FOB Smart at 2000 - Sunday
As mentioned in last night's blog post, the snow began here at FOB Smart around 1100 yesterday morning before lunch and has been snowing nonstop since. We have accumulated over 12" of snow at this point, and despite the brief near-stop around 1500 today, it looks as though this depth with continue to increase. Snow has not covered this region, like this, for more than four years and has already been called a 10-year snowstorm. Whatever the records or accumulation, it was not anticipated and surely changes my mind about the winter here in Afghanistan. Some of us actually hope it will continue for a few more days - but anything after that and misery will begin to set in, at least for me it will.
Our neighbors outside the wire will not share the same enthusiasm as we do for the weather. With nothing more than wood fires inside of their mostly qalat (mud house) construction, I can only imagine the cold saps them and affects their lives more dramatically than my own. With as much snow as we have had, the subsistence farmers of this area will no doubt be hit hard and their livestock too. I wish I had a million pairs of surplus military boots and a trillion yards of fabric for them to make warm clothes - if I did, I would certainly give such to the needy. These are, however, a fiercely strong people with incredible ingenuity, so maybe the cold and the snow is nothing more than a nuisance to them as well.
I would normally say that tomorrow would be another day of construction here on the FOB, but the weather and snow will definitely preclude anything more than huddling in our rooms to stay warm. I am grateful for another week to start, as this places me one more week closer to home. I have plenty of paperwork to work through, so boring it should not be and enthralling it may be - if we are lucky.
143, Kaesen.
Good night and good day.
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