Tuesday 12 April 2011

Quite the start to the day over here… was awakened at 10:30am, still my “night”, by my team leader advising me to get dressed, walk out the BHut and turn left… the camp was being evacuated due to a suspicious package. Now wide awake I threw on whatever decent clothing I could find and stumbled out the steps. I headed left where I found some 40-50 people standing at the back of our camp, one of many that comprises the military base. Ingrid guided me over to the shade since it was like I had been stun gunned by the sunshine - with no natural light the BHut is always pitch black. I asked what was going on and she could only tell me that EOD had come into the office telling everyone to evacuate. Our other two team members had been out on errands at the time and ended up trapped on the other side of our camp.

We ended up settling into a bunker since it was cooler in the shade and somewhat away from the crowd since I was still half asleep. We were outside almost two hours before we were told there would be a controlled detonation in 5 min…meaning they were going to blow up whatever they found. Within minutes there was a popping sound and everyone started to move back into the camp but soon it became clear we weren’t going anywhere. Another suspicious “something” had been identified, and it was another half hour before another explosion went off. And this time the boom was big. Then we were given the all clear. We still have little information about what really happened and likely will not, but it was still quite the Good Morning Afghanistan.

I managed to get another half an hour of sleep, before I was back up and trudging to the shower latrine…only two find the water stunningly cold. I managed to just stick my head in to just wash my hair before it was back in the office for work. Then approximately 2 minutes into my shift we got a call from the post office advising there was an enormous amount of care packages that needed to be picked up NOW because there was no room for any new mail. So Ingrid, Terra and I went to the post office and schlepped almost two dozen boxes out to the car. From there it was a quick trip to the PX to turn in our uniforms for pressing and pay for a new month of internet (I’ve only been here a month??? ) and then back to the office where I have been fighting sleep since this morning!


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