Today was our final day in the MEAO (Middle East Area of Operations) – tomorrow we start the trek home on a chartered A340.
One of the homecoming rituals is sorting through your kit and cleaning off the dust of Afghanistan. The laundry whirs as people wash and scrub everything so that it will pass the quarantine inspection. Some boots are too down-trodden to be taken home.
Discarded, dusty boots at AMAB
Another RTA (Return to Australia) ritual seems to be shopping at one of the colossal malls in Dubai. The CSU (Combat Support Unit, see day 27) organises free buses to take people to and from Dubai twice a day.
Dubai from the bus window
There are acres of designer shops and department stores, and an indoor
“traditional” souk, if you can’t face the hot and dusty real souk (see Day 23).
exquisite desserts in a shop window
If you get tired of shopping, you can go ice-skating, downhill skiing, or visit the aquarium – all inside a shopping mall!
The front of the two story aquarium in Dubai Mall. It contains the largest, single piece of acrylic glass in the world.
ice-skating rink, Dubai Mall
As well as scrubbing the dust off boots and bags, Australian females who deploy to Afghanistan engage in another cleaning ritual. They book in to the Sisters Beauty Salon for facials, manicures, pedicures, haircuts, massages… they say it takes weeks to expunge the smell of dust. The memories remain.
three-story waterfall at the Dubai Mall
After working and travelling for 27 days straight, we had an R&R day in the mall. I was hoping to have the highest high tea in the world, on the 123rd floor of the Burj Khalifa, but our plans changed at the last minute. The view from the top was fabulous, but not as pretty as looking down on Canberra in autumn.
View from the Observation deck of the Burj Khalifa
I think I’m ready to come home.
Sunset over the outer perimeter of AMAB
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