falling

[tile detail from mosjid-jamé/friday mosque/blue mosque of herat]

this morning, while skyping with one of my two west coast life coaches, our chatter was interrupted by increasingly loud helicopter sounds. over the internets, these noises resembled the buzzing of angry bees. suddenly, it became clear that a helicopter was about to land on my rooftop - the sound was excruciating + the wind nearly blew the glass out of our windows. when we ran onto our terrace to see what was going on, we were shocked to see a group of u.s. helicopters radiating around our home + from two doors down onward, dust + smoke completely obscuring the landscape. a bomb?

[unmasked eid celebrant w/toy gun]

our security company reported back about 5 minutes later than a u.s. helicopter had made an emergency landing within a 1/2 block of our house. we have the tallest building in these parts, + i think it nearly swiped us. ridiculously frightening!


[the workers are busy working]

chaos pursued en route to the german clinic. i was delighted to see three donkeys grazing by the roadside but was completely flummoxed as i watched one poor soul tumble into the v. deep drainage ditch! the driver pretended not to understand me when i cried for him to stop. happily, the dear donkey did manage to right himself + was left looking just a bit confused but not apparently too hurt to return to his grazing, which he was conveniently able to continue from his stance in the ditch.



[sweet friends]

the germans confirmed my self-diagnosis of h. pylori bacteria ("thousands + thousands of bacterias swimming in your stomach") + also said i have some sort of secondary infection, so i'm on 4 different antibiotics, oh my. i can't say that i'm surprised that there's something fishy going on . . . i was awakened this morning by a dream in which i was the new devotee of a religious leader who lived in an edible building resembling the taj mahal. as we approached the compound, one of my fellow devotees instructed me on my new job: "the leader has two dogs: care bear and care bear. they each need their own private time in the yard but also time together. you must manage this."

c'mon back, snow leopard

in april, afghanistan opened its first national park, band-i-amir, in the hindu kush mountains of bamiyan province.










band-i-amir was once home to snow leopards, which have been poached to near extinction. now, they are being re-introduced into the newly established wildlife preserve, along with indigenous species of asiatic black bears + marco polo sheep.







tourists enter the park via a narrow path that has been cleared of land mines. once inside, they can even ride swan boats!







i might-might-might be chartering a helicopter with a few folks + trying to get myself up there to see the snow leopards + the true blue waters + what's left of the buddhas soon, please, oh, please.

there is a proposal in the works to make band-i-amir an unesco world heritage site, which would aid in its conservation/protection. afghanistan's bamiyan valley and the minaret at jam have already made the list. check out the panaromas linked from each name above - breathtaking.