A Weird Week
Friday, December 8th 2006 - 1:28 AM
It's been a weird week - centred around the full moon in Gemini (a dodgy sign at the best of times! ;-)
It started with three days of pretty much continuous snow, during which time Kabul airport closed and no flights were coming or going. It turns out that the air problems were caused by radio interference with the air traffic control satellite link. I don't know if this has been sorted out yet (i suspect not), but it means most planes can only fly when visibility's good - i.e., not in snow.
Several of us foreign workers who are supposed to be flying out in the next week or two started making contingency plans. The only other way out of here is by driving to Peshawar, in Pakistan - you can fly to Dubai from there. There's a road north out of Afghanistan too - into Tajikistan - but that goes through the Salang tunnel, which was blocked by an avalanche that killed three people and injured eight more.
The problem with going through Pakistan, though, is the difficulty getting a visa. It's probably not really that hard, but it takes a few days. Someone from work is checking out the possibilities of getting us all longer term Pakistan visas - which we're supposed to have anyway, in case of emergencies.
Still the snow's finished now, for a while at least - although there's still a lot of it lying on the ground. Here a pic of the view from my bedroom window this morning.
Snow on the rooftops and on Koh i Sher Dar Waza (the mountain in the distance).
Once the snow stopped, the weather cleared up and became nice and sunny - but really bloody cold. It's been down to about minus 9 at night and hovers around freezing in the day time. It really hasn't been a lot of fun walking to and from work - or even being at work, really, as the office i'm in is pretty cold most of the time.
Then, just to kinda round things off, i was as sick as a bleedin dog on Wednesday. I threw up a couple of times in the night (it's been many years since i threw up last), had diarrhoea all day, and was so buggered that i had to spend most of the day in bed - and i can't remember the last time i was so sick i had to stay in bed. I didn't enjoy it much, i must say.
Yesterday, i was still feeling pretty bad, but i couldn't face another day at home feeling like that, so i went into work. Everyone, of course, was trying to get me to take drugs or go to the doctor - but i refuse to do either of those unless it's a matter of life and death. I think the less you go to doctors, and the less medicines you take, the longer you live.
I feel a lot better today, but i'm still not really well. I guess it must have been something i ate - but i don't know what.
I'm so looking forward to getting to Dubai next week and thawing out!
You can see some of my photos of Afganistan at
WillKemp-Photos.com/afghanistan