“I decided I would wait to buy a car.  This was more important.” Frieda Madjid – the name she uses now – regaled me with the story.  Charming and direct, she is delighted she could help start a school with the money from her late husband’s foundation. Abdul Madjid Zabuli, many say, brought Afghanistan into the twentieth century.  He founded the Ashami company in 1932, which later became the Afghan National Bank (Bank-i-Milli Afghanistan), which is still a major player all over Kabul.

I met two women traveling alone, one to and one from Kabul.  European types, that is.  I never approached an Afghan woman.  Both had the unmistakable scent of experience about them, a knowing weariness in the task of making way into, or out of Kabul.  No one goes there lightly.  Even my cab driver in luxurious Dubai registered a solemn quiet when he heard my destination.

Cabinet ministers, holy men, and local officials all in row, and piles of little girls, all ready for their first day at school.  Security was reassuring, as all the ministers showed up with their posses, all carrying some serious heat.

Hi Ho!  I'm fine.  Sent one dispatch yesterday, but computer hinted at problems.  I should have thought of this earlier -- I'm using Sultan's yahoo mail, since it works.

Wendy Hale is jealous of me, of my coming trip to Afghanistan.  Me, a word-spinning faker, and she’s a top-notch artist, mother of artists, and with her husband Chris, the best pair of dinner companions I’ve ever met.  Wendy paints watercolors that take me into another world.  Two of them have been donated to the Zabuli School project over the last couple of years, auctioned off at fundraising events.