Do not view 1 hour before or after meals

This morning I was welcomed to work by the following greeting in an email:

Hope this mail will find you in the best of your health you ever had.


Pretty awesome way to start the office day.  It made up for the 1 million missed calls, door bell ringing and upset stares I received when I got picked up for work (technically, they were 10 minutes early),  the discovery that my most favorite belt broke in the wee hours of the night, and the fact that I saw this:

Sick!  Writing this post is difficult cos I have to look at this vomitous creature.  It's called a camel spider and they live here and bring terror with them wherever they go.  At least that what it seemed like as my roommates were describing the buggers (bonus points cos the explanation came with British/ Welsh accents.  Fist pump.)  Because these creatures look so gross, lots have myths have surfaced about them.  Like, they run after you and attack without warning, that they inject you with a anesthetic venom and eat chunks out of your body, they jump 4 feet into the air and chase your shadow.  Said it before and I will say it again.  SICK.  I can't write about this anymore because the photo is really making me want to upchuck my non-existent breakfast.  You can read more about this devil creature here

Happy Birthday!

Birdy had her baby!  As soon as I can I am taking a picture and sending it to all the tabloids.  But seriously, Birdy is now the proud mummy of a little chick-a-dee.  I knew this day would come sooner or later, but I never thought I'd feel this.  No one ever taught me how to be an obsessive bird lady! I don't know if I am ready for this

Come One, Come All!

Pull the kids out of school early, tell grandma that she can't have that second dose of Cipro, put on your Friday's best and head on over to your local thoroughfare to find out all you need to know about the candidates.  It's election season and you can see and feel the buzz all around!  Over the past 2 weeks or so, campaign posters have started marring the beautiful Kabul landscape and they stand there tall and proud, ready to the tell the city who the best candidate is.  Since illiteracy is a huge problem here (close to 70% of the population is illiterate), the IEC (love them!) and the government have issued symbols for each candidate so that on election day, a few words won't get in the way of exercising democracy.  So while one candidate is 3 fish, another one is a desk, and yet another one is a lantern.  I have seen keys, swords, candles, light bulbs, bicycles, you name it.  And sometimes you have a guy with 3 fish instead of one or 2 keys instead of 3.  I am fascinated and in love and have vowed to take pictures of as many of these as possible.

So I started asking locals if they knew what in the hell these symbols represented.  No says they.  OK.  So I started asking if there was any kind of campaign for the campaign that explained what the symbols meant.  Again no.  So then I asked, where in the bloody hell do these symbols come from?  Well, apparently they are given out by the IEC when a candidate registers (click here for the final IEC list).  No rhyme.  No reason.  No meaning.  Just a symbol.  So if you can't read and you happen to like the way the guy or girl on the poster looks, then at least you know they're symbol so you can vote for them.  Too bad everybody I asked said that they wouldn't vote.  C'est la vie...

City vs Country?

Sometimes its easy to forget that I am living in the middle of a big city.  But when you look around, you see apartments on top of store fronts, just like New York.  Or barbershops every 2 feet like my neighborhood in Brooklyn.  There's awful traffic, pollution, noise; everything a city dweller loves.  But then night falls and I'm just about to fall into a slumber.  I start to hear clipclopclipclopclipclopclipclop.  What the fuck!?  Every night around 2am an parade of men on horse drawn carriages marches past my house.  It always blows my mind to think that I am in one of the biggest urban areas in this country, when at the end of the day (literally), this place is as rural as it gets.  I mean, where else can I see a horse drawn carriage going past armed guards at the heavily armored dutch embassy across the street from my house?  Greatness

Thanks Birdy!

About a week ago I noticed a morning dove watching me as I did my morning business in the upstairs bathroom at work.  At first, I was a bit freaked out.  I mean, it kept blinking it's little eyes at me and I was afraid it was going to attack.  But then it didn't and I relaxed and went about my business.  The next time I went back, it was there again!  This time it gave me the courtesy to fly away until I was done and then it would come on back.  This went on for a few days and I grew to like this feathered bathroom friend.  I noticed that it had started to make a nest and everyday the cleaning lady would clean it up and everyday birdy would start over.  So I asked her to stop it with the nest destroying activities and am proud to say that she now has a nest next to the water heater.  And inside this nest is, or soon will be, eggs!

Afghans take this as a good omen.  I believe it!  Shortly after birdy's arrival, a series of good things happened to my boss.  I received some good news about my career.  I'm sure there are other bits of undocumented good news that I am not aware of, but you get the point.  So, I pointed birdy out to the video manager and he went to check her out.  When he came back he told me a fantastic story.  It goes a little something like this..........

VM has hanging plants off of the windows in his house.  One day he went to water one and noticed a morning dove had reclaimed the plant as its home.  He left the bird alone for the moment, but returned again once the mama was gone.  To his surprise, he found eggs in the plant.  So he took a planter and made a home for the eggs and moved the operation over (he was worried about his plant).  The eggs hatched and now there are more eggs!  This is where the story gets good.  So, his mother hadn't seen her brothers in many many moons.  So long, in fact, that they were considered to be missing.  A few days after the eggs hatched, she found herself restless and unable to sleep.  Pacing around the garden, she started to worry her son and daughter-in-law.  Suddenly, there is a knock at the door and she answers to find a stranger asking her if she knew Bibi joon (herself), or her husband.  This stranger mentioned that Bibi joon had a brother named so and so and then he saw the shock and excitement in her eyes.  Needless to say, she was the person they were looking for.  But they traveled to Kabul from Herat and knew only 2 names.  They being the wife on one brother and a cousin.  They knew what district VM lived in and they went there and spent 4 days knocking on doors, asking about Bibi joon.  People in the neighborhood thought they were some sort of child  nabbing gypsies.  But they found her and took her to Herat for a month!  All cos a bird chose their house to nest.  Yeah. I'm not at all obsessed with this feathered friend.

Anyone got a phone I can borrow?

Damascus, Syria.  Old City. February 2010

Thanks IEC

Oh. The IEC.  We got a contract to produce from public service announcements for radio broadcast about the upcoming Wolosi Jirga.  The parliamentary elections.  The messages were to deal with the nomination and complaints period.  The IEC set up a phone line where listeners could call in and voice their complaints.  Given all the controversy surrounding the last election, this was an important step forward.  We were slated to broadcast this message 160 times across 30 different stations nationwide.  Well.  After 48 broadcasts, the IEC called us and asked us to stop broadcasting.  Why?  Because they were getting TOO MANY COMPLAINTS!  What in the fuck did they expect?  Really?  That no one would call?  Uh? If I recall correctly, the last election was frought with accusations of vote-rigging and intimidation.  People are angry and they have lost faith in the process and the first thing that is initiated in an effort to combat this gets sacked before it even has a chance.  Since the broadcasts were only set to occur over the course of a month, we were never able to make up the missed ones.  Frankly, I hope that people rape, riot and pillage.

On another note, the picture below is of the Afghan parliament from way back in the day (about 79 years ago), where phone lines and complaint periods were probably non-existant.