Countdown started awhile ago but now our departure is in sight, four more days. We checked our tickets, a complicated affair that required a long wait at the Safi offices in downtown Kabul, multiple emails and phone conversations to correct a double booking made three months ago, and two sets of award travel tickets, one from Delta and the other from Air France. I think we are traveling together unless I get an upgrade. Delta keeps sending upgrade certificates to me but I cannot use them because I am booked in the wrong fare class, at least for the next trip.
We learned from Axel’s local doctor that his general malaise, low energy, low appetite and respiratory problems are probably the result of ‘khak’ in his lungs. Khak means dust in Dari and Khakbad (dustwind) is the Afghan (and warm) equivalent of France’s Mistral and Senegal’s Harmattan. It is part of the occupational hazard of living here – the polluted and dusty air not only leaves a fine dust on every surface inside and out, it also coats our lungs. An X-ray, taken to rule out bronchitis or pneumonia, showed a thin white dusting at the bottom of his lungs. That is the ‘khak’ said the doctor, and it can be found in the lungs of almost everyone living here.
For Axel this stuff is causing bronchial spasms. He is taking some liquid that comes in the same bottle as the glycerin for the bubbles. We should be careful not to mistake one for the other. One learns to live with these respiratory problems as one learns to live with security threats. Still, compared to most of Afghanistan’s population, we live a life of luxury here.
We are also learning that Axel has to leave Afghanistan about every 2 months to get his hearing back; it is the same dust that coats the inside of his ears and messes up his hearing aids. The last month of our three-months tours I have to talk a little louder. Some people wonder why we put up with this. The answer is complicated and can be found in many of the last 325 posts on this blog.
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