Pictures of Afghanistan

This picture depicts a typical mountain spring in Laghman Province, which is the province directly adjacent to and east of Kabul. While the river flow was low at the time I took the picture, the waters can rise dramatically during the flooding seasons.

During our time in Afghanistan, my team and I were escorted by the US military in heavily armored vehicles. One day, over the course of our work, we encountered this man on our way back to the convoy. It always struck me as ironic how much armor we wore while out in the field. It was easy to complain how heavy it got at times. Then I saw this man, and my flak jacket didn't seem so heavy anymore.

I took this picture through the window of a heavily armored military vehicle, while riding down a dirt road that hadn't been cleared for roadside bombs. Each voyage was like a game of Russian roulette, without knowing the size of the barrel. Given the security concerns, I observed Afghanistan through blast proof glass, which had either a yellow or grey tint to it. The dimensions of the glass through which I took this picture were roughly the same proportion as it is depicted here. After I came back to the US, whenever I got into a car, the first thing I did was to roll down a window.

I love to read. Seeing this man lay on a park bench with a book in his hand put a smile on my face during a week plagued by ambush threats. I loved how he seemed oblivious to the puddle that surrounded him. It's almost as if he had been laying there all along, and the water rose around him.

Given the terrain of Afghanistan, we traveled throughout the country on helicopters. I was struck by the barrenness of the mountains. We flew so close to the peaks, at times I felt like I could reach out my hand and touch them.

Seeing children was a good sign. They typically knew when it was safe to be somewhere and when it was not. I was the only woman who traveled with my team, and since I'm not a member of the military I was not dressed in uniform. At times, it felt like the boys looked at me like I was an alien from outer space. Other times, the boys surrounded me and asked me for my autograph. My co-worker joked that they probably thought I was Angelina Joli and had come to adopt them. I hope that by the time these children are my age, they'll have lived most of their lives in a peaceful Afghanistan.