If you’ve ever microwaved something in a bowl covered with saran wrap, you can appreciate the way heat here presses in on you and builds up between the modest layers of clothing. The heat is instant, immediate and demanding. Unless you are sitting directly under air conditioning, a force field of head immobilizes you.

I’m trying to survive on the 3rd floor of the office with a fan and a swamp cooler, but the mere act of typing forces rivers to sweat to form and roll down my back. How the women survive in burqa is beyond my imagining! I can only hope that they aren’t in these terrible new buildings!!! Winter cut to the bone now summer is baking us all.

I requisitioned an AC, but was told that our office in Kabul rejected my request as they don’t have AC there (sigh). Mazar is in a TOTALLY different part of the country, at a different altitude and has very different weather. I’ve resubmitted the requisition….finger’s crossed!!!