043012 The gifts from Afghanistan really do come from Afghanistan.

043012 The gifts from Afghanistan really do come from Afghanistan.
A co-worker and myself deal a lot with one particular vendor and so we decided to put together a 'thank you' box for her of stuff from Afghanistan.  When I was in Iraq the gifts that I sent were generally not from Iraq.  The rugs were generally from Iran and the trinkets from either Turkey, India or China.  The gifts from Afghanistan really do come from Afghanistan.  Anyway, one popular gift is the polished blue rock.  They come in varying sizes (at about 55 euro/kg).  The rocks all come from a mine in Badakhshan province of Afghanistan.  The mine has been in operation for nearly 6,000 years and the eye shadow that Cleopatra used probably came from ground lapis lazuli rock from this mine.  (I don't make this stuff up!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lapis_lazuli

Other nice gifts are wood items (such as the woodend basket in the pics), scarfs, vases and figurines made of semi-precious stone.  Needless to say, our Thank You gift box went over very well and for that we got Doritos, Fritos, beef jerky, Wheat Thins and some flavored pop corn.  A win-win situation if you ask me!
R/Chris