Here's the patient area

 My room in the clinic...an actual room space!

 The view of the mountains from the clinic and look...carpentry stopped to pose!

I even get a desk!

Company day!

Today was a great day. I had company! I love entertaining. To prepare I mopped the clinic floor twice and dusted the furniture and made everything look pristine...then I got patients. WTH! I usually have to track them down to get them in to see me on any given day. I never get patients. They don't care how sick they are or how much pain they're in. They will not seek medical attention. They believe that all medical people are here to send them home. Sometimes it can not be avoided. A broken rotted, infected tooth for example. It will never get better on it's own and I am not equiped to pull teeth- so yes, home you go. Get your stuff done before you come here. Why is that my fault? It's rough and rugged here, bare minimum desert medicine. So on my special company day, here come the patients. I think that they like me here, but I'm thinking...Oh No! not today! They track in the dirt and sneeze and and get their whatever's all over the place. ..and scrub away I continue. At last, I thought to myself, this is a losing battle to keep the floor clean and show off the clinic and then I recall why it is that I am here. It's all in a days work. And I really love my patients. Bring me your achy backs and runny nose, yuk, yuk!

The company Care Counselor took a little side trip to visit this tiny little base and me! I had met him before and he's a great guy, so I had a chance to visit and show him around and introduce him to everyone. Thankfully he brought pamplets to hand out later because he falls under suspicion too. But, he's fun and he even knew someone here in no man's land, good sign of personability! We stayed up well after 8pm talking and me telling stories...well, he did too -good times! Speaking of bedtime...Isn't it crazy that back home I would easily stay up until 1-2 am and still get up around 7 am. I can't do it here and I don't know anyone that can.

The day ended in a crush of despair when we got the news of the tragedy at Kandahar. Bombs, suicide bombers, blah, blah...I almost forgot I was in the middle of a war and that there's talibaddie's to worry about. It just makes you want to go out and kick some a- -! And now that I've been around to a few places, visualizing the sites where the destruction happened make it more real. We don't get any information on anything. It gives a whole new meaning to head in the sand- that's us! We get our info just like you do...via CNN- unless we're right there as it's happening.

I'm having a blast on this tiny FOB. There's just enough activities to do everyday. We take walks around the base which would take all of 10 minutes if we didn't go up to the guard shacks and visit and explore the areas that have been bombed out and fortified. It's a really tight squeeze in some areas. Sometimes we view the province (look over the walls) and see what the locals are up to. There are architectural sites that are within our line of vision and that we don't talk about and can't visit, because the talitubbies might get us. They're like the bogey man with IED's and other bad toys. Then there's meal time which is social time, so I never skip that and it's starting to show. I'm committed to doing less eating and more coffee drinking and more hitting the gym.

Picture time of the clinic that I'm at temporarily manning...unless I can figure out a way to throw Frank under the bus and stay permanently...Just kidding Frank!!

I'm really missing my base too.