Neighborhood

At home in New Hampshire, our streets and roads are lined with trees and as you drive around, you can see the homes of your neighbors, their gardens, their wash hanging on the line and their children playing in the yard. In Afghanistan, the streets are also lined with trees but the residences are all enclosed inside of walls.

As you drive along the streets in the residential areas, you only see large walls with doors inserted. At the top of many of the walls is barbed wire. (The little spot in the sky of the picture is a kite. In the afternoons, we can sit on our veranda and watch kites flying in the sky! Those are the neighbor children who are flying the kite. They are standing on their rooftop, otherwise we wouldn't be able to see them as their yard is also enclosed by walls.)

You cannot see the actual home, garden, or children playing. I hear children all day long as I go out into our garden but I haven't seen them. I haven't met my neighbors and I probably won't. There is a great lack of trust amongst the people of Afghanistan.

Welcome to our "home" here in Herat, Afghanistan. When we arrive home, we see the gate next to the road. Our driver stops in front of the gate and we ring the bell.

Zabi will open for us and then he will open the doors wider so that the driver can bring the car inside of the compound. The picture below shows the inside of the gate and to the right in the picture is our bedroom window.

Once inside, you see our front door.

It's very safe. Zabi watches the gate, Hekmat buys the groceries, most of the time, and he and I share the cooking responsibilities. Yaqoub also stays here - he is Dennis' tech guy and manages the finances for the project. He and Hekmat are also full time students at the University. Nick from the Univ. of California - Davis is here for 10 days doing some work with soil science, setting up labs, etc. So we have a house full - of guys! And next month another professor from UC-Davis will come to work on irrigation.