Re: Afghanistan

[Charley Bay <charleyb123 at yahoo_com>]

>> Do they even have electricity in these tents...or
>> caves?

> Not really.  <snip>

I just realized I may have misspoke.  Kabul is
a very large city (750,000 people) that is very
spread out.  There is electricity in parts of
the city through centralized power distribution.

When I said, "not really", I was referring to
the very many spread out people that live in
tents or adobe structures, and are away from
the power grid.  That is most of the country.

So, energy efficient lights would be good for
fish tanks here.  However, since it rarely 
rains, sunlight should work just fine for
planted tanks or ponds.  ;-)

Oh yeah, and the power plant that supplied the
area where I am is inoperable.  We have diesel
generators.

> <snip>...how did you get to Afghanistan? 

I had a military escort. ;-))

> <snip>...but tigers would have an extremely
> difficult, if not impossible, time surviving
> in arid, barren Afghanistan.

Hmmm.  That could be why I haven't seen any. ;-)

Kabul is some 7,000 feet in elevation, and it
is very arid and barren.  However, lots of southern
Afghanistan is as low as 500 feet, and the north
gets as low as 200 feet elevation.  There are some
fertile lands and forests, and even some navigable
rivers.  They don't appear to be near me, though.
Maybe with the comming monsoon season they will
get closer.  ;-)

Still, many of the Afghani rivers terminate in
deserts.  That must be a real bummer for the 
fish that like to migrate.  Some exceptions are
the Kabul river that goes to the Inus river in
Pakistan that empties into the Arabian sea, and
the Amu River (2,540 kilometers/1,578 miles long)
that empties into the Aral Sea in Uzbekistan, and
the Helmand river (1,150 kilometers/715 miles long)
that has many tributaries and drains more than
160,000 square kilometers (100,000 square miles)
and empties into the inland lake Saberi.  That
would be a neat place to go, I'll bet.

I apologize for the long off-topic posts.  I have
a number of pictures of terrestrial plants and
insects and various icky-looking aquatic parasites
or worms or larvae or something that seem to enjoy
open sewage flows (or, they appear to be
biologically fit for that environment; I didn't
actually talk to them directly).  I will try
to organize these images and notes somewhat 
and get them posted to a web site for the 
interested.  I could use help identifying these
since I have limited resources and a very slow
internet connection.

Thanks for humoring me.

--charley


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