The sunrise burns red every morning over Pakistan, blotted out by either smoke or dust in the troposphere. For being a country that has neither industry nor fleets of automobiles, the air quality here is horrible.
I had some vaguely romantic notions about Afghanistan before I got here, but they have largely dissipated. I can see the ruins of two hill forts that supposedly date back to 2300 years ago, and that's cool, but they are mined so no one goes up there, and the novelty of seeing them in the distance has worn off.
The landscape here is severe, torn, and littered with the combined detritus of modern warfare and Third World poverty. Dust, diesel, burning garbage, and sewage is what you see and smell here. The Afghans all look hard and road worn. Females are all hidden away, I'm assuming they stay in the mud huts. The kids all have old eyes. From afar you see a child, but when you get close you have to ask yourself "is that a small 16 year old or a steel-eyed 8 year old? It's strange. People say that all the time, that the kids here are tough beyond their years.
I was speaking with an interpreter-- an Afghan man in his 40's-- listening to the tale of the downfall of his family, and I realized that Afghans my age (36) have grown up with constant war and worsening poverty. One million Afghans were killed during the Soviet-Afghan war and the country dropped from being almost the least developed in the world to, now, being the least developed in the world, just behind Angola. Some of his family managed to flee to the US, himself included, but now he has returned, trying to give something back to his native country by working as an interpreter for NATO.
It's an interesting story and I'll jot it in down in my journal to tell later (remind me). Unfortunately I can't publish everything here!
Anyway, carrying on. Safe and sound...
I had some vaguely romantic notions about Afghanistan before I got here, but they have largely dissipated. I can see the ruins of two hill forts that supposedly date back to 2300 years ago, and that's cool, but they are mined so no one goes up there, and the novelty of seeing them in the distance has worn off.
The landscape here is severe, torn, and littered with the combined detritus of modern warfare and Third World poverty. Dust, diesel, burning garbage, and sewage is what you see and smell here. The Afghans all look hard and road worn. Females are all hidden away, I'm assuming they stay in the mud huts. The kids all have old eyes. From afar you see a child, but when you get close you have to ask yourself "is that a small 16 year old or a steel-eyed 8 year old? It's strange. People say that all the time, that the kids here are tough beyond their years.
I was speaking with an interpreter-- an Afghan man in his 40's-- listening to the tale of the downfall of his family, and I realized that Afghans my age (36) have grown up with constant war and worsening poverty. One million Afghans were killed during the Soviet-Afghan war and the country dropped from being almost the least developed in the world to, now, being the least developed in the world, just behind Angola. Some of his family managed to flee to the US, himself included, but now he has returned, trying to give something back to his native country by working as an interpreter for NATO.
It's an interesting story and I'll jot it in down in my journal to tell later (remind me). Unfortunately I can't publish everything here!
Anyway, carrying on. Safe and sound...
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