Mazar-e-Sharif (or "mez" for short)

I was lucky enough to have one of those once-in-a-lifetime experiences on Wednesday. We flew up to Mazar-e-Sharif via helo to attend a police/prosecutor combined course graduation. The course is seven months long so you can imagine that the students are very happy to be graduating! Everything was arranged for us by a State department agency, so travel was actually fairly painless. Here's the helo we flew up in:

It was about an 1.5 hour flight, and there was some spectacular scenery (more on that later!). When we arrived, we had a little bit of time to kill, so we were able to meet some of the people that had made the trip with us - lots of government agencies and program supporters. Then it was time to move on to the graduation itself.

The graduation was held on a base, and there's not a whole lot you can do to improve very plain surroundings, but it was obvious they had gone to a lot of trouble to make it as nice as possible. The ceremony was a butt-numbing two hours, but very interesting. Lots of speeches - one from the General that we mentor, and quite a few from regional senior prosecutors and senior police officers. There were 31 students graduating, and they each were able to take the stage for a moment after they received their diplomas. The range of reactions was surprising - some were obviously happy to be done, others so moved by emotions they were near tears, and others not saying a word, just smiling for the camera.

We had a little bit of time after the ceremony, so we got a tour of the base as well as some more social time. I met an Afghan-American with a fascinating background and we were able to chat for quite a while - hopefully I'll be able to keep in touch with her.

The flight back was definitely a better ride for the scenery (all of the pretty snow-covered mountains on my side of the helo!). All of the pictures were taken out of the windows so they're a little bit hazy, but you can get some idea of the scenery. We basically flew through the Hindu Kush to get there. As you can see, there's still quite a bit of snow left in the mountains, even if it has all disappeared from Kabul.


On the ride back from the airport to base, I managed to grab a picture of a Kabul landmark - Massoud Circle. It's a traffic circle (boy do they love those here!) that has a memorial plaza in the center.

It was a very long day, but I'm really glad we were able to go. The students seemed to appreciate all of the visitors who had made the effort to get to the ceremony (even if it did mean the ceremony was much longer because of all the translation!) and it was a good feeling to see tangible results of efforts put in by others who are really trying to help this country.