I walked around town for a couple hours todays. I really like the way Afghans dress. And their accents for that matter, much more dignified than the singsongy Iranian way of speaking, and especially the baby talk you hear from rich fake-blonde daafs in Tehran. All the biggest buildings seemed to be either selling construction materials or wedding salons.
Thus far almost everyone I've met and even all the Afghans I've been told I should talk to--admittedly not a representative slice of the population--have lived abroad, whether in the US, Germany, or Iran, or at least have siblings overseas. More than one has told me they plan on leaving Afghanistan soon. One colleague at the organization where I'm staying, for example, has two brothers working at a casino in Las Vegas, who he wants to join, and his mother is if I remember correctly in Boston. He applied for an immigrant visa to the US back in 2002 with his father as a sponsor, but then after six years of waiting on the application process his father died and so he has had to start all over with his mom as sponsor.
I'm certainly not the first one two notice that much of the (especially the technocratic) elite is composed of returnees, but it's nonetheless surprised me just how many people I've met so far seem to be keeping one foot in the door of another country.
Thus far almost everyone I've met and even all the Afghans I've been told I should talk to--admittedly not a representative slice of the population--have lived abroad, whether in the US, Germany, or Iran, or at least have siblings overseas. More than one has told me they plan on leaving Afghanistan soon. One colleague at the organization where I'm staying, for example, has two brothers working at a casino in Las Vegas, who he wants to join, and his mother is if I remember correctly in Boston. He applied for an immigrant visa to the US back in 2002 with his father as a sponsor, but then after six years of waiting on the application process his father died and so he has had to start all over with his mom as sponsor.
I'm certainly not the first one two notice that much of the (especially the technocratic) elite is composed of returnees, but it's nonetheless surprised me just how many people I've met so far seem to be keeping one foot in the door of another country.
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