Loose Phrases and Mark Twain

I believe it was Mark Twain that said, "The coldest winter I ever experienced was the summer I spent in San Francisco". On the other side of that coin is the saying, "The hottest summer I ever experienced was the winter I spent in Kuwait". At some point last night, or this morning, or late tonight, we landed in Kuwait. And now we are in lovely Camp Arifjan. Anyone who has been there knows that "Arifjan" loosely translates into English as "who needs water...or color...or joy!" But that's a loose translation. The real news today is that our difficult relationship with Those-Guys Airlines has come to an end and now we can get on with the business of reaching our final destination. But first, we will have an opportunity to sleep on an actual bed, with an actual mattress, that makes actual noise, and without an actual armrest to crush our actual hips.

I had a short but restful night that involved a quick shower, a walk through the dark in shower shoes, and an unending battle with dust sticking to my recently clean feet. You don't know the value of a good pillow until you don't have one. I assume the headache will eventually subside.

Still, the adventure continues. We took a bus from Camp Arifjan to Ali al Saleem Air Base which was a quick 3-hour torture fest wherein my tailbone became acquainted with the higher portions of my spinal column due to the excellence of the Kuwaiti roads coupled with the smooth abilities and demeanor of the driver. It was more of an old-school roller coaster than an actual bus ride. It really makes my body feel its age, which is currently 124. So once we were peeled out of our chairs (I use the word "chair" very loosely) we grounded our gear and headed for the dining facility where we were treated to a meal that would make my grandma cry. It was the first of many such meals (here I use the word "meal" very loosely) after which we returned to the terminal to hurriedly wait for 6 hours or so. It was during this time that I became acutely aware that my tailbone and shoulder were becoming lovers. Finally, we boarded a C-17 and made the flight all the way to Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. To offer some perspective, this would be like waiting in San Jose for 6 hours to fly to Fresno in a screaming refrigerator. So, in addition to everything between mid-thigh and Adam's apple hurting, my ears are in open rebellion! But, we're back on the ground and that's nice. At least it was. When we first arrived in Al Udeid, we were told we'd have to wait 4-5 hours because C-17s take a while to prep for flight and we seemed to have unexpectedly materialized out of thin air, so nothing was ready for us. But this being Qatar, we were not allowed to leave the passenger terminal for ANYTHING or we could possibly be detained and have to go through customs, and Qatari customs doesn't play!

After about 6 hours on the ground we started to get hungry as our last meal was "breakfast" (I use that word very loosely) in Kuwait. However, the food fairy was hard at work and in "no time at all" (I use that phrase very loosely) our hungry bodies were provided frozen turkey sandwiches (yes, still frozen), bruised fruit, meat sticks, actually open and stale potato chips, and Pop Tarts(r). Needless to say, the Pop Tarts(r) went first. Oh and that coffee we didn't get...we didn't get any! That means I was hungry, had a killer headache, and the Incredible Hulk was about to make an appearance.

As we stood and waited, and sat and waited, and pretended to eat and waited we became acutely aware that the flow of information was somewhat lacking. And that because we had unexpectedly materialized out of thin air, there was no American aircrew to fly us in one of the 15 or so C-17s parked right outside the passenger terminal.  Nevertheless, a fix was in the works. A Qatari Royal Air Force crew had been identified to fly us to our final destination. I have nothing against the Qatari Royal Air Force but it's not a real confidence builder when we're told they didn't want to take the job because they had never flown so many people at one time. So...after waiting approximately 10-12 hours in the passenger terminal our flight manifested at 0400 and was scheduled to lift off at 0800 for another 3.5-hour tailbone torture fest.

Finally, the hour we had worked toward had come. We began the boarding process for the final leg to our final destination. The anticipation in the air was palpable as people came alive with joy. Once in our seats, the Qatari loadmaster said something in extremely broken English which I'm told was "please buckle your seat belts as though it matters." And with that, we began to slowly taxi to the runway, where we sat for another 30 minutes while the crew did stuff. Then, out of nowhere, the loadmaster said something else which included the words, "return" "broken" and "1 hour". At this point, we had to just laugh while simultaneously crying. But true to their word, almost exactly one hour later we were taking off and headed to parts unknown.

It would be nice to say that's really all that happened on the trip from Sheol. But I can't make that unfounded and patently false claim. Given that we had slept rather fitfully for a grand total of about 4 hours in the past 4 days we were all very tired. So, as usual, once the plane reached its max altitude we unbuckled and found an open patch of floor to stretch out and try to sleep through the flight. Little did we know that the Qatari Royal Air Force seems to enjoy the interior of their planes at a comfortable zero kelvin. It's amazing how hard it is to sleep as molecular motion grinds to a halt. I've been in some cold places before, but I don't recall ever being THAT cold. It was as though we had passed through Dante's 9th Circle of Hell.

Still, by the end of the day, as we began to thaw, we landed in beautiful Afghanistan for a nice long vacation. And I can't complain. 18 years of warfare means we've had time to improve living conditions, creature comforts, office space and meals. But I use those terms loosely.