Email I sent home on Saturday, October 20

On a note other than security, my first impressions of Kabul is Dante’s ninth circle of hell. It truly feels that way. The city is pretty much leveled…90 percent of the buildings are makeshift shacks along the side of the road surrounded by rubble. There are a few new buildings and a lot of construction, which the people here say is promising…but nothing seems truly promising. If I had been here 5 years ago maybe I would understand the progress but all I see right now are children sifting barefoot through trash, 4 year olds pumping water from wells..their faces caked in dirt and trucks dumping feces on the streets. If you can breathe, that’s what you smell. Luckily though the pollution is so bad, you can almost never get a big enough breath to realize what fumes are entering your body.

I’m hoping my impression will change. I’m hoping I’ll see all the beauty the contractors who have lived here for years claim is all over the city. But, for now I see utter poverty, beautiful children scrambling for food and the haggard looks of adult afghans who have seen too much and live through hell for decades.

Here is a YouTube video of our drive from the airport to our hotel. I didn’t say very much in this video because I haven’t shared a backseat with an M16 very many times and I needed to think about that.

I also got to make a quick video of us in the hotel lobby. I actually got to make two of these before I got caught filming.