Sometimes, you just need a Woman's Touch

John's room in Kabul is little more than a 10' x 10' square. Still, it's his own, which is a lot better than sharing with some sweaty guy who hasn't showered in weeks (believe me, they are here. Ugh.)

When I came up here, I realized that his room was hardly functional, so I got to work today (Friday is a Muslim holiday, so I had no meetings) on FIXING it.

I scavenged some cement blocks from the dumpyard and put his bed up on "stilts" so he'd have room underneath for storage (see the nice clean space under the window? Well, it was packed with gear - so much so that you couldn't open the drawers to the right of the picture and could barely use the phone.) Putting the bed on stilts was actually an idea I got from Max - though I would love to take the credit because all of John's unit thought it was ingenious.

I predict a shortage of cement blocks around here very soon...

In this picture, you can kind of see how crammed his shoes were underneath the bed.

Bless his heart, John is militant about letting his towel dry out ever since I fussed at him about mildew and stinky bath towels one day. I had to chuckle at his solution!

I saw a great home improvement show once about rubbing sticky dresser drawers with candle wax and sandpaper. It works like a charm. John's cabinets and dresser work great now, thanks to his hard work. (Don't worry, People. I was making the bed and reorganizing his folded clothes.)


I made John sit up here so you could see how much higher the bed is now. All the stuff that was previously heaped in a pile under the window is now neatly under the bed. He can also reach his books on those (ridiculously high) shelves without standing up on the bed. See Peshak?

The stuff on top of the footlocker is mine...so imagine the space here with a nice clean surface for John's laptop.

Peshak approves. Isn't that the picture of contentment? :) (Of course, she's breathing nasty mouse breath all over the clean sheets...)