Reblogged from MarySmith’sPlace:
To de-stress after completing Arif’s accounts we went shopping in Tezak bazaar, where I’d spent the first night on the road, when travelling north with Khudadad almost six months ago.
The teahouse gossip concerned a recent bombing raid on the bazaar. The Kabul Government suspected mujahideen base camps were close to Tezak. I was puzzled there was so little evidence of bombing raids and was told since the mujahideen had acquired anti-aircraft guns, bombers could no longer fly in so low. The pilots were forced to drop the bombs from a much higher height, sacrificing accuracy for safety.
I wondered how I’d feel if I were ever caught in a bombing raid. Apart from here in Tezak, where the men assured us there would be no bombing for some weeks yet (how could they be sure?), our travels never took us near places of any significance in the war. However, on my second time in Afghanistan the following spring, I found out.
We weren’t supposed to be in Sia Huq the day it was bombed. A broken leaf spring, which refused to be held together any longer with bits of wire and string, forced us to make the detour. Sia Haq, once a tiny village barely two hours from Kabul, had become a major transport depot held by the mujahideen.
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Thanks for sharing, Sue.
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Glad to, Mary… what an chapter to live through!
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It was an adventure and a half – luckily I didn’t have to live quite so dramatically for most of the time.
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I think this is a case of when living through it seems normal…because it was your normal… but the rest of us look on in awe at a fantastic story being played out in a life 🙂
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Yes, you are right. And most Afghans living through it wouldn’t even think of blogging about it.
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Exactly… the paramaeters of normality get awfully fluid 😉
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Mary’ stories are almost very heart touching, and horribly unbelievable too. Will head over to read the new sequel. Thank you, Sue!
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This one is particularly scary,Michael.
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Indeed. It want a vacancy, not even a very healthy stay there.
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