A Day in the Life

Well, since I have had a few questions about what there is to do here, I'll give an overview of life here.

I woke up and went out of my trailer room to the shower trailer to take a shower and it was a nice cool 86 degrees with a slight easterly breeze of about 5 mph. A slight haze hung in the air, but the bright morning sun felt warm and clean upon my face. In this environment, turning a shower on hot is tantamount to boiling yourself, so placing the temperature somewhere about cool I took a refreshingly hot shower. (If this were a shower where any of you are, the water temp would have been something like 70 degrees, but here it was close to 100)

Clean body, clean teeth, clean shaven, I head back to my trailer to get dressed for the day ahead. My roommate is up and about, so we exchange morning pleasantries (kind of like a cross between a grunt and an ugh…sounds like “uhrnff.”) After getting dressed and downing a liter of water, I grab my rifle and head out for work.

I walk across open fields of brown dirt and light tan sand interspersed occasionally with reed grass, thorny scrub brush and some decent sized date Palms, on my way to a small complex of trailers that are what most of us call “The Green Bean Complex”.

Green Beans is a world wide coffee house that has set up a shop here on our complex, and I take about an hour there every day to wake up with a nice hot cup of coffee and to get my brain functioning in the right direction. With a medium coffee in my hand, I sit down with a few friends and we chat about what we already have scheduled for the day.

Today, I had to leave a bit early from Green Beans because it’s laundry pick-up day for me. Turn in up to 20 items at a time and it takes 3 days to get them back, but they are clean and I don’t have to do the washing.

Laundry in hand, I head off for the office. I grab an energy bar from the dining facility on the way and go to work. The morning progresses slowly with a few cable repairs and some minor login issues, but so far so good. It is a relatively uneventful day so to speak.

Around 10 am I start getting the usual calls for assistance regarding the network being down, and go over and explain that disconnecting the cable from the computer is what causes that. When I get the question, “Well, can’t you do anything to stop that from happening?” I resist the temptation to sling harsh insults and only respond with, “Just stop unplugging it, and it will be fine.”

At noon I head out to lunch for a nice meal of Beef Marsala and Rice, relaxing in the dining facility with a few friends. After feasting, I head back to the office and start getting some more of the usual calls. Just to get away from the phone, I head outside to tidy up some of the loose cables and clean up the cabling nightmare that was left for us from years before. Working in the hot midday sun, with temperatures around 110 to 115 degrees, people tend to get thirsty fast. I am no exception to that policy. About 2 hours and 4 liters of water later, I have had enough of the heat and sun, and head back inside.

The phone is ringing, and I recognize the number as one of my “problem children” and I immediately turn around and head out of the office and walk over to another office that has been waiting on my assistance to help them reconfigure their workstations. About 30 minutes later, I wander back up to the office and sit down at my desk.

I go through the daily afternoon routine of updating my boss on what I have done today, and then head off to one of the Palaces to turn in a few new user account requests.

Now the Palace is definitely a sight to see. Mother of Pearl, Gold Inlaid Marble, Immense Crystal Chandeliers, Beautiful wall sconces and carvings, this place is a work of art. I wonder at the thought processes of a tyrant who can do horrendous things to people and yet have something so beautiful created.

My day almost done, I head back to the office before dinner, and relax for a few minutes while we go over the plan for tomorrow. With dinner at 6 pm, then taking the time to drop my laundry back off in my room and change, I will be free to do what I want from around 7 or 7:30 pm. Now, what to do in my free time…

Let’s see, I could go to the Green Bean Complex and maybe get a sub or a pizza, but that wouldn’t be a good idea saying that I just ate and will be going to sleep in the next 2 hours. That kills that idea. I am too tired to go to the gym and work out, so that one is out of the question. Some of the other camps randomly have themed events like Salsa Night (not gonna go there), and reggae night, but they are a bus ride away, and that takes some time. Once a week there is a Karaoke night here on my camp, but I really don’t like singing in public, so that one is out. Looks like I am going to go back to my room and either play a game on my laptop or read a book.

That is a day in my life in a nutshell. As long as I have a good book or a fun game, I will get along swimmingly until it is time for me to come home. Don’t get me wrong, I see interesting things every day, and meet many people of different cultures every day as well. I just don’t seem to have the energy to do much of anything after work because I have so much to do during the day and the heat is no help either.

I will start enjoying the area more when I start having days off, but until then I am just gonna spend my time as a semi-hermit.

Until the next time