This morning we said goodbye to our security force, our friends at the guesthouse, and the puppies. We headed over to the military base to catch a USAID flight to Kabul. The highlight of the drive over was when the Army guard at the gate looked at our security guard's ID and said "What the fuck is this?" Ah to interact with frustrated military personnel.
We flew on a small turbo prop plane, with 7 passenger seats and 2 seats in the cockpit. Once we took off and got up above the haze/dust/smog, I was finally able to see the snow covered mountains! These include the Hindu Kush and Tora Bora mountains. It was beautiful, especially seeing lush green Jalalabad from the air. It was also really cool to be able to see the view out of the front window! The flight lasted about 20 minutes, and we landed safely on the military side of Kabul airport.
Once we finally found our vehicle, we made it back to the guesthouse in about 30-45 minutes. We had a delicious lunch, met with Art's son Brandon who has just recently returned to Afghanistan to work for another 6 months, and had a few meetings about new potential projects.
The smog cleared up a bit late in the afternoon and some snow covered mountains were visible from the upper floors of the guesthouse. The clear sky didn't last very long though. I have never experienced somewhere with such poor air quality. According to a close friend, Kabul has the highest ppm of human fecal matter in the air in the world. I was only informed of this AFTER I returned. Otherwise, I would have worn my scarf on my mouth the entire time we were there. Luckily our GH was on the edge of the city and I couldn't stand being outside for more than 5-10 minutes....
Tomorrow we fly to Dubai, then have about 36 hours to recoup before our 14 hour flight back to DC. I will be spending about 24 hours in DC on Saturday and returning to San Diego on Sunday. Then it's off to work on Monday….
Lots more pictures to come once I'm stateside!
*Pictures!
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