Today, while we were petting the camp kitten at lunch and after work, a young boy blew himself up in Kabul, killing at least five other people, some of them children, and injuring four more.

We were playing with a little kitten, and some young teenager took his own life and those of some children who were hanging around Embassy Row waiting to sell trinkets to passing soldiers or tourists. The absolute absurdity of the situation flabbergasts me. In the midst of the desert, we, the spandex soldiers, the Afghan soldiers and police, the workers, all of us, watch out for this little kitten’s very life. When the other feral camp cats come after her, Julie hollers at them to leave her alone. The cooks let us take food to her, when really, the rules say that we can’t take food or anything else out of the (you remember?) DFAC. She cavorts in all our offices, which, by the way, are really lovely rooms in connexes (connexi?), which are simply little trailers that don’t look like trailers because they sit on top of each other. She plays with computer cords and “Oriental” carpet fringe, and jumps on the desks, sniffing out all the nooks and crannies and possible play places. When she is tired, she jumps on Julie’s lap and snuggles up to her and takes a nap. This little kitten, whose markings are part tiger, part jaguar, is a diversion from the arid brown dust and the latent danger that surround us. She is loving and kind, odd for a cat, and we respond because that is what we want from our lives – a connection with feelings, warm and responsive and affectionate.

And a young boy blew himself up while we played.

I try to understand the mentality that goes along with such fanaticism, but I cannot. I cannot figure out at what point the hatred of something intangible becomes so powerful that it convinces people to give up their lives for it. I have a hard time believing that the impetus for all this hatred, this violence, is religious faith, but I know that must be a large part of it. And because I don’t hate those who believe differently from the way I believe, I don’t understand why they hate me because of my belief system.

In Washington, one of our classmates was Muslim. He made it clear that he is not one of the people who believes that we with different faiths cannot co-exist in our world. In fact, he accepts that all of us with faith believe in God, though we have different names for that being, and that we are all supposed to obey the Golden Rule – you remember: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Some of his beliefs are outside my understanding, but so is speaking in tongues – and I know plenty of people who believe in and practice that. After all, I grew up pretty close to Arkansas.

So at the end of the day, and I mean that to be literal and not vernacular, I am safe in a connex room, waiting to play again tomorrow with the kitten, and five or six people are dead in Kabul, far from where I used to be, because someone was able to convince an impressionable teenager that he should give his life for hatred. I wish that he had had a kitten to play with.

I wonder if this kind of thing will ever end.

Here it is, 11:00 p.m. on my day off, and I have been busier than I ever thought possible! How did that happen? How did a day that I dreaded turn out so wonderfully?

I slept late – what a treat! Then I hit the treadmill for an extra mile past two, I browsed the little bazaar where locals sell rugs, jewelry, carvings, shoes with toes that curve upward (see “Aladdin”), and backpacks. Lunch was next, and just as I had finished, the spandex soldiers, now in their uniforms, were cooking outdoors and asked me to join them. Too late!

I cleaned my little room, which took longer than you would think because of all the dust that had accumulated, wrote some essential e-mails, watched a part of Shakespeare in Love, wrote some more essential e-mails, finished a project for a client, went to dinner, and then worked on another writing project.

The day went quickly, and I find myself at the end of it wishing for more time!

I also was subjected to what seems to be usual around here – sporadic and serial loss of power, loss of internet service, and bad internet service when I was trying to Skype Max and my mother. This is just one more day and one more instance when I have to say that I will appreciate the finer things in life when I return home. I know that storms can wipe out power for weeks – think Hurricane Katrina, and even the lesser storms that hit earlier this year – but for the most part, when the power goes out, good old KCP&L is right on it, working until power is restored. And it simply does not happen very often. Today, I think the lights went out at least six times, and the internet was completely down twice and wobbly the rest of the time.

Regardless, I was able to get my work mostly done, and I feel really good about it. Tomorrow is another work day, even though it is Saturday!

I add a note thanking everyone who offers me encouragement and reads my blog. You have no idea how flattering it is to know that you care enough to find out what is going on over here. Let me tell you, I sweat the deadlines and critiques!

So tomorrow, I will have more to say, I’m sure. Until then.

Quite a Day

As much as yesterday was just a day, today was much more active. I actually got to teach a class – on the Constitution of the United States! I was so excited, because that was my favorite class in law school outside of Professor Hanna’s Estates and Trusts and Estate Taxation. I was also excited because I was doing something that I love to do and feel comfortable doing. And what a deal to teach a class of ten students in a language that they didn’t understand!

Afghanistan also has a constitution. I have read it; it is not as eloquent as ours, but then, I was reading a translated version, which could have made a great deal of difference in the poetry of the language. Some of this country’s constitution is similar to ours. I think the difference is that theirs is weakened by the homage the constitution says they must pay to the dictates of their religion. In other words, the law requires one thing, but the state religion requires another, and so the law is diluted, religion wins, and the people lose.

So I explained that our Constitutions do somewhat similar things, such as ours setting out requirements for who can be elected President, Vice President, Senators, and Representatives, and theirs setting out the same thing for their ministers, but that our Constitution has a Bill of Rights that protects our natural rights as human beings. And then I talked about each one of those Amendments.

Here is my confession: I had to look up the Bill of Rights to make sure that I had them all right – and I did not! This was a wonderful lesson for me – to go back and read the Bill of Rights, and think about the cases that have been decided regarding each one of them. Do you know the rights protected by each? If not, you should read them again. I did!

Then I got to explain that in the past 200+ years, our Constitution has been amended only 17 more times, and two don’t count – Prohibition and its repeal. I got to explain that women didn’t always have the right to vote, and that although an amendment was ratified giving former slaves (men) the right to vote, another amendment had to be ratified that prohibited poll taxes, which many southern states used to prevent former slaves from voting. Then I explained about our lowering the voting age to 18 during the Vietnam War, and why we did that.

They didn’t understand the concept of juries, and wanted to know more about them. They didn’t understand how the law worked in marriage and divorce if the religious law did not control, and they wondered if the United States had religious law. But what was really funny was that, when I opened up the floor for questions, they wanted to know about my husband, whether I had any children, whether I was still a judge and if so, how did it come to pass that I was in Afghanistan instead of on the bench, and most flattering, did I get to teach any more classes. I was pretty much dancing on air as I left that group of 10 men. It made me remember why I am here – because we are all just people, and maybe seeing each other as human beings can help bridge a gap.

Then I went back to my office to decipher a case synopsis written by an Afghan employee who had met with and mentored a prosecutor through a murder case. The story line was as good as anything ever shown on Murder, She Wrote or Law and Order. Editing that report tested all my writing skills, as the report was first written in Dari, then translated by an Afghan from Dari to his halting English, and then put into correct grammatical and story form by me. My mother would be proud.

Late in the day, I worked with two other Afghan employees in deciding where to donate extra law books. It was interesting listening to the two of them decide who needed what books; they are both very knowledgeable about both the law and the resources available, as well as which resource needed which kinds of books. I was merely a scribe.

But today, I remembered that I am in a war zone. First, when I was walking to my class, I passed military-type vehicles that patrol the roads, looking for IEDs and land mines. Then, we sat through a siren test (although it wasn’t nearly as loud or frightening as the first time the tornado siren went off at 3 in the morning RIGHT NEXT TO OUR BEDROOM – Sylvia hadn’t been quite clear when she told us that it was “on the property”), and I heard overhead the chop-chop of helicopters and the roar of jet fighters. I also read a report and saw how many bombs had exploded in this country in the past 48 hours.

So as I sat at my desk, making sense of a sensational story of wife-a-cide, donating law books to needy legal organizations, and preparing to teach a class on the United States Constitution, people are killing each other, not caring about what my husband does, or how many children I have, or whether I will be teaching any more classes. I prefer the people I worked with today, who accepted me as a person, laughed at my jokes (told through a translator), helped me understand a story, and showed me wisdom in distributing free resources. It’s going to be an interesting year.

NOTES: I forgot to mention a couple of things that I simply cannot leave out. First, as I was waxing loquacious about the beautiful fruits and vegetables that were displayed in the “strip shopping centers,” I neglected to mention that one of those shops was a butcher shop, and hanging in what would have been a window, but was just open air, attracting dust and flies, were five butchered goats. It was kind of like seeing the ducks and chickens hanging in Chinatown in San Francisco, but BIGGER and more open.

And as we were leaving the city, we saw a group of little girls who were just finishing their school day. It was hilarious: the little girls were dressed in school uniforms – black robes and white head coverings, making them look just like miniature nuns. Can you imagine? I’m sure they had no idea about the irony of their dress.

Until tomorrow – who knows what it will bring?

Just a Day

I felt today as if I am fitting in more and actually have a real job. I am understanding more and more of the acronyms used by my colleagues who have been with the company for months or years, and I have a general idea about how to answer the e-mails that come my way from the head honchos. As a result, this day wasn’t nearly as exciting as the ones before it; however, I felt pretty good about what I did today.

To begin, I am going to have to continue bragging that I am actually getting to work on time, and that is early in the morning. As difficult as that is, I’m sure, for many of you to believe, it’s happening. I will spend some time figuring out WHY it’s happening, so that maybe I can keep it up on the other side of the world when I return. I am not going to say that I am bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 8 a.m., but at least I am where I am supposed to be at that time.

Next, I’m feeling more normal about going to get food in a cafeteria line that more often than not offers little to excite my palate. Tonight, for instance, was Mexican food night. After El Tapatio, most Mexican food just kind of falls by the wayside, and this was the same, but I do appreciate the effort that the service workers put in to try to keep me well-fed.

And this evening, after being lazy for three days, I actually made it to the gym and spent 10 minutes on the elliptical machine and 25 minutes on the treadmill. The added bonus: This camp is occupied by an army from another country, and the soldiers have little to do other than keep themselves very fit. So while I was walking on the treadmill, I was surreptitiously checking out all these very strong men who were lifting weights as if they were marshmallows, and doing so in what appeared to be spandex gym clothes. Fortunately, all those in spandex wore it well – at least as far as I could see. I thought about trying to get someone to coach me, but I think I will show up a few more times before I become so bold. Nicci, I could sure use you here.

As I worked today, I remembered what it had been like to work for a corporation. I have been out of the corporate world for so long that I had forgotten the inter-office memo, and other methods of communication. In fact, the last time I worked for a corporation, overnight mail was THE thing. There was no FAX, and e-mail wasn’t even a blip on anyone’s radar. I wonder what Yellow Freight would have looked like in those days with e-mail!

One of the most enjoyable parts of my day today centered around talking with some of the Afghans with whom I work. Save one, they are all men, and they are polite and well-educated. One used to be a professor, and one is a doctor. The others are lawyers, even the lone woman, who is also a wife and mother of four. My office mate and I were discussing our hopes for his country. He wants to see living conditions improve for the citizens, and we discussed how that might happen. I admire him for getting in the trenches to try to make it happen. I imagine it would be easier to sit back and wait and hope, but he has taken the bull by the horns to be an agent of change. As we go along, I hope that we will talk more and that he will let me know about what his friends and relatives think about the United States and our role there. He was delighted to know that I am an English teacher. He wants me to help him with his writing, as he thinks his progress has been slow. I think he does a great job, but I agreed to assign him papers and then help him revise them. And here I thought I was going to take a grading hiatus!

Another young man went to University in India. He dresses nattily each day in a suit and well-pressed shirt. He told me that his mother is ill with asthma, and that he takes her to a doctor from the UK once every six months – in Islamabad. He made a point to tell me that they fly rather than “travel by road.” He tried to help me with my company-issued phone, but I am totally lost when it comes to those things – even though 10 days ago I thought I knew SO MUCH about SIM cards. Ha!

So tonight, after a normal day at work, I sit in my room, looking at the sheet that covers the two windows, and think about what I might have to offer these people, and more important, what they have to offer me. My hope is that they will help me tell you what their lives are like, and in doing that, will allow all of us to walk a mile in each other’s shoes and see each other as human beings, and not as enemies forged by the actions of some crazed maniacs. Pollyanna? Maybe. But worth a shot.

A Different World

Today, I got to see a different side of Afghanistan. I went to a meeting with a district official, and I went to see part of a seminar on gender justice. I had to wear my body armor, and let me tell you, I got quite a workout. It’s not easy moving, especially up and down stairs, with an additional 40 or so pounds draped across my shoulders. And I’m so short that when I sat down in the vehicle, once I got a boost from Ferocious to get in the back seat, the vest rested on my thighs. Oh, well. Even while I was getting bruises on my thighs, I was taking the load off my clavicle.

I also wore a head covering to both locations. I was meeting with people whose custom and culture dictate that head covering be worn, and so I decided to honor that. I bought a really cool scarf at Target before I left – it was on sale for about $5, so I had to have it. I wore that one today.

We left our quarters around 8:30, and I got my first taste of the rules of the road on this side of Afghanistan. They are the same – none. However, those rules are mitigated by the fact that this area is not as populated as Kabul, and so we had not nearly as many harrowing escapes. As we drove along, I noticed that many men ride bicycles to get around. Even more numerous are mo-peds or motorcycles. We saw a family – dad, mom, and son – on one mo-ped. When I commented on it, the young Afghan man with whom I work told me that he had seen as many as eight people on one mo-ped. I have no idea how that happened.

Then there is another mode of transportation. I am not sure what it is called, but it is a small motorcycle with an attached small truck body, so the person on the motorcycle actually has a roof over his head and a covered truck bed behind him. The covered truck bed might be filled with goods or people. We saw several of these contraptions with as many as four people filling the back, including women in light blue burkhas. What is really cool about the mo-trucks is that they are gaily painted with bright colors and decorated with other colored symbols. For instance, the body might be painted like a circus wagon with red hearts scattered around. Or it might be painted hot pink with splashes of color sporadically applied. My team leader said that she understands they are painted this way in order to ward off evil. As an aside, in Kabul, many 18-wheelers are painted brightly in almost psychedelic patterns; it’s as if they could have been seen on San Francisco’s streets sometime in the 1960s. It was fun to watch these little mo-trucks, even though I thought several were going to run right into us.

We also got to see more shops on the way to the city. Imagine a strip shopping mall. Now take away the fronts of the stores so that all of them are open air, and then take away the parking lot and add a bare patch of hard-packed dirt. That is what the strip shopping centers here look like. I didn’t see a front or door on any of the shops. As we got closer to the city, though, the shops took on more a normal appearance, except that I couldn’t read any of the signage, because the signs are all written in another, really foreign language. And pictures of Hamid Karzai are everywhere.

Many of the shops sell fruit, and this must be the watermelon capital of the world, because if I saw one watermelon for sale today, I’ll bet I saw a couple hundred. I also saw lots of big, fat bunches of green grapes, and lots of potatoes for sale. Our Afghan counterpart told us that Afghanistan is really known for pomegranates, and that there are some growing near our camp, but I didn’t see any.

At the entrance to the city is a roundabout housing a beautiful huge sculpture of a fruit basket dripping with watermelon, grapes, and pomegranates, giving the idea to the traveler that he or she is entering a beautiful city. That is somewhat true. In fact, some of the thoroughfares are divided, and one is lined with pine trees of some sort. The pine trees have been painted white from the ground to about five feet up the trunks. That is so trucks can see them at night. That’s right – no street lights.

Many of the buildings are also pretty. Some have flat roofs, and some have minarets; some have beautiful windows and decorative glass walls; some have intricate scrollwork. I couldn’t tell what kinds of buildings I was looking at, but the truly beautiful ones are much too large to be single family houses. It is not unusual to see walled neighborhoods or walled buildings. The walls are made either of mud or mud bricks, and I assume that is why some of the walls are tumbling down. We passed parks and soccer fields, wrought iron gates and fences, and tree-lined boulevards.

But we also passed people who live in tents. We passed open fields that looked as if someone had used them as personal wastebaskets, with plastic bags, bottles, and other unidentifiable items littering the entire field. I wanted desperately to take a trash bag out into the field and start picking up all the junk I saw.

It wouldn’t have done much good today, however, because the wind was so strong that every flag we saw was standing straight out. Dust was EVERYWHERE! I was glad that I had chosen to wear a head covering because at least I could attempt to keep some of the dust out of my hair and mouth. And in the midst of the dust, the fruit and fresh vegetables were displayed for sale as if they were in a Hy-Vee. This morning, before I went to the first meeting, I dusted my desk and put my computer down. When I got back, around 2:00 this afternoon, a thin film of dust coated the desktop again. ARGHGGHHG!

On a serious note, the seminar on gender justice was very interesting to me, even though I couldn’t understand a word that anyone said. The teacher is a national who works for the company, and he is a born teacher. He is a young lawyer, and he got the class involved and engaged and discussing the material. I believe the students were given some fact situations and then were to discuss them. Whereas I often have trouble getting an entire classroom to respond to questions or discussions, these students – probably 18 lawyers, including women – were jumping right in. And the women had more to say than the men (no smart comments, please).

After I listened to about 45 minutes of classroom interaction, I wondered whether to the Afghans we Americans speak fast, or whether the Afghans I saw and heard today really do speak so fast that their mouths seem to fly.

I was also expecting to see the women sitting on one side of the table and the men on the other, but though most of the women sat together, the group was more integrated as to gender than I expected. And in contrast to most of the seminars I have attended, where the air conditioning is set at frosty, and we all hunker down to keep from freezing – all except the big men who wear sport coats and long sleeved shirts, that is – this seminar was held in a big room on the second floor, with no air conditioning. Ceiling fans stirred up the warm air – and I mean warm – and some windows were open to facilitate a wind current. I was getting ready to sweat, as I had on black trousers, a white t-shirt and a long black tunic, AND the scarf, until I looked at the men who were in military-type uniforms and the women who were dressed, while not in burkhas, in long tunics, long pants underneath, and heavy, tight head coverings. I decided to hold the sweat for another day.

Additionally, while most of the seminars I attend have rows of tables and chairs set up from front to back, this seminar was held in a large room, and the participants sat around a huge rectangular table. I thought the set-up probably facilitated discussion, and it certainly didn’t give anyone a chance to hang to the back where he or she could read the morning paper or surf the web on an iPad.

Most important, I was genuinely proud to see so many people, both men and women, all of whom represent the law, engage in a discussion about the important issue of gender justice in a country where many women are, for lack of a better way to say it, held hostage by their culture and the interpretation by some of their religion. I think about half the participants were women, and I know they were taking a risk, and probably do every day, by being different from the norm in their country. In America, we tend to take the idea of gender equality for granted. Even though we do not experience 100% gender equality, when we think about it, we generally accept that a person’s role in life, either in the family or at work outside the home, does not have to be restricted by virtue of his or her gender. The women who were at the seminar today give us hope that someday, more places in the world will accept that idea, and will put it into practice.

So for tonight, I give thanks that I live in a country that has helped me go from little girl in the country to college graduate, to lawyer, to judge, to teacher, to musician, to adventurer in another land which is in another time. And I give thanks to Ferocious, who kept me safe today, and who lent me a laundry bag. And I give thanks to Max and Emily, and my mother, of course, who have so graciously accepted my idea that things don’t have to stay the same, and who have wished me well on this part of my journey through life.

Moving

Today I am flying in a LITTLE plane across Afghanistan. Of course, I am totally overloaded with luggage, and so imagine my shock when we pulled onto a gravel parking lot. My driver, none too willing to help me, unloaded my humonga bags and set them on the gravel only fifteen feet away from a concrete walk. I asked the gatekeeper if the driver could help me get the bags in, and though the gatekeeper assented, the driver remained reluctant.

Eventually, he found his more generous side and assisted me in pulling my poor bogs up to the concrete walk. Remembering my arrival just 10 short days before, I panicked, thinking I was going to have to pull all my luggage, now increased by a 40+ pound Kevlar vest, lovely sand color helmet, and another laptop computer, over 100 yards. I had not a clue how that would take place. I started to shake. Frantically, I asked the gatekeeper yet again if my withering, vanishing driver could help me.

“Eet ees not fahr. We weel help you,” he replied. So I loaded everything up for a long drag, turned the corner, and right there was the luggage screener. All we had to do was put it through the X-ray machine. Then they would take the two humonga bags and the body armor and load them on the plane.

But when my carry-on went through, the gatekeeper stopped. “You haff wine?” I nodded, but it wasn’t wine. It was two bottles of Jameson: one lighter than the original, the one I brought in from Dubai; and a 1780 bottle, a litre, a gift from my friend Ara, and the one bottle still untouched. I really didn’t think the gatekeeper would know the difference. “You cannot carryon. You can make chicken.”

Puzzled and becoming wary, I asked him to repeat himself.

“Cannot carryon. Make chicken.”

I was stumped.

“You English? Is English word!!!”

I know very well that “chicken” is an English word, and I know what it means, and chicken had nothing to do with this flight other than to be the way I was feeling at that moment. Bock bock bock! I was chicken!

Fortunately, right about then, the British gatekeeper showed up to explain that I was not allowed to carry on liquor. Either I would have to check the bag or put the bottles in my checked luggage.

Oh! “Check in.” Not “chicken.”

Well, I wasn’t going to check my computer, which was in the same bag as the Jameson, so I put the bottles in the new humonga Samsonite bag, praying that they would hold together long enough for me to at least TASTE the 1780.

Then I was patted down by a young Muslim woman who seemed somewhat embarrassed to be touching me in places that her religion says should not be touched or seen or even thought about.

After such stress I walked another four or five yards into a lounge of sorts, rudimentary by Atlanta standards, but still comfortable with huge rugs on the floor, and several of what we would call “Oriental” rugs draped on the walls. The same ubiquitous air conditioners that cooled my rooms at the two camps also cooled the waiting area. A bottled water dispenser offered cold and very hot water, and so I made myself some hot tea and tried to relax.

I must add that the reason I was so stressed in the first place was because the night before, I was trying to call one of my colleagues to tell her of my flight time, when I got a message saying that all my minutes were gone. This was impossible. I had not made calls from my phone that totaled even 60 minutes, and while I had sent some e-mails and some texts from my phone regarding business that I needed to attend to, I certainly had not spent 25 HOURS on the phone! This was my initiation to what happens when a phone owner buys minutes rather than a plan.

When Max and I first got phones, Emily was a young teen, at the age where all teens do is talk by text. We knew that minutes meant nothing, because she and her friends would rather text than hear each other’s voices, whereas we, at that age, would watch entire television shows as we were glued to the phone with our friends who were watching the same shows. We bought an unlimited plan – a huge number of minutes per month, unlimited text, unlimited e-mail and data (I hear that such plans are no longer available, and so we will continue to pay money to AT&T to my chagrin, knowing that if we lose unlimited, we lose it).

I was hysterical. How could this have happened? I was sure to be fired the next day! And if I were not fired, I would be the laughingstock of everyone who might find out of my stupidity – which is YOU, since I am SO stupid that I am telling you (but it is funny). I started looking at the phone’s settings, and that is when I figured out that even when I am not ON the phone’s e-mail setting, the phone is looking for my e-mail. And looking. And looking. I was up three or four times during the night, sweating, having hot flashes, wondering how in the world I was going to make it right. How much could those minutes cost? I was certainly going to have to replace them, but I was not going to tell anyone about this incident.

And so, when I woke up, shaking from lack of sleep, I stumbled to breakfast and ran into my current supervisor, the one I call Bruce. I sounded just like my mother when I sat down and told him he would be well rid of me that day. He laughed, and said, “What have you done?”

I blurted out the whole story, and he laughed and gave me some of his minutes to tide me over until I could replace what needed to be replaced, and then he gave me sage advice regarding buying SIM cards for phones with two SIM card slots so that I could call home occasionally, which sounded pretty good by then. My travel experience began about an hour after that, which explains my level of stress.

Anyway, back to the lounge area. Just as I was getting comfortable, a young man strode through the lounge and said something that sounded like “Hurn passage.” The other person in the room got up and followed him out. It then occurred to me that the young man had said, “Herat passengers,” and I, too, should have followed him. So I ran to the door, opened it, saw no one, hollered, “Hello?” and kept walking until I found him. I explained that I was going to Herat. Should I be with him?

He smiled, and brought out a clipboard. We looked at it and found my flight, which was not this one, but the next one. “No worries,” he said. Right.

I sat back down, fixed myself another cup of hot tea, and waited patiently. Two men in traditional Afghan dress walked in and sat down. One of them made himself a cup of instant coffee with fake cream. I don’t drink coffee at all, but I can’t imagine how hideous that must have tasted. Eventually, I took some pictures of the lounge and then sat back down and waited for the announcement of my flight.

It came.

I got on a van and rode out to the tarmac, where the three of us, the two men and I, got on an 18-seat prop jet. The co-pilot was friendly and helpful; he carried the bag that used to hold the Jameson, and now held only my computer and iPad, and set it down on the seat next to the one I had chosen. I loved his British accent. I pretended that this flight was with British Airways and the booze would be free. Too bad. No booze.

If you have never been on a prop jet, they are something to behold. The propellers go so fast that a human’s sight is not impeded. Though I was looking THROUGH the whirling propellers, I could see beyond them as if they didn’t exist. And that is how I viewed the Afghanistan countryside during this flight: as if I were looking directly at the ground, much nearer than had I been on some huge Boeing 770 or something. Again, brown was the dominant color; however, here and there, I think I saw patches of green that wound about, which made me think a river was close at hand.

To pass the time, I read Horse Soldiers, by Doug Stanton, which tells the story of US Special Forces who entered Afghanistan after 9/11 and did the job that the US needed, until someone got the idea that the fight was not in Afghanistan, but in Iraq. I was captivated by the tale of all the soldiers, and I decided right then and there that whatever hardship or lack of comfort I was dealing with, those men had it over me by about 1000%. I hope that anything I do comes close to what they accomplished in their short time in this country. I hate to say that I don’t want to finish the book because then it will be over and I will not be able to sweat with them as they, big American men, ride teeny tiny horses that have a Genghis Kahn pedigree, and fight battles that give me the heebee jeebees - if that’s how to spell it.

We finally arrived at our destination, and to my surprise and delight, a friend from my first stop, Ron, was there to greet me, as were his security people, Huge and Ferocious. As I struggled to right my bags, which were treated well by the crew, Huge picked up one of the suitcases as if it were a box, and carted in the 50 feet to the armored vehicle in which I would be riding to my new home.

I started to ask if he didn’t want to roll it, but then stopped. Why ask? The bag was at the vehicle.

I had spent two hours on a plane, and so I had to find a bathroom. Right away. Many people in this area speak Italian, and darn the luck, all I could think of to ask was, “Donde es el bano?” which is Spanish for, “Where is the bathroom?” We wandered, Ferocious and I, through the graveled pathways, and we finally found a bar. There had to be a bathroom there, right? There was. It was either a man’s bathroom, or a unisex bathroom with two stalls. I didn’t care. Poor Ferocious. I don’t think he knew what to do.

His reaction was not unlike Max’s, when, after we were married and I don’t think he even then understood what he was in for, we were in Kansas City, maybe south of the Plaza or somewhere, and I had to go to the bathroom, and there were three women in line for the ladies’ room and no one in line for the men’s room (can you imagine, ladies?). I made Max scope out the men’s room for inhabitants, and then went inside for my purpose. Although not apoplectic, Max was speechless for a while. Then I asked him what he thought I should have done, and of course, he had no answer. From then on, he was my willing guard if I needed one.

I have to say that Ferocious did himself proud.

We then followed the winding road to my new and somewhat permanent digs out in a desert, and I dropped the humonga bags and the Jameson and my computer in a container that has been modified to be living quarters. Okay, sleeping quarters. Maybe. But it's still better than what the horse soldiers had.

Tomorrow, I begin work. I will see, up close and personal, the people who are hoping and trying to make sure this country will follow the law. It’s like you’ve heard: The United States is a country of laws. We follow the law. We don’t bow to power or corruption or undue influence. Our lawyers, our judges, our entire judicial system: the rule of law.

I am feeling like a nomad. I have been at this camp for about 72 hours, and tomorrow, I leave. I tried to do some work today, but it’s difficult to do work when the next day will bring yet another location!

I did read a lot about what I will be doing when I get where I am going, and I read a lot of Afghan law, but it’s rather disconcerting to get ready to start a job and then end the job.

That also means I don’t have much to tell you about today, other than that I got to work on time – maybe even a little early. I know that will shock Russ so much that he might have to sit down, but it is true.

I did walk on the treadmill, and I did get lost two or three times in the buildings that looked alike, but other than that, it has been an uneventful day. I will tell you more after my trip tomorrow.

Thanks for all the thoughts, e-mails, and prayers. They are coming in handy.