I only come to Kabul for the shopping

Well, that's only partially true. I come to Kabul for many reasons but I absolutely love the shopping. Nowhere in the States can you get such amazing, unique pieces of art for your home that are handmade by traditional craftsmen (and women!) and that don't break the bank. Pier 1 has NOTHING on Afghanistan!

While at the office on Saturday, I got an email invitation to attend the grand opening of a new Afghan craft market in Kabul so my boss and I, along with a couple coworkers who’d come into the office on their day off, headed to check out the market.

It was basically like a tiny little mall, with many shops in a larger building. They had a little reception area for the grand opening where they served cookies and biscuits and sodas and tea and sushi (?!) and Chinese noodles. The shops had all traditional Afghan crafts but made in modern styles.

There was a shop called Boumi, or “indigenous”, who made gorgeous woven placemats and table runners and other embroidered linens. Everything was so inexpensive (and handmade by Afghan women) so I bought two sets of really, really pretty placemats that I can’t wait to set on our dining room table.

Another shop sold kids’ items, like little bags and hats and clothes. They also sold these adorable bears, which I bought for my niece.

The woman selling these told me that this very bear that I bought was made by four women: one made the bear, another made its little hat, another made its dress and the last made the beading on the dress. The craftsmanship on this bear is outstanding and the details on everything from the beads to the embroidery is incredible.

For $15, this gorgeous little thing was a steal.

Also in this little craft mall, I found an amazing jewelry shop whose treasures were handmade by women in various villages throughout Afghanistan. All of the stones used are native to Afghanistan and a beautiful pearl and lapis piece caught my eye immediately. I honestly loved every single piece in this gorgeous Afghan woman's shop but the blue and pearl combination made my heart skip a beat.

It is PERFECT for my wedding day. The silver and pearls would compliment my dress perfectly and the blue is just the right shade for the accent color I'm using. It's not too much blue, not too casual and I just love that my "something blue" will be from my beloved Afghanistan.

The first night here in Kabul, I visited my favorite shopkeeper and he had a few small pieces of gorgeous blue blown glass that I'd never seen before. I asked him where he got it and he replied that a glass blower had a shop around the corner. I wondered if there were other styles and colors of glass, so tonight he brought me a wide variety of shapes and sizes of these pretty glass pieces to choose from.

I was planning on just buying 10 or 12 pieces for my home, but being that I have wedding on the brain, I immediately thought that I would love to use these for my wedding decor. They range in price from less than $1 to $2 a piece, so they’re very inexpensive.

The shopkeeper, Kushal, is taking me to the glassblower’s shop on Tuesday to watch him work and I need to decide by then what type of pieces I want. Maybe someone here can throw some suggestions my way? How do I use these in my wedding? A couple of each piece with my centerpieces? A small flower at each place setting in a mini vase as favors?

So you can see the size of these, here’s me holding one of the smaller jars. Don’t mind the dust. Everything here in Kabul (including me!) is covered in a thin layer of dust. Nothing that a little soap and water can’t handle.

I just love coming home with a suitcase full of unique treasures and this trip sure isn't going to disappoint!

A turnaround of sorts

This week started out a bit rough. I was exhausted from a complete lack of sleep, my body was having a hard time adjusting to the water/food/dust and I was overwhelmed with the daunting task of taking care of business here, as they say. The situation at my hotel, the place that I was supposed to lay my head every night and call home for the next two weeks, was dire.

Look at this lovely tapestry on the wall of my hotel room. Charming!

The temperature here drops to about 30 degrees as soon as the sun sets at 5pm or so, and it was chilly in my room. The hotel doesn't have a central heating system (plus concrete floors and little insulation!), so they gave me a space heater. When I got to my room, it was running on low and I asked the hotel man how to turn it up and he said I couldn’t because the generator couldn’t handle it. Wonderful. The first two nights, I completely froze despite my heavy sweatpants, wool socks, 2 shirts and EMS fleece.

While I'm already being a whiny Westerner, I might as well touch on the other issues with this hotel. The bed is a slab of wood. Not really, but it might as well be. No matter how I lay, various bones are jabbing into the bed in a very uncomfortable way. The first two nights I was here, I woke up wide awake just three short hours after I'd fallen asleep. Maybe that was the jetlag but the bed was definitely the reason for the subsequent tossing and turning.

The lighting in this room was horrendous. It’s fluorescent, but flickery and dim. I brought half a dozen books to read on this trip, so I had to ask the hotel man go fetch me a lamp from somewhere, lest I get a killer headache. He came back with a small desk lamp and an insanely bright, drug lab-esque lightbulb. He tried, but it didn't exactly help.

The bathroom attached to the room emanated a smell so awful that I had to keep the door closed, which actually only served to concentrate the smell even more so that when I did open the door, I nearly gagged. It smelled like a latrine. A latrine filled with waste. A latrine filled with waste that had stagnated in the same spot for the past ten years. Yeah. Gross.

Surrounding the hotel is a construction site and many large pieces of machinery arrive around 5:30 every morning and start working. Before that, however, a pack of wild dogs hangs out right outside my window and barks themselves silly from about 2am until 5. This makes for a peaceful sleeping experience.

And finally, the food. I have been so painfully sick every time I come to Afghanistan that I was really hoping to avoid it this time. I had planned on eating only the simplest and most recognizable of foods, so I decided to ask for a plain pizza, cheese only, for dinner. Thirty minutes later, a pizza loaded with veggies, some familiar and some unrecognizable, chicken and a bitter/rotten tasting sweet chili sauce arrived at my door. I didn’t complain because lord only knows what I would have gotten if I'd asked him to go prepare me something different. When he came to the door to collect my plates and saw a half-eaten pizza and a big pile of veggies/chicken on the side he asked me, “This not tasty? You don’t like? It not tasty?”

No, my friend, it not tasty.

I endured two nights in the smelly, dim, cold hotel room before mentioning to someone at the office that I was kind of miserable and maybe I could switch to the place I stayed at this summer. Apparently, he talked to the manager because when I got to the hotel last night, they had moved my queen-sized bed to a new room upstairs, complete with a wall heating unit PLUS a space heater (that I could turn to High!). Yes, the bed was the same slab of wood, but finally I was WARM, plus the lighting was better and I could breathe in the bathroom without gagging! I got a lovely night's sleep last night because apparently, the dogs hang out in the construction zone, both of which are on the other side of the hotel.

And get this. The best part.

I got a hot shower this morning. My first in days. The hot water only lasted about three and a half minutes, but those were the best three and a half minutes I've had in a long time.

Things are looking up!

On the road again

Well, here I am again in Dubai. Unfortunately, only for a night though. My nonstop (13 HOUR!) flight from New York landed around 9am (Dubai time) this morning and my flight to Kabul leaves very early tomorrow morning, so I have less than 24 hours in luxury.

The flight today? yesterday? was only slightly excruciating. I got lucky and ended up in a window seat near the front of the plane, seated next to a small Asian woman who contorted herself into a tiny ball for the duration of the trip, so I didn’t have to worry about her hogging the armrest or spilling over onto my seat.

The food on Emirates was actually somewhat edible so I didn’t need my emergency stash of Combos I’d bought at JFK. I am, however, completely thrown off because my flight landed here in Dubai at 11pm NEW YORK time, but they served us scrambled eggs and croissants on the plane because it’s 8am here. It’s like I went to bed and then woke up, minus the sleeping. Or something.

Emirates Air is known for their superb in-flight entertainment and it definitely didn’t disappoint. They had DOZENS of movies to choose from, many of which aren’t even out on video* in the States yet.

My first selection was Julie and Julia. I hadn’t seen it yet - I was sort of waiting for it to be out on video and Mark to be out of town since I figured it wouldn't be his type of flick.

The movie just solidifies again that I ADORE Meryl Streep. She was such a wonderful Julia Child, I couldn’t help but fall in love with her - Julia AND Meryl! The movie was incredibly charming. The love that Julia and her husband had for each other nearly brought me to tears multiple times and her sincerity and sweetness just made me want to be a nicer, better person! SO cheesy, and maybe I was a bit emotional after leaving Mark (and Ralphie!) this morning, but it’s true.

I also watched The Proposal which was actually quite funny though totally disappointed me with the cheesy ending. Less notable than Julie and Julia.

When I got to my hotel in Dubai right now, unfortunately my room was being cleaned and I got stuck in the lobby for an hour or so. I would have gone out and explored the sights, AKA the mall (not much else here…) but it was a steamy 95 degrees out and I’ was wearing a heavy sweatshirt from the frosty temperatures in New York this morning and I didn't love the idea of unpacking my suitcase in a hotel lobby.

I think I broke a cardinal rule of jetlag this afternoon by promptly falling asleep for 5 hours - from 10:30am to 3:30pm local time - but there was absolutely no way I could function after not sleeping for 24 hours.

I’m slightly sad that I only get to spend a day in this luxurious hotel with the amazing, gigantic bed. Tomorrow? On to Kabul and dust and destruction and a tiny guest house room and a little bitty twin bed and off-and-on hot water.

Can’t wait.

*I don’t know the last time I watched a movie “on video” (as opposed to DVD) but I can’t seem to break myself of the 80s lingo.

Home at last...more to come...

My trip home had a bit of a daunting itinerary, to say the least.

Arrive 2 hours early to the Kabul airport, allowing enough time to pass the (literally) 10 security checks

2 hour flight to Delhi

6 hour layover in Delhi

2 hour flight to Bombay

4 hour layover in Bombay

16 hour flight to New York

2 hour car trip home to Connecticut

As I sit in the Delhi airport, I can say (while knocking on wood) that it has been relatively painless, thus far. I easily passed through security in Kabul, unlike last year when I had to plead and argue with a security guard to leave my belongings alone and let me pass. He tried to steal some of my Egyptian jewelry as a sort of token of appreciation for letting me through, but I stood firm, literally grabbed a couple of my pendants out of his hands, zipped up my suitcase and marched off, hoping that no armed officials would stop me.

My flight to Delhi was, dare I say it?, great. I sat in the first row and had plenty of leg room, plus an aisle seat. The plane was just the right temperature and there were no screaming children or malodorous people nearby. The two hours flew by.

I arrived in Delhi and after a bit of maneuvering around the airport, I found my way to the departure lounge where I napped, ate and read before I was allowed in the actual departure terminal. There were no lines at check-in, security or passport control and I was even able to score exit row seats for both of my flights. The fact that this airport is nearly empty is a little unsettling – did I not get some international memo that no one is traveling today? – but it’s made the whole process fairly unstressful.

On my flight from Delhi to Bombay I was seated in an exit row next to a fully turbaned Indian Sikh. He chatted with me pleasantly for the few minutes before takeoff, commenting on the emptiness of the plane. I joked back about upgrading to the empty first-class cabin. He continued to talk to me, despite my uninterested body language (i.e. reading my book, sleeping) and the conversation eventually turned towards my work and Afghanistan. Despite my continued attempts to read my book, he kept talking and eventually brought up September 11^th. He told me that he didn’t believe a mere plane could demolish the World Trade Center, comparing it to a simple car crash and implying that what the world believed was a conspiracy. Perhaps it was my American-influenced stereotype kicking in and invading my mind, but I was very uncomfortable with 1. Discussing September 11^th, 2. On a plane, 3. With a turbaned Central Asian/Middle Eastern man. The flight, of course, went off without a hitch and I landed in Bombay safe and sound, annoyed with myself for even worrying about the man sitting next to me.

To wrap up this wholly unexciting post about my 36 hours of travel from Kabul to Connecticut, I didn’t really realize how long SIXTEEN hours on a plane actually is. I popped a few sleeping pills (just one doesn’t work for me) as we departed around 1am and slept, tossing and turning, until about 8am when the sari-clad flight attendants woke us up for breakfast. I turned on my iPod to check the clock, thinking that if they were serving breakfast, it must be almost time for our 7am New York landing. HA. HA HA HA! It had only been 7 hours since we departed. It was still 10pm in New York – Mark hadn’t even gone to bed yet and here I was thinking we were landing shortly. Needless to say, the remaining 9 hours of the flight didn’t exactly whiz by, but seeing Mark (and Ralphie!) yesterday morning made the journey worth the agony.

Happy to be home. More Kabul reflections and stories to come.

A few days ago...

I kicked stones around the dry, dusty, scorched earth, searching for a suitable rock to bring back to a global geode-collecting friend.

I giggled and whispered with one of Afghanistan's most influential political and economic official about how our meeting leader at a large farm in rural Kapisa Province resembled the 1980s era Michael Jackson, before his many surgeries. "MJBS" the official chuckled, "will always be our inside joke."

I sat on the ground in a forest and ate fresh mulberries with a local farmer while his children looked at me with curiosity and intrigue. My wannabe Afghan clothing and light hair were probably like nothing they'd ever seen before.

I rode across the Shomali plain in the back of an old SUV which plodded its way through the sand-like soil and unpaved roads. Dust swirled around us and winds whipped at what felt like sixty miles an hour.

I watched as a car tried to speed away from police officers at a security checkpoint outside Kabul City, but didn't get the acceleration the driver had expected because of the loose gravel. An officer, armed with an automatic rifle, chased the car, jamming his weapon into the passenger's temple. He was forced out of the car and onto the dusty ground, the AK-47 never leaving his skull. There was shouting in Dari by the officer, driver, hostage and bystanders, yet moments later, the passenger dusted off his shalwar kameez, opened the car door with dignity and the group drove away again.

As I sat at the airport en route to New York via Delhi, I read a compilation of travel essays and just came across one that wholly and completely described my passion for places like Afghanistan, my reason for being in those countries, and my desire to experience it all, despite warnings and worries.

I am "learning how rich it is to venture into [this] strange territory of the mind, where [I] am bewildered and vulnerable - lost even. I [am] just listen[ing] to the music."

Bill Donohue, Under the Sheltering Sky

Anecdotes from Afghanistan...

I was invited to one my Afghan colleague’s homes for dinner tonight. Among the guests will be my boss plus my colleague’s entire extended family. I just found out moments ago that women are not allowed to eat with men. Therefore, this evening, I will be enjoying a meal in a room full of women I don’t know speaking a language I don’t know. Oh wait, my knowledge of Dari DOES include hello and how are you.

Awesome.

*****

Last night I watched Indian paid programming on television while listening to the local mosque leader sing the evening call to prayer over the loudspeakers in the neighborhood. I heart Afghanistan.

*****

Things I am looking forward to upon my return to the States:

Chips and guacamole

Fresh fruit and vegetables

New England lobster rolls at The Place

Late night Coldstone and Target trips with Mark

Running

Seeing and snuggling with my puppy dog

Doing laundry

Taking Ralphie to the dog park

Soaking up what seems to be a perfect New England summer

Going to Block Island

*****

Like my new Indian tunic? Only $10 at Dilli Haat in Delhi. My Afghan colleagues at work today told me I look Pakistani. Hmm.

Excuse the wet hair. I didn’t bring a hair-dryer so I’m going au naturale while in Afghanistan. Actually, I WAS going au naturale. Until I joked about my wet hair one morning to a colleague and a few days later, he showed up to work with a small wrapped box for me, complete with a big bow. I opened it that evening and grinned when I first saw the box. A hair-dryer. From the colleague who doesn't have running water or electricity in his home. Silly as this gift was, I was completely touched. And now I have dry hair.

*****

I walk into the restaurant (and I use the term loosely) at my hotel in Kabul the other afternoon to get some lunch and the place is empty. It’s Friday - their weekend - and everything is closed and everyone is home. One of the staff members is sitting on the couch listening to some (what I think is) Indian pop music over the speakers. It is blasting. I can barely hear myself think, but I don’t mind. I actually kind of like Indian music.

He jumps up to greet me and ask me what I’d like and within three minutes the music on the speakers has changed. I am now listening to Eminem’s “How Come” (which I had never heard before, by the way. I Googled it). Here’s a little excerpt from the lyrics:

Some b**** that I wasn’t with,

I would hit her and quit,

but you would pull a talk with her

and tell her she was the s***

I told you don’t get involved with her,

You were smoking the cron’c with her,

Coming out’a the bar with her,

Stumblin’ half drunk,

Like y’all husband or wife or somthin’.

Listening to gangsta rap in Kabul. Awesome. This horrible song was immediately followed by Celine Dion’s song from Titanic.

I really wish they had just left the Indian pop music on.

It is still amazing to me, the two worlds that my Afghan friends contentedly and happily live in.

These young, university-educated Afghan men and women arrive at work at 8am or before, bright-eyed, groomed and well-dressed. They work hard for eight hours each day - sorting out debits and credits in the finance department or troubleshooting the office network in the IT department or writing a report to a multinational donor in the program department. These people leave the office around 5pm, always with the permission of the director, though willing to stay much later and work if asked.

When I look at our office headquarters here in Kabul, I see over twenty intelligent, hard-working, professional men and women who work for an NGO just as I do in New York.

But there is so much that I don't and can't see about the lives of these people.

My day in Kabul begins and ends in a hotel room with satellite television. Their day may begin in a small apartment, an hour outside of the city. They may wake at 5am and pray for thirty minutes or more, followed by recitations of the Holy Qur'an. They don't go to the washroom and turn on the faucet because they have no running water. The water comes to their home in buckets from Kabul City. They might have a car and if they do, they will pick up as many colleagues as will fit in their car at once. There is no public transportation, so if they don't have a car, they must rely on the organization's drivers or a friend to get them to work.

And this is when I see them. Professional Afghan men and women going about their daily work at a small NGO.

But then I leave for my air-conditioned hotel room and they leave to go home. Again, they pile into someone's car to ensure they have a ride home, but if no one is going in their direction they simply sleep at the office. There are beds downstairs exactly for this purpose and they may even relish this opportunity because the office has electricity and showers and air-conditioning. The ones who do go home are surely greeted by many children and a spouse. But they don't relax on the sofa and turn on the television because they have no electricity. They don't listen to the radio or play games on the computer or watch a movie because they have no electricity. The family probably eats dinner, says their evening prayers and likely goes to bed. Once darkness falls it is difficult to function around the household.

This just breaks my heart. The people I work with are educated, intelligent, hard-working individuals and perhaps this is my Western mind saying this, but they deserve so much more. They deserve a daily shower and lights at nighttime by which to read. These people deserve a basic infrastructure under which to live!

Billions of dollars in aid money from the US and around the world have been poured into Afghanistan, yet the people in Kabul's suburbs, near the capital city, still don't have access to electricity and running water! Afghanistan is a large country with much treacherous terrain, so rural farmers understandably do not have electricity. In and around Kabul, though, it seems almost inexcusable given the amount of money poured into this country.

I just read that from 2002 through 2009, over $170B has been committed by the US to Afghanistan, but only 7% - SEVEN PERCENT! - has been dedicated to foreign aid projects. The rest of the money went to Department of Defense operations. What the military is doing in the south of Afghanistan is commendable and will hopefully increase security there and drive out the reigning Taliban powers, but the rest of the country is huge and desperately in need.

Apparently, President Obama's FY 2010 budget will attempt to correct this disparity and allocate more aid money than has been allocated in the past, and I can only hope that the Afghan people will feel the effects of this money directly. They really do deserve it...

It's a wonder I didn't get carsick

On Saturday, the morning after the dinner of death, I had plans to go to a training seminar at a university a few hours north of Kabul. My organization sponsored a marketing training for the agriculture students there and my boss thought it would be interesting for me to get out of Kabul, observe the training and meet some of our farmers up north. I happily agreed, anxious to get out into the field, but I didn’t know what I was getting myself into. As I wrote previously, I was feeling horrible that morning. Any movement made me completely nauseous and I could barely sip my bottled water but I didn’t want this little bug to affect the trip. In retrospect, I wish I had!

Two of our Afghan staff members and I set off on the road out of Kabul. I leaned against the door in the car, hoping to get some fresh air to calm my stomach. On the outskirts of the city, we pulled over and another woman, the marketing consultant who would be administering the training, hopped in the car. I started to get out to let her sit in the middle, but the other woman in the car lifted her arm and motioned me to the middle. The body odor that was released when she moved was enough to make me gag. I couldn’t protest that I didn’t want to sit in the middle, simply because this sweet woman wouldn’t understand my English, so I scooted over, leaned my head back and closed my eyes.

The roads in Kabul and beyond are bad. They’re filled with potholes that haven’t been repaired and are nearly a foot deep, and speed bumps have been created everywhere at random intervals and in random places. In maneuvering these hellish roads (many of which are unpaved, I might add), the driver would speed up, hoping to make some time and grinding his manual gears, only to slam his brakes to get over a speed bump without bottoming out the little car. I literally slammed my head on the roof of the car multiple times going over various bumps.

So let’s summarize the traveling situation. Intense queasiness + extreme proximity to body odor + hot, dusty car + claustrophobia + bumpy, jerky ride = HELL.

After two hours of this agony, we finally arrived at the university. I was the only non-Afghan (once again), and even though my head was covered and I was dressed like the Afghans, I got many stares. The students assembled, we all introduced ourselves (me in English and the rest in Dari) and the marketing consultant began her training. In Dari. With no visual aids. And no translator for me. If I had known I would have to sit in a hot room with forty students listening to a language I didn’t understand for four (FOUR!!) hours, I probably would not have gone. Lunchtime arrived and the students took a break. The teacher and I were ushered into a room where they had kebabs and soda and bread waiting for us, but I wouldn’t dare touch the kebabs, given my stomach situation. I nibbled on the bread and sipped the soda, willing time to pass faster.

Training session in marketing for agriculture students

A demonstration plot of fledging willow trees for the agriculture students to study

Another two hours after lunch, the training finished and we were finally off on our way back to Kabul. Or so I thought. I daydreamed about my bottled water and hotel room bed. But before I knew it, we were pulling over and curses were flying around in my head. The women motioned me out of the car and I followed them over a brook and through some trees to a clearing in the woods. Children appeared from nowhere carrying chairs and a basket of fresh mulberries and water to wash our hands. We dined on mulberries (I only had a few) and a yogurt drink (chunky white yogurt with cucumber and dill – I had none as its resemblance to baby vomit was too much for me to handle), thanked our hosts (some of my organization’s farmers) profusely for their hospitality and generosity as is so typical of the Afghan people and got into the car one last time.

I remember having the mulberries last year and they were surprisingly very good. Not as sweet as berries in the States, but still good. My untouched yogurt drink is hiding.

Notice I am the only person smiling in this photo.

Mulberries and yogurt drink

The ride back to Kabul was as nauseating as the ride out, thanks mostly to my dinner the previous night. I luckily snagged a window seat and would have kept my head out the window for the entire ride, if not for the intense dust and exhaust. Nearly three hours later, I arrived at the hotel, dragged my feet across the compound to my room, managed to take a shower and rinse the dust from every part of my body, nibbled a Kit-Kat bar (the only thing I’d eaten all day, aside from my oatmeal and a bit of bread) and collapsed into bed by 8pm.

The life of an NGO worker in Kabul is tough. [Equal parts sarcasm and seriousness].

But isn't the beautiful landscape worth the toil?

My stomach is not as lead-lined as I'd thought

Last night, after we made it safely through the street of doom, according to my boss, we stopped into a small Afghan antique shop where we chatted with the owner (who I remember from last year!) and where I picked up a couple treasures. Antique earrings and a pendant, plus a small handbeaded bag, thanks to my boss.

He invited the shopkeeper and his brothers (plus our driver) to dinner at a local hotel restaurant, where they raved about the live music and tasty pizzas (for Afghanistan, of course). The place was decorated to the nines and the live music was quite entertaining. All of the guys at dinner spoke English, so we enjoyed fried vegetable appetizers, pizza, conversation and a mixture of Dari and Hindi music throughout the evening.

Perhaps the culprit of my sickness?

We stopped on the way home, so I could pick up a case of bottled water (and a Kit-Kat bar which would prove to come in handy later) and things started going downhill from there. My stomach was queasy. If you can imagine your worst hangover mixed with your worst case of the flu, that is how I felt. We're veering into the TMI Zone now, but I must say that I am not a puker. When I get sick, I do not throw up. I can literally count on one hand the number of times I have thrown up in my life and two of them were alcohol-induced. So because I don't throw up, my sickness usually comes out the other end. I will finish this TMI paragraph by saying that last night was rough in that regard.

I slept horribly, tossing and turning all night, hot then cold, and I woke up to my 630am alarm a bit cranky. The queasy feeling had not gone away - in fact, it was worse. I knew I was heading north of Kabul today, about two hours away, and I had to have something in my stomach before we left.

Rauf boiled me some water and I nursed a single packet of instant oatmeal for nearly an hour into our bumpy, dusty, jerky, hot, smelly ride north (more on this to come). I sipped water for hours today. Turned down offers of snacks and lunch and soda and cookies at the training session I observed (which was all in Dari so I understood nothing - more on this to come).

And FINALLY, over 24 hours after eating the cursed food, consuming nothing but water, a packet of oatmeal and a Kit-Kat bar in the meantime, the intense queasiness has gone away. My stomach is still not right (and I dread the Afghan food we will be served tomorrow for lunch), but at least I don't feel like I'm going to lose it anytime I move.

Driving in Kabul

Scene: I am sitting in the backseat of a battered, dusty Toyota Corolla. My boss is in the front seat with the driver. We turn onto a crowded street on the way to dinner last night.

Boss: I don't like when [the driver] takes this road. It's used by a lot of foreigners, and with this traffic it would be a perfect place to blow a few people up.

Me: Um, you're not supposed to tell me that right now!

Boss: Haha! Well, I'm riskier than most Westerners, so I don't tend to mind. But even this makes me a bit nervous.

Me: [Silent]

Me: [To myself - Oh dear god...Mark, I love you...I hear a motorcycle coming up next to us...don't they sometimes strap bombs to themselves...please, no...phew...omg, what are those men shouting...traffic is moving again, thank god...oh no, we're stopped again...what if I die here...I wonder if I'll be able to send a quick text message before something happens...]

A day in the life...

I've been working long hours in the office since I arrived in Kabul and have few interesting tales to tell (so far!), so I thought I would regale you with a day in the life of an expat in Kabul.

I get up around 630am, after a few restless hours of sleep. The sun comes pouring in my barely covered windows around 430am and shortly thereafter I hear the call to prayer blasting over a city-wide loudspeaker (I think - or maybe it's just at my hotel?) and a cat howling along to the prayer leader's wails.

It is about 10pm, New York time, so I sign onto Skype in my pajamas and talk to Mark before getting in the shower. While on Skype, I feel the urge to rush to the bathroom - something isn't sitting well from last night - and it is as I expected. The next two weeks are going to be filled with more bathroom visits than I'd like to count. I turn on the shower, crossing my fingers for hot water. It drips out, I get scalded, then water rushes out of the faucet, ice cold. I question whether I REALLY need to wash my hair today, determine I don't and make it a five minute ordeal.

I turn the TV on as I'm getting dressed and I get one station in Polish, though I got about 30 channels last night. I don't want to listen to Polish at 7am, so I turn it off.

My driver comes to the gate of the hotel and I have to pass through three security checkpoints before I leave the compound. One of the hotel guards looks around suspiciously, then quickly ushers me into the car. I pull my headscarf over my hair and keep my eyes low. We drive five miles an hour down the unpaved, potholed, bumpy city street to the office, which is a short three minute drive away.

As I arrive, I get handshakes and smiles and head nods and greetings from everyone, as if they hadn't seen me just twelve hours before. I toss my computer at the spare desk I'm inhabiting while I'm here and meet up with Rauf, the in-house cook/butler extraordinaire. The few words in his English vocabulary include lunch, water, ready, coffee, tea, hello. Through sign language and simple words I tell him I would like a bottle of water, no coffee or tea, and could you also please boil me some water for my instant oatmeal. Surprisingly, he understands this and brings me my mug with the perfect ratio of oatmeal to water.

I sit down to work and am interrupted every fifteen minutes or so by someone coming into the office with their greetings and inquiries into my family and my journey to Kabul and smiles and more handshakes. I don't mind this at all - the Afghans are a very friendly people, contrary to the warlords and Taliban you see on television.

Around 1230pm, Rauf makes his rounds to each office on each floor, telling everyone that lunch in ready in his native Dari. To me, he grins widely and says Lunch! Ready! We pile into the dining room and are served Chinese-style dumpings filled with ground beef and green onion. For me, they are left plain and served with a bowl of soy sauce. For the Afghans, they are piled high with a yogurt sauce and tomato stew. Okra and tomato stew is passed around, as well as Rauf's homemade flatbread, sliced cucumbers, fresh, whole mangoes and Coke on occasion. Everyone digs in, literally, with their hands and the chatter is loud and happy.

As people finish eating, they get up and leave with no excuses as to their workload or a phone call to make. They just leave. I feel like I need to explain how much work I have to do before I leave the table, but soon I learn to follow suit and go back to my desk when I'm done eating. The rest of the afternoon is busy. The finance team comes in and out of my office, asking questions and bringing me their assignments.

By 5pm, most of the staff are on their way out. They don't have cars, so the organization's drivers must take them all to their homes or to university, where many of our staff members attend in the evenings. I stay for a couple more hours since I have nowhere to go, then the driver takes me back to my hotel.

I am exhausted and lay down to take a quick nap. The heat and dust has sucked the life from me - there is no air-conditioning in the office - so I succumb to a thirty-minute catnap. When I awake, I realize I barely ate any of Rauf's lunch and am famished. I made my way over to the hotel's dining room, which is surprisingly quite nice, and order the chicken fajitas to be delivered to my room along with a Diet Pepsi.

A half hour later, the fajitas arrive, as I am trying to figure out why I am still only getting the Polish channel on TV. I give up and search my work computer for music to fill the quiet void. I finally find some music on YouTube and eat my chicken fajitas, wondering how ill I will feel in the morning.

The next hour is filled with writing blog posts, looking through the day's photos, catching up on emails and mindlessly surfing the internet. By 10pm, I am bored and tired, so I pop a sleeping pill, turn off the light and fall asleep. I toss and turn throughout the night on the hard bed, first hot and then cold, and wake up periodically until morning.

The life for an expat in Kabul can be lonely and boring, especially with no field trips outside of the city. Luckily, I am headed to the field on Saturday so the boredom won't last much longer. With my spare time at night, however, I have mastered the game of Slingo at Yahoo Games and am perfecting the dance from the end of Slumdog Millionaire. Don't laugh.

To continue the flight saga from yesterday…

I was the only non-Afghan in the waiting area, but I figured maybe someone would come along at the last moment. Perhaps a journalist or a fellow NGO worker or maybe a government contractor. Someone who spoke English. They called our flight to board and I scanned the crowd, looking for a familiar Western face. I did not find one.

I boarded the plane, completely unhappy with my window seat, but figuring it would be fine. I was wrong. As soon as I sat down, I felt suffocated and hot and nauseous and thought I was going to throw up or cry or pass out. I tried to close my eyes, chug the water that the man next to me grabbed from the flight attendant and take deep breaths, but I was still extremely uncomfortable. All of the announcements were in Dari, nothing in English, and I felt panicky.

We took off and negative thoughts were running rampant through my mind and I literally felt like I had no control over them. I wish I was in London. I wish I was in Delhi. I wish I was in Connecticut. ANYWHERE BUT HERE. Why am I going to Afghanistan? Something bad is going to happen! We took off without incident and landed two hours later without incident and in the meantime, I tried to read my book about the Russians to distract myself. I figured, either they get mad at me for reading the Russian book or I make myself sick with horrific thoughts, so let them be mad. I already got enough awkward stares anyway. I was LITERALLY the only non-Afghan on the flight. I wish I could have taken a photo to prove it.

Anyway, as we were circling Kabul in the air, the man sitting next to me starting singing to himself, “Afghanistannnn, Afghanistannnn, Afghanistannnnnnnnn!” I smiled at him and he told me that he’d just finished three years at university in India and this was his first time returning home since he left. He admired the mountains out the window and said, “Isn’t this a beautiful country?”

The joy in his eyes, his almost palpable love for this country, was contagious. I smiled to myself and thought, It IS a beautiful country, my friend. I am so glad to be here.

Photos from the air...

The joys of air travel

Let me tell you about today's adventure. By "adventure" I mean gigantic pain in the butt and theft of six hours of my life by Ariana Airlines.

First, I checked the status of my flight this morning from my hotel in Delhi and the airport website said it was scheduled to depart a half hour earlier than originally planned. Fine. No big deal; I was packed and ready to go with plenty of time.

Then, I asked the hotel concierge what time I should leave in the airport taxi. He assured me that I needed three hours at the airport before my flight and that it would take the cab thirty minutes to get there.

So, I did as I was told. Except in reality, it only took ten minutes to get to the airport, so I was three hours, twenty minutes early for a two-hour international flight. And of course, the Ariana counter wasn't open yet, according to the information screens, so I couldn't check in.

I settled in and opened my laptop and worked for over an hour when I realized the information screen had changed - we were now delayed by an hour and a half.

After working for another hour, I noticed no changes on the screen but decided to walk around and, lo and behold, the Ariana ticket counter WAS open.

I checked in, was issued a hand-written boarding pass (?!), made my way through customs and security and settled in at Gate 1 with my book while trying not to look at the clock.

The minutes sitting at the gate were dragging by, so I got up to walk around and noticed two things. First, the gate had changed and second, there was free wireless internet in the terminal. I almost skipped up the escalator to the new gate, telling myself that an internet connection would make the time fly by.

Settling in again at the new gate, I popped open my laptop and tried to connect. The wireless provider asked me for my mobile number so it could send me an SMS with the access code. I punched my number in and waited. No SMS. I turned my phone on and off and on again. Still no SMS.

By this time I was frustrated, so I packed up my laptop YET AGAIN and made my way to the wireless information counter. The man coldly informed me that this system worked with all phones in all countries except the US. I asked him if he could please just give me the access code so I could sign on, that all I had was my US phone, but he just shook his head until I walked away angry.

So, I walked to yet another gate, opened my laptop and wrote this post. As I write this sentence, I have been at the airport for a total of 5.5 hours, my flight is AT LEAST 2.5 hours late (according to the current posted schedule) and I am officially annoyed and bored.

Oh! And one final kick in the pants. I realized that the only book I have with me is a novel about Russia and I am the only white person on an Afghan airline and the Afghans notoriously and rightfully despise the Russians for invading their country and putting them through hell for thirty years. Once I realized this, the book went away and has not been seen since.

Ariana Airlines - 10

Stephanie - 0

TOTAL TRIP SCORE

All airlines - 27

Stephanie - .5

So. I promised more thoughts about India, so more of my thoughts you will get.

First, as we were driving through the what appeared to be very poor villages in the countryside yesterday, I observed the human bond that people here appear to have. It seems like they realize that we're all humans, we're all in this together and we have to embrace that in order to get by. They're not afraid to pack ten people into a tiny motorized rickshaw to get home after work or to the market, women, men and children sitting on each others' laps, hanging off the side of the vehicle in the heat. They need to get somewhere and this is the way to do it and that's that.

They're also not afraid of being physical. Hugging, kissing, holding hands with friends and strangers alike, men with men and women with women of course, despite the heat. I feel like this is not so much a "love" thing, but, again, more of a mutual understanding that we're all in this together.

This attitude seems so contrary to how we generally act in the States. We are so obsessed with this "bubble" of personal space that we don't open ourselves up, we shy away from merely talking to strangers, and we think it odd to be hugged by someone we just met. I realize I'm generalizing but I was touched yesterday while driving and observing people going about their daily routines and the bond they seem to have.

Next, and this may sound silly but, there are so many animals around and despite the fact that is may be (actually, it probably IS) a bit unsanitary, I kind of love how every being coexists - the humans with the animals and the animals with the humans - and no one seems to mind. In just a few short hours on the road yesterday, I saw dozens of cows, donkeys, many, many dogs (Mark, what do you think about me bringing home an Indian dog friend for Ralphie?!), an ELEPHANT (!!!), little monkeys, and creatures that resembled an ibex mixed with a deer but much smaller.

It's tough to see, since this was taken from a moving car, but that is an ELEPHANT on the right side of the photo.

Lastly for now, I suppose, is the fact that I have quickly fallen in love with India and my much-too-short experience here. Perhaps it's the adventure of being alone here, of being the only American girl around, of knowing that I've navigated a non-Western city by myself. I love the exploration and the adventure, so now I'm thinking ahead (as I tend to d0) and wondering, how can I make this a JOB?

I don't want to be a travel writer, I don't want to gallivant about Europe on a luxury train (well, actually I DO, but not for the purposes of what I'm saying here) and write about my experiences in Brussels or Budapest or Bern. I want to spend time in off-the-beaten-path locales, places that even a seasoned traveller wouldn't necessarily think of going, places that perhaps only NGO workers or the most experienced of travellers might want to see. Sub-Saharan Africa, small Asian countries like Bhutan and Nepal, the entire Middle East and so on. I could produce a guide and provide advice for NGO workers coming to that location or maybe just write about the basics of life there or maybe even do some sort of social or economic research there.

Anyway, this trip certainly got my wheels spinning again...

More of the amazing architecture from the Agra Fort. I can't wait to get home and frame a bunch of these photos!

Love this door. Perhaps a little touching up and this one is definitely frame-worthy.

Dear Alice (and anyone else thinking of coming here),

Um, book a flight now. Actually, don't book it now; it's the beginning of India's rainy season and a monsoon might dampen your trip a bit (in more ways than one - heehee!). Anyway, if you're up for adventure, don't mind being the only blonde-haired, blue-eyed, lone American female around and are completely open-minded, book that flight ASAP.

I thought I would be more nervous being in a non-Western country all alone, but I've found that people are accomodating and helpful and eager to please. In fact, being alone is part of what is making this such a fantastic adventure. There is SO MUCH to see and do in India that I won't have time for on this trip, and I'm already trying to figure out how to get myself back here.

Delhi-Agra-Jaipur is India's "Golden Triangle". I didn't see Jaipur and I didn't spend NEARLY enough time in Delhi or Agra. There's deserts and beaches and forests throughout India, and from Delhi you're only a short flight away from Kathmandu and a view of Mt. Everest. You could spend weeks, months in India and not see it all.

In short, book a trip! I'll go with you - my visa doesn't expire until December!

Steph

The jewel of India

I knew that when I booked my flight to Kabul through Delhi, the one thing I wanted to do was visit the Taj Mahal in Agra, a 4-hour drive away. I did a bit of research before I left, but eventually just figured I’d ask the concierge at my hotel to arrange a tour. As it turns out, it is a bit difficult to book a full day tour less than 12 hours before departure. The concierge was finally able to find me a coach tour leaving at 6 o’clock this morning for less than $100, including meals for the day, so I took it. The driver picked me up this morning not in a coach, but in a Honda Civic with only one other tourist – a nice airline pilot from Taiwan (whom I thought didn’t speak English until about 3.5 hours into the journey when he finally spoke as a pack of monkeys accosted our car – I’m not even kidding!).

So we set off, out of Delhi into the day’s heat (but in our air-conditioned car, thank god!), stopping halfway into the journey for breakfast at a roadside café where we were served omelets and stale corn flakes with suspicious looking/tasting milk. As we continued on our journey through the “beautiful Indian countryside” (as quoted in the tour brochure) I noticed that it was more reminiscent of the opening scene of Slumdog Millionaire than the green rolling hills I imagined after reading the brochure.

A few hours later, we finally arrived in Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, the Agra Fort and the Emperor Akbar’s mausoleum, which was our first stop. We were confusedly ushered out of the car, told to walk in a general direction as dictated by the wave of our driver’s arm, and our tour guide would appear to take us through the mausoleum. Surprisingly, this actually happened and we met Shabir who guided us out into the heat.

Thankfully, there wasn’t much to see aside from the beautiful architecture of the mausoleum, so we were quickly back in the cool car and on to the next stop.

Emperor Akbar's mauseoleum - gorgeous details...

The Agra Fort is a huge complex that now partially houses the Indian Army, but was built as a palace for the Moghul Emperors. It’s made of red sandstone, which is fantastic to look at and a great contrast to the green grass and trees and the blue sky. Again, we made a quick loop of the property, snapped some photos and headed for the car. As I’m writing this, it sounds like we just popped our heads out of the window, hit the camera button and took off, but I felt like we had plenty of time; I just have few other observations besides that the buildings were massive and beautiful and that it was HOT. Did I mention yet that it was HOT?

Only a tiny portion of the huge Agra Fort

One of the inside chambers where the Emperor lived with one of his four legal wives (the other 600 unrecognized ones lived in less glamorous chambers in the palace)

And for the final site of the day, the magnificent Taj Mahal. Magnificent is an understatement, a major one. The Taj is HUGE, made entirely of marble with tons of HANDMADE semi-precious stone inlay. It only took 22 years to build the entire palace, including all of the detailed inlay work. Granted, there were 20,000 people working on the Taj in those 22 years, but it’s still an amazing feat. The Wonders of the World committee made a good choice, in my opinion. Anyway, we got the abbreviated story of the Taj from Shabir, then made our way up to the famous palace and inside, snapped a few photos (including the obligatory “I’m holding the Taj Mahal in my hand! Heehee!” photo) and were back in the air-conditioning within an hour. Plenty of time for me to sweat out approximately 8 pounds and feel completely nauseous from walking up a short flight of stairs.

Wow, I am really hot and clearly just threw my hair into a big old mess to get it off my neck. Ew.

On our way out of town, we stopped at a handicraft shop where boys (maybe men? I couldn’t tell…) were hand-carving marble slabs and preparing them for the stone inlays. Apparently, these boys were the direct descendants of the men who carved the marble Taj Mahal and this is a trade unique to Agra that is passed down from generation to generation. The stone pieces they use for the inlay are all cut by hand on this odd machine and seeing it in person is truly amazing. The Taj Mahal is an INCREDIBLE feat, for sure.

Of course, this handicraft shop had plenty of merchandise for sale and they will “even ship to your home in America!” for the low, low price of 350 American dollars. The salesman was incredibly pushy but I actually liked some of the pieces so I managed to talk him down nearly $100 (I KNOW!) for two marble pieces, one with an elephant inlay (symbol of good luck!) and the other with a peacock inlay (symbol of beauty!).

I was then mysteriously escorted upstairs and as I stepped into the elevator, expecting my fellow tourist Taiwain to join me, he was pulled away by a salesman so I was left alone in the elevator with a different man who spoke no English. OHMIGOD, I thought. WHERE AM I BEING TAKEN?! I stepped out of the elevator into a huge warehouse-style shop filled with textiles – saris and blankets and quilts and other decorative clothing. I was stared at by various men, guided into different corners of the warehouse to examine this or that, asked to try on various saris and then I began to get nervous. Where was Taiwan? Did they take him away? This place is a maze; where is the elevator? No one knows I’m here, I don’t even know Taiwan’s name, maybe I could quickly text Mark the information of this shop and tell him to call for help?! I realized that I need to stop watching Locked Up Abroad and/or television in general because not five minutes later, Taiwan appeared from the elevator and I quickly told him we were ready to go back to Delhi.

Making the tiny little semi-precious stone inlay pieces

Carving the marble slab, BY HAND

The traffic back to Delhi was horrendous; apparently we hit Faridabad at rush hour and the traffic backed up all the way into Delhi, delaying us nearly an hour. The aggressive driving and incessant horn honking of our driver and everyone around us made me incredibly anxious to return to my hotel room, take a shower, Skype with Mark and my family and go to bed.

I think one of the best parts of this tour was that it wasn’t a typical tour. It was just Taiwan and me, and our guide Shabir could tell that we were hot and wanted only the basic information and to take a few photos. He quickly guided us through each site, allowing us a couple minutes to take photos, showing us the best photo opportunities and ushering us back to the comfort of the car.

This may sound a bit like we didn’t take full advantage of the fact that we were at the TAJ MAHAL, one of the seven wonders of the modern world, but I’m not sure you Americans know exactly what the heat felt like. The actual temperature was around 117 degrees, but with the high humidity the heat index was near 140 degrees (believe me, I checked on my Blackberry). As Mark said this evening, 140 degrees is hot enough to COOK something and indeed he is right. MY BODY cooked today. Disgusting as it may be, I was dripping out there (as you can see in my photos – EW) and then had to sit in soaking wet clothes the rest of the afternoon. Even on my longest runs, I have never been so hot or sweat so much. It’s amazing how anyone can live, work, sleep, eat, BREATHE in this weather for any length of time.

More thoughts on my love-at-first-sight with India tomorrow – too tired to finish them tonight…

Loving the rupee

The flight from London to India was long. I had a stressful few hours leading up to the 9 hour, overnight flight, and then I had to wait nearly 2 hours to collect my luggage, so needless to say, when I got to my hotel in Delhi this afternoon, I was exhausted. My first thoughts after arriving were as follows:

I’m in Delhi. It’s hot. I haven’t eaten in a day. My hotel room smells like mildew and is damp. I don’t feel well. I am too exhausted to go downstairs and get food. Waaah.

My cab ride to the hotel was interesting, however. Here's just a short portion of the 15 minute conversation:

[I get into the backseat of the taxi.]

Driver: Hello! How are you?!

Me: Fine, thanks.

Driver: You very big! [raises his hand to the ceiling of the car]

Me: [...you're very small...?]

Driver: How many people in your family?!

Me: [Should probably keep it simple] Four. Mom, Dad and sister.

Driver: You businessman?!

Me: [BusinessMAN? Okay, sure.] Yes, I am.

Driver: And your sister is businessman?

Me: No, my sister goes to university. She's a student.

Driver: Can I be brother in your family?!

Me: Umm...

Driver: No, no! Can I be friend?!

Me: Umm...

Driver: What is your?! Who is you?!

Me: My name? My name is Stephanie.

Driver: I am Raj! Raj and Jeffny friends!

And so on.

Anyway, once I checked into the hotel (and was escorted to my room by the hotel staff who checked me in! So hospitable!) things started to look up. I took a short nap and ate a margherita pizza from the hotel's Mediterranean cafe, and I felt ready to take on Delhi. I arranged for a private tour of Agra tomorrow, including the Taj Mahal and the Agra Fort and then made my way via taxi to Dilli Haat for some shopping.

Dilli Haat is an open air market with dozens of stalls selling crafts from each state of India (and there are quite a few). I bought two paintings - one of an elephant (the Hindu symbol of good luck) and one of Ganesha (one of the three main Hindu dieties) - and both are delicately painted on 100-year old rice paper from Maharashtra (if I recall correctly). I also bought an elephant statue hand-carved from marble and a couple gifts for family members and a long hand-woven tunic for Afghanistan.

I spent only two hours there and half of that was spent talking to a vendor about the Hindu gods and the meanings of all of the animals and the history of the crafts. It's completely fascinating to me, this culture that is so different from any other I have experienced.

The city of Delhi itself reminds me of Cairo, with its quasi-modernity mixed with barefoot men walking down highways and no traffic lights and dirtiness and seemingly utter chaos. But in Cairo the women were mostly covered, wearing black headscarves and clothing, the atmosphere almost somber. Here the women are dressed in brightly colored, embellished saris, with jewels in their hair and on their faces, arms and fingers. It seems so colorful in every sense of the word, hence my fascination.

Anyhow, I spent a few hours and a few thousand of rupees (but only a few dozen dollars!) in the market, chatting with the super friendly and maybe perhaps a bit over-entrepreneurial locals. It was a lovely evening in Delhi and I'm so glad I made my way out of the hotel tonight. Sadly, I forgot to bring my camera to Dilli Haat so I have no photos, but I was literally the only foreigner at the market and I think that my flash going off every few minutes may have attracted a bit of unwanted attention.

While it's only 1pm on the East Coast of the States right now, it's after 10:30pm in Delhi and I'm leaving the hotel for Agra tomorrow morning at 6am, SO I need to get to bed. More tomorrow including pictures of the Taj Mahal!

Flight update!

Yes, I am in an exit row, but I am right next to the bathroom and a family with a screaming baby and two guys who are speaking loudly in an unidentifiable language.

Updated score:
Air India - 8
Stephanie - .5

En route to India

I just spent hours in check-in and security lines. Then I found out Air India decided to depart an hour earlier than scheduled and was told to proceed to the gate immediately. I rushed there, knocking into the elderly and small children alike only to find out that the only food stand, upon which I depended for my water/food supply for the 9 hour flight, didn't take cards. I took my chances and hustled back to the main cafeteria to grab food and my cashier took forever to cash me out. I finally made it back to my gate and I am one of two white people on the fully booked flight.

I did get an exit row aisle seat, though.

Final score:
Air India - 5
Stephanie - 1

I have a feeling my journey is about to get interesting!

PS - Happy 4th of July, Americans!

London calling...

As I stepped out of the doors at Heathrow yesterday and stood in the taxi queue, I didn't look around trying to take it all in, surveying my new surroundings and capturing mental images. I breathed in the air and felt like I knew exactly where I was.

London, surprisingly, still feels like a home to me, four years after I lived here. I'm familiar with the streets and the tube and how to refill my Oyster card and where to top up my mobile and that fries are chips and chips are crisps. I’ve been asked for directions 5 times in the past day and a half and am met with surprised looks when an American accent comes tumbling out of my mouth.

Maybe it's the unseasonably gorgeous weather or my friend’s charming little flat where I’m staying or the happy “cheerio!” I heard from an old man yesterday, but I am head over heels in love with this city. And I know it’s not just puppy love or love at first sight. I’ve been here before, LIVED here before, been there, done that. Honestly? I could see myself living here. (Mom, Dad, you didn’t read that.)

Yesterday I arrived around mid-afternoon, dropped off my heavy suitcases (the large one is literally filled with books for a different stop in my journey) and headed into central London to meet my friend at the Victoria and Albert Museum where she works. I breezed through the Baroque and Asian art exhibits then scooted out a back door to stroll around Kensington in the afternoon sunshine. I popped into Harrod’s for a brief moment, thinking that perhaps I’d find a sweet treat in the amazing Food Hall, until I remembered that Harrod’s is as chaotic as Macy’s in Herald Square and I needed to leave immediately.

Later that evening, we drove in her Mini-Cooper convertible (whee!) to a local pub where the entire neighborhood was sitting outside, at tables and on the curb, enjoying the weather and their beverages. We grabbed a few glasses of Pimm’s (read: like sangria but British. Read also: YUM.) and relished in the evening. I absolutely adore pub culture in the UK. The pub is a social gathering place – couples, singles, families, children, dogs. Anyone and everyone gathers at the pub for a drink and a conversation. It’s so unlike New York’s hookup joints where singles go with one goal in mind. Few people take advantage of the alcohol (or let the alcohol take advantage of them!) and everyone has a good time. I realize I’m being a bit idealistic and not everywhere in the UK is like this, but from what I’ve experienced, it generally is. And I love it.

I started to write about what I did today, but I just realized it’s nearly midnight and I’m a bit exhausted. I assure you that today was another lovely day, semi-eventful and mostly relaxing and I love London even more.

Yay, Tower Bridge! Walked across it this afternoon and saw it go up. Of course, I saw this every single day at my old place of employment when I worked here (see photo below), but it's so quintessential London, I love it.

Yay, City Hall! Also known as, Old Place of Employment! Visited there today, along with my old employer (charming British fellow). Wish I could work there again. In a PAID capacity, however.

Score after 2 days?

London: 247. NYC/CT: 2 (Mark, Ralphie).

Just touched down in London town

I adore this city. I love it, love it, love it. I haven't been back since I lived here in 2005, but the moment I set foot on British soil yesterday, it felt like home again. There's no time now to write - I'm heading out for an early morning bike ride along the River Thames, followed by lunch at City Hall - but I hope to post more later. Cheerio!

Leavin' on a jet plane...

My tickets are booked. My visa is being processed. My to-do lists are growing.

I'm headed across the globe again!

My route is a bit different this time, as I'm traveling first through London, then Delhi, India, and finally on to Kabul. My task while in Kabul is a bit different as well, and much more daunting, I might add.

But, regardless of the work and the heat and the icky bad water (that I swear I won't drink again!) and the lack of good old American creature comforts, I'm really excited.

Be on the lookout for more posts in the next few weeks. I take off for my dear London-town on June 30th!

The End

I've been home for almost a week now and I've been trying for the past seven days to come up with a poignant post, something that will accurately reflect how I feel and what I learned on my trip to Egypt and Afghanistan (purposely leaving out Dubai for obvious reasons - my time spent there was more luxurious than anything else!). Perhaps more will come to me later, but for the time being, I can only think of a few bullet points.

*I learned to expand my knowledge of cultures beyond North America and Europe, that there are fascinating worlds beyond the sheltered country in which we live that are very much worth learning about.

*I learned that the media portrays the worst of most cultures, especially third world ones. This is such a cliche, and I think we all know this in our minds, but I experienced it. I saw firsthand that Afghanistan is almost nothing like CNN portrays it.

*I learned that Afghanistan is an almost majestic country in many ways, and one well worth traveling to.

*I learned that sometimes you need to forgo all reservations and inhibitions and go with the flow; whether that means climbing into a Toyota Corolla with 8 other people for a half hour drive or drinking fresh water from an Afghan mountain spring or hugging a Bedouin woman reeking of body and other miscellaneous odors.

*I learned that you can form a bond with people you have absolutely nothing in common with, except that you're all members of the human race, that will stay in your heart for a lifetime.

*And finally. I learned that once you fall in love with a country and its people, you can't wait to go back for more.

I'd like to thank everyone for reading this blog and sharing my adventures. The emails and comments I received were wonderful and helped get me through the tough (and sick!) times abroad, and I also appreciate those who quietly followed my journeys too.

Here's hoping that you'll see more posts on this blog next spring, when I make my second trip back to Afghanistan!

Bittersweet, as the end of a journey always is

I'm winding up my last day here in Afghanistan and I can't believe both how the time has flown and how slowly it has gone by. At any rate, it's been one amazing adventure and learning experience after another and in only 2 short days (actually, really LONG days filled with traveling and extensive layovers), I will be on a plane, preparing to land in New York City, ready to race through customs to meet Mark, who'll be waiting for me on the other side. To say I'm excited is the understatement of the century.

This afternoon, I was invited once again to the home of our program director, to chat with his wife (through a translator - their son!). Their house is a bit chaotic, busting at the seams with babies and children, running and crying and hitting and jumping and laughing. His wife, who'd met me only a few nights before and for only one short hour, presented me with a traditional Afghan outfit that she'd sewn herself. Of course, she requested I model it for the entire family and it actually fits perfectly. Once again, the generosity is overwhelming.

On the way back to the office, we stopped at the Afghanistan National Stadium. It's currently a football field, but during the Taliban era, was the place where the Taliban would cut off the hands of robbers and heads of criminals in front of a gigantic crowd. I believe there's a disturbing scene reminiscent of this in The Kite Runner movie. Obviously, the place has been cleaned up since then, but it was still a bit eerie.

Above: Look, there's President Hamid Karzai looking out over the field. Can you imagine if the New England Patriots' Gillette Stadium had a gigantic photo of President Bush on the wall?! HA!

The rest of the day was spent with the staff, both frantically gathering documents I need to take back to New York with me and also hanging out and taking photos. I'll miss these guys!

Above: Najib, our driver, with me, modeling the lovely jewelry he gave me.

Above: Rahman Gul, one of our lead extension workers in the field, and me

Above: Bulqis, a female extension worker, and me, modeling the lovely scarf she gave me

Above: A better close-up of the scarf

Above: Hamkar, our IT guy, and me on a hill above Kabul

Above: Looking down over (part of) the city of Kabul

Side note: Yes, I did wear three different outfits today, in case anyone noticed.

I plan on writing a post-trip reflection at some point, both for my organization's board of directors and for the blog. I'll have plenty of time tomorrow, what with my 3 hour flight + 9 hour layover + 8 hour flight + 3 hour layover + 8 hour flight, if nothing is delayed.

Writing this made me hungry

Foods I Have Eaten While Traveling and Do Not Wish to Eat Again For a Very Long Time:
Okra
Goat stew
Lamb stew
Beef stew
Bread, bread, bread, bread, bread
Yogurt/cucumber/dill beverage
Water that is not bottled
Rice seasoned with excessive amounts of spices

Foods I Have Craved in the Past Three Weeks and Plan to Consume Within Three Days of Landing in New York:
Corn on the cob
Chips and salsa and guacamole
Popcorn
Bananas
Ice cream (specifically Emack and Bolio's in Manhattan or Wentworth's in Hamden, Connecticut)
Double chocolate chip cookies from Levains in Manhattan
Cheeseburgers (note the PLURAL) from Shake Shack
Grandma's potato salad
Strawberries
Homemade pasta with garlic-infused olive oil from Leonardo DaVinci's on 2nd Avenue

WARNING: TMI Ahead

Well, that was fun. I just spent the last four hours in the hospital in Kabul to attempt to get some treatment for my excruciating stomach pains that have been torturing me for the past 24 hours straight. When we got there, I was immediately ushered into a holding room to fill out a form then asked for a $100 deposit in cash. I didn't have that much cash with me, so I was told I could pay later then ushered into another holding room with a numbered ticket, like the kind you get at the supermarket deli counter.

My stomach pains had me keeled over on the chair and the minutes passed like hours. I was unfortunately placed right next to the men's bathroom, where men would go to produce the required samples, including pee, poo and loogies. I know this because I heard every sample being, ahem, produced. If I had a tendency to vomit (which luckily I don't), I would've lost it, listening to the noises, then watching the guys come out, bodily fluid in hand, NO LID ON THE CUP, then placing the OPEN CUP in a little bin on the counter where you pay. I am feeling more nauseous just thinking about this again.

Finally, my number was called and I told the doctor my symptoms; 3 weeks of diarrhea, intense stomach pains. She laid me down on a table, pressing on my stomach and while usually it's just a bit uncomfortable, today I was near tears in pain. She grabbed my arm and laid it on her leg and took my blood. WITHOUT WEARING GLOVES. I tried not to think about potential diseases I was contracting and before I knew it, I was out the door, on my way to the bathroom with instructions to fill the vial with 4 scoops of poo and come back tomorrow.

And of course. I couldn't go. For the past 3 weeks, as soon as I sat on a toilet I could GO without even trying. Oh no, not today. I handed back the empty vial, was charged $150 (ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS FOR NOTHING!) and we decided to stop at the pharmacy on the way home.

The pharmacist gave me Nexium (acid reflex medication!) and Amoxicillin, both without a prescription. I took a Nexium because I figured acid reflux = stomach = my stomachache? but the Amoxicillin is staying in its box (it's for ear, nose and throat issues!).

Anyway, before I left, the doctor said I probably have a parasite but she'll let me know tomorrow.

A PARASITE. INSIDE MY BODY.

I want to come home.

Transformation

Last night at dinner, I sat on an oversized red cushion, wearing my loose-fitting linen pants and my head scarf, enjoying the conversation when Zundi, our program director, looked at me and said, Something looks different in your face since you come here. You look like beautiful Afghan woman.

I couldn't have received a better compliment.

Journey through the mountains

Yesterday morning, we got up early and set off out of dusty Kabul to the Salang Pass. The Pass is a mountain road, cutting through the Hindu Kush, that has been around for ages. As we began our ascent up the mountain road, the air began getting cooler and the peaks taller. The scenery was truly breathtaking and one of my companions said it reminded him of eastern Colorado. It reminded me a lot of the White Mountains in New Hampshire, except less green.

The trip took nearly two hours and we stopped every once in a while along the road; to enjoy fresh apples and apricots, to cool off under a mountain spring, and to meet the various people along the road.

This man is quite interesting. At the edge of a hairpin turn on the mountain road, sat a small house adorned with the green flags representing a martyr and across from the building was this ragged-looking old man sitting on the ground, holding his prayer beads. It happened that the vista from this point was spectacular so we stopped, and I asked one of our Afghan companions what the man was doing.

Apparently, at that site a number of years ago, a bus of tourists was coming down the hill, unable to stop on the turn. A man who stayed at the tiny mosque there noticed the bus and threw himself under the tires, to stop it from careening over the edge. He died, but saved the lives of a number of people, thus the martyr flags. The beautiful, weather-beaten man we saw was sitting on the side of the road, praying for all of the travelers. The scene was immensely moving.

We proceeded onwards and upwards and finally made it to our final destination; a "rest stop" of sorts. There were a few tents set up with vendors selling dried fruits and nuts (I bought a gigantic bag of delicious dried apricots for the equivalent of $2), beverages kept cold from the spring water, and even a restaurant, a chaikhana, where travelers could eat fresh, hot food.

Before lunch, I wanted to hike around a bit, so I climbed down to the river to wash my hands and debate going in (only up to my knees, of course). The water was freezing, but so refreshing. I was requested to splash around while my Afghan friends took photos!

Because I (a woman) was with the group of men, we were made to sit in a small tented room away from the main restaurant where only men were allowed, and our lunch was brought to us. I made myself comfortable on the cushioned floor and we enjoyed a feast of kebab, okra (getting pretty sick of it by now!), dried fish, fresh bread and a lamb stew. The breeze coming off the river and the mountains was lovely and it was really hard to pack up and get back in the car.

Two hours, a short nap and a few stops later, we were back in Kabul. Last night, I was invited to the home of my organization's Afghan Program Director for dinner and, as is customary here, we were served a huge feast of traditional Afghan dishes. His wife was a fantastic cook and everytime I took a bite, more food was pushed onto my plate. I have yet to master the art of gracefully saying no in these Middle Eastern and Central Asian cultures.

Before we left, one of the younger daughters presented me with a lovely bracelet, necklace, ring and earrings made of the traditional Afghan blue lapis stone. She was so shy but I managed to get her to sit close to me for a photo.

The generosity in the people from this part of the world still amazes me. They have so little but give so much. They don't think about how much money is in their bank account or when their next paycheck will be or if they want to save their best food for themselves. They want to be good hosts and make others happy. And happy they certainly made me. Zundi's wife said to me last night, in Dari translated for me to English, I am so glad I can make you happy. You have made me very happy.

I only wish I could really communicate how truly happy she and the Afghan people have made me.

Something new

Ordering food from my guest house "restaurant" is always an adventure. Each night I choose something from their menu and am usually surprised at what shows up at my door a half hour later.

One night I ordered a cheeseburger. I got a piece of grilled chicken and French fries.

Another night I ordered the spring rolls. I got a chicken fajita.

Also? No matter what I order? I get ketchup.

Hopefully, the words will come tomorrow

Today I woke up early, had a much-needed and so wonderful (!) Skype conversation with Mark then headed off to the Afghan countryside for the day with our staff members. What I saw there was amazing. I've been sitting here for the past hour, trying to figure out how to adequately describe the beauty and the innocence and the poverty and the need and the hope. I've been writing, rewriting and deleting words and sentences.

The Afghan landscape is so breathtakingly beautiful, with monstrous brown mountains looming over the sometimes rocky, sometimes green earth below. Yet, the people there are so incomprehensibly poor, that they live in small homes with upwards of fifteen family members and all survive on a couple of sheep and the vegetables from their garden.

My whole day was completely surreal.

I've finally realized though, that you just don't understand until you've seen something like this in person. I have pored over photos of the country and of our farmers (some of whom I met today!) while creating promotional materials, so I thought I knew what to expect. But photos just don't tell us about the real people and their mannerisms and their thoughts. The children giggle and the mothers tend to their babies and they all laugh and smile and hug and kiss and it was just so amazing.

Words have really escaped me for now, but the photos haven't.

Daily exchange with my morning driver

[I get in the car.]

Driver: Good morning, Seffee!
Me: Good morning!
Driver: How are you?
Me: I'm good, how are you?
Driver: You're welcome!

[Driver turns on Britney Spears.]

Assimilation

As I was sitting at the lunch table today, surrounded by a dozen Afghan men and a bounty of local food, I had to smile to myself. I reached across the guy sitting next to me and grabbed a large piece of flatbread and set it on the table next to my plate. The man on my left spooned some chicken onto my plate, so I broke off a chunk of bread, scooped up the chicken and put it in my mouth, sans silverware. I took a sip of my yogurt drink, ate some okra and washed it all down with fresh locally-grown mangos and melon.

Who am I?! Yogurt drinks? Okra? Eating with my hands?! For sure, this trip has changed me. I have loved assimilating myself into this culture, letting strange Egyptian men shove watermelon into my mouth, getting dirty and not immediately dousing myself in hand sanitizer and hugging sweaty, smelly veil-clad nomad women. This is certainly not the Manhattan girl that left New York a couple weeks ago.

I feel like these past two weeks have opened my eyes and really given me a whole new outlook on the rest of the world. I've traveled before, to a number of different countries in Europe, but this is so different than anything I've ever experienced. Let's face it. Europe isn't that much of a stretch from the States.

However, despite how awesome this experience has been and will continue to be? I can't wait to go home.

Mom and Dad are going to love this one

Yesterday, I woke up early after a restless night's sleep and hearing a rooster crow since 4am. (The sun rises very early here.) I went to the office and spent the day working (yeah, apparently, I'm supposed to WORK on this trip?!) with my colleagues here which has turned out to be very interesting so far. While in New York, I work mainly through email with our 10 or so office staff members. Their written English is rather poor, so I've found it hard to respect these people who write at an elementary school level. However, since I've met these people in person, it's amazing how intelligent and knowledgable they are. Many have university degrees and most speak very good English and one is a professor! It's certainly a lesson learned to me, that although it's easy to judge someone's intelligence, the judgments will probably be completely wrong.


In the afternoon, we had a meeting with one of our grantors, so I was able to hop in the car and take a ride to the other side of Kabul. The city is surrounded by mountains and many people have built tiny little homes into the side of the mountain. These homes, however, have no running water, so families are forced to climb up and down the mountain every single day (there are no roads but even if there were, the people don't have cars) just to get water. It's incredible and so sad how destroyed the city is.

After work Roger wanted to take a drive around the city and stop at a few craft shops that sell antique jewelry, clothing and rugs, so I said I'd go along. We sat in the first shop and were immediately handed cups of tea before Roger would start looking at the merchandise. I immediately felt like Greg Mortenson in Three Cups of Tea! (The tea was very watery, but I'm sort of terrified of drinking hot beverages - fear of burning myself? - so I only had a little bitty sip). I modeled some ancient Afghan cloaks for Roger and the shop owner.


Oh, and I tried on a burqa. It is very hard to see through that screen and I had no peripheral vision. Not something I'd like to wear everyday, and I only had on the top part.

I could be a model for a burqa catalog, no?

Updated to add: This morning when my driver picked me up, he had Indian music on the radio and as soon as I got in the car, he changed it to Britney Spears. Too funny.

My First Night in Kabul

Nap. 2:15-4pm.

Find Style Network on television and wireless network on computer. Occupy time with those (emails and Peter Perfect, mostly). 4:25-6:27pm.

Skype with Mom. 6:30pm.

Decide am very hungry and select pizza from the hotel’s charming little menu. 6:35pm.

Electricity goes out and hotel staff member informs me there is no water for ten minutes. Am disappointed I will not be able to watch the end of Peter Perfect while eating dinner. 6:40pm.

Am hot. 6:41pm.

Electricity goes off. Then on. Then off. Then on. I turn on air-conditioning unit and power goes off again. 6:45-7:00pm.

Relegate self to sitting in the dark with barely charged computer and a flashlight. Am sad. Miss Dubai hotel. 7:02pm.

Power goes back on. Pizza arrives. 7:10pm.

Pizza looks good, but will probably cause diarrhea. Try to remember if I asked for pepperoni and think not. Pepperoni looks shady and I anticipate much bathroom time later on. 7:12pm.

Am hungry. Eat pizza. Power goes off. Then on. Then off. Stare at dark wall and wonder what to do. 7:22pm.

Power goes on, and though satellite television does not work, air-conditioning does. 7:28pm.

Internet still not working and cannot figure out why Blackberry is not receiving messages, despite full signal. Get antsy. 7:34pm.

Electricity goes off. Cannot find wisely-purchased flashlight (thanks, Dad!). 7:36pm.

Am bored. Stare at wall. Write blog post. Play Brick Breaker on Blackberry. Attempt to exercise in tiny room. Try four thousand times to connect to internet. Unpack. Repack. Flip through already-read magazines. Think about Dubai hotel. Try not to think about Dubai hotel. Repaint freshly painted toenails. Count how many days until departure. Stare at wall. 7:37-8:12pm.

Run to bathroom. 8:15pm

Remain in bathroom. 8:15-8:23pm.

Try again to connect to internet and succeed! Rejoice internally. 8:25pm.

Become bored again. 8:29pm.

Have brilliant idea to download iTunes and rent movies. 8:32pm.

Program takes 12,527 years to download. Give up on idea. 8:43pm.

Try television one more time and debate asking man downstairs who does not speak English to fix it. 8:48pm.

Decide to take sleeping pill instead and go to bed. 8:54pm.

I hope everything is normal

This morning, the bellhop came to my room in Dubai at 4am to load my bags into the taxi to the airport. After the long process of multiple security checks, we were finally on a full-to-the-brim and extremely cramped Kabul-bound plane. Two and a half hours later, I awoke to an announcement on the plane calling for an air traffic controller. If there is air traffic controller on plane, please report to the flight deck. The passengers looked around at each other, confused. Did we not have an air traffic controller guiding us through Afghanistan's high mountains to the landing strip?

The announcements ceased after a few moments and I stared out the window at the vast, barren, mountainous landscape below us. It was really like nothing I'd ever seen before, seemingly devoid of any life. My stomach started churning as I wondered if it was all a dream, if I was really on a plane that would be landing in Kabul, in AFGHANISTAN in a few short minutes.

Again, the flight attendant came on the loudspeaker in her broken English. If air traffic controller is on plane, please make yourself known now! We need you on flight deck now! Passengers started becoming more nervous, myself included. I started to imagine myself shaking hands with the kind man next to me and my boss, saying our last goodbyes, as we plummeted down to the rocky mountains below, our bodies never to be found.

Uhh, ladies and gentlemen. I hope everything is normal. I mean, uh, everything is normal [giggle, giggle]. The cabin started laughing, easing the tension a bit, but "I hope" is not a phrase one likes to hear when talking about landing a plane in a war-ridden, jagged-peaked country.

Finally, the air traffic controller pulled of his headphones and made his way to the flight deck, helping the pilot land safely. I'm still completely unsure of why the airline was relying on a passenger to land the plane, but we made it to the ground uneventfully.

When I entered the airport, I was immediately hit with a strong breeze, reeking only of body odor. People were swarming the tiny, short baggage belt, throwing bags off the belt onto the floor, climbing over the belt and shoving anyone in their way. A number of men approached us, offering taxis, trolleys and help with our luggage.

Roger finally pushed his way to a spot along the baggage belt, watching for our bags to come out. He'd gathered three of our collective five bags when the lights went out and the belt stopped. Oh! The electricity cut out! Judging by everyone's continuation in grabbing their bags, I gathered that the break in electrcity was completely normal.

Finally, FINALLY, we found all of our bags (and one of my suitcases had a gigantic hole ripped into it) and made our way to the parking lot to meet our ride. After a few confused phone calls and a long walk, we were in the Nissan SUV on our way to the office.

Before I talk about the city and what I saw on the drive, I must comment on the weather. It is completely LOVELY. Cairo was 100 degrees and very humid. Dubai was 115 degrees and even more humid. Kabul is about 85 degrees with no humidity. I just wish I had a pool to lounge by, because it's a perfect summer day!

Anyway, so my observations on this city that's spent the last thirty years in war. It looks like it has spent the last thirty years in war. Buildings are destroyed, piles of rubble are everywhere, roads are dirt and gravel and filled with potholes. I can't really even describe what I saw. I hope to go out in the car more during my time here and I'll take photos. My words just don't do this place justice.

We arrived at my office building from the airport and it is surprisingly nice! It is the former home of the Belgian Embassy and is decorated in gaudy, ornate Pakistani fashion. (Pictures to come). My colleagues are so kind and friendly and after we all ate a delicious lunch made by our lovely cook Rauf, our driver took me to my "hotel".

The hotel is really more of a pension or a hostel, but much nicer than I was expecting! The room is clean and simple, with wireless internet and air-conditioning and satellite television. I am watching Style Network as we speak. However, before you start to think I'm living in luxury over here, keep in mind that I have to always have my head covered when I am outside. I have to wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts and I can't go anywhere without a driver and an escort. I can't schedule any outings ahead of time and I can only spend a few moments anywhere I go.
Despite all the restrictions and safety precautions, I am so thrilled to be here in this country that my career is currently focused on helping. I know that the next two weeks are going to bring many more stories and adventures.

Stay tuned...

Detained!

Did I tell you about that one time I went to visit the step pyramid in Saqqara, Egypt and got detained by the police for an hour and a half? I didn't tell you that story?

Our little car, filled with three Egyptians and an American (me), was pulled over by the police before we entered the antiquities at Saqqara and the site of the step pyramid. The policeman asked for the national ID cards of my companions and spoke in fast, aggressive Arabic at the driver, pointing at me and peering in my window. I gathered that the rough, burly man wanted my passport which I thankfully had with me and my friends confirmed that that's what he wanted. I handed it out the window and the man disappeared into a small booth filled with similar-looking rough policemen.

Five minutes passed, then fifteen, then thirty (thank god the car had air-conditioning!). I was confused. Were they making a copy of my passport? And why would they need this? Were they running a background check? Did they now have my credit card info and should I start calling Discover and Visa to cancel my accounts?

Finally Ahmed decided to invade the police room and investigate what they were doing. Another fifteen minutes passed and we could see him arguing? chatting? with the men, hands and arms flying. I kept asking Esraa what she thought they were talking about, what could possibly be the problem. Finally, she exited the car and snuck up to the half-closed door to find out what was going on.

She returned after the men had spotted her and completely shut the door in her face and had a report for me. The policemen were confirming with Ahmed that the Egyptians did not meet me off the internet and I was not taking advantage of them. Me? Taking advantage of them? When we can barely communicate with each other? Um, I can say one word in Arabic and that is shukran, thank you, so I don't really think I'm pressuring them around in aggressive Arabic, forcing them to take me here and buy me this.

In total, we sat in that car for an hour and a half while Ahmed spoke with the policemen, making sure I wasn't a threat to the precious Egyptians. Oh, and then he fixed the guy's cell phone. Only in Egypt.

Aaand, I'm not leaving

So. I am never leaving Dubai. I keep thinking it's kind of like what I picture Miami to be like (um, I've never been there) and not at all like the Middle East. I love it.

This morning, after a restless night (I couldn't sleep despite the luxurious gigantic bed and down pillows), we headed off to the Mall of the Emirates, and for those who don't know, it's the largest mall in the Middle East and the home to the infamous indoor ski slope. Speaking of the ski slope, I thought it would be bigger. From what I saw, it's just a couple beginner hills but I guess it's the novelty of skiing in the desert that makes it such a draw.

There are SO MANY stores at the mall. Many are ones we have in New York and many are not, but sadly the prices (even with their huge summer sales!) are still about what I'd pay in New York. I didn't buy anything, but I definitely plan on going back to pick something up for Mark. They have a gigantic Monarchy section in one of stores (a brand he LOVES) so hopefully I'll find something.

Later in the afternoon, we met one of my organization's board members for lunch at a conveyor belt sushi place in the Dubai International Finance Centre. I know we have these in Manhattan, but I've never been, and plucking the sushi off the belt while listening to Michael Jackson and songs from Grease was so much fun. We made our way to another cafe in the Centre for dessert where I ordered a fancy brownie. It showed up at the table with GOLD LEAF on it. I ate gold.

This city makes me feel like a princess.

This evening, I sped around Dubai in a brand new Porsche (haha, I wasn't driving), drank strawberry dacquiris at a beach cabana and ordered room service for dinner before going out again to the mall.

I am really happy right now. I could get used to this...

Destination Number Two

This morning I left Cairo and landed in Dubai a mere three and a half hours later. I was a little sad to leave, as my adventures there gave me memories for a lifetime, but as soon as we hopped in the (air-conditioned! not dented! clean!) cab to the fancy hotel in Dubai, I forgot all about Cairo. It's clean here. With modern cars. And new buildings. And a fancy hotel with fresh sheets, no cockroaches and a swimming pool.

Cairo? What?

Dubai? I'm never leaving.

When we got to the hotel this afternoon, Roger wanted to rest so I set off to explore the area and immediately found the fitness center and swimming pool. My poor body hasn't seen a gym in over a week, so I ran upstairs, changed my clothes and sprinted to the treadmill. I was like a gazelle on the belt, prancing along as if I'd been trapped inside a cage and unable to move my legs for months. I enjoyed only a half hour run (that week of sightseeing and sweating made it a bit rough), then a half hour swim in the pool.

Dubai is hot. Imagine having a gigantic hairdryer blowing steamy hot air at your entire body. That is what it feels like in Dubai. The pool was not even cool enough to feel refreshing. But I'm clean and cool and comfortable laying in bed right now, so I'm not complaining.

I'm so disappointed I'm staying only a short time in Dubai. While at the Cairo airport this morning, I thumbed through my Time Out Dubai guide and could list about 20 different things I want to do while I'm here, including a desert safari, scuba diving, shopping at the Mall of the Emirates, visiting Jumeirah Beach, checking out the gold souk (market), sandboarding, kite surfing, and the list goes on. Since I'm only here two days (TWO days! I know!), and um, I'm technically here on business, I really need to prioritize.

Since I rode a camel and saw a belly dancer in Cairo, I might skip the desert safari. I'd like to pass through the mall (souvenir for Mark!), but I think the main activity I'd really like to do would be something water-related. If you had only two days here, what would you do?

Farewell to my first Middle East experience

It's midnight here and I have to be ready to go to the airport to hop on a Dubai-bound jet very early tomorrow, so this is going to be short.

I visited some churches today in Old Cairo. After approximately two churches, they all began to look the same, my patience wore thin in the heat and all I could think about was going swimming in Dubai. Needless to say, I didn't have the patience to take any photos but really? It was just a couple Catholic churches from hundreds of years ago. BO-RING! (Wow, how old am I!?)

I had a meeting today with a Financial Controller of an NGO here in Cairo. It was very useful and I have now accumulated a rather large stack of business cards on this trip that make me feel very important.

This evening, we went on a cruise along the Nile River, complete with a hodge-podge dinner buffet, live music and a bellydancer. The food was mediocre, but it was very pleasant to sit on the bow of the boat and enjoy the night air and the water with a glass of wine.

Lastly, I forgot to mention how inexpensive this city is. A cab ride for about a half hour from one end of the city to the other costs $5 ($25+ in New York). A meal for two at a cafe similar to Cosi with two paninis and sodas costs $9 ($20+ in New York). A sterling silver necklace with a handmade pendant and genuine stone costs $15 ($50+ in New York). Even on my meager nonprofit salary (okay, it's not THAT meager, it just feels meager in Manhattan!), I feel like a queen here!

Today, Ahmed and I were planning on taking the subway from Old Cairo back to the flat (only $.20 per ride!) until I saw the platform literally FILLED with people, four and five people deep, swarming the sidewalk. The subway cars have no A/C, so I refused to get on it and instead treated him to a cab. It cost me $5 and a lot less sweat.

What an experience Cairo has been for me. I can only hope that Dubai and Kabul will be as exciting too!

More from Dubai tomorrow...

Internet being bad. No photos. Sorry.

Catching up...

Every evening, I get back to my flat around 11pm, turn on the computer, download my photos for the day and spill some thoughts out onto the blog. Maybe it's the extreme heat or the sheer exhaustion, but I have forgotten to tell you a number of things and so tonight I'm playing catch-up.

The other night we went to see a "whirling dervish" show. In short, a group of men go out on stage with various drums and flutes and play Arabian-style music while some other men in multiple heavy, colorful skirts spin in circles for an hour without stopping. There is also a very jolly man that plays belly dancer-like cymbals with his fingers and makes the crowd laugh. After just rereading those few sentences, it makes little sense, but maybe the photos will explain a bit more. Hate to be cliche, but it really is one of those things where you have to be there.

Last night, one of the guys I met at the bazaar, Amir, came over to my boss's flat to bring me more of his handmade jewelry as a gift. He laid out a spread of beautiful handmade silver pendants, rings and earrings across the coffee table and told Roger in Arabic to tell me in English to choose whatever I liked. I picked a few items and because I felt bad that he made such little money (and they were so inexpensive!) I bought a few more - so to my female friends and relatives, I have presents for you when I get home!

Today, Roger took me exploring the mosques of Cairo and gave me a very thorough history of the city. It is unbelievable that some of these buildings date back to the fifth and sixth centuries and haven't crumbled to the ground. The day was spectacularly sunny again so I was able to get some lovely photos. Apparently, Egyptians do not know what clouds are because it is sunny all the time. One of my many questions for the locals.

This evening, we were invited to dinner at the home of Mustafa, the owner of one of the shops we visited the other day. At the last minute, he informed us that the staircase in his house was broken and he only had air-conditioning in the bedroom so we wouldn't be able to sample his wife's great Egyptian cooking. (I was secretly relieved because I'm slightly terrified of local food after being sick for so many days). He was terribly sorry and said I so ashamed I cannot take you home for dinner, which made me sort of sad, but he said that instead we would go to City Stars. City Stars great place, many choices for very, very good food.

We piled 8 (eight!) people into a Toyota Corolla (I wish I was kidding) and drove about 30 minutes in traffic to the local mall. We walked inside and our large group headed towards the food court. See? Good food! Many choices! You get pizza! Chinese! Kentucky! It became very clear that going to the mall food court was a special treat for the family, so I tried to treat it as such. I ordered a small pizza and watched as the Egyptians refused to let me pay then fought their way to the front of the line. We had a lovely dinner, despite the atmosphere and the fact that their three-year-old was climing on top of the table with her filthy feet and they were letting her.

On the way home, there were NINE of us in the car, as another of their daughters met us at the mall, and Roger told me the scene was typical Egypt. The father was talking on a cell phone in ridiculous stop-and-go traffic, his voice escalating as the noise in the car grew, the youngest daughter in the backseat was pulling the hat off the brother in the front seat, then one of the sisters in the backseat was pinching the littlest girl, then the brother was turning around and biting the little girl's arm causing her to scream and cry and kick, the mother was yelling in Arabic at the father and the children, and Roger and I were simply absorbing the whole scene. And I took some photos that don't do justice to the scene in the car.

Since arriving here, I've realized that seeing Cairo through the local eyes, not as a tourist, is not for the faint of heart. It's filthy and grimy and crowded and smelly and sweaty. If you want to see the touristy sights and dip a toe into the waters of Cairo life, then maybe the 5 star hotels and an air-conditioned bus would work for you. But honestly? Despite my exhaustion and disgust and annoyance sometimes? I wouldn't want to see this city any other way.