Today is Nowruz, or the Afghan New Year. So be sure to change your calendars, as we're now in year 1389 according to whatever calendar they use.Anyway, I happened to be in Mazar-e-Sharif, or MeS, the past couple of days or so. MeS is where Regional Command (RC) North is headquartered and is largely run by the Germans, with a strong Latvian, Norwegian and Sweedish presence there as well. I'm attaching two pictures from there. One is of what is more or less a Bier Garden area; small plaza with some cafes around (Germans sure know how to set up a camp). The other is the lovely accomodations we had (note to self: cots are not good for the back).
It was a good break from the routine here in Kabul. The area around MeS is much more scenic ('the garden spot of Afghanistan'), the air is cleaner and the camp is much more organized and kept up. It will be interesting to see it once 'Team America' rolls in heavy in the next few months.
Anyway, that's about it from here. I only have another month or so, so time is really starting to fly by and I'll be back before I know it!
We might know how to set up camp, but then again, we are not technically fighting a war. To sell Afghanistan to the German public, the governments have mostly sugar-coated the whole thing beyond recognition, fearing the backdraft of the whole "Germans to the front". Lately, there has been some change, but only after the Kunduz air strike in September... Eh, we'll talk when you're back in the States :-)
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