Hi all, Well I am in the Horn of Africa, have been for the last week or so. It is really interesting. I flew in on a military flight from Bahrain. From the air I saw the water looked really nice, which with a diving addiction like mine really is a good sign. Then we hit land, I have never seen so much trash in my life. The people here live in squaller, actually I think that they live in a level below squaller. In order to keep the inhabitants in line they condone the use of cot, which is a fairly powerful cross between meth and weed. It comes in the form of green leaves that they much on like a huge dip of chewing tobacco. Lovely I know. The government uses this as a form of crowd suppression since they have around 60% unemployment. The American base is pretty interesting in and of itself. It had been raining for several days before I arrived so everything was muddy, there are not roads on the base, just dirt paths that are purely suggestions. The whole base is on the flight line that is shared with the french and us. So we get twice the number of jets, and the French Mirage is really loud. I am living in a shipping container with a bed and an A/C, the conditions are only slightly better than Eric's. When I got to the first container (CLU) there was a sign on the window that said "Military Working Dog", I thought that was weird and I went in, and sure enough there was a crate and someone else's stuff. I close the door and head back to the housing office and get a new CLU (Yes you can insert any pun you want here). This CLU was full of water there was about 1-2 inches on the floor. Apparently the Navy overlooked the fact that there is a rainy season here. We got busy working, I have a new employee working here and I came to train her. I was able to go out into town to the Bizarre. That was a lot of fun. I picked up some African goods. Kraus you are right, if you have been to one bizarre, you have been to them all. Kraus you would be super proud of me, I bartered with people and got it so low that they called me a Russian, because the Americans would have payed higher prices. I got a chess set for little Carl, he is learning it in school and has taken a keen liking to it. I got the girls some figurines, and for us a carved Rhino. Since the place closes down on Veteran Day, I signed up to feed my addiction and go diving. We did two exceptional dives, who would have know there was such good diving here. After the dives we went snorkeling with whale sharks, that is right whale sharks. They migrate through this time of year. I was able to swim with a juvenile only about 12 feet in length and another about 20 feet in length. It was truly amazing to be so close to such a large fish. They are completely docile, one even got kicked in the head by and unsuspecting swimmer. I have some not so good pics of the whale shark that I will be posting to the blog when I get back to civilization. I am heading back to Bahrain in the morning and hoping to be home by Thanksgiving. I love you all, Carl
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