Common Questions, Round 2: Where I Live

This first picture is a view of the camp from the small mountain behind it, and hopefully it will help answer another common question, which is generally some variant of what it's like where I live. In this picture you actually can't quite see the building I live in, but it should give you a decent overview of what the camp looks like and about how big it is. It's the cluster of buildings in the lower left corner of the picture.



In a previous e-mail I think I described the living conditions in the Green House, but since then - shortly after we arrived, really - we moved out of the two separate safe houses and consolidated the whole team into one camp. The camp we're living in now is officially known to the Army as FOB Lion (Forward Operating Base), although if "FOB" can considered a grandiose description of anything, it certainly overinflates the drama of the camp I live in. Most FOBs around Iraq and Afghanistan are fortified mini-bases, usually with perimeter security, defenses, and most importantly, KBR. We have transient KBR workers, so I'm not sure we officially qualify as a FOB. Regardless, we call it FOB Lion, or sometimes just Entes.

This picture looks along the front of the camp, at the major buildings. What you're looking at is the office building, the dining facility, and some of the guards' rooms with the wooden sunshade.



FOB Lion was formerly know as the Entes compound, since it was built and occupied by Entes, the Turkish construction company that built the main road. After much extortion and somewhat-forced extra work before being allowed by the governor to leave the valley, Entes left as quickly as possible, probably never to return. That's when we took over and moved in. The place needed some work, since 200 Turkish construction workers don't maintain a camp to the same standards we would have liked. One of those standards is a functional septic system; one of my first camp duties - and fondest memories, might I add - was supervising the cleaning of the septic tanks. In most places you can use a pumper truck and it remains a not-entirely-horrible task. We ended up using an excavator and a dump truck. I have a picture, but it's probably for the best that I don't attach it to this post.

Anyway, we cleaned up the camp and moved in over the course of about two months. I'll admit that initially I was vehemently opposed to the idea of moving here. I saw no benefit in moving from a comfortable and established (although crowded) house to a stray-dog infested camp. As soon as I cleaned up and painted my room, I was a convert. Having my own room, a bathroom shared with one other person, and enough space to generally be able to get away from the unsolicited political opinions that spew forth from a select group of peoples' mouths each time the news comes on during dinner was enough to sell me on this place. Some of us are still a little nostalgic for the Green House, but I think that's mostly because it was such a unique living arrangement for a deployment.

As far as liesure activities, there's the internet, a big screen TV in the dining facility with an Armed Forces Network satellite connection, and a dirt trail around the perimeter of the camp. The trail is 630 meters long, and the novelty wore off after about the third lap. There's also a mountain behind the camp with a de-mined trail - stay between the white rocks! - to the top. It's about a 25 minute climb, and it makes for a nice workout. As far as mines go, the risk is probably low. The mountains around here, and particularly around the camp, have been grazed by nomadic herders since the Russians left, except while the Taliban was in power. That's not to say there might not still be mines around, but odds are a few unlucky goats and sheep have found most of them.

I'm not sure what else to add, since the pictures should kind of speak for themselves. If you remember the initial pictures I sent from the Green House, you'll notice that one drawback to the FOB is that the view isn't nearly as good, but if the price is not having to get up at four thirty in the morning to use the bathroom before work, I'm okay with it.

Here's about half of my bedroom. It's plenty comfortable for one person; all you really miss behind the camera is a closet and the door. The rusty pieces of metal on the top shelf are leftovers from the Russians, most of which were found on top of the mountain where the first picture was taken. There are fighting positions all over the mountaintops; you can always find spent shell casings, in some places there are larger caliber 30 mm shells (possibly anti-aircraft, I'm not sure), and depending on how hard you look you can usually find smaller things like grenade handles and buttons from Soviet uniforms.