Friday, February 12, 2010

Yes, I'm Still Alive and In Afghanistan

First off, let me thank all who've enquired after my health during my long silence. Second, no good excuse for the silence except perhaps exhaustion...mostly mental. Every week I've thought I'd post and then simply didn't. So, here's the latest update.

The Queen's Palace at dawn.
The wee sliver of the moon is visible in the upper right.
Yes, we got snow...and rain...and snow.
Surprisingly, mild winter overall in Kabul,
though last week was pretty cold.


This is what you call a "bad air" day. This is the kind of air you get when you don't have natural gas, Western style coal-fired power plants, or nuclear power plants to provide heat and electricity to a city of almost 5 million people. There is some hydroelectric, but it can't handle the load. Current wind and solar technology can't produce enough per $ spent, which for the Afghans is a critical decision point. There's also the issue of security. One can secure a couple hundred acres of a nuclear or coal-fired plant. One can't secure a sprawling solar or wind array.


Similiar shot on a different day, but the point I'm going to show here is how fast things can change. This picture is at 09:50 in the morning.


This picture of the same mountains at about 1:30 in the afternoon...after a stiff breeze blew through.


Oranges are the current fruit dejour.


Old Mamma Dog.
She's ready to drop another litter in this picture.
Which she promptly did the same evening (this past Tuesday).


Manchester United seems to be a popular team around here.
I've seen at least six different vehicles with ManU pillows and other decorations.


As construction advances down this main street, these street vendors are getting forced off to side-streets. Note the orange back hoe behind the cigarette stand.


We've been calling this billboard "The Love Doctor".
If you can't read Dari, you can come up with all sorts of interpretations.
It's really about the importance of getting a check-up.
Note that the Paula Abdul look-alike on the left doesn't seem too amused.


On a slightly more serious note, this is the building gutted during the Taliban attack downtown last month. Nine bad guys killed, one captured, two perhaps weren't keen on collecting the virgins and may have escaped. Surprisingly few civilian casualties given the bad guys had suicide vests and detonated two suicide VBIEDs (vehicle borne IED) in the middle of the day when the streets were full of people. Most of the good-guy casualties were the Afghan security guys. We figured the bad guys were expending ammo before the weather got crappy, which it did about a week later.

11 comments:

Joseph Wolf said...

Good to hear you're alive and well.
Any tentative date of when you're coming home for good?

J. L. Krueger said...

Joe,
"For good" is relative. I'm leaving Afghanistan on 15 March, but maybe not "for good". I may have one more trip in me, but only after a prolonged stay in the US (several months). A return trip would likely have me out in the "boonies" rather than the Kabul area.

Besides, my "Chief of Staff" won't allow many more trips abroad without her.

Dawn Anon said...

good to see your post and hear that you are well. excellent.

Safe travels in March.

Pallavi Sharma said...

Nice to see a new post. Glad you're doing well :)
We had a bomb blast at this joint called the German Bakery (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_bakery) here in Pune, India, on Saturday evening. The news channels were on about it (still are!), but not a word was uttered during the mini-get-together at my parents' home this Sunday. We're surprisingly cool about the event. Wonder whether we'd call it a "terror" attack at all.

Anonymous said...
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ssas said...

Glad to hear you're ok! Come home safe. :)

Travis Erwin said...

Many thanks for the update. I was really getting concerned about your silence.

J. L. Krueger said...

Dawn,

Thanks. I'm looking forward to getting home. It's been a long time here.

J. L. Krueger said...

Simplypallu,

Yes, I saw that in the news. I think anytime that sort of things happens in should be called a terrorist attack. There are some truly evil people in the world.

The media tends to puff about these things long after the people on the scene are getting back to their lives. People are much tougher than some "experts" realize.

After the attack here in January, one reporter was saying that people were "fleeing the city." Gee, could have fooled me!

Glad that you are doing well.

J. L. Krueger said...

Hey Sex!

I noticed that you aren't all that busy blogging lately either. But you're doin' better than me!

Only sixteen IED days left!

J. L. Krueger said...

Hey Travis!

Well, I'm hoping to get a bit more active again soon. I've got so much planned and never seem to have enough time to get it done! I'm sure I'll be busy when I get home too. Then I'll have a yard to maintain again!