At last, I have worked out this picture thingy.
After much dithering your blogger has finally found out how to shrink a photo to a size that will fit on the blog. SO here it is a picture of our house in Kabul!
Yes, this really is a "good" neighbourhood of Kabul, we are not badly off compared to most of the residents of the city. More than 60% of the "houses" in Kabul are illegally built. More than 3 million refugees have returned to the city and it is bursting, so people build a mud brick house wherever they can find a piece of land. Now Kabul, s at 1800m high and sits in a plain surrounded by mountains. Most of the illegal houses are literally perched on the hillsides, made of mud brick, have no water, electricity or gas supply. Everything is carried up the mountainside to the "house". Any ruined building will have tatty tarpaulins around a devastated room and people will be living in there, in tents, literally anything.
Ah, I hear you ask, what are the icons of Kabul life, well we have three in this picture which are very common sites here in Kabul and probably unusual where you are.
1) The armoured car. This Nissan Patrol weighs 4 tonnes, has armour plating beneath and the doors etc around the people bit. This makes the doors very heavy and difficult to open and close. It also has bullet/blast proof glass all round.
2) The armed guard outside our house, these are also the guards who travel ith us and, you will remember, went to the zoo with me.
3)The woman wearing the Burkha, covered from head to toe with just a grill to see throgh. Now I hope you may understand my humour at watching these ladies trying to eat a picnic in the zoo.
Oh yes, if you click on the photo it will enlarge. The big window at teh top with the bars on it, thats my bedroom. My view on the world!!
My next treat for you is, I hope, a piccie of demining in action.
Today I am off to buy a carpet, inshallah. Will let you know how it goes.
