Day 9 in Kabul

Day 9 started at 3:00 am with a bad headache. I tried to ignore it since I didn't have any medicine for a headache but it didn't work very well. Luckily Friday's are the day off here so I didn't have to teach.

Since I didn't teach today I met with the BearingPoint folks for lunch and talked about GIS opportunities here. There seem to be quite a few. They told me that they would like me to come back for a few weeks to meet with their clients so I may be returning at some point.

The guys that I had lunch with took me to Camp Eggers. Camp Eggers is a US military base in Kabul. There is a bazaar just inside the entrance that is behind security but not on base yet and there is some pretty neat stuff. You can buy anything from the last season of Lost on DVD to a old sword or gun. I saw an old sextant that was pretty neat and almost bought it. It is the old brass ones from the days that the English were here.

One of the guys that I was with has an ID that would allow me to go on the actual base so we did. We bought some stuff from the store, got a haircut, and had a great mango shake. The military base is a hodgepodge of structures and it feels odd being around all the military folks carrying weapons but you feel very safe. They have quite a few little shops around the small base so they have access to some of the conveniences of home. On Friday nights, it is steak and lobster night and we talked about staying but everyone had work to do so we left and I returned to my residence.

I was talking to one of the guys about the headache and he said that it happens here. Whether it is the dust, elevation (it is about 6,000 feet here), lack of water (since it is very dry you have to drink a lot of water), or something else, but he said he has heard that from a lot of people. I bought some sinus medicine at the base store and it seemed to work.

The guys from BearingPoint suggested that I leave the hotel and move into one the BearingPoint houses so we visited it and it pretty nice. The meals and laundry are done for them so that would be nice and since it is all BearingPoint folks, there is no cost....right now I am paying $90 per day.

I went to an English restaurant tonight with Jim and his wife. She had just returned from a week in the province where she helps manage an orphanage. We had a very nice dinner talking about her work there and across Afghanistan. She travels to the rural areas with no security. Well she has a couple Afghan guys that go but they don't have weapons. They just had a boy show up who is about 13 and have been trying to figure out what to do with him. Kids can't just walk into the orphanage and stay. The orphanage has to check for family and other relatives before they can allow them to stay. She said that he was very unhealthy and had been living on his own for about a year. He told her that he as been working for naun and tea so that is what he has been living on. He told her that the reason that he wanted to live in the orphanage is because he wants an education and that his brother went to the Madrasa. Many kids that come out of the Madrases tend to join the Taliban and become potential suicide bombers or foot soldiers so she was very happy that he did not what that life. Madrases are religious schools in the rural areas. The English Restaurant that we ate at has swords and guns that were used in the Anglo-Afghan war and they are all for sell and some of them are pretty neat.

Well my intro class is finished and tomorrow I start the advanced class. The same students that were in the intro class will be in the advanced class so it should be pretty interesting and definitely slow. Well, I better go....time for me look over my material.