As the sun sank, our pedagogue-guides led us through the school. It lay directly under the Buddhas ruins but it was difficult to tell which had fared worse. The Taliban – ‘they came back’- had burnt out the classrooms; educating members of the opposite sex being an activity that ires substantially. And as our lesson lacked in both tact and taste, we too proved to be quite the rogue students. Reprimand! ‘Oh!! That is dangerous,’ says a teacher, responding to our man’s drawing of a Buddha with a smiley; knowledge otherwise tangential to the syllabus now adorns their blackboard. Actually, me and Smiley are relieved. Our man has socialist leanings – singing ‘L’International’over Johnny Walker in Kabul was a right give-away – and we are only grateful he doesn’t add a ‘DON’T LET THE BASTARDS GET YOU DOWN!!’ in a speech-bubble. But the bubbles were yet to come; as our faulty companion’s belligerence finally blew out of a bottle, it was clear his Talibs packed more of a punch (than his Buddhas). The teachers concurred. ‘Oh, that is very dangerous!’ they said looking around them. But there was nobody else in the room. And their response, we were sure, would have stretched to a superlative ‘most dangerous’, had they understood the nature of the swiggles and the stars. But by this stage we neither understood, and so bottled our ire for later. Lesson over; board wiped clean, we went to drink tea with the teachers. KW, Bamiyan