...which translates as "Happy New Year" more or less. The Afghans celebrate their new year ("Nawruz") at the Spring Equinox. Your correspondent attended several Nawruz celebrations of significantly different character over the few days surrounding the actual holiday. First up was the Official Embassy Nawruz celebration, which was nice because it involved emerging from our windowless cave-like offices to see the light of day on what turned out to be a pretty nice day. It also featured lots of kite flying, which is a traditional Nawruz activity, and doesn't always end as horribly as The Kite Runner might lead you to believe.
We got a couple nice pictures of the guys selling these colorful tissue-and-bamboo kites, and various embassy employees enjoying the festivities. But we're pretty scrupulous about not posting pictures of the Afghan staff at the Embassy, many of whom don't exactly publicize the fact that they work for us. So, no faces here - just the kites, many of which feature some fairly impressive tissue-paper craftsmanship. Tomorrow: Nawruz in the countryside.
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