Tonight’s 6:00 p.m. broadcast featured the first of my reports from Kabul. You can read it at KXAN.com and see the story with the accompanying video.

Tomorrow night we will air my interview with the soldier from Round Rock who is training Afghans. Here’s the preview clip:

I have been linking to my video blogs, but thought I would pop up a few here today as we get ready for the series to start airing tonight on KXAN Austin News at 5 and 6 p.m.

This first one is the Kabul River and is shortly after I discovered the source of the awful smell.

Here we are leaving an area where a car bomb exploded.

**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.

I am still reeling from everything we’ve seen in the last two days. Yesterday was an incredible experience when the Afghan Military invited us to their training academy and brought us to the ranges where they fire cannons. The blast was so loud I thought I was going to have a heart attack. The cannons were live fire and after they pulled the cord you could see the fireball explode in the distant mountain. The frightening part is children from a nearby village will wander onto the range to get casings to sell and put themselves in immense danger. One of the U.S. military’s missions is to go to these villages and tell the village elders about the dangers of walking into a range where they are shooting cannons!

The British general wanted me to pull the cord to one of the cannons since it was my birthday but the Afghan general had misgivings: a month ago there was an accident with one of the weapons and five Afghans got blown up. They found two without their heads. There is also a 10 percent rate of Taliban infiltration in the military and they have had suicide bombers kill people there. After hearing that I was more than content to just watch the spectacle.

We also met the perfect person to highlight in one of our stories. He was a Round Rock cop who was called out to Afghanistan and is now training the Afghan military. Let me tell you, when the guys weigh about 100 pounds each and have no education, he has a job ahead of him. Taking one look at this military, I have a feeling the U.S. won’t be out of here for many years to come if they don’t want a resurgence of the Taliban. I mean, no offense, but I could beat a lot of these guys up!

Today we went out on a recon mission with some of the soldiers. They loaded us up in their Humvees and brought us to a village in the mountains. The poverty is sickening. Most of the homes have no roofs even though the winters are intense here. The children run around with mud and dirt caked all over them. Most of them have constant diarrhea because there is either no water or filthy water. They have no well, no school and no amenities whatsoever. When we arrived the children pounced on us, so excited to take pictures.

The U.S.military is getting permission to build a well in the neighborhood. However, they had to first speak with the village elders to get permission and figure out how many kids are there. A total population of 500 people…350 of them are kids. I can’t get the images of those children out of my head.

Here’s a video from the oldest street in Kabul so you can see what it is like for yourself.

P.S. A tidbit of info: I found out today that most of the pollution we’re breathing in is fecal matter…remember, no plumbing means all the _____ gets poured into the street and eventually evaporates into our nostrils. Nice.

After an incredibly hectic day, I was greeted at our hotel with some great news. Two threats have been made towards our hotel this week (not the great news) because of the 1st ever Islamic Police Women’s Conference being held here (great news)!

Imagine this: dozens of women pouring into to our hotel, many covered from head to toe in burqas and police badges on their sleeves. It is pretty awe-inspiring to realize that these women are risking their lives to have these jobs….literally. I mentioned the two bomb threats made to our hotel because of their mere existence…

I was also pleasantly surprised to realize that I knew people coming to the conference due to the stories we’ve been doing. My police, military, translator friends and even the Afghan general I interviewed was here. We all greeted each other like old friends as I held my breath waiting for a suicide bomber to interrupt our little reunion.

On another note, what an impressive day. We went to the women’s business center and saw women training to become entrepreneurs. We then went to a clothing factory and saw how they hand stitch all the clothes. The best part, however, was convincing our security drivers to finally take us around the city and let us get out of the car to shoot video and witness Kabul as it is.

And, what it is - is out of control. You’re walking down the streets and you’ll see a taxi with 10 or more people..the babies crammed on top wedged between those sitting down and the ceiling. Behind the taxi will be a donkey led cart with a guy selling rotten bananas. Then an amputee will come out of nowhere, sometimes dragging himself along the ground because he has no crutches or wheelchair. Plants are all dead, the river couldn’t even be called a stream and the only crop surviving the lack of water/irrigation is poppy (which is the reason Afghanistan produces 93% of the world’s heroin). Oh, and many of the people here are addicted to the drug as well because its so cheap and their lives are so miserable.

The bright side? There are also dozens of little girls with backpacks coming out of school, something unheard of not too long ago. Many women don’t cover their face anymore, even though the ones that do all wear the same color burqa for some reason (baby blue). And, believe it or not there is construction, which means as long as another country doesn’t bomb them for a few years, there may actually be businesses with roofs soon.

Another thing I’ve noticed and I’m already becoming accustomed to—there is a constant state of paranoia for everyone who lives here. Whether they be Afghans, U.S. contractors, military members: everyone watches your move and is very aware of the fact this day may be their last. Eyes are on you all the time. In fact, if you’re driving a car and the Afghan police tell you to slow down and you don’t-they shoot and kill you. It happened to a French ISAF worker today.

Being here is like being on an emotional roller coaster. As a journalist, you try to see everything objectively, as a human you can’t help but become emotionally involved. Every day feels like a week here and every night I fall into bed exhausted.

I posted another YouTube video of us at Camp Eggers.

Email I sent late night October 20

Today was another intense day. We went to police training academy and watched the Afghan police force learn how to fire their weapons. We also went to the family response unit where U.S. police officers are helping curb domestic violence. As we were leaving the police station we heard two explosions go off though we haven’t gotten word if they were landmine detonations or if they were car bombings. All the security people at my hotel say they haven’t heard of any roadside bombings…today. It shook me up though and it hit home that we are really in a warzone and anything can happen at any moment.
¼br> What is interesting is right now my hotel is crawling with guys in bullet proof vests and guns. I just spoke with someone who said we are at a heightened security threat right now–and have been for the past week. I just talked to the head of security here and he said this past week there have been more eyes on our hotel because of all the government officials who come here.

I have a lot of photos, here are a few:

This is Frank, our photographer. He got some amazing video for our special.

Here I am on the oldest street in Kabul.

A family getting water from a well.

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.

I’ll be posting some new videos today and much more about the trip. KXAN has started to promote this blog, so I better get my posts up. The interviews and video we are preparing will air in a week long series on KXAN starting November 12. Here’s the first online ad that’s up.

We’re finally back in Austin and sifting through the 15 hours of video and interviews we shot while overseas.  Thank you for following our journey through my blog posts and since internet could be spotty in Kabul sometimes, I’m going to post in the coming days the rest of the e-mails and journal entries I wrote while over there.  Thanks again for reading and watching the videos (they weren’t always easy to shoot as you’ll see when a guard starts yelling at me for having the mini cam rolling..)