Re-entry

I've been slacking heavily on the blog entries. I guess the longer you are somewhere, the less it seems like there is to report. Two weeks away on Christmas vacation was good but also surreal. Despite 30hrs of travel in each direction to help adjust to the change in...everything...bouncing between Kabul and Portland was a hard transition. The two places are different in every way imaginable. I think going to Virginia and back was easier because VA was unfamiliar whereas I know Oregon inside and out. At any rate, with sinus infection firmly in place, it took a good three days and many hours of sleep for me to get "used" to being back here.

So, since I'm coming up with less to write about, I figured it's time to get down to the nitty-gritty details. What is a day like in Kabul. Well, today is the weekend (Friday) and it is a quiet day at that. In some ways I was looking forward to it, because I've noticed the downside of having one's office in one's living area, is that you have even less alone time. I live for 4:30p when everyone: colleagues, office staff and the cleaner, go home and I have the place to myself again. As it is, people are coming and going all the time and even my room has frequent visitors as the cleaner goes in to clean and get laundry and the guards enter in the afternoon to fill and light my heater. It has been an adjustment.

Today has so far consisted of, brace yourself, doing yoga, eating breakfast, talking to David, having him help fix the internet connection so I can do email and post this blog entry, go to the grocery store...and here I am. I have nothing else planned for today except more internet, watching TV, and maybe read. I may even break out some real live, with cards, solitaire. And I will eat meals and go to bed. Wow. Tomorrow, minus the grocery store and internet fixing, will be pretty much the same with some work thrown in to shake things up. I'm alone at the guesthouse this weekend which is good but also exacerbates the lack of things to do.

And that is the exciting existence in Kabul. Fortunately, this coming week, those colleagues who went home for the holidays will start trickling back into town so chances are things will pick up.