THE LONG ROAD HOME

THE MOST STRIKING thing about Afghanistan was its epic landscape, lush and fertile when we arrived in spring. The snow-capped mountains of the Hindu Kush, and the cascading layers of crumpled and velvety peaks that lay staggered beneath them, inspired an overwhelming reverence. The peaks played with light and shadow, creating a rolling spectacle from daybreak to dark, always with an ethereal luminosity. Vast valleys of bright green grass and crops stretched out like gently rolling oceans. The country wrapped us in a warm embrace, as if it had been permanently imprinted with the memory of seeing us come into the world. Many