Graffiti

                Let’s get  this out there:  I like graffiti.  I like witty, urbane, interesting,  cutting graffiti.  The type of graffiti you find in bathroom stalls in graduate school.  Clever.  Kind of like the anonymous precursor to facebook, where a discussion may be started by a Marxist, dissing Reagan’s Capitalism and his trickle down theory of economics as fatally flawed.  Once the discussion is started, the perpetrators always return to the scene of the crime (the same stall) to see who has commented on their thread.  They like to return well before the call of nature has tooted its clarion horn.  ‘Cause they want to see who responded to their post.  Fun stuff.  

               The first time I had to use the toilet here, I noticed the stern warning taped to the outside of the entrance to the throne, “Warning:  This is government property.  Graffiti is prohibited.  Blah blah blah.”  I opened the door to find the walls covered with graffiti.  Nasty stuff.  Nasty and embarrassing that Americans, native English speakers who wrote that shit are that uneducated.  The graffiti is absolutely riddled with spelling and grammatical errors.  And then there is some downright racist stuff. 

                The demographics of the workforce amongst contractors in Afghanistan is interesting.  On Bagram, you’ll find primarily Americans from all regions of the U.S., but the Indians can outnumber Americans by a 2:1 ratio.  There are also Kosovars, Nepalis and a smattering of Afghanis.  I’m unfailingly polite to the Afghanis.  If there ever is an incident where the perimeter has been breached and some insugent group is looking for a few good infidels (and my infidel-ness is chart topping, I assure you), I hope they’ll point me out and say, “Not that one.  He’s a good man.  He knows my name and learned a few words of Pashtu.  Spare him.”  I’ll give him the big thumbs up and say, “Allahu akbar to you, my brother!  That’s what I’m talking about!”

                But the international workforce can sometimes lead to misunderstandings and differences, and can lead to some unpleasant graffiti (factoid:  the singular of graffiti is graffito).  Most of the stuff is appalling.  There is a lot of black/white name calling, which has nothing to do with the workforce from around the world, which is even more of a reason for it to be inexcusable.  There is the liberal use of the ‘n’ word.  There are proclamations of the end of the U.S.  because Obama was re-elected.  And again, Obama is a Muslim and was born in Kenya.  Like I said, not the stuff of graduate school.  Or high school.  Even Michelle is fair game.  Children.  Please.  Are Sasha and Malia next?   The black population hits back against Mitt Romney and the white establishment;  we’re all racist crackers.  Go home if you don’t want to be here, Obama won the election.  Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.   Clearly, there are some deep rooted issues at stake.  In 1991, Rodney King asked if we could just all get along.  Apparently, even after almost 23 years, the answer is no.  There is one person who uses a red pen to correct grammar, punctuation and spelling, without entering the fray.  Just things like, ‘Indefinite article not needed here.  No need for a comma.  If there is no pause when speaking, you don’t use a comma.”   My kind of graffiti.  But the rest is just uneducated, lowest common denominator crap.   

                 The most virulent graffiti is directed at the Indian workforce.  Some of the most interesting, educated, hard working and competent people I have worked with overseas have been Indians, particularly from the State of Kerala, which spends the greatest percentage of their budget on education, and from my perspective, Kerala is getting a bang for their buck. But the graffiti is aimed at  toilet habits, which apparently are unknown and foreign to those from the U.S.  For those who don’t know, many in the Indian subcontinent, and throughout Southeast Asia and East Asia use squat toilets and water to clean themselves.  By the by, there are a number of studies out there that show squatting while dropping a deuce has health benefits.  I won’t bore you with the nitty gritty, but if you’re interested, go ahead and google it for grins.  What really gets the sitters going is the empty water bottles (brought in to clean the nether regions after squatting) and what the sitters refer to as ‘ass water.’  The first time I heard that phrase, I couldn’t stop chuckling.  Really?  Ass water?  I chuckle even as I write this.  For those squatters who are not careful, when cleaning the nether regions with water, drops  may splatter on the toilet seat.  When a sitter goes in a stall and sees droplets of water on the toilet seat, they can rest assured they did not come from a pure mountain fed fresh spring.  No, those wet spots are…ass water.  Who wants to have to clean that shit up?

                The graffiti is really not fit to print, so anyone who was looking forward to the gory details of the insults hurled back and forth will be disappointed.   And don’t you think ass water is a detail that is gory enough?  We all live on the base.  We work together, we eat together.  The living quarters are segregated (not sure why that is, perhaps a morbid fear of getting too close to ass water prompted some planner to have the Indians in separate living quarters – not sure if the Kosovars are housed separately as well).  Living and working together should engender some sort of camaraderie – and it does, up to a point.   And that point, the Mason-Dixon line of Bagram, and I suspect throughout every FOB in Afghanistan is between those from whom the ass water comes and those who enter a stall to find the most unwelcome ass water.  The division is between the sitters and the squatters.  And baby, I’ve seen the graffiti to prove it. 

Up  next?  Bagram, a mature base and an ode to #236.

What's Bagram like?

George Clooney doesn't wear cargo pants.

     What's Bagram like and why the hell am I here?  Well, the second question is easier to answer than the first one, actually.  I'm here to help draw down a contract (send contractors home) as the military closes Forward Operating Bases (FOB's) and winds down their effort in Afghanistan. As the military sends soldiers home, there will be a corresponding reduction in the contractors that provide their support.  This is also the last of the stupid money contracting overseas, so I thought I'd jump on that gravy train as it pulled out of the terminal for the last time.  You can think of me as kind of like George Clooney in the movie Up in the Air, but not as good looking or rich.  And  not as well dressed.  And I don't have as many frequent flyer miles as he did in the movie.  Ahhh, forget about it, I'm just here to send people home.  And that's a good thing.
     What's Bagram like?  Bagram Air Force base (BAF) is about 30 miles outside of Kabul and sits in a basin at an elevation of about 4800+ feet, surrounded by mountains.  It's kind of nice seeing the sun rise over the Hindu Kush, but then you remember you're in Bagram.  The T-walls and concertina wire are as much to keep us in as to keep those on the outside, well, out.  I don't know the exact size of the base, but around the perimeter road on my bicycle, it's 13.19 kilometers - there are also some off limit areas (like the infamous prison) that I'll never get close to, but it's still part of the base, so it's much larger than just the perimeter.  When it  rains, it's muddy everywhere, when it doesn't rain, the dust is pretty nasty.  There have been a few nice days after the rain when the dust has been tamped down and momentarily, it looks brilliant, but then you remember you're on Bagram.  BAF  is huge and has some fairly decent ameneties - Amazon ships out here with amazing speed.  There are a number of Dining Facilities (known on bases the world over as DFAC - haven't eaten at all of them yet, but am slowly working my way around base, trying the DFAC's one by one), a number of PX's selling  the necessities of life, coffee shops, Afghani shops selling pirated DVD's, pizza and a few fast food joints for those who don't want to eat the quite good free food at the DFAC's.  With the DFAC serving decent food, those fast food places will never get a fil out of me.
     It is a hopping place, with aircraft of all types - big, small, helicopters and  fighter jets taking off and landing all of the time.  The work is non-stop, 7 days a week, 12 hours/day for 4 months, then you get a break.  The living conditions?  They suck.  On the good side, where you sleep is temperature controlled, there are porcelain flush toilets outside and the shower facilities have steaming hot water.  Running water, flush toilets and electricity - good.  Living in bunk bed conditions in a room with 24 of my closest contractor friends, some of who snore almost as loudly as my wife - bad.  And because the toilets are outside, we old guys, who are wont to get up in the middle of the night to pee, stop hydrating at about 3:00 pm so we don't have to walk outside to said porcelain toilets in the dark, cold night.  I'm not in a tent, which is open bay life, I'm in a b-hut, which is one step above the tents.  B-huts are constructed out of plywood.  Privacy is lacking. I'm on the waiting list for a CHU (Containerized Housing Unit) but my number will come up well after I leave here, at the end of my year. But the beds are for sleeping and I can do anything for 4 months at a time.  Confession:  I did have a start when I was taken to my bunk.  I said, "Is this my permanent assignment?"  "Yes it is mon, it is," said the Jamaican who escorted me to my lovely sleeping quarters.  I nutted up, put my suitcase on top of my wall locker, went out and bought a pillow and some linen and settled in.  After the fat life in Kuwait, where we had a three bedroom, four bath luxury apartment on the Persian Gulf, the b-hut is, to put it mildly, a  bit of a let down.  This is kind of the overview of why I'm here and what the life is like.  Up next: racism on post, as told by the graffiti in the bathroom stalls.