(Tale of military life)
To tell the truth this will not be a real diary, to keep a diary you need to be constant and I am not, what I write will therefore be, more simply, a collection of impressions.
To begin with today is the 31 January 2012, a lot of days have passed since the beginning of the mission as my memory becomes increasingly blurred I decided to write something before the time completely erase the images and the sensations felt.
Mi sorry for those who read it, they will not find anything beautiful either compelling, they will not find fights, hate for the enemy, but only memories and impressions. I will not pay too much attention to the form, these pages are for me to remember a part, intensely lived, of my life.
February 2012 - Herat
Yesterday I was in the center of Herat and I stayed impressed. Along the main road is full of people doing business of all kinds, with no respect for age.
I saw some children that they will have had six or seven years wandering around the streets, alone, with one on their shoulders beam of brooms and pallets, looking for a buyer; I immediately thought of my son Francesco and how lucky he is.
Francesco, if you will read one day these pages, I hope you'll want to think about it.
Then going to the center I have seen of Afghan women, or rather, I saw clothes walking On the road...
It makes an impression to see people completely covered. There most also had eyes covered with a gray net. Ho immediately thought of ghosts, ghosts of women ... will it be like that? Or theirs civilization makes the thing is absolutely normal for them? My studies do not they help me.
The city is in turmoil!
The most used means of locomotion is the motor-bike, Ape style. They exist open and closed and in the rear box you can see entire families. They are very beautiful and features. Almost always red with drawings of hearts and many embroideries as if to express the joy of owning something.
Many people travel by motorbike, old motorbikes and motorbikes of all kinds. Things that have disappeared from us. The houses then, what to say ?!
The oldest are brick of mud and straw, as they were once built in Sardinia in the villages ... all attached to each other. The domed roof and a smokestack for each of them.
Then there are more recent buildings, in concrete blocks. And finally, from time to time, you can see some well-groomed, fenced-in construction with a nice iron gate, with an armed guard on the front ...
Along the streets, a strip of mud and water. Then, a little further, the "commercial and craft enterprises". These are many small shops all lined up with exhibits showing off their goods for sale.
From the armored window of the car you could see goods for sale, pieces for cars and motorcycles, stuff for the house, water reserves ...
It was an interesting day after all, my first approach to a different civilization, tormented by the war but which in the end seems to be looking forward to being reborn.