I listened to more of the lectures for my Intro to Islam class tonight, and considering some of the awful things that have been going on in Afghanistan as of late brought to mind one of my old blog posts from 2004/2005, one of many peaceful memories I have of the place:

It was still chilly and overcast but the rain had stopped when we'd exited Kabul. The plains were broad and green, punctuated by clusters of walled-off mud buildings while they sloped up to the mountains on our left. We could sometimes see their white peaks through the clouds, rugged and imposing.

Many of the rough mud buildings were in ruins, and there were tank-remains that dotted the fields. Ayoob pointed at different, broad stretches of land and in his careful, deliberate English would tell us, "here, from 1993 to 1996 I cleaned of mines."

Geoff suggested that we stop for tea; Ayoob pulled over in a dusty village where we waited for Geoff to catch up. Their vehicle arrived about a half hour later - it turned out that Borhaan, a pediatrician who was returning to his homeland for the first time in over twenty years, had found some old acquaintances and had stopped to talk. After a brief discussion we decided to try and find a more picturesque village for tea, one with fewer limping dogs and men in dusty single-breasted suits riding bicycles.

The road became tree-lined and shaded, the fields greener and thicker. Geoff's vehicle came to a halt ahead of us, and still irritated by the last half-hour delay I cracked that Borhaan must have found more friends when he stepped out of the truck and embraced the heavily armed man standing at the passenger's side window - looks like he actually had found more old friends. As it happened, while we were driving Borhaan started to recognize the region as the one his uncle's chauffer, whom he'd last seen 25 years ago, was from. The man's son, who immediately recognized Borhaan, was now the regional security chief, and he escorted us to his father's house.

The vehicles were parked by a school and we walked up a broad dirt path, flanked by men with guns. It was, however, still, quiet and peaceful, the men were polite and deferential. You could hear the children playing in the school down the road, carefree.

Borhaan was finally reunited with his family's former chauffer, who had an enormous goiter. No one cried; Borhaan just had this halfway stunned and pleased look in his face the entire time they chatted in Dari, or was it Farsi? We followed Borhaan and his family's former chauffer to the end of the dirt path which opened to a surprise: they had erected a large concrete tea platform and surrounded it with living birch trees that formed an arbor around the retreat. They had fashioned a canopy over the tea platform by laying cross-branches between these trees, and several vines were entangled on the beams overhead, providing a dappled shade. Rosebushes lined the path and stairs to the tea platform, and while we situated ourselves on the carpets and cushions laid out for us, one of the man's heavily armed sons cut a bouquet of the flowers for Tammi.

Borhaan and the old man caught up while his sons served us tea, candied almonds, bread; here, you could breathe, deep, cool breaths, and look at the snow-covered mountains almost hidden by the clouds. Night was falling when we left for Kabul, a dusty, hazy light on the horizon.