Chocolate fountains

It has been raining for 4 days here in Kabul and the city is transformed. So we have good news and bad news. The good news being the dust is now settled with the constant wet; however, this brings problems of its own.
As you know many of the roads in Kabul are not tarmaced and the soil is extremely fine. This has led to the rain turning the streets in a filthy mud bath. There is no vegetation on the soil so it is not possible to walk on the grass, just mud.
If you have ever dipped a marshmallow in a chocolate fountain you will understand completely the colour, texture and consistency (unfortunately not the taste) of the mud that is now ankle deep on the streets of Kabul.
It also has the ability to stick like glue, so everything is now coated in the mud. Every vehicle is plastered, every person is coated from the ankles down and every dog is now a fluffy ball of sticky brown goo.
It also is extremely slippery and difficult to walk or drive on. All along the dirt verges there are abandoned cars and lorries where people parked one evening in the dry and have not been able to move it since, as the mud has got thicker, deeper and ever more slippery.
The sight of wheels spinning and a huge spray of mud being thrown into the air is commonplace as the lorries struggle to get a grip on the verge and get back onto the road.
The sight of women with limited vision in their burkha’s trying to pick a route down the street through the mud and puddles, holding the hem of their burkha above the mud in a pair of heeled shoes or plastic sandals is tragically comical. Their plight is made worse by the burkha that does not let them see the ground beneath their feet and they constantly end up walking into the deeper and wetter sections.
Small children are out getting the bread for the family in brightly coloured trousers that simply are brown from the knees down with muddy brown toes sticking out from their plastic sandals.
Unfortunately a change of footwear for each season is beyond the pocket of most Afghans and the same sandals or shoes that got them through the bitter winter and the hot summer will now get them through the wet and mud of Spring.
So we are now watching the weather forecast for the sunshine that will soon follow and dry up the ground very quickly, leaving us with the deep ruts and puddle holes to negotiate through.
However, the softening of the ground is welcome for the demining effort.
As you can imagine, when you are digging for a landmine by hand, digging soft ground is far preferable to hacking away at hard baked earth, when it is easier to set it off and cause very serious damage to yourself. The ability to gently scrape away the soil is a real bonus for a deminer. So, he may be wet, he may be covered in mud, but he is much safer and in the end that is so much more important. In fact, between the frozen ground of Winter and the hard baked ground of Summer, this wet period is the safest and easiest for the deminer in the field.