A little taste of my future

From the 27th to the 31st, I visited Badakhshan, the region I’ll work after I finish language classes. Right now my team is composed entirely of Germans, though that will change with arrivals, departures, and shuffles of staff, which I gather to be an inevitable part of this life. As is, I was recipient of the full complement of German Christmas cakes.

I was warmly welcomed to the house where I’ll live, likely sharing the courtyard with another lady and definitely with a family with three kids age four and under. The oldest child understands enough to discern I read "Grover’s Pet Care Book" much better in English than its Deutsch equivalent. From their company, my funniest new word is “pee-pee machen” ≈ to go to the bathroom.

I felt my first earthquake.

One my teammates took me on a hike of ridges overlooking the city. Somewhere around the time of my birth, Soviet soldiers appropriated those ridges for bunkers, lookouts, and tanks. Gutted ruins remain. It is a tactically strong position for harassing a town with no means of air support.

The psychic benefits of being there were a general ability to relax. My training has emphasized over and over, “Security is not a feeling.” It didn’t feel different than Kabul, but I walked to the office by myself, and the explosion sounds were the building of a new road, not the detonating of people.

I am pleased to imagine moving there, and having Mick visit, ahem.

The Hindu Kush from the air
Agricultural outskirts
The kids playing at the air strip,the only pavement in town
Strap on a feedbag, as we like to say
First tank
No more let sin and sorrows grow, Nor thorns infest the ground
#1 Awesome Hiking Costume