Saturday March 10

I had trouble sleeping and got up at 6:30. Breakfast was the best free hotel breakfast I’ve ever had. Fried rice, yogurt, fruit, noodles, fresh juice, lean beef bacon and chicken sausages (yet more signs that we were in the Muslim world).

We got a shuttle to the hotel and got a UN humanitarian aid flight to Kabul. The flight was only about 2.5 hours. We were served an odd meal of whole eggs cooked in a middle eastern meat and bread crust. Of all the flights this would have been the one to be by the window…but I wasn’t. I did get to see some of the mountains from my seat, though as they peaked above the clouds. They were very dramatic. Afghanistan could have an amazing tourist industry if they hadn’t been one of the world’s most violent places for the last 30 years.

The airport was rustic and customs took a while. We had to fill out a form that never got used and John smiled and said ‘welcome to Afghanistan.’ We had another handler who took us to our ride. It was 3 Toyota land cruisers with armed soldiers. We put on body armor and helmets and drove about 20 minutes to Quelaa house, the Corps of Engineers compound. Everyone knew and like John there, but one guy was particularly friendly and took over our processing. He worked for USAID as well as the Corps and was John’s roommate during his last deployment. Dan had pulled some strings and gotten us an apartment in the USAID building. This meant no 6-to-a-cold-tent accommodations. After being at Quelaa house for 20 minutes, I was glad I was leaving. It had a very military feel to it. Uniforms were worn all the time and people were giving orders. USAID is much more laid back and more my style.

USAID is an interesting animal. They spend a very small portion of their money on water. We are here under power generation money. All of the hydraulics we are going to teach are supposed to focus on dam operation. The other thing I noticed is they do a lot of dam and coal burning work. The competing objectives of environment and development come together in their organization and environment gets the crap kicked out of it…and I’m not sure I disagree.

We went to dinner and I had lasagna, chicken soup and kiwis. John and Dan did a lot of reminiscing and busting on each other, but I started fading fast. We got home, I wrote a little and went to sleep at 10.