Things we get used to...

So I'm reading an account of life in Kabul, Afghanistan of the infighting amongst the mujahedeen warlords in A Thousand Splendid Suns. It mentions one of the main characters going to sleep to the whistle of rockets in the background and the pop of gunfire and for a moment I smiled.

My hooch is not too far from the range. Last time my hooch wasn't far from a range either. I go to sleep to the constant sound of small arms fire in the background. Fortunately, the whistle of incoming rockets is pretty rare here. Very rare actually.

The last time I heard a warning about incoming indirect fire, I was doing a set on the pull-up/dip tower outside our office and I paused to listen for it. Hearing the warning and no distant boom was a lot like hearing tires squealing but no crash. It may sound like a strange bravado, but the physics of the bad guys hitting me where I am from where they fire are pretty daunting. The ballistics just don't work.

So, really, it's nothing like the hell that was Kabul in the early 90's.

I have to say this book is much better than The Kite Runner. It touches more deeply on the tribal practices within Afghanistan and the strange brew of cultural, ethnic, and religious traditions. I'll finish it soon. We'll see what I think when it's done.

The Kite Runner annoyed me because the ending was too circular and predictable. In some ways it struck more as an Afghanistan created for a Western reader than a completely authentic picture. Maybe that's unfair.