Lack of communication

So far the biggest hurdle with this deployment is communication. Last deployment, he was still in the same country, with only a 3-hour time difference, so cell phone calls were free and time zone issues were minimal.
This time, we're working with international calling rates - an exorbitant $3.99/minute - and a 10.5 hour time difference. Where does that extra half an hour come from, anyway? Is there some glitch in the space-time continuum that only exists in Afghanistan?
During his one-week layover in Kuwait, the time difference was an even eight hours. Somewhere between Kuwait and Afghanistan, there was a little, dangling, misplaced half an hour that got tacked on. It makes calculating the time difference in my head much more difficult.
Now I'm going to have to revert back to the 1980s when we used to wear multiple Swatch watches set to different time zones...remember those? Only I won't be trying to make a fashion statement - I'll just be trying to figure out whether I'm going to wake my husband up at 2 a.m. if I call him to ask where he hid my gardening gloves when he re-organized the garage.
People keep telling me about Skype. Yes, I do plan to install this, but I need a webcam and a microphone for my computer, and someone with enough know-how to put all of this together and make it go. (Krissie, you're on call!)
Charles sent me an email today (or last night? ugh...who knows?) describing a little bit about what he's doing. I'll repost parts of it here, hopefully nothing that will violate OPSEC and bring the wrath of the Army down on my head:

Don't worry about me and my missions. I take some risk but I think they will make my time go by here a lot faster and will be more interesting than working a desk. Plus, you know that I am a warrior. I would have been miserable hiding behind sandbags for a year. This place is by far the poorest country I have ever been to. I will have to take some pictures, I cant duplicate the smell though.
I drive past 1000 year old ruins and poverty, markets crowded with people two feet off the main road. Street merchants selling breads, tires, old shoes and the carcasses of god knows what and then will pass by a peacock walking down the road like "What?"

I got stopped in the street by an afghan lady (she was maybe 20) and she produces an armful of necklaces made of colorful beads and asks me to buy one.

I told her I had no money and she said "Ok, tomorrow you have much money, tomorrow you buy. See you later Alligator!"

Where did she get that phrase from?? I laughed and told her "In a while, Crocodile".