Andrea in Afghanistan

Updates from Kabul

Saturday, May 10, 2008

'tv mountain'

Some colleagues recently took me to the top of 'tv mountain' in Kabul, to help me get geographically oriented to the city.  Since I never get to walk the streets, take public transport (um, there is none) and I'm always being driven around like a child, it's hard to get a sense of direction...
On the top of the hill are transmitters for all the local television outlets.  Dust gets in the way of the view, but I can still get an idea of Kabul's sprawl.  The hill itself used to be uninhabited, but since the fall of the Taliban, houses have sprouted up on the steep twists of the hill... almost entirely people from more mountainous regions outside of Kabul.
One of my colleagues Tabasum shows me around.  I have yet to figure out how to make my hijab wind-proof.
There are signs of more sinister days here.  The nice view made for a nice spot for mujahideen to lob shells at other mujahideen on other hills. Unfortunately they often missed and leveled large swathes of neighborhoods below.  TV mountain was a favorite spot of Massoud's troops.  
Tank bits are a pretty common site.  

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