Dear all,

Just a short update on things as they are, or seem to be, in Kabul.

The weather is very nice here - mid-70's and sunny - and there's lots of green around - foliage, not money. After a six-year drought, this winter brought more cold, rain, and snow than had been seen around these parts for quite some time. As a result, the trees are green, there's grass where none was before, and the rose bushes in my guesthouse yard are beautiful.

Humankind, alas, has been less than beautiful for the last week or so. We have had a few nights that were, shall we say, more exciting than necessary, producing less sleep than needed.

I live in a guesthouse on a street called Passport Lane. That's because the Afghan Passport Office is here. It's only a one-block, dusty, rock-strewn lane and is usually on the quiet side. But that was not the case a week ago when I was awoken about 2:30 am by crowd noises outside. As with most places here, my guesthouse has a wall about eight feet high on the edge of the street, then a yard of about 30 feet and then the house. My room is the first one inside the door on the ground level, with my windows facing the yard and the street. In my sleepiness, I couldn't tell exactly where the crowd was or what it was, but this being Afghanistan, I was sure it was not a drunken party letting out. Attempts to go back to sleep failed as the noise grew louder over the next hour or so. Finally I opened my window to sneak a peak. While I couldn't see precisely what was going on, it was apparent that the crowd was just on the other side of our wall. Since the whole Koran-flushing affair had just flared up a day or two before, this gave me pause.

By 4 am the crowd noise had grown yet louder and more ominous, and I was putting on my get-the-hell-outta-here clothes. For the next half-hour I wandered back and forth, hoping someone else in the house would get up so I would have some crisis company, but there was no one anywhere. By 4:30, dawn was breaking and I could finally see more clearly - people were absolutely packed in the street and were on each others' shoulders to the point that they looked ready to come over the wall. If they did, I was the first room they would come to and I was from the country that produced that wondrous tribute to democracy we call Gitmo. I started planning where to run, but the choices were slim. I think it fair to say that in all my travels to dicey places, this moment produced the most fright I have experienced. Finally at about 5, I saw two westerners with cameras on the balcony of the small building near mine (and on my side of the wall) - taking pictures of the scene below. Thrilled to finally see humans who I knew weren't ready to attack me, I joined them to find out what was going on.

The crowd in the narrow street below numbered about 400, but did not appear bent on my bodily destruction. Police were there keeping some semblance of order and trying, with limited success, to get everyone to quiet down. An hour later, when the guesthouse staff finally woke up (I marvel at how they slept through this), I found out the reason for this scene. It seems that the Passport Office had been closed for the last two weeks, thanks to some of its security folk stealing all the blank passports to pass out to their friends. It was finally scheduled to open the next morning, and this mob was merely waiting to get numbers (a la the DMV) so they could apply for passports. Just a normal night in Kabul.

The next night I yearned for a good night's sleep, went to bed early, and was awakened from a deep slumber at about 12:30 am. "Mr. Jeem, please pack your bags. There is a fire and you may have to leave." I had heard a bang a couple hours before while going to bed, but thought nothing up - lots of things go bump in the night around here.

This one, however, turned out to be a rocket that crossed over the guesthouse and exploded in the hospital a block or so away. The fire that resulted went out of control and was creeping toward the guesthouse. In my semi-consciousness, I threw some things in a backpack, went outside to see that there was indeed a big fire heading our way, realized that I was leaving 90 percent of my belongings behind, and went back in to pack up everything else. By about 2 am the fire was under control, and though some or our residents had already left, the rest of us determined that we were out of harm's way. After much unpacking and some bourbon to share with the other non-Muslim guests, it was back to bed around 3.

The next night I decided to go by the UN's main guesthouse for a little socializing. I had been there for an hour or so when the news hit the compound that an Italian woman from CARE had just been kidnapped a few short blocks away. That sort of put a damper on the socializing, as well as creating a "lockdown" situation for all UN staff who were in the room, so I headed for home (thankfully not subject to the UN lockdown rules). The rest of the evening was relatively quiet….well, except for the two minor earthquakes we experienced in the middle of the night.

The next night (is this boring you yet?) I felt only like staying home and having a quiet dinner with some of the UN folk and journalists who stay here. Midway through dinner, the guesthouse manager came over to our table and announced, "I am sorry, but I have news of the not-so-good kind. An American has just been kidnapped." Well, you just shoulda seen the rush to the cell and satellite phones. Having no one in particular to call, I finished my dinner and retired to my room to watch CNN and wait for the story to break. Thankfully, it turned out to be a false rumor.

The next night….did nothing happen? Not that I can recall, but then the memory cells are failing in this old brain.

So that was the week that was in sunny ol' Kabul.

Hoping that life is a little more boring in Charlottesville,

Jim Heilman (electronic mail, May 23, 2005)