Hi again

I just realized it's been two weeks since I've written anything here, it's been action-packed. Since I last wrote, I've been working pretty non-stop on a bunch of projects for Trust in Education while in Kabul. Everything from teacher salaries to networking-type meetings (trying to get the TiE name out there) to internal personnel issues to agriculture to river damming. It's thrilling being in this position as project manager, despite the exhaustion sometimes and feeling like there's a hundred pots on the fire to tend to. I've never had such a range of responsibilities all at one time, and it all feels like absolute bonus: being able to learn so much about on-the-ground development work like this in a place that badly needs it.

I have only about two more weeks here, which is also kind of crazy given how invested I feel at this point. I plan to keep pushing through hard for that time, who knows when I'll ever have an opportunity like this again. It's also been fun meeting interesting ex-pats from around the world here. There's a tiny little social scene that I join once or twice a week in the evenings for ultimate frisbee, house parties, or beers and burgers at the few underground ex-pat restaurants around town. Interactions like these are a great relief after a hard day.

It's been really interesting to see from here how focused the American media has been on Afghanistan recently. It seems like Iraq has totally faded from the headlines, and it's all about Afghanistan now. "How to save Afghanistan" is the cover story for Time magazine, and inside (after a pretty good cover article by a guy who does a lot of cultural preservation around the country) McCain and Obama each give little blurbs about what they will each do to help in the effort here. And of course, Obama made his way here a few days ago, it seems like his current foreign-policy trip is all people are hearing about back home. From what I read, he said some pretty astute things, reflecting about the situation here in an interview, and then that big speech he made last week. I especially like the parts about (much) more non-military aid--that's the good long-term-remedy type thinking.

But I really have no idea how the international community and the Afghan government goes about "saving" this place, besides (generally) the right policies being in place for a long, long time. Patience is key; the problem will not be solved in even an eight-year administration of either McCain or Obama (or Nader...well, maybe Nader...) With all the turmoil over the past generation, everyone I talk to here is convinced it will be at least another generation or two before Afghans can resume the kind of relatively normalcy they had here in the "hey-days" of the 1960s and 70s, when the only insurgency concerns were tied to the rapid influx of good ol' American hippies. Man I wish I could have been here to see those times.

Both Obama and McCain talk about big surges of two-three brigades' worth of new troops here, though any injection of troops here has to be balanced so carefully with what we take out of Iraq. Iraq is not "solved" by any means, just because we're not hearing about it in the news as much (or at all). Both the Iraq and Afghan conflicts have the US Military stretched so far, I sincerely hope we can get more US (and other NATO countries') troops here soon. Though I've complained here before about how the media never seems focus on positive news here, there's no question that things are generally going downhill here security-wise. It's going to take a major correction of international policy to right the Afghan ship of state, given the way attacks are pouring in from the tribal lands in Pakistan. I can't believe the Pakistani government made a peace deal with these Taliban clowns up in the north of that country. Since they did so in April, attacks through the eastern border of Afghanistan have increased 40 percent. They thought the Taliban would compromise? Have you read their brochures? Compromise isn't really in the description.

Still, Kabul feels like a relative safe zone, far from the front. Except for the most random things like the Indian Embassy bombing a couple weeks ago, but things like that are so far and few between. This city is so fortified, a major Taliban offensive here isn't even possible. First of all, traffic here is so bad, their convoys would probably get hot and bored just waiting to get around to their targets. Second, the terrain of this city has always made it very hard to invade--it's totally surrounded by the jagged, towering mountains of the Hindu Kush. Third, the Taliban and al-Queda don't have armies, just little platoons of brain-washed individuals that carry out random attacks.

Besides being here working, I've been having a blast travelling all around the country the past couple weeks. That's another reason I haven't written--I've been trying to find a computer that can upload all my pictures of recent trips to Bamyan and Herat, because I've really wanted my pictures to tell the story as opposed to me just talking about these places. In case you're curious, I have yet to find that computer. (Except I have just given the picture files to a friend who has crazy good internet at her high-fallutin', high-budget NGO office. This is where NGO envy kicks in.)

The scenery in a place like Bamyan is indescribable, especially the Band-e Amir Lakes--the most beautiful sight I've seen in this entire country. I'll try to put up some little videos I took there up on this blog, and in a few days I'll put up the picture links to Flickr. We'll see how it works out. "Inshallah," as they say here--or in English, "If God wills it." It's a phrase that applies to a remarkably wide array of situations in Afghanistan, I've found.