The view from my bed in Kunar. Taken with a crap camera. Imagine a sky alight with stars.
Am in the east, where it’s hot. Too hot to sleep inside without electricity, so the beds have been moved out into the garden.
As dusk faded through the trees up in Asad Abad, the serenade of a nightingale was replaced by the buzzing of insects and the loud wash of the river. A rather magical, slightly hallucinogenic night, drifting in and out of sleep as helicopters occasionally thundered low overhead through the warm, heavy air.
Now back in Jalalabad, sleeping out on the roof. The moon shimmering through the mosquito net as it billows in the wind, a stately four-poster sailing bed.
Or maybe I’ve got sunstroke.
July 5, 2009 at 4:40 am |
I think you’ve got sunstroke.
At least in Kunar you have a river and woods. Here in Paktia, all we’ve got is bloody dust, and lots of it. Ah, luckily the office cleaner has just started his daily ritual flooding of the courtyard with the hose pipe to keep the dust at bay. It’s not like this country lacks the water or anything.
Love your insights and writing. What a great blog.
August 20, 2009 at 10:11 am |
That camera seems to have dished up a version of Kazimir Malevich’s “Black Square”.
On a similar note, I tried playing John Cage’s 4.33 for Piano in a bar on the Southbank the other day.