Jalalabad

This morning my colleague Joe and I jumped on a plane to Jalalabad, which is off to the east towards Pakistan. We make these occasional forays out into the country to check on outposts set up by one of the programs for which we work. The first thing I noticed when I got off the plane was the humidity. Kabul is dry, like Martini dry. When we disembarked the aircraft (our faithful Russian-made, Armenian-piloted Antonov cargo prop), it felt like I'd somehow been transported back to North Carolina in the middle of the worst of the summer heat. The second thing I noticed was sporadic gunfire to the west. No-one seemed too concerned, so I asked one of the security guys if there was a shooting range nearby. He relied in the affirmative and advised me that they "always have to tell those guys to stop shooting when the planes come in, since the impact area for the gunfire includes the runway." Welcome to J-Bad. As we were driving around, I talked to our driver about the U.S. military presence in the area. Jalalabad sits on the major route to the Khyber Pass, which is the major route into Pakistan. It turns out there are some Marines up there, which may include some of my former students (I know there in Afghanistan). Now the only question is whether or not I can wrangle an excuse to jump on the plane again and go up there again for a few days.