**This is the last post I made in Kabul before returning back to Austin. Tonight we start airing the reports of my trip to Afghanistan. Check back throughout the day as I continue posting YouTube videos and photos from the trip. After each report, I’m going to post a wrap-up here, too. **We had another full day today. At 7am, we went to the State Department to follow them to Afghanistan’s version of the Texas State Fair. However, today was VIP day–meaning the Vice President and ambassadors were all there–also meaning that the women happily got to pat me down for an excruciatingly long time and the men took extra care with Frank because apparently he looks Afghan.However, we finally got in and saw a pretty spectacular sight. There were vendors from all over the country with their agricultural and handicraft products. Why this was spectacular is because I haven’t seen anything that economically promising here. But, apparently the U.S. government has poured 1.2 billion dollars into promoting agriculture other than poppy and they are eager to advertise their limited success.The highlight of the fair, however, was seeing the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan greeting the vendors. I had been trying to set up an interview with him for awhile, only to be told he was always out of town or busy. However, as soon as I saw him, I ran up to his press guy and insisted we get at least a two minute interview since we were the only American media in sight. I told him I worked for NBC (did NOT mention it was the NBC that broadcasts only to Central Texas). Amazingly, he agreed and we were able to interview the ambassador about his plans to eradicate the poppy fields. I was hoping he would talk about his very controversial plans to pour chemicals on the fields, but he would only tell me next year would be a very bad year for poppy growth (it better be, this year was an amazing year for the plant!)We then went to get more video of Afghan police training and it watched them try to hit the targets. First, they wouldn’t shoot because the target was in the silhouette of a man and their religion forbids shooting people and then when they did shoot, about half of them didn’t hit the target once! It was their first few days at the academy though.  They then handed me a fully automatic AK-47 and after a few attempts… I got the hang of it.

On the way back we were stuck in a traffic jam that was going nowhere because cars are coming at you, there are no street signs and not one traffic light in the country. I was told they follow the rule of politeness on the road, although I don’t think setting vehicle IED’s on the shoulder is that polite.

Here’s a video where stopped on the side of the road at the Kabul River.