A Letter From the Front

I have a niece who is serving in Afghanistan and we're expecting her home for Thanksgiving. She can't tell us what she's up to over there, but this recent note about daily life captures a lot of what it feels like to be an officer in a foreign land. I know she'll forgive me for sharing it with you:

Dear Aunt Robin:

The water in the showers is heavily chlorinated. Periodically throughout the day if I lift my hands near my face I can smell the smell of a swimming pool wafting from my skin. The air this morning must have been more damp than usual or the chemical composition slightly different because my shower brought me immediately back to the smell of Covington pool in California, where my grandfather would take me and my sisters swimming so long ago. He would race us in the pool and let us swim until it was time to walk back home and have dinner. There are no swimming pools here (that I know of) and there isn't much water. The diminishing hours of daylight make it feel colder than it actually is. Fall has arrived in Afghanistan and the air is more crisp, less forgiving, and dry. I had nearly forgotten the effects of a high dry climate. My jogging clothes cling to my skin in the strange wrinkled relief map pattern of some unknown place. I lather my hands with lotion, and I'm not exactly sure where the lotion goes, but it doesn't seem to relieve my skin.

I have five more weeks to plug through and can't wait to eat food that hasn't been processed then frozen then shipped to Afghanistan, then thawed then cooked then fed to me and my colleagues. The chow hall makes a product here we affectionately call the voo-doo BBQ as it is some type of compressed meat with bones inserted to give it the appearance of ribs. None of us is fooled. Many still eat it. I draw the line when bones need to be added to a meal.

Thank you all for the dear care packages and letters. I hope all is well.
D