Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day Sweethearts.
  Hey I had a good day today (relatively... considering).  I got a mushy eCard from my babe and went and had a much needed massage - also from my honey... I feel a million times better. I chilled out a bunch today; for the near term I have Thursdays off.   I met with the new boss here this week and he put me in charge of the "YODA" watch schedule and duties so one day a week is what we get [one day is just as good as another around here]. YODA is our radio callsign for our position here at the base (we're all knowing and use the 'force' a lot to get all our taskers done).  I work in the JOC (Joint Operations Center - kinda like the command center you saw in the movie War Games except this one is ad hoc).  We talk to the aircraft and coordinate all the military flying in and around Camp Lemonnier (CLDJ) for various operations. We're the air component of the U.S. AFRICOM staff, CJTF-HOA AC (Combined Joint Task Force - Horn of Africa, Air Component). It is a Navy run camp with members from the 4 services here - much heavier in officers than most places as we're a large staff working for the 2-star CJTF-HOA commander. I can't get into details, but I don't work 12 hour shifts for nothin'

    Outside of work I don't have a ton of 'free time'. I'm keeping up with my morning workouts, there is a group of us that do the "INSANITY" workout Mon-Sat. It really is Insane; I hope I can keep consistent with it as it'll do me a lotta good - Sean T is an Animal! They even had a Sweethearts 5K run this morning; I finished in about 28 minutes - and that's after doing my Insanity workout. I've also been spending too much time in the chow hall - 3 a day buffets still aren't doing me any good. I'll have to get some pictures of it - they built a brand new facility and it's great. But definitely not Kerry's home cookin' So with all the comin' and goin, odds and ends like showers, laundry, writin' this blog, Facebooking I don't get but 6-7 hours of sleep, my days off are great.


CLDJ to Les Sables Blancs

   Today wasn't my first day off - on Sunday I was invited to tag along with a few guys to Les Sables Bancs (The White Sands) near Tadjora, Djibouti - a 2 1/2 hour+ drive from Camp around the Gulf of Tadjora, by Lake Assal and the Day Forest - the drive alone was an adventure.  Traffic in a city in a 3rd world country is an experience to behold - absolute pandemonium.  Kids, bicycles, buses, goats, camels, motorcycles - I'll have to get some video for you just to prove it.  As we left the city we drove through the hood... a hood like I've never seen before - the conditions these people live in is deplorable.  The 'homes' in this picture are permanent residences in the local landfill as they had easy access to food. There weren't just these few there were 100's of them


The hood

 Outside 'Djiboutiville' there is nothing but wide open spaces with the occasional village built around a small mosque.  More ranshacke homes, but a few solid structures.  More camels, goats, and even baboons along the road as well.  The highways outside the city were well paved except for where they had washed out in a dozen or so places.  The speed limit is 90 km/h but nobody is doing less than 120 except the big trucks hauling who knows what from the Djiboutian ports to Ethiopia.
 There was a surprising amount of shrubbery on the plains, a few odd trees and lots of terrain.  There were rocks everywhere too - most covered in black - either soot from an old volcano or burnt from the sun.  I was very fortunate to get out and about to see the sights - I can finally grasp that I am in Africa.








  Les Sables Bancs is probably the best beach area in Djibouti.  About a 1/2 mile long stretch of beautiful sand and blue water.  No more than 50 feet off shore is an above average coral reef.  Among the gear I packed included my snorkeling gear - I'm very glad I brought it as I hope to do a bit of SCUBA diving.  There were sea turtles and lots of tropical fish.  I was really hoping to catch a glimpse of the whale sharks that roam these waters, but I got here just a bit too late - they hang out in the Gulf of Aden from Oct thru the end of Jan.  I spent the day diving and sitting on the beach getting a sunburn - sure beats sitting in the JOC for a 12-hour shift.



Les Sables Blancs

New Digs

Old Digs - the tent

Me and 35 of my newest friends

  The military has downsized my living quarters big time. I finally got to move out of the big ol' tent I was in with 35 of my newest friends down to a little 10' x 30' trailer with just one roommate. I haven't met him yet, but gathered he is a Navy Ensign (O-1) from his uniform hanging on the wall. This is a good thing as I get to order him around to clean the floors and do my laundry whenever I want (I'm an O-4, Major). Just kiddin' I would never do that - that's definitely not his job.

In 3-4 months I should be able to move into my own room - one with a bathroom and shower in it. Right now I have to walk a couple CLUs down to a common bathroom/shower trailer. We are asked to take 'combat' showers (wet down, wash, rinse) to save water, which is hard to dispose of as they didn't plumb this place right.

The CLU life - 2 beds and a desk area

The grey and black water are mixed and we're in danger of overflowing the system. Oddly enough they have no trouble producing enough water. Today I have to run over to the internet store and order me up some service; it's a bit expensive, but worth it to be able to be in touch better - hopefully I'll blog a bit more for ya. It's a crazy schedule with working 12 hour shifts and the 9 hour time difference to Texas; that works out to a 10pm to 10am CST shift - pretty good, especially on the weekends. My time I go to bed around 9pm in order get up at 4:30am to call back home (7:30pm CST).

As I've mentioned before the air here is terrible. I don't know if I have a cold/sinus infection, allergies or if the pollution/dust, but my upper respiratory and sinus are giving me a fit - coughs and runny nose. I think I'm gonna wear a surgical mask at night to see if that helps. Despite that I've been doing regular workouts every morning after I call home. There is a group that meets for an hour and does the 'Insanity' videos. They're pretty tough, but are great for getting a thorough workout in minimum time. I'm not in great condition so keeping up is tough, but I'll get there in no time - surprisingly I'm better than most. This is one thing a deployment is good for... getting my butt to the gym. Anyway, I've gotta run off to work here in 15 minutes. See ya.

Groundhog Day for Real

For sure the days are going to be long and busy. I'm already in a routine - get up early to workout, shower, work, play on the computer a bit and go to bed. With 12 hour shifts and the jet lag still kickin' my butt, I'm not much in the mood to type much tonite - plus the mosquitoes are out and about more than usual, my last excuse is that it stinks - the Djiboutans are burning their trash. The real reason I'm going to bed early is so that I can rest up for the Superbowl tomorrow... it comes on at 2am Monday morning here so I need to get my sleep now while the getti n' is good.

Get to work MOOSE

Nice African sunset. It was good to sleep in a real bed although at least 4 guys were sawing some serious logs last night and some jets took off after midnite - thank goodness for earplugs... Now, if I could only do something about the time zone change - that is really kickin' my butt! Somehow I managed to get to bed at 9pm (noon, Texas time) and got more or less 7 hours sleep. There's not much to do around here at 4am except go the gym - it's open 24/7. So I went and had a great workout (I will lose that weight); granted, the chow hall has great food - 3 squares a day from a buffet line is gonna be tough to overcome. Today I had an omelet for breakfast and crab legs / fried shrimp for dinner - they've gotta keep up the morale somehow, although they do have some good MWR (Morale Welfare and Recreation) events here occasionally... for the Superbowl we have some celebrities visiting: Matthew Lillard and Robert Patrick (a couple actors) and Randy Johnston (MLB pitcher) along with a dozen NFL cheerleaders - they must be outta their minds coming here; God bless 'em though! On Facebook check out the Camp Lemonnier Djibouti page. As for the job, right away the guys that I am going to be working with got me in-processed and put me in on-the-job training. Surprisingly overworked and undermanned. The AFRICOM (Africa Command) staff here is not the monster like it was at CENTCOM (Central Command - they control ops in Iraq and Afghanistan and therefore have had all the attention the past 20 years). The guys can't wait for me to be spun up so they can get a little reprieve. Needless to say I'll be busy at work - my job for now is 7am - 7pm shift work on the Operations Floor monitoring and reporting on all the air operations in theater. There is a lot going on here now - much of it you can decipher from the news, but in support of US interests we are more involved here that you could imagine. Anyway, it's past my bedtime - I'm gonna try to Skype Kerry one more time. She has been really busy getting the boys the help they need in school, I really wish I could be there to help... If you have a Skype account look me up: KevDydyk is my username and I'd be glad to chat most anytime you see me online.