surrendering to the present

My Farsi is coming on thanks to our lovely co-hosts in Mazaar-e-Shariff, young teenage boys, altho Rosie is leaps ahead in terms of getting to grips with the language, being fluent in 2/3 languages opens pathways in ones' brain and thus makes it easier to pick up even more. I spoke to my Granny today and handed the phone over to my new friend Masood, so he chatted to her very competently and charmingly, she was impressed with his English, I think he was too!!
I have embarked on a wee creative project consisting of interviewing people I meet and asking them about their lives in Afghanistan and their hopes for the future, so I spent the morning here chatting to the families who live here, as I am not allowed out alone it is fortunate that lots of people live in my accommodation who are happy to talk to me. Very interesting material to work with, and as it is developed I will upload it and put the link onto this blog. I feel in a very powerful position to challenge some of the negative perceptions about Afghanistan.
Me and Rosie went and spent the evening in a state maternity hospital yesterday, it was sooooo interesting, I saw my 1st birth, a gorgeous wee boy who I called Ramin. The experience was interesting from many perspectives, there were not enough staff for a busy ward, but there were trained midwives and an anaethetist, and a gynacologist, facilities were minimal, but better than places Rosie had worked in Africa apparently. A women only space, so burquas came flying off- and we were pleased to see that beautiful faces were revealed beneath them, prior to this we wondered if the invisible faces were hard or sweet.
We have a flight booked to Herat but there have been no flights for the last couple of days, tomorrow we go apparently, we will see, the roads through the mountains are blocked with snow- on the news today there was a report showing many people stranded in metres of snow on the road to Kabul.
We will see, we are loving the act of surrendering to the experiences that are here......