Chaila - An oasis in the valley

We have found an oasis in this barren land. We spent part of our first day in Kabul at Chaila. Chiala is Dari for arbor. This is an amazing coffee house recently opened by an American. Real Lattes...real hamburgers, smoothies, tuna fish sandwiches and muffins. It’s a huge place with a courtyard and entire backyard with tables and chairs. Susanne was most excited about seeing CNN in English and having wireless access with 5 full bars! It is a great place to meet with people and plan our work here. Already today we met with the group from Memphis Friends Society who are here to do a business training tomorrow. We will begin our morning observing this training with Afghan business and government executives. We also met with Rina at Ora International to talk about the plan for the self help groups and getting them to the next level. We met Quedsia who is the Afghan leader for these groups and brainstormed and planned how to conduct the training next week. We were able to get a sims cad for my treo here so I could be reached and mobile. We talked to Laila at BPeace office in Kabul but so far we were unable to meet due to the Holiday today. We will meet her tomorrow after the training session to plan our time with the BPeace associates. I think we are going to find ourselves taking coffe breaks here quite often between appointments.