The last couple of days have been pretty routine here in Kabul. I went back to my NGO class on Wednesday and taught for the hour, I also got another ID card for when I enter there facility. The ride to and from classes is still pretty intriguing on the eyes. While the brown buildings and dusty mountain scenery are the same all around, the daily hustle and bustle of life of normal Afghans still is intriguing to me. Take for example the man who walks in front of Peach House at 7AM with an ice cream cart, yes, at 7 am... He
walks a short distance while spewing out the loudest version of the Happy Birthday song that you can imagine. I'm trying to decide who is worse, him or the rooster?
On the way to work, I also pass by about one hundred school children dressed in blue-shirt uniforms just hanging out, eating, playing, and talking. It's a nice sight for a country where all you expect to see is bombs going off and Chinook helicopters overhead. There's also usually several school girls covered in white head scarfs walking down the streets with smiles on their faces, something that probably wasn't very common under the rule of the Taliban regime.
What I really find fascinating every time I go out into the city are the houses that are built high up into the mountain with no way of reaching them via roads. I mean their almost vertical compared to the ground level. I don't know how people can stand living so high up. Imagine having to walk down and then up several times per day just to get water, because there is no indoor plumbing up there. The houses are brown and rundown usually. They look like something out of the Middle Ages or from the time of Christ.
When I finally get to campus, security check the car for bombs and looks through my computer bag before I can officially enter the main campus. The university itself is quite serene. It's not very big, but for what it is, it's very pleasant. There a big courtyard with rosebushes everywhere and shrubs of all sorts. The buildings of the university aren't the most modern, but compared to the rest of Kabul, they may as well be new. Behind the campus is a mountain that is usually blurred by the smoggy air that plagues this town like a sickness that wont go away. The students are quite nice and usually well behaved. My first class I had at the university started off well and all them had a smile on their face. I only had nine show up out of sixteen.
On Wednesday afternoon around lunch, I ordered takeout from a restaurant that caters to foreigners. I was craving something Middle Eastern so I ordered a lamb platter and some yogurt with cucumbers and mint (there was no mint). Later that night, Montezuma's revenge crept up on me and made me live in the bathroom for that night and the next day. I'm still battling some of whatever it is I have. At least Kabul has Imodium (thanks Bea!).
It's the weekend now, which falls on Friday and Saturday here in most of the Islamic world. It's quiet and there is the occasional sound of a plane or helicopter flying overhead. I've been entertaining myself by playing the Price is Right game on Facebook. That gets old quickly, but hey, my high score for this week is $61000!
I think I'll go play a game now!
- Jesse
walks a short distance while spewing out the loudest version of the Happy Birthday song that you can imagine. I'm trying to decide who is worse, him or the rooster?
On the way to work, I also pass by about one hundred school children dressed in blue-shirt uniforms just hanging out, eating, playing, and talking. It's a nice sight for a country where all you expect to see is bombs going off and Chinook helicopters overhead. There's also usually several school girls covered in white head scarfs walking down the streets with smiles on their faces, something that probably wasn't very common under the rule of the Taliban regime.
What I really find fascinating every time I go out into the city are the houses that are built high up into the mountain with no way of reaching them via roads. I mean their almost vertical compared to the ground level. I don't know how people can stand living so high up. Imagine having to walk down and then up several times per day just to get water, because there is no indoor plumbing up there. The houses are brown and rundown usually. They look like something out of the Middle Ages or from the time of Christ.
When I finally get to campus, security check the car for bombs and looks through my computer bag before I can officially enter the main campus. The university itself is quite serene. It's not very big, but for what it is, it's very pleasant. There a big courtyard with rosebushes everywhere and shrubs of all sorts. The buildings of the university aren't the most modern, but compared to the rest of Kabul, they may as well be new. Behind the campus is a mountain that is usually blurred by the smoggy air that plagues this town like a sickness that wont go away. The students are quite nice and usually well behaved. My first class I had at the university started off well and all them had a smile on their face. I only had nine show up out of sixteen.
On Wednesday afternoon around lunch, I ordered takeout from a restaurant that caters to foreigners. I was craving something Middle Eastern so I ordered a lamb platter and some yogurt with cucumbers and mint (there was no mint). Later that night, Montezuma's revenge crept up on me and made me live in the bathroom for that night and the next day. I'm still battling some of whatever it is I have. At least Kabul has Imodium (thanks Bea!).
It's the weekend now, which falls on Friday and Saturday here in most of the Islamic world. It's quiet and there is the occasional sound of a plane or helicopter flying overhead. I've been entertaining myself by playing the Price is Right game on Facebook. That gets old quickly, but hey, my high score for this week is $61000!
I think I'll go play a game now!
- Jesse
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