Slight improvement

Ben called Sunday evening (1/31) and updated us with exciting news. Well, not really!

His unit was assigned to the outskirts of the town, so he is not in the middle of all the actions as he hoped to be. He has not seen any dead bodies or smell anything bad. The Haitian like the Army soldiers but not the UN workers because they are not rude & harsh with them.

He's been assigned to do security and the grave yard shift (12 midnite - 8 AM). His main duty is to watch the radio and report on an hourly basis of activities. Since he's nite owl, it's not too bad. He gets to call some friends in CA since the time differences works out. But he's totally bored.

They still do not have running water & electricity, hence no showers & clean laundry - oh, but they do have baby wipes. The living conditions improve slowly that they now sleep in a building on cots with mosquito nets. He's not sure how much the nets really help since the windows & doors in the building do not have screen & doors on them. They still have limited food & water supply for the troops.

His bug bites are not as bad, he thinks the sulfur in the match-heads are working. (I wonder how many he takes?)

The army is setting up stations so that they can receive mail within couple of weeks. I will post the address here. They can receive anything other than guns and drugs.

According to the Army, their deployment will last no longer than 6 months. They should be coming home around July 18, or sooner.