I found a short "slice of life" I had written in February of 2002 while I was in Qandahar, Afghanistan. Be forewarned that it does have a bit of "off color" humor and the whole topic just stinks..... ;)
Cheers,
John Surmont, founder & CEO
Sofcoast, Inc.
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February 24, 2002
Qandahar, Afghanistan
Operation Enduring Freedom
It
was pretty much like any other day, any other Qandahar day, that is.
Early January in Southern Afghanistan, as I experienced it,it was cold
and miserable. There really is no nice pretty, packaged way of saying
it, except that it was unlike any other experience I have ever had in
my life. In some ways it felt like Lord of the Flies out here. We, as
a group, didn't reach the point of complete chaos, although some would
argue, myself included, that from the looks of the Joint Operations
Center (JOC for you acronym lovers) we weren't far from total mayhem.
I quickly found that there was nothing simple about anything in Qandahar. For example, relieving oneself. In Qandahar, I would
have to say that there is no "head", "latrine" or "bathroom" per se, so I'll forgo the
clean and tidy description of what I have experienced. It would be
more appropriate to use the fouler description
because that seems to describe the act more fully given the present surroundings and day to day theme of men hunting for wild animals.
It's early January and we were ostensibly "just passing through" as our journey was taking us farther north and east. During this period or "lull" as some might characterize it, I had the privilege to learn and understand a fuller meaning of dignity. Arriving the night before, it was very difficult to get an idea of how deep a hold squalor had. There was no greeting, simply the chilly reception of darkness.
As the sun rose, the frost laden ground began to thaw hopefully. The day started like any other day in any other land. The strong grip of darkness gave way to soft grey streaks of light, shining through free flowing clouds flirting with crisply drawn mountains in the distance, and eventually releasing it's hold on the sky. The falling darkness seeped into the ground gripping it's mistress - cold, and then meekly crawling away.
There seems to be an argument between beauty and squalor here. Today, it seems as if squalor has laid claim to the land. This must only be a momentary victory, a mere setback for beauty. Beauty has asked for and, from the looks of things, has been granted a divorce from this soil.
Not wanting to be alone, this land has a new mistress, Squalor. Today it seems as if squalor runs things around here, while the true friend of beauty - rain - has been blatently absent for sometime.
Leaving in it's place dust, dust and more dust.
With the unrelenting reminder of my own biology, I gave in to my
optimistic hope that I would find a comfortable place to relieve myself. I've now adjusted my expectations to find anything that might even closely resemble what I call a 'bathroom' back home. Once this mental adjustment was made, I quickly located a square plywood shed with the words "No
Pissing" scrawled on its back side in black spray paint. I realized and quickly came to terms with the fact that I would have to settle for relief and wait a while longer for
comfort.
The shanty roof, tilting awkwardly down at an angle towards its
thin back wall, would have made Steinbeck's character's in the Grapes
of Wrath, feel right at home. Inside this 'shitter' as it was so
aptly called, was a two foot high enclosed plywood bench with three
holes crudely cut into it.
These holes, as I soon found, were not near wide enough from front to
back to accomodate some of its visitors and their deposits. With an
uncomfortable sigh, feeling my bowels bellowing beneath my belt, I
forced myself to step up into the stoop. Scanning the bench for a hole
without those organic scars of humanity, my eyes spotted the center
hole. This semi-clean portal gave me the opportunity to find the
relief I had so desperately set out to find.
With a bowel emptying growel, I began to do what every human has done for thousands of years. I didn't realize just how vulnerable man was when in this position, until now. This seemed to be as difficult as it was going to get. At about the mid point of this exercise, the large silhouette of a hulking man hops up onto the step of this stoop. He's clearly in the same state as I was and pays no attention to me at all. Master Chief "O'Reilly" climbs in with his pants down in a flash, gives me a sheepish grin with a greyish palor on his face and sits down and drops his load at the first hole in the stoop.
Now I don't know about anyone else, but for me it's not normal to sit next to anyone else while I'm taking care of my biology. It's frankly quite disturbing, but since everything about this god forsaken country is "disturbing" I quickly make my mental adjustments.
Not really knowing what to do or say, I glanced over at him sideways, smiled and said "hey Master Chief, how's it going?" This came from me more as an obligitory statement which I had been conditioned to give since being a little boy. "Social grace", my mother used to say. "Is something you need to have if you want to get anywhere in life". "Always be polite and gracious."
Well as you can imagine, two grown men sitting inches apart with
elbows touching, leaving their 'mark' on this country was probably not
planned for in all of those fancy etiquette books my mother and
sister's read. What can a man say to another man sitting inches apart
from him taking a sh*t?
I don't know. I simply don't know. I tried to act like I wasn't even slightly affected by it. I didn't know what else to do, besides It wasn't my priority at the time. Afterall, I was very happy on my own to have achieved what degree of relief I could, albeit smelly, but relief just the same.
I do remember looking over at the master chief and asking him, "Master Chief, do you think there is any possible way for us to maintain our dignity in our present position?" he shook his head, grinned and sighed as he finished his business. "Absolutely not, John. Absolutely not." At that he pulled his pants up and shuffled out of the stoop.
I realized at that point what dignity was.
It wasn't flowery things, pretty clothes, or sweet smelling perfume, fancy talk, cool gadgets. It was being respectful of my own humanity, while being mindful of others humanness.
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Weaving in the most banal and mundane parts of a persons life is important if you are trying to build products people need and can and will use. My story was probably a bit crude in content but I hope this story makes the point for engineers, product managers, bizdev/marketing people that when building solutions, systems, tools and tech for "constrained users and uses" (like Navy SEALs in Afghanistan) you need to keep a wide perspective as you think about what the end user's needs are and not become fixated on the obvious - "hollywood" parts of their days.
I see it happen all the time and that's a big reason Sofcoast exists.
Don't let it happen to you.
Cheers,
John Surmont
