30 Days Through Afghanistan: Day 27

30 Days Through Afghanistan

PRT Herat | Day 27 — We’re back! We had some problems with internet, which prevented us from uploading on time. I’m really hoping Day 26 doesn’t get lost in the stack, because I’m hoping it spurs some interesting conversation. I can’t stop thinking about the "Lion of Herat" everywhere I go. So today, Ken and I jumped in an Italian provincial reconstruction team convoy and watched as they distributed food and medical supplies to a local Kuchi tribe. The Kuchi tribe is a nomadic tribe so we anticipated a great drive out to the middle of nowhere where we would see vast fields of tents and Sheppard’s. We were wrong and we learned something new. The nomadic Kuchi tribe also has some permanent homes about 15 minutes from here. They live there for a little while before migrating onto other areas. The only problem with today was the complete lack of an interpreter. It’s a pretty strange experience to be embedded with Italians, where only a handful speaks English, while visiting Afghans who don’t speak any English. We walked around with a desire to talk to any of them, but we were unsuccessful. It was still better than Kabul!