Sunday March 11

Slept fitfully until 3:30 then finally got up, showered, and took my laptop and books to a patio behind our apartment. Its cold, I can see my breath, and it is raining a little. I am beginning to think that cold tolerance is one of my thyroid symptoms (this turned out to be true). It just doesn’t bother me.

I have been thinking a lot about Nepal. It has been exactly 10 years as evidenced by having to get my passport renewed. I left Nepal feeling that I needed to get something that poor Asians could use. And here I am, invited to a country I have cared about for a while to share the things I have spent 10 years learning. But it is too short a stay to offer the holistic package I’ve wanted to bring. I think Afghanistan would be a great place for us if it wasn’t for all the fighting. It makes me think Pakistan might work out well for us.

Its 5 am and I can hear the call to prayer through the renewed light rain. Actually, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea at all.
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We watched NCAA basketball during breakfast. The time zone has advantages. Our main contact, Dan, here is a Wisconsin fan so I doubt I will be missing any big games.

Security seems to be really good in Kabul. Apparently there are some streets people keep off, but otherwise it’s really pretty safe. Most of the USAID folks don’t even wear their body armor or helmet when in transit (not me though…I’m all about my body armor when advised).

Today is a work day but the class doesn’t start until tomorrow. We had a meeting about the
Kajakai project and spent much of the morning talking about it and chasing data. It is a pretty cool project that was supposed to be built in ’79 before the Soviets invaded. Then we spent some time working on our lectures as we waited for several hours for our contact who supposedly printed out the student notes…nope. We spent the afternoon preparing the binders of notes for the students rather than prepping the lectures themselves. It was pretty stressful. At one point I had broken all three copiers owned by the Corps and USAID.

We worked a solid 12 hour day today. It seems fairly common around here, but it was rough given the jet lag and three nights of rocky sleep. It has been a rough time to give up soda for lent. It is free and I could use it. But I face my jet lag unmedicated and feel oddly heroic for it. Once in a while I use the cravings to meditate on the darkness of my unregenerate life and the longing for Jesus to make things right in the world and in my heart.

I think that this kind of work attracts odd people. Three separate discussions over meals today were about a friend made in Afghanistan who got divorced. I find some of them a little abrasive.

It’s been raining today in Kabul. It’s nice, but as Bilbo would say ‘I want to see the mountains again.”

My body armor makes it difficult to get in and out of vehicles. I kind of have to awkwardly roll out of my seat. It made me admire my pregnant wife.

The USAID house is empty. Part of me is sad. It would have been interesting to hang out with the notoriously bohemian crew. Part of me is relived to just lay here in my bed without social pressure to interact with high energy do gooders (and I do mean do gooders in the most bureaucratic sense possible).

I found out today that the embassy stocks a hard liquor store. I thought it was illegal to consume alcohol here but apparently it only is if you get your paycheck from the Department of Defense. I expressed my surprise to Dan who replied “USAID folks couldn’t do what they do without several drinks every night.”

The embassy café was selling candy bars made in Iran. This was strangely hysterical to those of us at dinner.

I seem to be listing random 1-3 sentence thoughts rather than journaling. I’ll blame the 12 hour jet lag

It has started to ever so slightly snow.