Mountain Dive

6th September 2012

So my days so far have been fairly repetitive I guess, apart from my 1 year anniversary with Chloe on the 4th! I do wish that I could have been at home for that, but that wasn't really possible...

I generally go out with the Sustainable Energy Services Afghanistan (SESA) staff members in the mornings and watch them do their thing while I get a tan. Then in the afternoon I stay around the office or go out with someone else who has something to do and see all the behind the scenes things that go on in a project like this.

When we went shopping at the supermarket right at the start of the project we got what we thought was Mountain Dew. But then one night I looked at the label and it wasn't it was actually Mountain Dive!

We went for a walk around one day, having a look at some power lines that were already put up by a previous project that had to be scrapped and we found these kids. The problem is, if you show them any attention, like we did, then they will just keep following your around and get more and more confident.

They eventually started running up to Tem and trying to steal his drink bottle and unzip his bags to take things from inside. I could just imagine him doing something like Shrek on Shrek 2 and roaring at them, "I'm an Ogre! AAAAAAARRRRRGGGHHH!" Luckily Alpha knows how to say "Fuck off!" in Dari and they left us alone after that. There were plenty more kids to come though.

Things are going well though, and I'm expecting to be back in Wellington on about the 17th of September!

Plates of moulded shit, definitely from donkeys, not sure if there is human in there too...
They use it for firewood. I'm sure it is a great scent.

They have a soccer field set up on the outskirts of their village, the road goes right through the middle of it.

The tunnel under the airport, it is too small to stand up straight in.

Trying to get the four wheel drive van up the slope. It's so dusty it's like trying to drive up a sand dune.