Forty Days and Forty Nights

It just so happens that I AM waiting for the flood.

When I left St. Louis forty days and forty nights ago, all was well in the world: It was February. It was freezing cold. My mom was sad (not about the cold, about me leaving - at least that's what I choose to believe). Since I left, the whole place has gone to hell in a handbasket: The state is practically underwater. I hear "coastal" condo developers are knocking on Kansas' and Arkansas' doors. Someone e-mailed me a picture of Noah's Ark floating down St. Louis' inner-belt.

Here's what I say to my fellow, suffering-St. Louisans: Could you hook a sistah up and send a little this (Afghanistan's) way?!

You may be wondering, "Why would Cira use 5 pounds of the precious 33 pound luggage- limit with which she was allowed to travel half-way around the world (due to the impossibly low restrictions imposed by the charter from Dubai to Bagram) lugging galoshes - though, now that I look closely I see that they are super-cute, sassy galoshes - but still, 5 pounds? on galoshes? Seems like such a waste!"

Ever the savvy traveler, I did my homework and learned that around this time every year, Bagram Air Field is underwater (okay, I didn't exactly do any homework - a friend who lived her told me). And not by accident - by design. The "locals" (Afghan citizens) live in fields just beyond the perimeter of the military base (yes, the same fields the Russian Military left land mines in and yes, your worst fears are realized about once every couple of months despite ongoing military efforts to clear the fields of mines). The Afghans farm those fields because they depend upon the meager crops for their meager livlihoods. I've mentioned before that the "dirt" in this country is actually "dust". This dust is not like the dust that coats our televisions and bookshelves (at least in my house) in the States - this dust is the consistency of talcom powder. Try getting talcom powder to soak up enough water to grow a tomato plant and you quickly grasp why the locals who farm these fields must dam the creek that flows from the mountains through their fields and flood the valley surrounding Bagram. No floody, no foody.

So far this year: no floody.

It just goes to show that one man's trash is another man's treasure. St. Louis has too much floody and (at least this part of) Afghanistan has not enough. So, I have the children of one of the local workers I've befriended here - and all of his children's classmates - doing a "desert" dance for St. Louis and all of Missouri and I'm writing to ask that, in return, my little brother, Brayden's, class perhaps do a rain dance for Afghanistan.

We are hoping that you soon dry out and that all of your evaporated waters fall here, in the valleys of Bagram Air Field. Love to those of you who are suffering hardships from the floods. My thoughts and the thoughts of many caring people here - who are all too familiar with hardship and suffering - are sending hopes to you across the miles for relief in the very near future.