The New World Trade Center

I have to start out this entry by letting you know that I am dizzy with jet lag at the moment. It’s only 10 pm here and I slept like a log last night for 9 hours, but that’s the joy of jet lag. So please pardon me if my notes lack their usual razor sharp wit. I promise that in the coming days I will write less about my daily activities and more about this fascinating country. Today I want to tell about my day to put everyone’s minds at rest, I am not in a war zone!

A familiar face from the home office was at the airport to meet us as we trundled off the plane last night. Unfortunately the airport road was closed because Hamid Karzai, the Afghan Prime Minister, was on his way to Saudi Arabia for the Haj. We had to drive on a cross between a dry river bed and a road under construction for 40 minutes, instead of driving of the best road in Kaubl for 10. On the entire drive from the airport, I saw a total of three women on the street, in contrast to the hundreds of men we saw.

The hotel is great – clean and comfortable. It is streets ahead of my hotel in Ethiopia! It is run by Pakistani’s and is in a walled compound with razor wire around the walls. There is an armed guard at the boom to the parking lot and large steel gate with armed guards patrolling the courtyard at night. On a brighter note, the hotel also has heating! I was warned that there would be no central heating here so I filled a suitcase with sweaters, thermal underwear and even a hot water bottle! I’m sure they will come in handy in South African summer next week.

After checking into the hotel, we went out to the Lebanese Taverna for dinner. No, not the famous restaurant in DC; the famous restaurant in Kabul. It was absolutely divine food and for those of you who thought that I would have a dry week, I had a Corona with my dinner! I didn’t even need to wear a headscarf inside the restaurant as it was mostly filled with ex-pats. I am gradually adapting to wearing the headscarf, but it is very annoying. I can’t even imagine how difficult it would be to have to wear a burka all the time.

Today is Friday which is the Muslim holy day so all offices are closed. In Afghanistan the work week runs from Saturday to Wednesday, so tomorrow is their equivalent of Monday. Now not only do I have jet lag, but I have day lag! As there was no work to do today, we were able to take it easy on our first day in country.

We had lunch at the guesthouse where some of my colleagues are staying. It looks like I will have plenty of company on this trip for a change. I am not only traveling with a colleague who is originally from Tunis but works with me in Bethesda, but there are also plenty of home office staff who are here for long- or short-term assignments on different projects. After lunch we hit the town. We drove up to “TV hill”, as you probably guessed, a big hill in the middle of Kabul where the Afghan Television Network is broadcast from. It was an amazing view but drove home even more how barren this city is. Afghanistan is really known as a country of rock and Kabul is no exception. Unlike in Africa where I mourn the deforestation when I see barren cityscapes, in Kabul there really were no trees to start out with.

Driving around the city the long and recent violent past was obvious. In some neighborhoods more than half of the buildings remain as they were after being shelled during the civil war of the Mujahadeen or the bombing of the US after September 11th. There are bullet holes in the plaster of walls in almost every neighborhood. But a little sense of humor also shows through: I drove past the new World Trade Center today.