Kabul, June 14th

The mountains of Afghanistan look the way mountains are supposed to. They rise steeply out of the valley just outside of Kabul, nothing but rock spires and talus slopes. I don't look up at them much- in the daytime you can't really see them for all the dust in the air. Kabul is amazing, a crush of humanity surrounded by absolutely barren land. Everyone has carved there on little pockets in the city, maintained by walls and guards with guns. Private security, US soldiers, International peacekeepers all driving around on streets overwhelmed by taxis and bicycles. On the way through town you can drive by a dozen compounds with armed guards and have no idea who is in any of them. We went to a US base yesterday to buy some things and had to walk through a metal detector, which was hilarious because we were all carrying submachine guns.