Did he just wash out berries down stream from where the girls are washing their feet?

The last two days we have been going to Barek Aub to work with the IDP camp, but today we switched it up. Recovering from dust inhalation, camel falls, and sore dancing muscles, we set out for our day. Once again we decked out in our Afghan attire and “hit the tires” as W______ calls it. We headed about 1 ½ hours out of Kabul to a village called Istalif where SOZO has been working for a while. We were able to tour the clinic, an old bombed out hotel, as well as the schools. We even got a chance to just relax under some trees and eat afghan “cherries” (Not really cherries at all, they were what we call Mulberries) that were washed just downstream from where the girls were washing off their feet…just another one of those things you just can’t think about for too long, you just go with it. There are plenty of those around here! They were still delicious! Some of us even risked it and broke one of the most tried and true travel rules and drank some of the stream water when the staff told us is should be fine. It was great and none of us are sick…yet.

We then had a little concert out at the boys school, Marcus on the guitar and Jordan Burgen playing an old metal bucket like a djimbe. Because the school there is more conservative, the principal wouldn’t allow the kids to dance like out at Barek Aub after we encouraged them to…oops. The guys also had to take a brief intermission as the call to prayer blared over the village, and our translator got all worked up and told them to stop. This concert didn’t last long after that as the principal said the kids had to go home for lunch before their parents got worried. So we packed up the guitar proceeded to buy an exorbitant amount of blue pottery (what Istalif is know for) at the market, ate some sketchy ice cream and headed back to the guesthouse for a late lunch.

After lunch, some of us went to Chicken street to be ripped off on overpriced trinkets that we would never buy in the US, and some stayed back at the guesthouse and played soccer with W______’s 8 year old son. Lee got beat repeatedly at one on one, shaming our team and our country. The Chicken Street “Best Find Award” goes to Jordan Burgen, who purchased an old British military helmet with all sorts of metal pieces stuck to it, some chain-link neck protector on the back, and two large ram horns coming out the top! Trust me, this description does not do it justice! INCREDIBLE! He got an amazing deal on it because it was the same shop that a few years ago Jordan Paskitti was struck by a falling metal shield off of a wall sending him to the hospital. Having a much better memory than me (my wife is saying Amen), the shop owner recognized Jon and asked how Jordan’s head was.

After dinner, the boys headed out on the town with W_______ to get us some ice cream to bring back for everyone. We crammed all 9 of the guys in W________’s SUV, blared traditional Afghan music and watched some sort of stunt car show on a little antenna tv in the car while W_______ quite speedily and skillfully maneuvered us through the chaos that is Kabul at Night. After buying an obscene amount of junk food and ice cream, we all packed back in and headed back to the guesthouse where we watched the last episode of Lost on Jon’s computer that took him about 4 days to download from here.

All in all, it was a fun and exciting day getting to see Istalif again (much greener than in 2006 when I was here last), and spending time with W______ , his son, and the SOZO staff.

Benjamin David Thornley

P.S.-I love you Lindsay, Will and Anna! Thanks for all you who are helping take care of my beautiful family while I’m gone!