I am still reeling from everything we’ve seen in the last two days. Yesterday was an incredible experience when the Afghan Military invited us to their training academy and brought us to the ranges where they fire cannons. The blast was so loud I thought I was going to have [...]
Today we went out on a recon mission with some of the soldiers. They loaded us up in their Humvees and brought us to a village in the mountains. The poverty is sickening. Most of the homes have no roofs even though the winters are intense here. [...]
After an incredibly hectic day, I was greeted at our hotel with some great news. Two threats have been made towards our hotel this week (not the great news) because of the 1st ever Islamic Police Women’s Conference being held here (great news)!
Imagine this: dozens of women pouring into to [...]
Email I sent late night October 20
Today was another intense day. We went to police training academy and watched the Afghan police force learn how to fire their weapons. We also went to the family response unit where U.S. police officers are helping curb domestic violence. As we were [...]
Email I sent home on Saturday, October 20
On a note other than security, my first impressions of Kabul is Dante’s ninth circle of hell. It truly feels that way. The city is pretty much leveled…90 percent of the buildings are makeshift shacks along the side of [...]
I’ll be posting some new videos today and much more about the trip. KXAN has started to promote this blog, so I better get my posts up. The interviews and video we are preparing will air in a week long series on KXAN starting November 12. Here’s the [...]
We’re finally back in Austin and sifting through the 15 hours of video and interviews we shot while overseas. Thank you for following our journey through my blog posts and since internet could be spotty in Kabul sometimes, I’m going to post in the coming days the rest of the e-mails and [...]
I’m starting to feel like everyone in this hotel is shady looking. They are not Afghans and yet they all eye me with suspicion. Actually, everyone eyes everyone here with suspicion. Just now three middle aged men in black suits speaking Russian walked past and stared at [...]
So today we are going to Camp Eggers to interview Texas soldiers. You’ll be happy to know the company transporting us everywhere are equipped with an armored SUV, two security guys and loaded M16’s as they take us all over town. They also gave us bullet proof vests. So, we are much safer than others. In fact, our vehicle is [...]
Greetings from a very very tired Jenny. We arrived in Kabul this afternoon after the engineers took our plane apart on the tarmac in Pakistan..literally..because the engine wasn’t working. I was outside with them trying to use my satellite phone to inform our contacts in Kabul [...]
We are still traveling and waiting to leave for Pakistan.
As you can see in this video, we are not the only ones tired and eager to leave the terminal.I did meet a very nice Afghan woman that was kind enough to show me how to put on [...]
If only you knew how insane it was that I was able to tap into internet here at Islamabad’s airport! We were in Dubai before this. (Here’s a YouTube video of us in the airport–exhausted)Ok, Let’s give you a brief synopsis of our travels here. First, I get on [...]
Hello, I’m Jenny Hoff. Welcome to my blog on our recent trip to Afghanistan. As the political reporter for KXAN Austin News, I have written many stories on the debate raging over our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Many of these debates are right here in [...]
