Life at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait

Life at Camp Arifjan, Kuwait

Friday, 10/27/06
2200

I thought I’d write a bit about life in Kuwait (or at least here at Camp Arifjan). It’s kind of a double entendre – I intend to write about what *my* life is like here, but also about the other life (as in flora and fauna) that I have seen.

Here is a photo of a plant growing outside of the building where I live:*Life at Camp Arifjan #1

This is quite literally the only growing thing anywhere in sight for about a quarter mile in any direction (and a lot farther than that in most directions!). I don’t know if it took root by accident or if someone planted it there, but a wider view will give an indication of why it is possible for it to grow here:*Life at Camp Arifjan #1b
If you look closely, you can see there’s a slight leak or dribble out of the red pipe. As they said in Jurassic Park – “life will find a way”!

The only other green things anywhere on post that I have seen are a few sickly-looking cultivated palm trees growing here and there near building entrances, the lawn in front of the Third Army (Forward) building (rich and green due to copious watering), and a small forest of some kind of palm trees in front of the permanent buildings on main post (also green, for the same reason). There’s also a lounge area outside of the main PX building called “Cathy’s Garden”. As near as I can tell, it’s somebody’s hobby that they just maintain for us to have a place to go sit and relax in the shade around some greenery. I haven’t spent much time there, but I saw it as I walked in one day and it looked interesting.

*Life at Camp Arifjan #2

*Life at Camp Arifjan #4
Other than this I’ve seen a few houseflies, one fruit fly, and a very few birds here and there. I have yet to see a mammal, although somebody told me they once saw a mouse. There are all kinds of posters warning us about spiders and scorpions, but I haven’t seen any. The book I bought about Kuwait says there are about 400 species of plants and animals here, but they must be someplace else...

It’s not surprising, since there’s really nothing here but sand. Even the rocks and gravel seem to have been imported and laid down to provide a more substantial surface in the areas that aren’t paved but still need to be heavily traveled.

So much for “life” in the sense of flora and fauna. What about my day-to-day life? It’s settled into somewhat of a routine, so I can describe it with some level of assurance that it won’t change significantly for awhile.

The weather is starting to cool down a little, and doesn’t feel as hot to me. On Wednesday (the day I started writing this) I went outside with a digital thermometer at about 1:30 PM, and it was “only” 105.3 degrees F. (That’s not a joke or tongue in cheek remark – 105 feels fine, and relatively cooler than it often gets here, even compared to when I got here a couple weeks ago. I’m not sure how much cooler the days are (it may just be that I’ve gotten used to it), but the nights really are starting to cool down, and that provides some relief. I think it makes a huge difference that it’s so dry here. The heat does not feel as “close” as it does when it’s humid. It dries you out rapidly when you walk around in it, and it’s important to pick up a bottle of water wherever you go, and drink it before you start back. I gave up on carrying my CamelBak on about the third day, since there’s so much water everywhere. I’m actually more comfortable without it, since it made my back all sweaty. Now the wind (hot and nearly incessant) can cool me off as I walk. (Well, dry me off, which amounts to feeling cooler or at least more comfortable). I’m sure the CamelBak would be very valuable if I was deployed further forward, but it’s superfluous here.

I have been getting up in the morning at 0500, although I’ve slept in until 0600 a few times. Thursday at 0515 it was about 74 degrees F, so it really is cooling off at night. They say that in the summer it doesn’t cool off much – it just stays hot. (I can hardly wait.) I go out and do PT – sometimes right here in the area, and sometimes over at the gym, depending on what I feel like doing. I’m done by 0545 or 0600, shower and dress, and head for breakfast around 0630 or 0700.
I’ve been getting in to our office between 0730 and 0800, which gives me a little prep time before the phone starts to ring. The “office” is really a storage room, more or less, filled with a jumble of tools, parts, and supplies for building repair and maintenance. One of the first things we did when I got there was clean out one side and put our desks up against the wall. There’s still a lot of cleaning and organization to do. I am still assessing my people, (one permanent and one temporary) but it’s already pretty clear that they need some guidance and supervision. More on that later, perhaps.

There aren’t really any regular meetings that I have to go to, so my day is driven by a combination of phone calls reporting infrastructure problems (malfunctioning A/C, leaky valves, burned out lights, etc.), other requests for service (modifications or additions to the buildings), and self-initiated projects attempting to impose some structure and organization on what is essentially a chaotic mess.

There are some special projects that demand my attention (such as redesigning the cooling system one of the buildings to give the people more control over the temperature), but mainly it’s a struggle to perform maintenance and repair on mechanical systems that are overstressed and failing.

My predecessors in this job took a very hands-on, low-level approach to it. They were basically “break-fix” handymen who just did the work themselves rather than try to work the system to get it done. So they bounced from crisis to crisis fixing things as they broke, and did not have any sort of systematic preventive maintenance program or really any management at all.

The first organizational thing I did was to start using a staff duty log (DA Form 1594) to track all our calls. Before, whenever the phone rang, someone would grab whatever piece of paper was handy and scribble a note. Something may or may not have gotten done, but in any case only that person knew about it. If another priority came up, there was no real way to check that things hadn’t been forgotten or overlooked. Now there’s a written log of all calls and requests, as well as their disposition. Today at the end of the week I was able to go back through the week’s logs and see what hadn’t gotten done. Tomorrow morning’s task will be to make sure we follow up on those things so they don’t fall through the cracks.

I’ve started a maintenance tracking system and a status reporting system that will help us to keep track of what’s been worked on and what’s down because of parts on order, etc. This should enable us to follow up on critical systems that need more attention, and also to spot trends and get ahead of them. The next step after that is systematic preventive maintenance. If things like cleaning the air filters and coils, checking Freon levels, and changing the belts on the compressors were done regularly, these A/C units wouldn’t break down so much. Same thing with all the other systems.

My BC is big on “BWT” (his acronym), for “Broken Windows Theory” – the idea that small things can make a difference. He loaned me a book to read called “The Tipping Point” in which this theory is explained. I haven’t read it yet, but I gather that the idea is that if you fix the little stuff as it breaks, people have a more positive attitude about their surroundings and things don’t deteriorate.

There are other things I am trying to do, such as procure a scissor-lift machine for the technicians to work on the A/C units (instead of perching on ladders), and some other things. But everything takes so much effort to get done. I can’t even get a piece of clear acetate to cover my map of the area, or card stock to print the maintenance records on. Nobody has it or knows where to get it. The comment about “permanent institutional uncertainty” at Camp Arifjan that I had read on someone’s website before I came here was really very valid.

I think we are in a really strange twilight zone between the high-speed, low-drag, no-nonsense, go-to-war mentality of 2001-2003 on the one hand, and a permanent, steady-state, garrison mentality on the other. There are definitely aspects of the garrison mentality creeping in, and unfortunately there are people who thrive in that environment. I’ve love to just blow them off, except that everything I do in my job revolves around fixed installations and the people who support them. So I am spending a lot of my time right now just figuring out who does what, what the process is, and how to navigate the bureaucracy to get anything accomplished. I still don’t know for sure, but I think that a lot (maybe all) of our work orders that get sent in to the supply system for parts orders just die right there because of funding disputes. I have several in that I am tracking through the system, and I won’t be a bit surprised to find that nothing gets ordered the way it’s supposed to, and stuff just stays broken.

I have to deal quite a bit with civilians (bad) and military bureaucrats (sometimes even worse). Many (in fact nearly all) of the civilians are TCN’s (Third Country Nationals) who usually speak little or no English. They have extremely divergent work ethics depending on where they are from, and totally different ideas of quality. It’s really something. Just getting a work order phoned in and recorded properly is a huge task (for example, “calibrate and adjust setback on all thermostats” became “check thermostats”, until I walked him through it word by word and made him write each one down). There are other cultural differences as well. We had a generator mechanic show up last week who you couldn’t stand downwind from without choking – I don’t think he’d had a bath since he was born. It was really extreme. I was tempted to quote Cartmann from South Park (“Dude, it’s called deodorant - it’s not expensive”). But I just stood upwind instead.

Most of the agencies and activities are closed on Thursday and Friday, since that’s the Muslim weekend (Friday is their holy day). I’m still not used to that, although next week I think I may remember not to plan on being able to get anything done on those days.

Back to my day – around 1130 I go to lunch. This is the most crowded meal of the day, since all the DA and DOD civilians and contractors eat, in addition to the military personnel who live on post. It’s a zoo. Then back to the office for more work. It’s kind of odd because I live, eat, and work inside air-conditioned buildings, but when I go outside it’s like stepping into an oven. My job causes me to have to walk around a lot to check things, so I am in and out fairly often. I’m not sure if the heat doesn’t bother me because I already used to it, or because I’m not really out in it for extended periods. It actually feels kind of good to get out and walk around in it, but I sure don’t mind stepping back inside!

We knock off officially around 1700 or 1800, although I’ve stayed later than that some evenings just to get a few things done. Someone has to be on call every night, so we rotate that duty. If someone trips the circuit breaker in their room, we may get a call to open the electrical box and reset it. That happens all the time in the laundry room. The other night we had a fire alarm go off due to aerosol spray in a room (another big offender is illicit microwaves and popcorn). That kept me busy for a couple hours afterwards restarting air conditioners and investigating why the cable TV was out (short circuit in the A/C mechanical room lighting system).

After work is when I get all my personal stuff done like laundry, haircut, PX shopping, blog writing, etc. It used to involve getting on the shuttle bus, but now I have a driver’s license and our section vehicle to use. My NCOIC wasn’t too happy when I said I wanted the key left in the office instead of in his pocket all the time, but fair’s fair, and that way we can both use it when we need it, both for work and also when off duty. It’s a lot faster to be able to drive up to the PX. It also makes it possible to run an errand during the day from time to time, such as going to the post office.

In the evening after any of that kind of personal maintenance work is done, I try to relax a little by watching some TV or a movie, or reading. It takes a lot of effort just to get the basic things done, but I’m gradually beginning to figure out a rhythm that will work for me. Now I just need to work in when I’m going to do my Army education (I haven’t done another course module yet since I got here). But it’s really only the end of my second week, and even though I’ve started working on things I’m still getting oriented.

I’ve been getting to bed between 2300 and 0100, and so getting 4-6 hours of sleep per night. That seems to be enough, although I start to feel tired in mid-afternoon and need a stretch. Often when I feel tired it turns out I’m just dehydrated and a bottle of water or Gatorade will pick me right up.

As far as our weekly work schedule, by Saturday afternoon things slow down, and Sunday is a very slow day. I will probably take some time off to relax, but I also think that will be a day that gives me a chance to get ahead a little. I don’t mind that it’s Friday night!

That’s the cycle of life at Camp Arifjan for me so far. I’m finding my footing and I think I got off to a good start. But it’s like pushing on rope, and it’s going to take a lot of work to get where I want to go.


Mood: Optimistic
Music: Lord of the Rings – The Two Towers (credits)