This summer, the radio station Hossein liked to play on the way to work used 50 Cent's "Candy Shop" as inter-program filler. Even realizing that almost no one listening could understand the lyrics, I was still a bit shocked at the song's popularity. Some weeks later, one of my usual taxi drivers proudly showed off a small video screen he'd installed, complete with looping footage of the Pussycat Dolls.
So I shouldn't really have been surprised to learn that Rihanna's latest album is quite the craze here. I hadn't heard it yet, though, so climbing into a taxi yesterday to hear "sticks and stones may break my bones, but whips and chains excite me," still felt completely surreal. Oh, Kabul, where no woman bares her elbows, but where a girl can sing about S&M to her heart's content (in English at least).
Showing posts with label kabul. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kabul. Show all posts
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Friday, January 7, 2011
Pomegranate!
So I'm back in Kabul on a 9-day research trip for my Policy Analysis Exercise (or PAE - effectively a capstone project/thesis). Expat Kabul is nearly dead, with everyone taking long or belated holiday breaks, making my project of interviewing people about development sustainability, infrastructure building, and community engagement a bit challenging.
For the moment, however, I'm actually enjoying the wintry day holed up in a favorite French restaurant reading through my literature review pile. The coziness of the electric heaters seems destined to end after the fourth power outage in 90 minutes - I think we keep overloading the fuse. The usual dusty smog in the streets is thickened with smoke from a city of bukhari stoves burning God-knows-what as heating fuel, but hey, pomegranate season can't possibly be all bad. Mmm, pomegranate...
For the moment, however, I'm actually enjoying the wintry day holed up in a favorite French restaurant reading through my literature review pile. The coziness of the electric heaters seems destined to end after the fourth power outage in 90 minutes - I think we keep overloading the fuse. The usual dusty smog in the streets is thickened with smoke from a city of bukhari stoves burning God-knows-what as heating fuel, but hey, pomegranate season can't possibly be all bad. Mmm, pomegranate...
Sunday, September 5, 2010
The Kite Sellers
To her credit, Natalie found the kite shop first. Over dinner one evening, she told the group about Phalawan Kareem's shop in the old city and described the kites, from incredibly simple sheets of plastic molded into flying shape by a pair of crossed sticks to the elaborate tissue-paper affairs he had supplied as props in The Kite Runner. I took a copy of his business card and made plans with my roommate Solmaz to visit a few days later.
The "Kite Runner shop" sits among a city block of kite-sellers in the neighborhood of Jadeh Maiwand, the city center for flying paper toys, as they are called in Dari. As Solmaz and I said our "salaams," I noticed the framed photographs and newspaper articles perched above the spools of string and stacks of delicate finished kites both small and large. The edges of the open storefront and the low ceiling displayed oversized, elaborately-decorated but eminently airworthy models each marked with a scorpion logo - the mark of Noor Agha. Profiled in Time and written about by Reuters, Noor Agha designs and makes the most beautiful - and the most responsive - fighting kites in Afghanistan today.
Though these flying canvasses decorate the shop, its primary sales are in small children's models made of simpler tissue-paper patterns and even plastic models. They hang along the awning alongside wooden spools decorated with CDs and Bollywood stars.
I selected a mix of medium flying kites and larger Noor Agha designs while Phalawan Kareem told stories of his friends in NATO, his clients the movie producers, and the difficult Taliban years, when no kites could be flown. After helping load my delicate stack of purchases into a garbage bag, he threw in ten of the small paper kites as a gift, demonstrating how to tie the kite-string to the body for maximum flying control. Solmaz and I offered our thanks and returned home to test our new toys.
The "Kite Runner shop" sits among a city block of kite-sellers in the neighborhood of Jadeh Maiwand, the city center for flying paper toys, as they are called in Dari. As Solmaz and I said our "salaams," I noticed the framed photographs and newspaper articles perched above the spools of string and stacks of delicate finished kites both small and large. The edges of the open storefront and the low ceiling displayed oversized, elaborately-decorated but eminently airworthy models each marked with a scorpion logo - the mark of Noor Agha. Profiled in Time and written about by Reuters, Noor Agha designs and makes the most beautiful - and the most responsive - fighting kites in Afghanistan today.
Though these flying canvasses decorate the shop, its primary sales are in small children's models made of simpler tissue-paper patterns and even plastic models. They hang along the awning alongside wooden spools decorated with CDs and Bollywood stars.
I selected a mix of medium flying kites and larger Noor Agha designs while Phalawan Kareem told stories of his friends in NATO, his clients the movie producers, and the difficult Taliban years, when no kites could be flown. After helping load my delicate stack of purchases into a garbage bag, he threw in ten of the small paper kites as a gift, demonstrating how to tie the kite-string to the body for maximum flying control. Solmaz and I offered our thanks and returned home to test our new toys.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
The Afghan National Gallery
After the Uzbekistan trek fell through, I used my unexpected additional days in Kabul to play the tourist about town. The Lonely Planet guide recommended the Afghan National Gallery as a collection worth seeing if only to pay respect to the efforts of its administrators to protect their art from the Taliban. A display case on the first floor shows samples of less-lucky paintings:
The memorial of shredded canvass is far from the only unique feature of the museum. The building is drastically undersized, and well over half the collection sits stacked against the walls - through rooms and down the hallways. While no longer threatened with destruction, most of the art still isn't actually on display, unless you're willing to shuffle large frames about very, very carefully.
One entire room held portraits of Afghan and international leaders, though the remainder of the museum suggested no other pattern. I saw a British pheasant-hunt hanging in the stairwell, and this portrait of an Afghan patriot, but these were a few of my other favorite pieces:
The memorial of shredded canvass is far from the only unique feature of the museum. The building is drastically undersized, and well over half the collection sits stacked against the walls - through rooms and down the hallways. While no longer threatened with destruction, most of the art still isn't actually on display, unless you're willing to shuffle large frames about very, very carefully.
One entire room held portraits of Afghan and international leaders, though the remainder of the museum suggested no other pattern. I saw a British pheasant-hunt hanging in the stairwell, and this portrait of an Afghan patriot, but these were a few of my other favorite pieces:
Monday, August 2, 2010
Flying Commercial
Domestic air travel in Afghanistan resembles the American practice only in the most casual comparison. Over a round trip to Herat, my flights ran a combined four hours late, I walked through four metal detectors (of which none were functional), and I received five separate pat-down searches from bored women (of whom two obviously felt zero regard for my silly sense of dignity). The planes smell deeply human on 90-degree days, and even my knees nearly brushed the seat ahead.
The trip began with a crazy man screaming and lunging after me outside the departure gate, pulled away by his guardian while a crowd gawked, then apologized to the clearly-shaken foreign girl. It ended in a quiet office with the chief of Herat airport security, drinking tea and chatting about India.
I get ahead of myself. Other than the deranged man, the departure from Kabul was mostly normal. We waited two and a half hours at the sole gate for domestic departures - I argued with a zealous steward who scolded me for putting a bag under the seat - but we arrived in Herat with no major incidents.
If the Bamiyan airport reminded me of a small-town gravel strip in the Rockies, Herat's lacks a similarly apt comparison. There's a two-room terminal serving departing travelers only. Arriving, we walked off the plane, past a waving portrait of President Karzai, and straight into a dusty parking lot where small boys ferried luggage in wheelbarrows.
Returning for the flight to Kabul, our taxi pulled onto the shoulder of a major road, depositing us seemingly several hundred yards from the main airport entrance (as marked by an old MiG mounted on a pedastal). Walking in that direction, however, we heard shouts from a small police checkpoint across the road - the real departure entrance passed instead between rows of sandbags into a dusty courtyard a quarter-mile from the terminal. Once there, we were shuffled into a shipping-container room for the first security check, then shuttled across to check in at a desk with two men and one laptop tethered to a SIM-card modem. Thus approved, we settled in to wait.
A policeman approached and asked to see our bags, accompanied by the woman who had patted us down just moments before. I handed him my backpack as Afreen explained that we had already been checked. He ignored her and then picked up my other bag, carrying two copper plates I'd bought from Sultan Hamidi, consulting all the while with the woman. He looked over them carefully, then asked me where I'd gotten them. I had a business card for the shop, and as I handed it over, I asked what the problem was. He replied "mushkil nist!" and handed me my bags. As they left, an Afghan-American sitting nearby quietly translated that the woman had suggested I might attack the pilots with the plate, hitting someone on the head.
Eventually, a gate opened at the other end of the courtyard, and we joined the line to file through and trek across the parking lot to the terminal. Once there, we went through another security checkpoint, where the woman ignored the plates entirely, and then to an x-ray machine, where the technician took them and insisted I put Sultan Hamidi on the telephone. After long haggling, an older guard stepped over and eventually returned my souvenirs.
Afreen and I had barely settled in to the women's waiting area when a man walked up and asked, "Farsi gap mezanid?" "Kam kam," I replied, pinching my fingers in the air to demonstrate just how little. Dread settled in as I sank into the office couch - these plates were obviously never going to make it home with me. Thankfully, the security chief had found a translator, who first asked where we were from, then spoke for several fond minutes about his time in Hyderabad after Afreen claimed it as her home. Finally, the issue of my apparent contraband came up, and our translator assured us that his chief was truly sorry for any inconvenience the search had caused. Would we like any tea before our flight?
(Postscript: upon returning to Kabul, we found that our traveling companions had shared a similar experience the day before - the guards had required them to check the glassware, some of which was then broken in transit, but allowed Francisco to board the plane with a switchblade.)
The trip began with a crazy man screaming and lunging after me outside the departure gate, pulled away by his guardian while a crowd gawked, then apologized to the clearly-shaken foreign girl. It ended in a quiet office with the chief of Herat airport security, drinking tea and chatting about India.
I get ahead of myself. Other than the deranged man, the departure from Kabul was mostly normal. We waited two and a half hours at the sole gate for domestic departures - I argued with a zealous steward who scolded me for putting a bag under the seat - but we arrived in Herat with no major incidents.
If the Bamiyan airport reminded me of a small-town gravel strip in the Rockies, Herat's lacks a similarly apt comparison. There's a two-room terminal serving departing travelers only. Arriving, we walked off the plane, past a waving portrait of President Karzai, and straight into a dusty parking lot where small boys ferried luggage in wheelbarrows.
Returning for the flight to Kabul, our taxi pulled onto the shoulder of a major road, depositing us seemingly several hundred yards from the main airport entrance (as marked by an old MiG mounted on a pedastal). Walking in that direction, however, we heard shouts from a small police checkpoint across the road - the real departure entrance passed instead between rows of sandbags into a dusty courtyard a quarter-mile from the terminal. Once there, we were shuffled into a shipping-container room for the first security check, then shuttled across to check in at a desk with two men and one laptop tethered to a SIM-card modem. Thus approved, we settled in to wait.
A policeman approached and asked to see our bags, accompanied by the woman who had patted us down just moments before. I handed him my backpack as Afreen explained that we had already been checked. He ignored her and then picked up my other bag, carrying two copper plates I'd bought from Sultan Hamidi, consulting all the while with the woman. He looked over them carefully, then asked me where I'd gotten them. I had a business card for the shop, and as I handed it over, I asked what the problem was. He replied "mushkil nist!" and handed me my bags. As they left, an Afghan-American sitting nearby quietly translated that the woman had suggested I might attack the pilots with the plate, hitting someone on the head.
Eventually, a gate opened at the other end of the courtyard, and we joined the line to file through and trek across the parking lot to the terminal. Once there, we went through another security checkpoint, where the woman ignored the plates entirely, and then to an x-ray machine, where the technician took them and insisted I put Sultan Hamidi on the telephone. After long haggling, an older guard stepped over and eventually returned my souvenirs.
Afreen and I had barely settled in to the women's waiting area when a man walked up and asked, "Farsi gap mezanid?" "Kam kam," I replied, pinching my fingers in the air to demonstrate just how little. Dread settled in as I sank into the office couch - these plates were obviously never going to make it home with me. Thankfully, the security chief had found a translator, who first asked where we were from, then spoke for several fond minutes about his time in Hyderabad after Afreen claimed it as her home. Finally, the issue of my apparent contraband came up, and our translator assured us that his chief was truly sorry for any inconvenience the search had caused. Would we like any tea before our flight?
(Postscript: upon returning to Kabul, we found that our traveling companions had shared a similar experience the day before - the guards had required them to check the glassware, some of which was then broken in transit, but allowed Francisco to board the plane with a switchblade.)
Friday, July 30, 2010
Photos for the day: kite season
Each time I think I've had enough of the dust and the stress, Afghanistan has a way of charming me back to sanity. For the moment, it's the kites that began to invade the late-summer sky this week. Less than a week left in Kabul, and suddenly I'm not sure I'm ready to leave...
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Happiness to scale
My current Amélian pleasures:
- Children flying kites out along the streets
- A burqa with a red sequined skirt underneath
- My colleague whose fingernails always match her headscarf
- The dust-free cool blown in after a recent rainstorm
- Finding all three volumes of The Venture of Islam for sale in a Kabul bookstore
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Kabul Conference
(written in a 'net-less house yesterday, an account of the Kabul Conference as it appeared to residents of the city, rather than foreign diplomats).
The house today takes on the character of a hospital waiting room - the tense boredom permeating every thought, the paralysis of endless sitting, the vigil unknowing whether the patient will pull through, whether the security will hold. I remember this same toe-tapping quiet from four years ago, thoughts pacing over and over the wish that my mother's surgeon would walk through the door to tell he'd repaired her spine and that I could see her soon. Those worn prayers brought good news, and so today I return to habit, repeating a mantra of "let the conference end soon; let the city remain peaceful," with every helicopter passing overhead.
My roommate's Collected Stories of Richard Yates pass the time, as does forcing myself to make tomato sauce from scratch for a simple pasta lunch. By mid-afternoon, even the steady rhythm of washing my scarves feels like escape from the stifling nothingness in the shaded salon - and the prospect of another roommate's Lindsey Lohan DVD (the only thing at the corner shop not dubbed in Hindi) begins to seem more like entertainment than torment.
Finally, the periodic droning becomes a steady procession until one chopper passes so low the windows all rattle. Wishing the departing dignitaries their own safe travels, the knot in my solar plexus begins to unwind - it will be a quiet night.
(The New York Times suggests sightseeing the conference participants missed and details security procedures - including blocking pedestrian access - in the city.)
The house today takes on the character of a hospital waiting room - the tense boredom permeating every thought, the paralysis of endless sitting, the vigil unknowing whether the patient will pull through, whether the security will hold. I remember this same toe-tapping quiet from four years ago, thoughts pacing over and over the wish that my mother's surgeon would walk through the door to tell he'd repaired her spine and that I could see her soon. Those worn prayers brought good news, and so today I return to habit, repeating a mantra of "let the conference end soon; let the city remain peaceful," with every helicopter passing overhead.
My roommate's Collected Stories of Richard Yates pass the time, as does forcing myself to make tomato sauce from scratch for a simple pasta lunch. By mid-afternoon, even the steady rhythm of washing my scarves feels like escape from the stifling nothingness in the shaded salon - and the prospect of another roommate's Lindsey Lohan DVD (the only thing at the corner shop not dubbed in Hindi) begins to seem more like entertainment than torment.
Finally, the periodic droning becomes a steady procession until one chopper passes so low the windows all rattle. Wishing the departing dignitaries their own safe travels, the knot in my solar plexus begins to unwind - it will be a quiet night.
(The New York Times suggests sightseeing the conference participants missed and details security procedures - including blocking pedestrian access - in the city.)
Sunday, July 18, 2010
A photo/question for the day
19th-century engraved weaponry: completely inappropriate, or moderately awesome souvenir?
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Kabul Fried Chicken, Part II
The sequel to the graffiti-advertising shown previously - the actual storefront of one restaurant calling itself KFC (the other, with at least two locations, uses a large chicken as its mascot rather than appropriating Col. Sanders). Near Shar-e Now Park, AFC (Afghan Fried Chicken) provides additional competition.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
A Thursday in the garden in Kabul
Thursday afternoon begins the weekend - the office closes at one and everyone goes to prepare for the coming day of rest. Waking for the morning commute six days each week seems disproportionately exhausting than a mere five, and so Thursday afternoons take on additional luxury for their still quiet. Hossain drops me at the Flower Street Café, notable for never having been located on the actual Flower Street the one neighborhood over.
The occasional helicopter flyover interrupts a soundtrack of Beatles and Ella Fitzgerald piped into the garden. A determined kitten begs for scraps of my chicken salad as I sprawl in my usual mini-salon relishing an iced coffee made all the more heavenly by a week of hot-tea-drinking. The day is hot but not unbearably so, especially now that my scarf is crumpled atop my backpack rather than trapping cool breezes away from the back of my neck.
Having traded Thucydides for John Le Carré's latest, I disappear into Turkish Hamburg and forget for a time my true location. This evening brings an art exhibition at Babur's Gardens, tomorrow a mix of housework and social events, and Saturday morning back to the office - for these few hours absolutely nothing pressing invades the peace of my shaded divan and its sunny rose garden view.
The occasional helicopter flyover interrupts a soundtrack of Beatles and Ella Fitzgerald piped into the garden. A determined kitten begs for scraps of my chicken salad as I sprawl in my usual mini-salon relishing an iced coffee made all the more heavenly by a week of hot-tea-drinking. The day is hot but not unbearably so, especially now that my scarf is crumpled atop my backpack rather than trapping cool breezes away from the back of my neck.
Having traded Thucydides for John Le Carré's latest, I disappear into Turkish Hamburg and forget for a time my true location. This evening brings an art exhibition at Babur's Gardens, tomorrow a mix of housework and social events, and Saturday morning back to the office - for these few hours absolutely nothing pressing invades the peace of my shaded divan and its sunny rose garden view.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
City of dust
(It's a multi-post afternoon as work grinds to a post-lunch lull in the face of afternoon sunshine. Please do scroll down for further Bamiyan photos.)
Even the rain in Kabul smells of dust. As the first drops fall onto the evening streets, damping the alleyways and eventually running through the open gutters, an unmistakably mineral, earthy smell drifts back up into the air.
Dust pervades the city, defying weak human attempts to control its advances. Street-dirtied shoes might be left at the door, but the enemy drifts through open windows on teasingly cool summer breezes instead. It invades my breathing, prompting vigorous allergic reactions from my nose and lungs. Bicyclists in the city wrap scarves over their faces to filter the air, but I remain stupidly stubborn in leaving uncovered these few inches of socially-acceptable skin.
The frantic road-paving projects will certainly go unremarked by the diplomats at the Kabul Conference next week (though it is for these dignitaries that every street is currently half-destroyed), but the fervent hope protecting my sanity through every creeping construction-related traffic jam is that just maybe the morning commute will become clearer after all these thoroughfares are hard-topped.
This passing evening storm will temporarily tame the air, turning the streets into puddled mud-clay for a few hours all too brief. Then a dry breeze will pick up, bringing the finest, lightest particles to dust my room once again.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
Some things are universal
The styles and vows may change from one time zone to the next, but the fundamental act of celebrating a new marriage is the same the world over. Everyone gets dressed up, they eat, they dance, and they take excessive photographs. The major differences here are that there's no alcohol to ease into the dancing, and the men and women party in separate rooms.
I was aware of this final detail even before receiving Ateeq's email inviting N and myself to join him at a friend's wedding that same night. It's just that in the rush of excitement - a wedding? tonight? definitely! - the logistics of two foreign girls in a room of strange women were a secondary consideration after "but what do I wear?"
As Atta drove past a row of wedding halls lit with nearly as much neon as the Vegas Strip, Ateeq jokingly asked us to be on the lookout for pretty girls. While N tried to pin down his tastes, I remembered crashing another stranger's wedding with a twinge of Morocco nostalgia. It was only as Qasim, the groom, led the two of us into the bright glare of a videographer's light to meet a long line of cousins that I began to wonder about what N and I were going to do for the next few hours by ourselves...
I needn't have worried. One niece welcomed us in English and seated us in the front of the room, while a gaggle of small children crowded around to stare and yell "hi!" The girls shied away when I began to ask them "nom-e-tu chist?", but one boy answered me "Elham!" and began to introduce the rest. The boys mugged for my camera while a procession of other kids shuffled over to mumble "salam" and run back away. After waiting a suitable period to avoid seeming overeager, the older girls began to wander over to chat while members of the bride's and groom's families exchanged jewelry on a platform at the front of the room. Eventually the couple entered and led a candlelit procession to the platform, where everyone cycled through for photos.
As dancing began, N and I took to dress-watching: with no men present, the younger women wore outfits best described as slightly deranged prom dresses - one was in a green sequined affair with peacock feathers embroidered on, while another wore a full tulle skirt gathered with giant fake roses. Two cousins had matched their red-and-black dresses and gave the appearance of twin flamenco dancers wandering in from Madrid. Though fitted t-shirts had been added to sleeveless or strapless numbers, other rules of modesty were suspended for the night, and so glitter, curls, and elaborate eye makeup reigned supreme. Having broken the ice with what awkward small talk could be made between our Dari and their English, we posed for pictures with the other girls until dinner arrived.
After eating quickly, we slipped out - N had work the next morning, while I had laundry to wash and packing to finish before catching a 7am flight. We excused ourselves with great regret and left our new friends to continue their festivities.
I was aware of this final detail even before receiving Ateeq's email inviting N and myself to join him at a friend's wedding that same night. It's just that in the rush of excitement - a wedding? tonight? definitely! - the logistics of two foreign girls in a room of strange women were a secondary consideration after "but what do I wear?"
As Atta drove past a row of wedding halls lit with nearly as much neon as the Vegas Strip, Ateeq jokingly asked us to be on the lookout for pretty girls. While N tried to pin down his tastes, I remembered crashing another stranger's wedding with a twinge of Morocco nostalgia. It was only as Qasim, the groom, led the two of us into the bright glare of a videographer's light to meet a long line of cousins that I began to wonder about what N and I were going to do for the next few hours by ourselves...
I needn't have worried. One niece welcomed us in English and seated us in the front of the room, while a gaggle of small children crowded around to stare and yell "hi!" The girls shied away when I began to ask them "nom-e-tu chist?", but one boy answered me "Elham!" and began to introduce the rest. The boys mugged for my camera while a procession of other kids shuffled over to mumble "salam" and run back away. After waiting a suitable period to avoid seeming overeager, the older girls began to wander over to chat while members of the bride's and groom's families exchanged jewelry on a platform at the front of the room. Eventually the couple entered and led a candlelit procession to the platform, where everyone cycled through for photos.
As dancing began, N and I took to dress-watching: with no men present, the younger women wore outfits best described as slightly deranged prom dresses - one was in a green sequined affair with peacock feathers embroidered on, while another wore a full tulle skirt gathered with giant fake roses. Two cousins had matched their red-and-black dresses and gave the appearance of twin flamenco dancers wandering in from Madrid. Though fitted t-shirts had been added to sleeveless or strapless numbers, other rules of modesty were suspended for the night, and so glitter, curls, and elaborate eye makeup reigned supreme. Having broken the ice with what awkward small talk could be made between our Dari and their English, we posed for pictures with the other girls until dinner arrived.
After eating quickly, we slipped out - N had work the next morning, while I had laundry to wash and packing to finish before catching a 7am flight. We excused ourselves with great regret and left our new friends to continue their festivities.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Photos for the day
Call today's pictures "a view from TV mountain" - while most of Kabul sits in a valley, one large hill is perched in the middle of the city. On days when traffic is too backed-up along the main road between my home and office, Hossein goes up and over the hill instead. Under the many antennas and communications towers that give TV Mountain its name, life goes on normally, if a bit more vertically. (and yes, that's a cemetery in the foreground of the lower photo).
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Photos for the day
The schoolgirls walking home at the end of the day always clump together in gaggles of black-and-white, while the boys usually scatter. I was especially surprised to catch two classmates (siblings?) mingling on the walk home.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Photos for the day
Many of the trucks found hauling goods about Kabul are intricately decorated - these are just two samples of the many detailed paint jobs I've seen. I have no idea why anyone goes to this level of effort (the work appears to be hand-done), nor how it's become so widely popular.
Saturday, June 26, 2010
A photo for the day
I think I like posting pictures individually - it's much simpler to pick one for the day than to prepare a full album (also, it means more new things for the handful of people I know are checking in regularly). Thoughts?
This one amuses me doubly - first, it was taken on a paved (!) street in a quiet neighborhood of wealthy residences and NGO offices in Karte Se - not where I usually see goatherders. Secondly, there really is a Kabul Fried Chicken, which has seen fit to appropriate the image of Colonel Sanders on its storefront (I've yet to get a photo of that; apologies). Strangely, the name isn't actually translated into Dari underneath - just transliterated. "Kabul Fraid Chikn" - Happy Saturday!
Friday, June 25, 2010
A photo for the day
In honor of watermelon season, which is in full swing here. Watermelon juice might just be my new favorite beverage...
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Monday, June 21, 2010
Back to the daily grind
After a quiet Sunday evening checking in with family, I put in some quality time with Photoshop and have added new photos chronicling the daily commute. I don't have Afreen's DSLR or editing abilities, but the updates include schoolgirls, goats, billboard posters of Karzai and Masoud, mountains, mosques, a body-builder gym ad, and possibly the coolest safety goggles reminder ever. Enjoy!
click for the full album
click for the full album
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