Heading home
First off, my apologies for any upcoming spelling mistakes. I´m in Cologne, Germany. The keyboards here are backwards! (And Internet time is costly!)
We´re on the final leg of a one-day stopover here. It´s nothing like Afghanistan. In fact, I find myself feeling a little guilting right now as I sit in this posh cafe, sipping an awesome latte. Meanwhile, a war wages on.
We´re on our way home, but I can´t help but wish we´d have had a bit more time outside the wire during our stay in Kandahar. So much valuable information was hurled our way at the Kandahar Air Field, but the real stories lay in places such as Camp Nathan Smith, where military personnel, civilian aid workers and Afghan nationals work as one towards a better day. We had a chance to see some of this work first-hand, which, in my opinion, is the only way to truly begin to grasp what´s going on in this poverty-stricken province.
Spending time in the Forward Operating Bases – where the military gruntwork happens – would have been icing on the cake. This is where the real wars are playing out.
Anyways, my pricey Internet time is running out (plus my flight leaves soon!)
It´s raining hard here. I might get splashed by a car zoo0ming through a puddle on my way back to our hotel (it´s happened twice already). Or I might be run over by a cyclist (they have bike paths here, and I´m only now figuring that out).
If that´s the worst that´s going to happen to me, I´ll consider myself blessed.
Things are a whole lot messier in Afghanistan.
Talk soon.
