Monday, April 25, 2016

admire the flowers



Due to the emergency session of the Afghan parliament being held tomorrow, and the expected and commensurate security protocols, including the closure of Darulaman road, we will lockdown first thing tomorrow morning until further notice is communicated by this office.” 

Monday 25 April, 6:09am

Sometime this morning the President of Afghanistan, Ashraf Ghani will travel to Parliament.  The university is closed and we are in lock-down.  That is we cannot leave the compound for any reason whatsoever.  I’m sure glad I bought food the other day. 

‘Have a nice lock-down’.  I guess if I were an annoying insurgent this could be an opportune time to make some noise. With the main road closed I had to email Roshan and tell them sorry I am in lock-down.  This means Tuesday is for now my only day of classes before I head to the Peninsula, provided I can make it to the airport.  Sure wish I worked for the embassy.  They get helicopter lifts to the international terminal.

Let’s just hope and pray nothing happens.  It’s the least we can ask God to do for this war-weary people, for crying out loud. 

So why did you wake up at five fourteen in the morning I don’t know.  What’s worse I slept terribly, on a day off no less.  I have no plans today but sleep.  There is an article due by the end of the month I should work on and that would be a good thing if I finish it and send it off.  I should prep for tomorrow, that is if there is class tomorrow.  What a joint. 

I think I’ll read.  I’m halfway through the best of American travel writing, perhaps I can pick up advice on reading others who are published. Sigh.


75% of the Afghanistan’s population is under the age of 35.  This a good story, a young ambassador indeed who is tired of what previous generations have left him and 75% of the population with.  Come on! Rise up you 75 percent and reclaim your land, demand peace and prosperity, demand an end to cronyism and nepotism, demand your right to live free from fear and want.

I'd get pretty ticked if I were under 35 and learned three quarters of my people have never  known peace.  That is astounding.  And sad.

Do I share the sentiments of others who fall in love with the place?  I wish I could.  I have said over and over how much I have enjoyed the students in my class.  Good people, a sense of humor survives but this ambassador is right, he should be sick and tired of not having the chance to admire the flowers.  No one admires nature, I saw that in Kandahar.  Except maybe for Hanukkah who planted flowers inside the walls of PDI.  May  he one day plant flowers outside the walls.

A year ago yesterday Nepal suffered a terrible earthquake. 

2:11pm

The lockdown has been lifted.  Well?  There it is.  And clouds roll in, rain wasn’t in the forecast but it doesn’t matter does it?  A nice lunch of French toast and a cup of milk tea.  It would be nice to take a nap but I need to review my notes for tomorrow’s classes.  And! And I finished the article and submitted it.  If it is accepted it would be the first piece of academic work I’ll have published.  Wow, at 53 and twenty years of experience, is it any good?  I don’t know, it isn’t bad but but, whatever. Let’s listen to the Moody Blues.


9:56pm

Why am I still up?  


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