Finally made it!

I am now in the Pragma house in Kabul! Our flight from Baku ended up leaving 50 hours after the originally scheduled time, so when the flight attendant apologized for the "delay" we had a chuckle. I'm lying in my comfy bed with the heater on and the wifi connecting me to the world. I just heard the evening call to prayer faintly through the window. The weather was beautiful today and there is snow on the ground.

The goodbyes to my friends through adversity in Baku were kind of aborted because I spent some time looking for one of my bags (supposedly all the Baku bags were in one pile, but it turned out one of mine was still over on the conveyor belt). Hopefully Vince, Scott, Sergei, Ron, and everyone else made it to their destinations without issue.

The airport is chaotic. I was a bit taken in by the surrounding mountain views while walking from the airplane to the terminal and when I entered, the guys were yelling my name and pulled me in front of some other people in line. "What's up?" I asked. "Just wanted to make sure you're OK..." A minor gesture, but it's nice to have people looking out for you sometimes.

After about 40 minutes in line we moved on to the baggage claim area, which was a pile of luggage. A kid who must have been about 16 came over to me and I figured he was going to try to get me to pay him to help me with my bags, but he muttered, "baggage claim" and it slowly dawned on me he was the guy who verified you took the right luggage. Well, I found my large bag quickly and was rooting around for the other with no luck. The guy sent by Pragma showed up with a "Mr. Jon Clark" sign and helped out. Eventually, I worked my way through the crowd at the stilled conveyor on the other side of the room and there was my bag, along with another from Baku. There were many plastic bags of stuff, which I surmised belonged to the "prisoners." I realize those guys must have been in the Baku airport the entire time--three nights sleeping on the metal benches and eating airplane food!

The lead instructor didn't make it out of Dubai today, so I will meet her in person tomorrow. We thought her flight would come in after mine, so we waited a bit and during that time I went back toward the airport to get some photos and video--in particular I wanted a photo of a huge picture of Massoud on the airport with text something like "National Afghan Hero." I asked one of the Pragma staff about this later and he said if he was in charge, he'd take that down. Massoud was a warlord with the Northern Alliance (who essentially worked as the ground force of the American military and took Kabul) and was killed a few days before 9/11 by a suicide attack. So it's not clear that he is in disputably a national hero.

The drive from the airport was a bit chaotic as well--I really feel sorry for the traffic cops because they are almost completely ignored. And everyone but them appears to be armed. No, it isn't that bad, but there are lots of guys with guns around--all that I noticed seemed to have some kind of uniform on as well, but some were awfully young.

The people have been great--again, I feel like an ugly Amercian for not knowing the language, but I'll try to study up on "please" and "thank you" at the very least...

I thought I would be smart last night and wash my socks and undies in the sink...well, they didn't quite have enough time to air dry so I've been soggy in those areas while travelling. But I've kind of bonded with these clothes--I think I'll wear them to bed for old time's sake. :)

Here is some footage at the airport: