Mucking about in Kabul

Darleman Palace

New exhibit at the Kabul Museum

New paint job

Old train on the museum grounds

Anthony in the museum car graveyard

Building on the west side of Kabul

UNICEF tents - this is a school just outside of Kabul

Anthony and Leon

Qarghas Lake

This kid was trying to get me to give him money for burning incense near me - I took his picture instead

The western edges of Kabul were hit really hard during the mujahadeen wars, and a lot of it hasn't been rebuilt yet.

Driving back into the city - leftovers from the 10th of Mahram

Today I went over to HOPE Worldwide for lunch. There's a bit of a back story to this - on my way back to Kabul at the end of my vacation I got stuck in Dubai for an extra night because Ariana Airlines decided not to show up in Dubai for my scheduled flight (they sent their plane to Delhi instead). While spending the entire night in the airport waiting for the flight that would never come, I met Leon, a Briton who was on his was to Kabul for the first time to do a few weeks worth of volunteering with the HOPE organization.

We teamed up and figured out the bureaucratic morass together, and booked flights on a different airline for the following day. I went over to HOPE for lunch on Wednesday, and we made plans to do a little exploring today. This afternoon I went over for lunch again, and then Leon, Jason and Kelly (recently arrived from the US), Anthony (Australian) and myself headed out to Darelman Palace and the Kabul Museum. After that we drove out to Lake Qargha (still my favorite place to visit) and mucked about in the mud. Our driver decided to drive, or slide rather, right to the shore of the lake. There were a few sketchy moments where I wasn't sure we were going to make it back up to the main road, but the four wheel drive won out in the end.

All in all it was a great weekend - dinner with Cory last night, exploring today. I even got up early and did some work before my afternoon adventure. It's amazing how much better I feel after getting out for a bit...

It looks like this month and next month are going to be extremely hectic at work, so my posting may decrease (even more than it already has). We'll see - of course I'll post if anything eventful happens...