hit the floor. For a moment, I thought she was going out to the bunker too, and I was stunned, because I know she knows the difference between incoming and outgoing. Instead, her feet walked into my room, and she came and laid down in my bed with me. She curls up and says, "Why are they being SO LOUD?!" I replied, "They're mortars, honey, they're always loud". To which she replied, "Not them. The stupid GIRLS. I'm TRYING to sleep!" SO we giggled about that for a little while, she went back to bed, and eventually, the rest of the girls came out of the bunker. That still makes me laugh.
Along the same lines, Lisa and I had a fairly surreal conversation last night. It went something like this:
KA-BOOM
Me: Hmmm ... that was a boom.
Lisa: Meh, it was just outgoing.
Me: No, that definitely wasn't outgoing. Maybe a controlled det.
Lisa: Are you sure it wasn't outgoing?
Me: Definitely not outgoing, I felt the ground shake a little. You don't feel that with outgoing from here.
Lisa: Yeah, you're right. Maybe it was a controlled det.
Me: Yeah, either that or a bomb just outside the wire.
Lisa: Probably. Definitely wasn't on the FOB though.
Me: Nah, it was too far away to be incoming.
A few seconds pass
Me: *laugh*
Lisa: What?
Me: Do you realize we just had a perfectly calm conversation about the source of an explosion that was close enough that we could feel it?
Lisa: *laugh* Yeah, I suppose we did.
Me: Is this bad?
Lisa: Probably.
And that, my friends, is the reality of war zones. If you are paying attention, you learn to distinguish the sources of the various ka-booms and ka-blowies pretty quickly. I also recognize the difference between a forklift or a crane setting a metal conex down roughly and a ka-boom. Not everyone has that down yet. It's pretty funny. Most of the time, when we hear a ka-boom, we get up, go look outside for the cloud, and then go about our business. Though, I suppose that once things pick up around here, probably starting next month, we'll stop looking for the cloud and start heading for the bunker. That'll be fun. And there will be better stories!
And then the rain came. It has rained here before, but it was just sprinkles, just enough to tease me with humidity, and then it dried up and went away. This wasn't like that. It rained a lot. For a while. Turns out, our base is built in a lovely dry river bed. Well, dry most of the time river bed. We do, in fact, have a rainy season. And it hit us with force the end of last week. It rained for about two days straight. There were very few places around her that weren't flooded. Highway 1, just outside the base, was at a standstill for a while, because it was flooded. Super good times. So what did we do? We're the fire department ... we pumped most of the water off the FOB. Yup. For two days in a row, we were pumping water out of everywhere. The guys were pretty damn awesome. They kept the camo folks tents from flooding and their generators from being waterlogged, so they could come back from missions to warm, dry tents. They pumped water out of the mortar pits so we could make more in-ground swimming pools, and fill them up with water! There were a couple of places, I swear to the gods, you would have actually been able to kayak. I think you might have been able to make it around about half of the base, before you had to get out of your kayak and reposition to another lake. The good part about the whole experience? I finally got to wear my rainboots. They are so awesome! And loads of people looked at me funny. Well, funnier than normal. :)
Here are some photos from the flooding:
We pumped an estimated 1/2 a million gallons of water out of the FOB. Go us! And by us, I mean the boys, because I was sitting in my warm, dry conex office watching movies. Well, except for the field trip I took out into the expansion after dark to bring the chief some glow sticks and his reflective vest. That was fun. Squishing my way around a couple of acres in the dark, in the rain. Good times. :)
Anywho, this post is probably long enough for now. It doesn't have the entertaining cast of characters, as promised in the last short post, but perhaps that needs to be another post! :)
So rest assured, I am alive and well. Things aren't all that bad around here at the moment, but as always, the world can go to shit at any moment! Live life on the edge!
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