The Worst Place on Earth

Okay, well, probably not. I'm sure there are some seriously bad places just in Iraq, let alone the rest of the world.

So I arrived in theater on Sunday night, and sat in the freezing cold for about an hour waiting for the shuttle bus. I must have missed the one by like two minutes, or else it had simply not showed up that hour. Luckily some very nice Armenians took pity on me and gave me a ride over to Camp Stryker. Say what you want about third-world countries, at least people there have manners. There were like five other groups of people just standing around in the cold, getting rides, and then driving off. The truck smelled seriously of BO though. Of course, after thirty six hours without a shower, one starts to wonder "is that me?"

But Camp Stryker SUCKS. The showers are disgusting, not even a bench or a hook to hang your clothes, the food is tolerable (I give marks there), and it is in the middle of nowhere - forty five minute bus ride to get to Liberty. Its like living in... Finksburg or something. Bleh. And no flush toilets anywhere, unless you're lucky (and high rank) enough to get a wet trailer. I remember last time, the highlight of my trip was finding the flush toilets hiding behind the T-barriers. Yeah, not here - I looked. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do, but this is nasty.

I am currently sleeping on a cot in a tent with somewhere between three and thorty other people, depending on the time of day. Last night about ten people just sort of blundered in looking for cots around 2:00 in the morning. And they weren't... quiet, either. Its hard enough sleeping on a cot, try it with ten loud, boot wearing flashlight carrying men stumbling around. Oh yeah, and I'm pretty sure this morning the people in the tent next to me were listening to an Idi Amin speech on their CD player, at fully appropriate volume.

And it rained, oh joy. I used to say I wanted to see the rainy season here... I think I was wrong. They should call this place "the land of a million disgusting muddy puddles for one month out of the year". Like, seriously, I had to detour my route around like three lake-sized puddles just to get to the MWR building (the only source of internet access). I'll have pictures later, once I get to my final destination and have better internet and I can use my computer.