New FOB

Friends;

Our journey has led us to a place called KKC. It is a FOB south of our FOB Sharana. This is as far "down range" as I intend to travel. In order to get here we (My assistant Janet and I) traveled with a Route Clearance Team. Its a convoy that looks for IED's and so on. This part of Afghanistan has had very little of this activity so the trip wasn't all that dangerous. This is my fourth convoy and each one has been a revelation. In this instance it was a revelation of a crushingly poor nation and its beautiful people. I am posting two pictures, both of which I found on line. The first is the famous picture of a young girl who was on the cover of National Geographic. This picture reveals the humanity behind the agony of this nation. The second picture is very close to the children I saw today. The little girls especially are dressed in bright, dazzling colors. They would smile at us and give us thumbs up or the peace sign. One young man though, gave us the thumbs up and then changed it to the one finger salute. Perhaps he was revealing something of the ambivalence of our involvement here. The men and boys who were saw were in a word, severe. They all seemed deeply intent on our passing by. Our Red Horse members who are deployed here are building a road to link this FOB to FOB Sharana. Its a distance of about 50 miles (it took me 6 hours to get here this morning) A road is a revolution in this country. A road brings connection between villages and opens up a vast new world for the desperate poor of this nation. I will write more later on how we can become involved in helping this beautiful and elegant people.

Blessings

DAVE