Hello from Sunny Afghanistan!

People think I'm crazy because I'm enjoying Afghanistan quite a bit. It's probably due mostly to the fact that I'm staying with my parents in a real house, eating real food, and having no responsibilities. But it's also because the scenery is quite thrilling when compared with my dear desert home. There are mountains all around, lots of trees (relatively) in the city, and there's actual grass in the yards!!

Today we went on a tour of the city - we saw a fort that was built in the 5th century, a hilltop monument with tombs and catacombs beneath, and a bookstore that sold cheap English textbooks (guess who suggested that last stop)! On Friday I'm going with Dad and some other people to walk on an old wall that splits one of the mountains in half. I love that many of the houses in Kabul are on the mountains themselves - the slopes are all rock, and the houses perch rather precariously on the steep sides.

Other recent occasions for happiness include swimming in a real pool (at the UN), attending church, and eating really, really good home-made pizza. The people here are so nice (the people at Mom and Dad's organization, that is), and the natives seem to be much less obnoxious than I'm used to! The chief joy, I think, is the privacy. There just isn't any, at all, in Mauritania - unless I go to Nouakchott and lock myself in a hotel room and watch Arabic satellite TV for a couple of days. And that's not much fun. Here nobody expects me to make an effort to communicate! That's not a good thing in the long run, I'm sure, but it's nice to relax and not have to deal with too many people for a little while. Oh, and I finally got my luggage, which was lost for a week. Hooray for small blessings!