Things that make me laugh ...

Yes, life is hard here in Afghanistan, but there are also a number of things that make me laugh on a daily basis. They are:
For every 5 minutes of Dari, the translation amounts to 5 seconds of English (i.e. I ask a question, the response goes on and on and on with a lot of seemingly important inflections, and the translation is: “she thinks so.”
My driver’s name is Kaka.
Every morning and every evening, we spend a good 10 minutes shaking one another’s hands “hello” and then “good bye”. If it is a group of women, it normally takes twice as long as they are allowed to hug each other.
The cook, who sounds like he speaks English, can only say “good morning, how are you” (to his credit, he says it flawlessly). I found this out at dinner when I said “salaam” and he responded with “good morning, how are you?!”
That it so cold in the kitchen that drawers are used as storage bins. (i.e. I was looking for flatware and I found the drawer that the eggs are kept in).
The store that I see on my way home from work that says “very special big juice”.
That the irritating compound cats (2 cats who live among us.. and they might only be irritating to me), are incredibly smart. They kept getting in to my house even though I kept the doors closed. One day I saw how they opened the screen door by flicking it with their paw, and then they jumped up and hit the handle of the front door so it swung open). Part of my daily routine has been a game to foil them in these efforts .. for example, I have a built a contraption to keep them from being able to get to my room door handle, which takes me a few minutes to build each morning .. the only problem with it is when I realize I forgot something and then have it go through the process of rebuilding.
How even in squat toilets (like what they have here at the Ministry), women still chat amongst each other through the stalls.
How there are no signs anywhere (or if there are, they are in Dari), and my first time at the squat bathroom, I had no idea which side to go to ….
There is a TV program here called “Afghan Star” which is this country’s version of “American Idol.” There were 2 female contestants and the rest were men … given that this is still a culture where women are viewed as best staying in the house, the females were voted out immediately. Now all that is left is bad singing men.

There are more laughable daily moments, but these are the winners.