At Its Finest

I guess I have to write the bad with the good. I'm sure many of you have read about the Finest Supermarket bombing in Kabul a couple of weeks ago. The news may be old, but it's still somewhat fresh here in the city. After four relatively calm months in Kabul, there was an attack on our local supermarket. Just to give you context, there are two supermarkets within three block vicinity of the Roshan office. Sometimes, on a slow afternoon, Joel will pop out to pick up groceries and snacks for the weekend. We have, on occasion, shopped at Finest Supermarket on a Friday for a dinner we are cooking later that night. Saying, "it hits close to home"  is pretty accurate. 

Finest is a local shopping center for ex-pats on the search for real Hellman's mayonnaise, Tostitos with Lime or frozen turkeys on Thanksgiving. They had actually just re-done that location, maybe a month earlier. They expanded out the back and carried extra produce, cheese, and hand-carved wooden decorations for the home. The irony is that out of the nine casualties that day, six of them were from the same Afghan family. 

The whole thing was a little unnerving. 

It's amazing how different the mood is in the city is now. I had grown so used to listening my iPod on the ride to work, grown used to the normalcy of the sight of women in burkas, begging children, the smell of burning tires and the presence of military vehicles. I guess I had become complacent to my surroundings. Now, the morning ride is different; more cautious or anticipatory. 

Lock down has lifted and we are free to roam about, although no one is really moving around the city unnecessarily. I was in Dubai last weekend, and am heading to Beirut next week. This weekend has been filled with TV, reading, the gym and Spartacus. (I suggest everyone gets their hands on that series.) I guess we wait it out - until the tension lifts and things go back to how they were.