Combing the Villages, Part I

I think it's making me feel cooler, just looking at the mountain photos. Anything that makes us feel cooler is wonderful. Jalalabad is already above 100 degrees daily now, and packed beyond belief. When the power flickers, and worse, the water in the heads and showers stops running for a couple days, things are pretty beat. Anyway, back to happier days- searching the villages in Kunar...

A motley crew of news media, interpreter and Afghan soldiers stand by as Marines prepare to conduct a village search. That day saw some pretty amusing combinations of the above groups, as the mission continued uninterrupted...

Looking down at the terraced farmland these villagers of Kunar carve out of rocky mountainsides...

Then looking at it from the side. I'd constantly gaze at the terraces and wonder who'd be insane enough to build them. These people are HARD (that is respect, in Marine speak).

Taking the opportunity to grap a quick splash of water on the head makes for a world of feeling good after a few days of sweating your tail off and sleeping in dirt. This ravine/crevasse/gorge, whatever it was, had to be crossed simply to get from one hillside house to another, about a 30-min detour. Extend along the rock for another few hundred yards, and you get the picture...this terrain was nuts. And fun as hell to clamber around, since there was no packs on our backs, for half-a-day, anyway.

Standard Afghan mountain house construction. Most of the homes were leveled, and connected by outside "ladders" (logs with grooves hacked into them). This was not only out of gravity's necessity, but to separate living area from barn, grain/poppies/IEDs storage room, etc.

Some of the terraced farmland was beautiful, and full of Easter colors. Of course, none of the tiny handful of villagers we found knew how such nice land was being tended. All the men are simply away, you know, on vacation. Frustrating, to put it mildly.

Pausing in the search to update positions. Or to take a siesta, depending on your outlook.

Afghan bread and spinach mound, anyone? Don't laugh- that food was a lifesaver! The spinach may have tasted curiously like cowpie, but we gobbled it down. And the bread- it's just the best damn thing about this place.

Members of the platoon take advantage of a breather. There was more humping to go, with all gear on again, to reach a new position before the next day's search.