Earthquake and Election Day

Friday night and Saturday were eventful. I was really tired, so I fell asleep at about 2230. My roomate and I turned out the lights and went to bed. The next morning at the SJA's office, my fellow attorney said, "Wow, that earthquake last night was really strong. A 6.3 located less than 180 miles from Kabul." I guess many people ran outside in case their buildings fell down. My roomate and I slept through it and didn't feel any tremors. They say the tremors lasted 35-45 seconds.

Then the Deputy SJA came in and said, "Did you hear that rocket explode last night? It woke me up at about 0330." The attorney who felt the earthquake said he thought he heard it and that the Mongolian guards on his roof started a bunch of radio chatter. The rocket hit about a half mile away near the TV and radio tower. Later on Saturday we heard a big boom and the building shook. This was either another aftershock or an explosion associated with the election. All-in-all, an eventful day in the life of Afghanistan.

Saturday was the election and the Taliban tried to intimidate people from voting. Afghanistan is the size of Texas with 27 million people. The Taliban tried a few vain terror attempts, but it is ridiculous for all the citizens to be afraid. I noticed many of the Afghans on base today with purple, ink stained fingers showing that they had voted. I thanked them for voting. Hopefully the rest of country voted too.