Frostbite Falls, Afghanistan

Normal high/low for Herat on January 8: 48/26. Actual: 18/5. We are about 400 feet higher in altitude and away from the city, so we were doubtless colder. To make it more "pleasant" we lost power and water as well. We started to have brief outages the evening of the 7th and the entire camp went dark about 3:30 AM on the 8th. Apparently the camp ordered winterized diesel, which was sent from Kabul. What was delivered was not winterized, so it gelled due to cold temps and all the generators failed. Hut temps dropped to 44 by morning. The KBR folks (no longer a subsidiary of Halliburton) who contract for general maintenance of the camp had to wheel out little gasoline generators to charge up the big generators for start-up. Spotty returns of power occurred all day. Finally, the dining facility was back in business about 5 PM. All the cooking that day was done on wood fired grills. Actually, the food was quite good. Light in the DFAC was via windows until the power finally returned. Our berthing power returned about 7 PM and has stayed on since (now about 20 hours). Hut temps have crept up to 61, in part due to some sunshine. However, the senior officer huts on the east side of camp went another night without power and had indoor temps at freezing.
The water in many of the latrines (Armyspeak)/heads (Navyspeak)/powder rooms (Air Force speak) froze so the return of heat brought leaks. Ergo, the water is shut down for the time being. Shaving and brushing teeth are with bottled water and flushing uses water from jerry cans. Fortunately, I managed to get a warm shave and a shower at 4 AM this morning before they shut off the water.
We had blizzard conditions on the 7th. Very unusual here; the locals said they have never seen so much snow, 4 inches in December and another 4 now. The Afghan docs come by a tourist-style bus and were much delayed so we US docs and nurses went ahead and rounded on the dozen patients. I enjoyed being "back in the saddle" and taught the duty staff about my approach to the patient and method of documentation. On the 8th, the buses would not run at all, so the docs never came. My roomie and I headed over to the toasty-warm hospital and had tea (chai) and bread (non) with the staff, rather than eat in our cold, dark DFAC. Today was a semblance of normal, although still colder than normal. Today's high, 32.
Pictures: Interesting curved icicles, aka "Afghan icicles". A picture of a snowman by our HM1 Parker. Me enjoying chai at the nurse's station of the hospital. A patient enjoying the snow, the 18 degree temp, in his jammies and sandals. The text message declaring a snow day due to the docs not coming.