I’m sitting in the back of an Army MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protected) vehicle parked 10 thousand feet up in the Hindu Kush Mountains north of Kabul.  We’re waiting out a rain and hail storm and bundled up against a raging wind and temperatures in the 40s.  A group of Vermont Guardsmen from Bagram Airbase has escorted a truckload of sandbags to an Afghan National Police outpost here.  The sandbags will be piled on the roof of the police station. It’s part of increased security in advance of the parliamentary elections on the 18^th. 

The three and a half hour drive took us through an agricultural region with mud-walled villages at intervals along the road, like knots on a string.  The villages were surrounded by plots of corn, grapes and other crops.  I’m in the rearmost vehicle with Sergeant Shawn Seymour of Newport, New Hampshire, the driver, Specialist Richard Burdick of Bennington and the gunner, Specialist John Bell of Pittsfield, MA. 

As we drove, the lead vehicle in the convoy periodically alerted us to armed people along the roadside.  The Vermonters weren’t too alarmed, pointing out that this is campaign season and people with guns often show up at political rallies!  There were several rallies along our route this morning. At one point the convoy stopped and Vermont soldiers and Afghan police questioned a man who was wielding a rifle.  It turned out he was a farmer out hunting birds.

Like everywhere else I’ve been, there are campaign signs posted everywhere.  Each candidate has a symbol on his poster. One has a series of ladders, another a cluster of cherries, a third uses a tent as his symbol.  Because many Afghans can’t read, they’ll recognize the candidate they want to vote for by his or her symbol displayed on the ballot.

The Hindu Kush is a spectacular mountain range of bony peaks and deep valleys running with streams the color of gunmetal.  Villages dot the steep mountain slopes.  The buildings are made from the areas most abundant resource:  rocks. It’s remarkable to think they were built by people who labored by hand at this altitude.   High on one impossibly steep slope there are a few sheep or goats and two herders as sure-footed as they are.

The weather breaks.  With the highest peaks of the Hindu Kush as a backdrop a group of local men and boys unloads the sandbags as Vermont Guard soldiers watch.

Steve Zind  ReportFromAfghanistan@gmail.com

Photos Top To Bottom

2nd Lt Tony Consentino of Amsterdam, NY (L) and Sgt 1st Class Kevin Mulcahey from Rutland

Candidate posters with symbols

Sgt. John Behan of Bennington watches as sandbags are piled on the roo

Local workers unload sandbags at the police station