Now we were living on the building site work on the new clinic was speeding up and patients seemed unconcerned about the makeshift consulting room. I still spent part of the day writing out case notes and prescriptions. It was good practice for my language skills and could listen to the gossip – even if I did still need Hussain to translate much of it.

Much of the talk was about the fighting which had recently taken place. From what people were saying it had been more than the usual inter-party skirmish and several days of heavy fighting had resulted in casualties, both dead and injured, on both sides.

We decided to visit the Qolijou hospital.

Qolijou Hospital from the mountain behind. Built at a time Soviet air strikes were a possibility, it’s well camouflaged

The grounds were swarming with mujahideen and a weary Rosanna was in the outpatient department.