New Campus

For the past few Thursday and Saturday mornings I've joined several of my colleagues at the 45 acre plot where the new campus will be built: to run, walk (that's me), be outside and play. We still have an escort, a driver and an armed guard with us, but there's lots of land and a chance to almost be by oneself.

The site is in the shadow of the Darulaman Palace.

And I never got tired of taking pictures of it.

Like the Palace, the land here took a fair amount of shelling during the fighting between warring Afghan factions in the 1990's.

Only recently were all the landmines removed. The white stone indicates 'OK;' the red flag: 'landmine', but all gone now - I hope.

Excavation of a mine?

Left over tank from the Soviet occupation in the 1980's.

Soviet artifacts.

This was once part of Kabul University which was housed on the original site.


Here's me, looking important.

Actually, I was looking at the dead sunflowers in the courtyard of the bombed building.Part of the Veterinary School of Kabul University which is still on site. The dog barks and barks when I approach, but also wags that tail. The cows just do their thing.

The fat-rumped sheep. Only two willing to pose; the third said 'baa.'

The goat.
And his friend.

This gentleman (the caretaker, I think) and I manage to have a conversation in Dari. Not much: 'how are you?' and 'I'm fine and you?' sort of thing. I did manage to crank out in Dari that I was a professor at the University. He told me the words for goat (boz), sheep (gospan) and cow (gaw), offered to shake my hand and posed for this picture.

There is no money for construction of the main buildings yet - estimated to be $50 million, but the facilities for the guards are currently being built.

Trees have been planted and it's possible to visualize the final roads.

Here's the soccer field which is almost finished - missing bleachers.

A downed kite. Recent, I think.

Me trying my hand at kite flying. Not as easy as it looks!

The darn thing just kept spinning and crashing.

Here's our driver trying his best to help out.

The kite is aloft, but I didn't get it there; the driver did and then let me hold the string. I think the guard wanted to join in but he was in charge of the gun.

It's a dragonfly - relaxing on the soccer boundary line.