My New Home In Kabul
Wednesday, January 17th 2007 - 2:24 PM
When i arrived back in Kabul, the day before yesterday, i moved into a new house. The old place was the "guest house" run by the organisation that employs me. That place is finishing at the end of this month, because the lease runs out and my boss decided it's not worth the problems involved in running it and the money it costs. I wasn't entirely unhappy to have to move out of there, as it had certain drawbacks, as well as certain advantages. But you probably read all about that in a previous blog post (and, if you didn't you still can).
Anyway, the new place is in a completely different part of town - walking distance from the main shopping and restaurant area, Shar-e-Now. It's two doors away from a restaurant / bar that has free wireless internet access and a swimming pool (in summer).
But there's no running water (because the pipes are frozen!) and there's no furniture (because the NGO that owned the furniture took it away). It reminds me of living in a squat, when you haven't been there long and before you've got stuff like that organised.
Furniture shouldn't be too much of a problem, and hopefully i'll be able to organise at least a bit of it over the next few days. The frozen water pipes, though, could be a bit more of a challenge. But i can't check that problem out until the weekend, when i've got free time during daylight hours.
Apart from that, though, the place is good. There's a big lounge room which, even though there's no furniture in it, has got a wood bukhari (stove) in it now, thanks to Tom, my new housemate, who moved in yesterday. There's another big room, which has about two and a half walls that are made up entirely of windows, but it's a bit cold in there at the moment, because of all those windows. It'll be great in summer though. Me and Tom were discussing the possibility of putting a bukhari in there and "double glazing" the windows with plastic sheeting to keep the cold out. We'll see...
My other housemate, Roya, went to the US the day after i arrived, to visit her family there. She'll be back in a month or so. I think she picked a good time to be away from the house - while the water pipes are frozen!
My room's reasonably big. Unfortunately, though, the view from the large window on one side is a wall, about 4 feet away. Above that, i can see the window of the house next door. And an air conditioner. Which probably means it's going to be too noisy to keep that window open at night in summer. Damn!
The other window, which is smaller, has got a slightly better view. The wall it looks out onto is about fifteen feet away, which isn't quite so bad, and i can see a bit of a tree above that! Compared to the beautiful mountain view i had from my old bedroom, this is quite a comedown. I guess i'll survive though - my claustrophobia doesn't seem so bad these days, i'm pleased to say.
There's quite a bit to be done in the new place to make it habitable, but i think it's going to be a good place to live. It's nice to have a change of scenery, anyway, and to be close to places that are worth walking to. I've decided i'm going to do a lot of walking while i'm living here.
You can see some of my photos of Afganistan at
WillKemp-Photos.com/afghanistan