indian soaps

We're going on three hours now of my Indian colleague watching a soap opera about a guy from Rajasthan who had a child marriage, then went off to the city to go to school, became a doctor, fell in love with another doctor, married her, then came back to his hometown to find that his family still expected him to be married to the original bride. He's actually said to me at several points that he wishes it would end. But it's a soap opera. It doesn't end. This is very funny to me, the guy is so hooked. As I mentioned previously, the show is easy for me to ignore because it's in Hindi. I can understand "acha" and "teeke," which mean, roughly, "got it" and "okay." I think.

Anyway, this morning Kelly, Beth and I went into the office. Beth had some work to do with Khan Mohammed (as did I, although less) and Kelly with Jamshed. We came back at lunchtime, though, because it's still a weekend day and the guys here have been working Saturdays for a few weeks in a row now. Got a bit more work done this afternoon after yet another silly connection issue -- they changed my username and password for the network but forgot to tell me. Ha! Nothing to do but laugh about it.

Not much else to report, I'm afraid. Took some video on our commute and a couple of photos. Had a conversation with my Indian colleague (I should just call him MIC until I get his actual name again) about the odd disconnect between the fact that:

1. Many women in Baghlan still typically wear burqas or stay at home during the day, and
2. Many Afghan families have satellite TV and can (and, I assume, do) watch Indian shows and movies, in which women are often wearing very little clothing.

Sexism in both cases, of course, but the Afghan version seems much worse. How do people hold both of those in their heads at once? Enjoying Bollywood and Indian music videos while still believing that women shouldn't leave the house with anything but their hands showing? Does not compute.

Tomorrow, we've got a 7 AM start to go over the workshop plan because Tameeza has a meeting from 8 until at least 11. At least I've been waking up early on my own.

Glad I wasn't in Kabul today, just found out they had a security lockdown because of a suicide attack on a police station. Nine people killed. Scary.

Blah, now I'm distracted, gonna stop writing. More later, I think.