Sooooo....

It has been a bit since I have written and a lot has happened. Where do I begin?

Lets start with the dangers of Kabul. In the past week or so we have had 3 suicide attacks in Kabul and I heard an unconfirmed report of a 4th just today. The closest was just about 2 miles from campus on the same major road that it is on which is a major thoroughfare. Which also happens to be about a mile from the guest house. A guy loaded with explosives and various items of shrapnel in a vest e.g. ball bearings, nuts and bolts, etc. tried to blow up an armoured German vehicle carrying armed people. You know I often ask what were they thinking when it comes to suicide bombers. I know it is a Taliban declared holy war and they are supposedly going to Islam heaven by doing so but for goodness sake people think. A big bang and a bit of shrapnel is not going to hurt an armoured vehicle. It would take much more than that. Instead the guy blows himself up and a number of innocent, minding their own business, Afghans.

Thanksgiving day we were on lock down due to another attack. This one not much smarter attempted to drive a Toyoto Corrolla loaded with explosives through the walls of the American Embassy to get at a group assembled inside to do a "fun run." Once again even a big bang, huge walls, machine gun armed guards behind those walls. Not a well thought out plan. 4 killed 20 injured, all Afghans.

We had been alerted, however, that attacks could be up. The U.N. Security Council was in town touring the area so it was a possibility. The University was treated to a special visit though out of the visit. U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. and former Ambassador to Afghanistan and then to Iraq, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, visited campus amid high security, of course. Ambassador Khalizad has been a great supporter of the University since its inception. U.S. Embassy funds were used in some of the construction. Khalizad is Afghan born and was educated at The American University of Beirut before permanently immigrating to the U.S. many years ago. He said that his position will be over soon but his heart is in Afghanistan and Iraq and he will continue to work for causes in both countries.

Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad Addresses Faculty, Staff, and Students

Well that was my Thanksgiving Day. Of course no NFL or NCAA on here. But we did have a nice Thanksgiving Potluck at two of our International Faculty/Staff Members House. Bill and Judith have spent 14 years in Afghanistan in various capacities. Of course not all 14 in a row but they were right behind American Forces in coming back. They will both retire in January therefore this would be their last Thanksgiving in Afghanistan. So they hosted a huge potluck. No turkey but roast chicken was provided and we all brought the fixins to go with. I, having lived so many years in the South brought Dirty Rice. We had just about everything else you all had at the table and more. Although I did miss my sweet potatoes. We did not have any of those. All the way down to the Pecan Pie though. It was delicious. Having not had food that good in weeks, needless to say I chowed down! Lots of pics though and I will do a slide show later but just to give you a visual here is one that I took.

What A Spread

Well this week started off with a bang. Literally that is. The nearby attack was on Sunday but before that happened I got my care package from DHL. I was so excited as I opened it. But I knew from first opening that something was amiss. Sure enough two items were missing. Both my brand new electronic goodies that I had rewarded myself with were missing. 1 item the Canon G10 is a 14.7 mega pixel, obviously top of the line, point and shoot. I purchased it because the DSLR is just to inconspicuous and I am mobbed every time I take it out by people wanting me to take their picture. Some even trying to charge me for the privilege. The second, also top of the line, was the just released 2nd Generation IPod Touch, 32 GB. All in all about 1000/usd was stolen from my care package. I was so looking forward to next week for the week off playing with my new toys. Now I will have to find other things to do while I wait for the claim to go through DHL. So Sunday (our Monday) was not a good day as I was very angry and very frustrated at the process to even get a phone number to call. The claim is started though. No shipping stuff valuable to Afghanistan again.

Finally, this week has been busy. As I stated last post we have acquired a new building for a residence hall so we have been working on personnel, on security, on equipping the hall. Quite a lot of work there. I almost need next week's EID holiday for a break.

It is work this week, holiday the following week, work another week and I am on the big jet plane home for a month. Will post a time or two before leaving though.