It's Raining in Afghanistan

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It rained for most of the week last week. Mostly just some light rains during the evenings, but one night there was a major thunderstorm that lit the sky and sounded like a bomb going off! (New meaning to that phrase when you speak it in a war-torn country). When the spring rains come to Calgary, it cleans our streets, brightens our cars, and open our olfactory senses. Kabul turns into a mudhole.

The mud that slickens the city streets of Kabul is of the perfect consistency to drive any five-year old into an addict's overdose seizure. Usually of a greyish-brown soft dust, the streets (being not of the 'civilized' world of crowned roads that sluice our dirty waters underground) soak themselves into miles of mud-pie-making mania. How joyous for the young boys and girls of Kabul to live in the single-room houses and on the streets that are awash in it. I see the tears of joy that cut tracks upon their dirtied cheeks.

Enough of that then.....

Outside of the military/political quagmire that exists the weather seems to be getting warmer and warmer every day. A rare flight for us took us to a small airfield called Farah about halfway between Herat and Kandahar. Draw a line from Kabul to Kandahar to Farah to Herat and you literally draw a line in the sand between the 'good guys' and the 'bad guys'. Secured and manned by the military, Farah is about as far as I would like to travel on the edge of the security envelope that surrounds us.

It was our first time there, and extremely difficult to see. No one told us that Farah airfield was less a field than a gravel parking lot (the 'runway' a series of orange flags marking the edges). The extraordinary Dash8 lands and takes off nice and short, so no damage done. We only had to slide two of our instrument stacks back into the panel and replace some dental fillings after departure.

Can't say I would experience any of this in Canada.

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Photos

Afghan Skies
Beautiful end to a rainy day.