Have I mentioned dust? Fingertips feel invisible grit on the computer keyboard. And the desk and papers have a regular layer, clean as you will. Doing yoga, breathing deeply, nostrils smell dust, feel it enter the lungs. Any shoe color soon becomes sand khaki, pant legs scuff light brown powder. All clothes gather and hold the hanging particles that permeate the air from the deck up to about 100 feet above ground level. I thought it would be insufferable. But it's really not that bad; humans can adapt to almost anything. To deal with the dust, I usually shower at the end of the day with clothes on and peel them off by layer, carrying them back to my can as they drip to hang dry. Self launder reduces reliance on laundry services. (Water use must be kept to a minimum for two reasons: makes sense and, in general, Marines take pleasure in angrily enforcing rules when they perceive someone breaking them. Judge, jury, enforcer, all right there in one person with a gun! Thank God our society separates those roles where we really live.) Anyway, a shower with clothes happens with water on for very brief intervals. Water. Off. Lather. Water. Rinse. Off. Repeat. My can is also referred to as a hooch, a residence, though am mostly there to sleep. The can is 20 feet deep, less than 8 feet wide. Two bunk beds occupy most of the floor space. Have added a cot along with my plastic gorilla box as a night stand. Below are some pics.
A typical day begins with the young Seabees talking loudly outside the door at 0600, as if the whole world should be awake. I roll out of bed about 7, stretch a bit on the rug next to my bed, then dress and walk to the bathroom for morning ablutions. The latrines are fairly convenient, only about 50 meters away, just past the small dumpsters on the other side of the concrete barriers arranged to protect us from explosive devices. The dumpsters fill quickly with trash. We bring our American habits. Are we a trashy people?
To breakfast at about 7:30, oatmeal and yogurt and fresh fruit, couple hard boiled eggs, then walk 600 meters to work at about 8. Most days go from 8 until 9:30 p.m. with breaks for lunch and dinner. Been doing yoga lately more regularly. Did a crossfit workout with a Marine the other day and couldn't straighten my arms for three days afterward. (Sometimes, I sneak away for some mid day Aubrey-Maturin novel reading and a quick nap. It really is a key to sanity, stepping away into a sea-going novel from a time period when friends treated each other with real value, then a 10 minute shut-eye.)
The latrines are in the brown box, showers in the gray box to the right.
Here are the office restrooms along the fence:
Workspace:
A few nights ago, we had a meeting that started at 8:30 p.m., ended at 10. The pillow received my head at 11, after a shower and hanging the clothes in my can. Just before sweet sleep, I heard the guy who recently moved in next door, and who believes he can single-handedly lift Afghanistan from its poverty with a lithium mine in Southern Helmand, began caterwauling Neil Diamond. It was obvious he had his earphones in and his iPod cranked, oblivious, singing loudly. (What does it mean that Neil Diamond begins to make sense in my life--"Don't know that I will, but until I can find me...I'll be what I am, Solitary Man...?") I smiled quietly as sleep began to backfill my noggin, the wonders of close human community with technology designed to the individual.