This is a B HUT. FOB Lagman billets visitors and inhabitants alike in B HUTS. Soldiers...B HUTS. Civilians...B HUTS. God and everybody...B HUTS. A B HUT is exactly what it looks like - a plywood shanty with a tarp, tent, plastic sheeting and/or a salvaged water bladder thrown over and nailed or stapled on to keep out the wet stuff. Inside, B HUTS are divided into living cubbies with doors. The walls stop about a foot from the ceiling so the hut can be centrally heated and cooled with a single unit. Inside, they kind of have that tree house vibe and are generally comfortable enough unless the B HUT one happens to be sharing is filled with seven 12 year old, gossipy PFCs who have no whisper setting, who vociferously come and go at odd hours, who turn on Family Guy full volume at 4AM sans headphones and who apparently were raised by Sasquatch so have no idea about manners as they relate to communal living in a B HUT with a tired, overworked old woman. During my tenure at Lagman, I came to hate and revile the fact that light switch controlling the fluorescent fixture hunging in my room was in the posession of the gal in the room next door. While candle light might be considered romantic when dining with a lover and minimal lighting might soothe when one is having a 2 hour massage, dressing by flashlight for a month is not nor is it ever likely to catch on as the preferred ambiance for a morning ablution scenario. Now, had I been lazing around all day in dishabille which is definitely more my style...oddly enough and to my everlasting chagrin, when DynCorp pays one to work 12 hours a day, 7 days a week they actually expect one to do it. The only thing worse than living in that B HUT of constant darkness was my neighbor's propensity to employee the light switch on her side of the wall to flip the light on and off randomly on my side of the wall when normal people are asleep....well, the normal ones...AND ME!
Good grief! It sounds like being on a field trip with the kids in charge! Do you have room in your bag for a sleeping mask to counter the random acts of light? And a battery-operated camping light that stands and gives diffused light might fit in there. I don't know if you're there long enough to solve those problems before they're over with.
ReplyDeleteOh I always travel prepared having LONG taken responsibility for my own happiness and well being. I pack a sleeping mask or two, foam ear plugs and noise canceling headphones, my own memory foam pillow with several extra pillowcases, a heavy blanket which can be used to pad a crappy mattress or to snuggle under to block out light. I do OK. I pretty much have the gift of being able to sleep anywhere, anytime and when you add to that the 12-18 hours a day 7 days a week I put in on the job, the exhaustion factor often takes over. lOL.
ReplyDeleteMy experience with PFC's wasn't family guy at 4am. Poor lonely kids.
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