Things that make you go "hmmm," part 1

Kandahar, Afghanistan


Me & Big Ben outside of Heroes, the British Recreation Center

My friends and I remark that this place is weird, and there are always weird sites, odd situations, things that make you scratch your chin and say to yourself, "hmmm..."

The Kandahar Hotel is one of those chin-scratchers.  It lies right behind the Cambridge (i.e. British - great curry) dining facility, and upon exiting Cambridge one always gets a glimpse of its big blue sign offering you a night away from your barracks or tent.  Why would someone want to spend good money to spend the night in a Conex box?  Hmmm.  The supposition is that this facility is used for, um, friendly relations.  That kind of thing is strictly prohibited here, at least it is for US forces.  I presume the same is true for the other NATO forces as well.

One can only imagine that attraction to the opposite gender grows exponentially with each passing day, month, or quarter here in Kandahar, or wherever you have hoards of young men and women away from their significant others, happy hours, or as the cartoonist Gary Larson would put it, places where the human courting/mating ritual is being performed (nightclubs, bars, Christmas parties, and so on).  I am just the scribe here by the way, commenting on what I think might be going on out there - no personal experience!

There is a funny Doonesbury cartoon which addresses this issue of attraction while on deployment - I found it hanging in one of our admin offices.  I'll insert below.

One of our Canadian colleagues told us that the last time he was deployed here, about a year ago, there was a small facility adjacent to the hospital staffed by Russian women who would give legitimate massages for a small fee.  It is now defunct, but I have noticed that the salon that cuts hair is filled with women named Svyetlana and other Russian-sounding names, and they are heavily accented.  I have to wonder if, once the massage parlor was shut down, they all defected...down the street to the salon.   And they don't give great haircuts either.  Hmmm.

I passed by the reception area for the Kandahar Hotel on my way home from the bazaar last Saturday.  My curiosity got the better of me.  The prices I had heard that they charge were true:  $180 for a single, $250 for a double, and $25 per night extra for cable.  Happy to note that the bomb shelter out in front was gratis.  The NATO barracks seem just fine to me.