There are days in Kabul where I get
very tired of life here. The days where no matter how hard you try to
be positive, you just feel down. It's easy to feel that way
sometimes, when upset stomachs are so common that we hand out Cipro
like children's vitamins and when giardia is appropriate lunch
conversation. When the heat makes everyone irritable, and the open
stares and little comments of men on the street make me long for
home. When the electricity keeps going out, and the Internet keeps
going out, and it seems like every truck in the city has to drive by
my window fifteen minutes after I've finally fallen asleep and then
every ten minutes thereafter.
All of these are minor irritations,
usually chased easily away by the taste of a juicy Kabul watermelon,
carefully washed, or a barbecue in the garden, ignoring the barbed
wire on the compound walls. But sometimes, the seriousness of life
hits, and those concerns aren't so quickly dismissed.
I just heard that a friend was badly
injured in a recent attack. She was in the shower when an RPG hit her
building, part of a coordinated attack that threatened the lives of
several people I know. There were armed men who broke into the
compound, guards who fought back, a gurka who died a hero as others
fled to safety. My friend escaped with her life but with 3rd
degree burns on 99% of her body.
I heard all of these details as I sat
on the sidelines of our weekly Frisbee game, beside a guy who is a
tough and talented Frisbee player but who broke down a little as we
talked. Because Barbara was his friend, because he had other friends
in that compound, because he'd been at that compound just before the
attack. But also because that attack violated something that we take
for granted- the safety of our homes. It was a reminder that the
danger here isn't confined to Helmand or Kandahar, isn't avoided
simply by using common sense and not driving in the bad areas.
Sometimes danger comes to you even when you do nothing wrong.
Sometimes even the most heavily guarded compounds come under attack,
and although Frisbee games and garden barbecues help us stay sane,
sometimes those bits of self care just feel frivolous. It feels wrong
to play when Barbara is in critical condition, and it feels wrong to
laugh and joke like everything is okay when so many of us are as
shaken as my fellow Frisbee player on the sidelines.
Between all of that, and feeling really
sick for the last four days, and saying final goodbyes to some very
close friends, it's been not such a good weekend. And since I'm so
close to going home, there's a part of me that wants to cling to that
departure date, to dream of the day when the frustrations of life
here will be gone.
I was at a meeting yesterday, though,
where someone told us to feel blessed in being allowed to live in
Afghanistan. Not to act like a martyr and struggle through, but to
wake every morning and thank God for sending me here. It reminds me
of all those times I've been told to live in the moment and to not
worry about tomorrow and to just rejoice in today... and how I'm I'm
better at feeling like a martyr, even when it's rarely justified.
So I'm working on that. There's a part
of me that remembers all the rougher days throughout this year, but
also remembers the fact that they passed, as these days will too. I
remember that the next few weeks are my last ones in Afghanistan, and
if I wish them away, I don't get them back. There are so many things
I love about being here, so many things I will incredibly miss about
this country. Yes, there's dangers, and annoyances, and frustrations,
but on the whole, it's been a wonderful year. During the rough times,
we have to cling to the good times, remember the beautiful moments
that give us strength. It's the rough times that make good times that
much better, because without the valleys, there would be no peaks.
And even within the rough times, there are blessings and reasons to
be thankful. It just takes the right attitude to find them.
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