Hey y’all…it’s a lovely morning here in Djibouti. I got up this morning for my Thursday morning run. It seemed much darker out this morning than usual. The sky was quite cloudy…so all I could think of was my first rain in Djibouti and SNAKES! UGH! But alas, no rain. No snakes. And no need to freak out.
When I walked out of my CLU I was so pleased with the quiet and the cool air. Cool is relative, though, remember. I am not sure what the exact temperature was at 0530, but now here at 0800 it is already a Black Flag Day:
as of October 28 Thursday @ 08:02 H | |
Heat Category | Black |
Digital Thermometer | 95.2 F |
Dry Bulb Thermometer | 104 F |
Relative Humidity | 39.7% |
Have I truly acclimated to this place? I guess so. And that’s good. Honestly the 100+ degree temperatures really aren’t that bad, in moderation.
Running…I am really enjoying my time running in the mornings. This morning was only a 25 minute run. My running buddy Ben actually lives in the CLU right above me. So as I sat on my stoop waiting for him to come out, he opens his door and looks down with a big “Good Morning!” for me. We stretch a little and head out to the road. We are going to run the trail again this morning. As we exit Tango-5, our berthing area (or in laymen’s terms, where we live, our compound), they have just completed building a small pedestrian bridge to get you over the ditch that is between us and the road. I have watched them build this, but today is the first day I notice how ugly it is. Someone painted the fancy handrails a bright yellow and blue. Wow – kind of stands out in this dessert dirt area. But oh well…trying to add a little color I guess.
We hit the gravel and start the watches. We are headed over to the running trail. On our way we pass a sea of CLUs that the military folks live in. Theirs are different than ours. They are mostly single layered and back to back – as in the bathroom is a straight walk back once you enter the door of the CLU. And it is shared between the 2 occupants. We also pass areas with large tents. These are also where some military live. They blend in with the ground and look like they would be hot. However, they have A/C running into them. I haven’t had a chance to peak into any of these yet. We also pass a number of work areas. Not sure what all goes on around here, but it is all so official military looking. We pass some tanks and large utility vehicles. Lastly we pass large tents full of storage. Again, not sure what’s in there, but it’s a lot of stuff.
We hit the gate to the opening of the trail. Along this part of the trail we run next to the flight line. The sun will be coming up soon. There are a lot of people out running this morning. We are beginning to see the same faces every day. As runners so often do, we all greet each other with a nice friendly Hello. You are allowed to listen to music on the trail, but not while you are along the roads on the main parts of base. I don’t listen to music when I run. Poor Ben gets to listen to me run my mouth the whole way. This morning we talk about our hopeful plans for trips back home to see family and friends, and other trips that sound like fun while we are here. We talk about that a lot. Makes the time pass. Today he was also informing me of the differences he sees between the ladies in the various military branches here. He wants to know why the Marine and Army females always look so mean?
The trail is dirt and sporadic gravel. No motor vehicles allowed on it. The dirt is such a fine, soft reddish dirt. As you run and kick it up behind you, it sticks to the sweat on your legs. Thank God my peeps sent me a plethora of black running socks! My socks were looking pretty dingy. The mosquitoes are out in force this morning. I am teaching Ben to do Interval Running: run 5 minutes, and walk 1 minute. It’s a great way to train for long distances. Those crazy peeps who run a full 26.2 miles…just don’t get it! ;-) Ben seems to like it so far…but today, so did the mosquitoes. Every walk break I can feel them zoom in on me. Of course then my mind wanders to “Did I take my Malarone yesterday?” “Do these mosquitoes carry any diseases?” Smack, swat, let’s keep running!
There isn’t much to see on the trail. A lot of the land around it has been cleared out. But there are some trees. And of course the flight line. There are a couple of planes that always seem to be parked there, but periodically we get to see different ones that are in for a short stay. Some mornings the flight crews/maintenance crews are already out doing their thing to get the planes ready to go. It gets loud when the engines are fired up. But I still love it! We pass a couple of watch towers and get nods from the occupants. The trail is about 2 miles long right now (as in they plan to expand it). So you can head out and back, or like this morning, we just ran it back to Tango-5.
We stop for some water, as we both seem to be quite thirsty this morning. You can feel the dust in your throat a lot and probably the residual smoke leftover from last night’s incinerator run. My breathing is getting back to normal for the most part when I run. It’s the first thing to get messed up when I take a break. So I am glad I can breathe better and talk Ben’s ear off at the same time! I messed up our schedule with my last post; we will be doing Hills/Speed work on Fridays, not Thursdays. So tomorrow will be a fun run…up and down the hill as fast as we can!
We head back to our CLUs. I take off my shoes outside on my stoop since they are now completely covered in that fine, soft reddish dirt. I will wash them this weekend. I am blasted with the cool air inside when I open my door. I like to keep it cold at night, makes for better sleeping. Plus the white noise of the fan running also helps block out outside noise. I immediately hit the shower to rinse off my legs, trying not to get that dirt all over my CLU. I have a few small pieces of carpet on the floor as I enter. They show the red dirt quite nicely. But as cheap as they sell the carpet for here, I’ll just get new ones at some point.
Speaking of being dirty, our latest struggle here is water conservation. With all the new civilian and military peeps coming onboard, the water use has risen, and so has the waste water. We are reminded weekly about taking “Combat Showers” and to conserve water when doing laundry. For those of you who don’t know what a “Combat Shower” is, it’s basically turning on the water, rinse, turn off water, lather, turn on water, rinse, and then you are done. Add another lather and rinse in there if you wash and condition your hair. It’s interesting, but certainly not hard. I discovered my CLU-mate this morning not following this practice. So I will be sure to say something when I see her later. I just think there are too many people who don’t get it, or just don’t care. And since it so hot out, I think a lot of people take more than one shower a day. The first step they will take if we don’t make a collective change is to shut off all remote laundry facilities. This means we all will need to drop off our laundry for laundry service or use the one laundry mat near the galley. The second step, they will cut the water off to all the Wet CLUs! So much for my new place with bathroom attached! I am stressed…and you know me! I feel it is necessary for me to state my opinion when someone else is not following the rules. It’s not hard people! I’ll keep you posted.
UPDATE: My boss made it out yesterday on a flight to Paris. So she is at least in a hospital now that hopefully can take better care of here than here. I haven’t heard anything yet, but will update again as soon as I do.
So I think that’ll do for today. I was thinking about the blog this morning while running and decided to tell you about my mornings. I enjoy my mornings here most so far.
Y’all enjoy the last few days of this week and Happy Halloween! Hope everyone gets many treats this weekend!
Good luck to my brother and all the other Marine Corps Marathon runners this Sunday! You all are amazing! Enjoy the run, the scenery, the kazillions of people, and a nice, hopefully beautiful day in our Nation’s Capital!
Cheers!
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