“A paid vacation,” the recruiting sergeant called it. Lying bastard…..

August 9th 2005, 1640B

Now that was just soooo fun…..

I just spent the last 15 minutes having a bath. Out of a bucket. In a tent at something like 6000ft above sea level. A tent with lots of holes in it. In what passes for winter around here. And there was a rather nippy breeze blowing, I can tell you. It doesn’t matter how warm the water is when you’re standing there bare-ass wet & nekkid, soap in your eyes & trying not to do yourself an injury because the floor is so bloody slippery, and suddenly this gentle little breeze fresh from the Arctic decides to waft through the gaps in the tent and affectionately tickle the unmentionables.
Trust me, it isn’t fun at all….
At least tomorrow I’ll be heading in to Bujumbura to collect my cash-in-hand allowance for the next month, so I’ll stop by the base & have a proper shower there while I’m in town. The only catch is that there’s no hot water in the showers at the base. Still, the capital gets bloody warm, so a cold shower is actually quite pleasant there.
All the same, it’ll be bloody good to get home to Durbs, back to my own place. I have a nice shower at home. It’s hardly the largest, or the most luxuriously appointed – hell, it took 3 months to get the bloody door on – but it’s my shower. I like my shower, & I’ve got some fond memories of time spent in it.
And my bed. Let’s not forget the bed now. I’ve got this lovely queen size that takes up just about all the floor space in the room, & it’s just bloody marvellous. To be sure it was a little strange not to be sharing it those last few days before I came up here, but I’m getting used to that again now & I can’t wait to get back to my own bed again. It’s an exponential leap up from this piece of shit army bed I’m using here. Narrow, wire framed, 2 inch foam mattress piece of crap. I bloody hate this bed.
My own bed, my own shower, my own bloody toilet instead of a bloody long drop. My coffee machine, my fridge with ice for my whiskey, my desktop pc with broadband internet access.

My friends.

I miss all of the above, but I really miss my friends. The Gareths, Ash, Shirlz, Rob, Mark, Paul & Noelle, my mate Iain in Maritzburg. Colleen, Kerry, Roy & Betty from the office, the gang on the Pond, & everyone else I haven’t mentioned here by name. Being separated from my friends is the hardest part about being away like this.

You know, when I started this I was fairly cheerful, other than for what felt like frost bitten delicate bits, but I’ve just succeeded in reminding myself of all the things I miss, and have to do without while I’m here. Now I’m pissed off & maudlin all over again. Fuck it, now I’m going to go find a few pints of Primus & make the world go blurry for a few hours.

See you all in February guys.