Battered

After 3 weeks in Faizabad, we're 'home'.
Taloqan is thankfully a lot milder than when we left it, at least for now (it's almost 9am ;), though dusty dusty dusty.
My kittens were thrilled to see me and don't seem to have a shred of shyness left between the 5 of them. They march about in between the fairly savage workmen that people this compound. No qualms. They clambered all over me and made me wonder how I survived without them.
My ducklings are firmly into teenagerhood and wonder of wonders, of the 2 that escaped being munched by Mamma Cass (wild cat mother of the Famous 5), one is a boy and one a girl! Now that's lucky :)
Yesterday was awful. I spent at least 7 hours trying not to throw up as I got thrown against the head rest and window. I've attached a photo that just can't convey the nightmarishness of the ordeal. You can see our radio antenna and a convoy of UN trucks. Can you make out the sizeable boulders and ruts...no fun, I promise.
Saw glorious things through the veil of misery -- fields of sunflowers on high plains that I had previously thought were barren year round, huge bales of golden hay, girls screaming like I was all the Beatles rolled into one (a woman! without a burqa!! in the front seat!!!), pitch black coal miners. Check out My Photos.
Took refuge in DVDs to numb the pain last night. Remembered that there is a reason I sold my soul to NYU and Citibank to get that MA in Cinema. Is there any balm more readily available?
True, a full body massage wouldn't go amiss either.
The films I'm loving right now:
Smiles of a Summer Night (scintillating Bergman)
New World (the prelapsarian paradise chapter especially, definitely Malick's strength)
Baraka (made me realise how blessed I am, because I've seen most of those things with my own two eyes! Also, that religions aren't all bad, really difficult to believe these days. That ritual can be unifying. That Japan was as bad as I felt it to be ;)
Are you as impressed as I am at the selection of bootleg DVDs I scrummaged together on Chicken Street in Kabul.