sorry, i have no photos to post as yet. but i know you do not visit this blog purely for the visual stimulation, so, here you go.
i am in herat now. at least, i think this is herat. actually, i'm not even sure this is afghanistan. i may have been re-directed without my knowledge and transplanted into another country where paranoia supersedes reason and where all the foreigners i interact with are flanked with private security details hovering but a few feet away.
this is not my experience of afghanistan. this is not the afghanistan i have come to know and love over the past years. i have ejected myself from what is to me a meaningful and passionate engagement with this country and dived into a detached and frighteningly surreal reality where the people with whom i respect, admire and work alongside have become threats, or so i am lead to believe.
mine is an alternate reality that will require reluctant adjustment. maybe my role here can be meaningful in some way, but at this point i need some serious convincing to believe so.
i realized last evening that i do not want to be important. i am much happier, much more myself, when i can be an average person without anything particularly important or controversial to do, when i can live a relatively normal, free life in this country.