Every Day is Exactly the Same… sort of

Monotony can make life much easier. No need to think much about schedules. Every day repeats itself. Hours blur into days blur into weeks blur into months. The time slides by. The funny thing is how even chaotic and very high paced jobs can feel monotonous at times. Working without a break contributes to that. Life at Bagram is punctuated by the Crisis De Jour the odd personnel change an occasional trip. This might all sound odd given my last post. The truth is that monotony (at least in my head) does not necessarily equate to boredom. My life has become monotonous many aspects of my job have as well but my job can also be quite interesting.

mo·not·o·nous --------adj.
1. Sounded or spoken in an unvarying tone.
2. Tediously repetitious or lacking in variety.

I had to pull up the definition to make sure I wasn’t completely off the mark. The second definition: “Tediously repetitious” is right on the mark. Even the odd crisis become repetitious. It’s a very odd way to exist. I don’t bring this up as a complaint. It is more of an observation. Much of it is my own doing. Get up, exercise a bit, shower, phone home, off to work. Work is full of reports, spot checks, crisis interventions, analysis then it’s back to the chu (my converted ocean container) on the computer, phone home, sleep repeat. Time goes quickly. Life on the outside continues, jobs change, kids go to school, neighborhoods meet, all in a parallel universe. Cest le vie.

I lost my assistant. He went back to his job in Europe. There was a week gap before his replacement arrived. From a work standpoint I now have to do the entire job while I train my new assistant. Personnel changes make such a difference at work. The level of performance isn’t the biggest impact. The personality change is. My last assistant was so very different from most people I know. Of European decent, raised in South America born an American, he is a practical joker, stubborn, bright, funny. All in all he was a great companion in this very odd existence. Now I have to get used to someone very different. This is Navy life. People are always coming and going. I don’t know that you ever really get used to it but you adapt to it all the same.

When the new guy is up to speed I need to take a trip. Even a short jaunt to Kabul would be helpful. I need to recharge. It’s funny, spending too much time here on Bagram I can feel the “us or them” mentality creeping into me. I think of road trips and I get a tiny bit apprehensive. That apprehension is new. It’s bad. It’s caused by the unknown. I need to reconnect with Afghanistan off the FOB, out of the up-armored metal beast. I need to be back on the road like a tourist. An Afghan friend of mine recently went for a long hike on the old Kabul city wall. I’m going to ask him to take me. It’s older than the Great Wall of China. What a crime to bring so many foreigners into such a storied and ancient land only to keep them pinned up on a FOB. I don’t like being fenced in.