tulips

Sunday 17 January 2010

I’m currently at Kandahar Air Field (KAF), which is a NATO base in Southern Afghanistan. The weather has been warm (in the 60’s during the day), a blessed relief from the cold of northern and eastern Afghanistan. Since it’s a NATO base, the majority of people at Kandahar are actually not from the U.S., which is also an interesting distraction. Aside from the Tim Horton’s donut shop (which I will not discuss as I’ve just barely come to terms with my gluttony-inspired self-loathing), the most amazing thing about KAF is the NATO gym. It’s run by a civilian company from Amsterdam, and it is the cleanest place I’ve been in 5 months. It very much resembles a health club back home with music playing and weight machines- strikingly different form the Army gym tent at Bagram. I had previously heard that you actually have to change into clean shoes when you get into the gym, which is a problem for me, because I just don’t have anything clean. As I approached the European front desk worker/receptionist, he looked down his nose at me with a pinched expression, as if he had just discovered a worm in one of the tulips in his windmill garden. I can understand Serge’s shock (I’m assuming his name is Serge, though it could just as easily have been Tomas or Sven) at my appearance. I was wearing my stretched, stained workout uniform and shorts with my combat boots, since I don’t have one clean pair of running shoes let alone two that would allow a change. I’m fairly sure that he gagged when he saw my running shoes. I hadn’t noticed until then that my formerly grey New Balance 990’s are now black, cracked, and surrounded by a Pigpen-like cloud/aura/entitiy that is part dust, part stench.

He felt compelled at that point to state, “Ze purpose of ze shoo shange policy ees to shange from derty to clean, not derty to dertier.”

Got it, Sven, it is what it is. I’ll try not to touch anything and I won’t even comment on the Enya CD you just put in. Deal?

He let me in and dove straight for the hand gel. Anyway, they had soccer playing on the TV’s, though thankfully the sound didn’t quite overpower the Enya. Ugh. I did notice a short piece on BBC about Prince William. He was standing in a Royal Air Force uniform along with his father, who was in his Royal Navy uniform. I’m assuming Prince William must have completed some sort of military training. I recall vaguely that his little brother is doing something with the Royal Marines. Though I suspect that neither of them will be dropping 20 pounds with their brethren in Helmand Province or nearly freezing to death along the border of Pakistan, I think it’s neat that they get a little taste of military life.

I will admit to watching a bit of the soccer, since they weren’t showing the NFL playoff games. I know that I am shallow, biased, and woefully underexposed, but I can’t help myself- I just don’t understand the attraction to soccer. I mean, when the players get blazing mad at one another, they run up and kick each other, much like the young girls did on my schoolhouse playground. While I can shamefully admit that those kicks did actually sometimes hurt, I just don’t get it. We were taught as youngsters playing baseball that if you get hit by a pitch, jog nonchalantly to first base as if nothing happened, though it may feel like you just ruptured your spleen. Your teammates would be yelling “Don’t rub it” as you trotted down the first base line. In football, you’re taught to “play through the pain,” or “grin and bear it.” Soccer players, however, seem to suffer an epileptic fit when another player actually happens to graze them, flopping on the ground like a dying fish.

I am happy to report, though, that Chelsea beat Ulster (or Unger or something like that) 7-1. Tomas was ecstatic.