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By now, the Red Cross office had officially upgraded from the middle-of-nowhere Astana to Gulbahar — a place that, unlike its predecessor, resembled an actual village. Gone were the days of living on the edge of a mountain like a hermit; now, we had real shops, a barber, a local café, and even a few grocery stores. Civilization at last! Life had changed drastically. I no longer […]

Back From Pakistan After returning from Pakistan in late 2001, fresh off the great donkey-powered escape across the mountains (yes, that story), I was immediately thrown back into the thick of it. Assigned as a flying Water & Habitat (WatHab) engineer, I was responsible for restoring bombed-out water networks in five provinces — Jalalabad, Kandahar,