Winter is here again, and I imagine is not too different right now to the weather back in the UK. Clear, crisp mornings with a stark blue sky are commonplace and sometimes the views over to the distant mountains that surround the city are just spectacular. They are half covered in snow and look very Alpine. The dust still hangs in the air but is slowly losing its battle with the afternoon rain and finds itself condemned back down to the ground in the form of mud. The university is one of the most beautiful places to enjoy the winter scenery. The long sweeping avenues are lined with many trees, some of which are still a variety of autumnal colours, and parts of the campus are large open spaces where the morning mist lingers low to the ground. It has been quiet these past few weeks after the government shut the campus as a precautionary measure to stop the spread of swine flu. Almost immediately a rumour started to spread that it was the foreigners who had the flu. I suppose, in a way, this is true. It was foreign troops on an army base near Kabul who were the first people in Afghanistan to contract the virus and further cases of the virus will have entered the country in people coming from abroad. Unfortunately for us, the rumour was misinterpreted as meaning that all foreigners had the flu! Suddenly almost everyone was wearing a surgical mask, some of them three, one piled on top of another! I could see people giving me a wide berth and wincing if I coughed or sneezed. For a few days my colleagues and I felt like stray mangy dogs. It was a relief then, when a couple of days later the hype died down and the surgical masks magically disappeared. I think everyone has forgotten about swine flu now.
Speaking to my parents on Skype last week, they told me that they had been watching a BBC news report from Kabul where they could see a panoramic view of the city. We tried to pinpoint where I was, my dad identifying as a landmark a large floating balloon sitting still in the sky. I immediately knew where he was looking – the ‘spying’ weather balloon in the east of the city. (Too far away unfortunately for him to see where I was!). The spy balloon went up a few months ago, apparently to have a 360 degree CCTV camera view on the city – useful for tracking the movements of AOGs and other criminal groups. My taxi driver lives just under it and told me with great authority that they raised and lowered the balloon during the day to let the man inside collect his lunch, go to the toilet etc. He didn’t like my idea that there is just a video camera inside.
We are looking forward to coming home for Christmas. Kabul is a great place to start feeling Christmassy. It started snowing today and the smell of wood smoke hangs permanently in the air as people burn whatever they can get hold of to keep their homes warm. We will head to Chicken Street, the tourist shopping area, soon to look for gifts to take home. Amongst the fake gemstones and "antique" furniture (usually made in Pakistan last year and left outside to get 'old') you can sometimes find some real treasures - 70s style Afghan sheepskin jackets, ornate samovars (water kettles) and beautiful carpets from all over the central asian region. Further up the road in 'Bush Bazaar' (named after the previous US president, now jokingly referred to as Obama Bazaar) you can find military kit that seems to have fallen off the back of a truck. Oakley sunglasses, gun cleaning kits and torches that shine a green light to minimise the risk of being seen! There are MREs too (Meals Ready to Eat) from the US and France mostly. The French ones are as you would expect - Basque Chicken, Beef Bourginon, Cassoulet! Nothing but the best. American ones provide amazing cookies, hot chocolate powder and mammouth size trays of illegal meat products. My friend buys MREs every week and brings them to work. He heats them up by placing them on top of the little stove in our office!
Well, that's all for now. Until next time - Khoda Hafez!
Saturday, 5 December 2009
Saturday, 31 October 2009
Hunting in the Hazarajat
Will: One of my Afghan colleagues invited me to go hunting in the Central Highlands over the Eid Holiday. His family live in a remote village 260 miles west of Kabul surrounded by mountains that rise to 4500m. On this occasion, he also asked me to take his nephew Ali home to his family in an adjoining valley. A foreigner’s life in Kabul can easily develop without ever forming meaningful relationships with Afghans. Although I work with Afghans everyday and spend a great deal of my time talking to the community where I work in Kabul’s old city, I have not found it easy to establish true friendships. This journey was a small step towards friendship with my colleague’s family, and a reminder of what attracted me to this country in the first place. The journey took us through some of the most spectacular landscapes that I have seen in Afghanistan.
We reached Charikar after an hour, and left the metalled road for a gravelled track that took us into the Ghorband valley. A Gurkha regiment under British command was destroyed here on November 2nd 1841 when British subsidies were withdrawn from the Ghilzai tribesmen. There was great concern at home over the heavy burden being placed on the Indian finances by the cost of maintaining an army in Afghanistan. At the same time, serious questions were being asked of the new Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel about a policy that was at once so costly yet so ineffective. Two months later a retreating force of 4500 men and 12,000 camp followers were slaughtered in the Khord-e-Kabul pass with only one apparent survivor.
We followed the Ghorband valley to Bamiyan, passing first through a series of Pashtun villages to the bustling bazaar of Siya Gird. The rocky escarpments on both sides of the valley were covered with white polka dots where de-mining teams had painted the rocks where the land had been cleared. We passed through villages of children chasing inflated inner tubes across our path and women sat in colourful huddles in the middle of the track. This was the first day of Eid. Little girls were sparkling in new dresses and boys were fighting over new toys. The women were momentarily relieved of household duties and gathered in groups to gossip on the banks of the river.
As we climbed higher, we left the river behind and snaked our way up the Kotal Shibar pass into a series of fertile green valleys. There were signs of development everywhere: great signboards marked the entry to NGO compounds and projects such as potato storage huts, passive solar greenhouses, hydro-electric turbines, and bridges. The Hazarajat has been relatively stable and accessible from Kabul and has therefore received a steady stream of foreign aid during the last four decades.
We continued to gain height, weaving our way in between donkeys and abandoned tanks on the way up the Kotal Shibardos pass, leaving a great cloud of dust in our wake. The final approach to Bamiyan took us through narrow defiles and boulder fields and out into a wide expanse of patchwork fields bounded on either side by great sandstone monoliths including the ‘red city’ of Shahr-e-Zuhak. This ruined citadel is 900 years old but it was the White Huns who originally developed this site in the 6th century. Genghis Khan’s favourite grandson is reputed to have been killed during the Mongol storming of this citadel. In revenge, he killed all the inhabitants of the Bamiyan valley. We were stopped at a checkpoint and asked for details of our journey. Reza, who was driving, replied that we were teachers returning to Daykundi province for the holidays. This seemed to satisfy the indolent policeman who waved us on whilst wiping kebab from his chin with his other hand. I looked at Ehsan as we drove through the barrier and he winked. He explained that the local police were not to be trusted and that they occasionally passed information on to would-be attackers further up the valley. I noticed that he never once told the truth about where we were going.
On our way out of Bamiyan, we passed the empty niches where the giant buddhas had stood until they were blown up by the Taliban in 2001. These monumental statues were hewn from the rock in the 6th century and would have once been painted in carmine red, with complex features detailed in stucco and a wooden mask to represent the face. Afghanistan was part of the the vast empire established by Ashoka the Great three hundred years before Christ. Buddhism thrived under generous patronage and was later developed by King Kanishka three hundred years later. This buddhist heritage is displayed in numerous stupas around Afghanistan and Japanese archaeologists even uncovered a 20 metre sleeping buddha last year.
The track took us past myriad caves and niches and up onto a desolate desert landscape where the road branched into a dozen different tracks all snaking their way through the sand and shale. We must have taken a wrong turning and emerged at the end of a prominent spur overlooking a valley below. I could see one of central Afghanistan’s highest mountains, the Koh-e-Sangagak, which still had snow in its upper gullies. We followed a precipitous route down the spur and arrived abruptly in a village where a group of women sat on their haunches around a grave, arranging flowers and making tea. Our mistake turned out to be rather fortunate as we followed a track through a beautiful valley full of golden corn, past a ruined fort and back onto the main track. The landscape was dominated by streaks of red oxide and constant variations of browns, reds, greens, and golds.
We reached Niyak, the administrative centre of Yakowlang district, after three hours and filled up with petrol, using an old t-shirt to filter the suspect fuel. The sun was low in the sky and it was beginning to get cold as we arrived in the Zareen valley. We asked for the house of Abdul Hamid and found it nestled into the hill with a commanding a view of the entire valley. He is the former head of this district (Oluswal) and his family have lived in this valley for at least five generations. He has not worked for most of his life but has survived numerous political upheavals and until recently, maintained a position of power and influence in the area. We drove off the track and over the fields and parked outside his gleaming white house. His garden was spread over three terraces and was full of vegetables and flowers, with a stream running through the centre. He showed us to the guest room and we did not see him again until the morning. We were told he had a funeral to attend. I was relieved as my head was pounding and I had not got much sleep the night before. His son Mohammad gave us tea and agreed to accompany us on a walk down to the river. We passed two large mastiff dogs patrolling the field and strolled through the fields as men threshed and winnowed the corn with oxen and pitch forks. We slid down a small cliff to the river and weaved our way through young willow groves up to the old fortress. A group of young boys fought in the fields with sticks and stones and then broke into smaller groups to play marbles. A young girl helped her father toss the threshed corn into the air with a pitch fork that was far too large for her to handle. It was dark by six o’clock and Mohammad brought us a plate of rice and some chicken. We drank a lot of tea and Ehsan and Ali played on their mobile phones, watching a video of a girl dancing before a room full of old men in Kunduz. I slept for ten hours and dreamt vividly.
The morning sun lit up the old fortress and its earthen ramparts shone gold against the clear sky. Our host Abdul Hamid joined us for a breakfast of bread and tea. He was in good form and admitted that he was trying to make up for his apparent lack of hospitality last night. He very quickly began to talk about politics and said that the thing Afghanistan needed most was justice, which he equated with construction. He reasoned that if you could see where the money was being spent, you knew that the money wasn’t being stolen or wasted. He pointed to the new wall that he had built for 25,000 Afs ($500) and questioned why there was not more construction locally. He suspected it was being stolen by the President’s cronies and foreign agents.
We followed a steep track out of Zareen which wound its way up another pass to the watershed separating the Hari Rud river in the west from the Kabul river in the east. The mountains extended to the horizon on all sides. An eagle perched on a rock ten metres to our front. With a couple of wing beats, it picked up a rising thermal, adding yet another drop of brown to an already crowded palette in the valley below. We joined the Hari Rud near its source and followed it to a village called Siya Cheshma. Groups of men were winnowing corn and preparing fodder for the winter. We carefully picked our way between them, picking up an old man along the way. We dropped him a day’s walk away near Qala-e-Now, where a large fortress sat on the far bank of the river. Soon we were in Safed Ab, the main local bazaar. Great blocks of salt sat beside the track and men were selling sour buttermilk in white triangular pouches. We crossed a river and emerged onto a wide plain in front of a row of teeth like hills. We threaded our way through long grass and boulder fields, dropped down to the river, and came up into the village, weaving our way between small huts to arrive at a large fortress: my colleague’s family home.
His cousin Ahmed greeted us and showed us to the the paranda (veranda) where a group of men sat drinking tea. They had been following our approach for the last ten minutes with a pair of old Soviet binolculars and had a commanding view of the entire valley. They were discussing the construction of a bridge downstream and whether the hydro-electric turbine, that they had built last year, needed repair before the winter. Women were preparing small dung cakes called chalma and stacking them on their roofs ready for winter. We drank tea and ate Russian fudge. There were between six and ten old men sitting with us. Every so often a visitor would arrive and join the group on the paranda for an hour or so before moving on.
Mir Mohammad Husayn Ghori arrived. He wore a beret, had a large white beard, and a belly to match his status as senior elder. His prayer beards were red and were decorated by an old coin that he said was Safavid. He showed me a sword that had been given to his ancestor Qalbi Reza Beg by one of the Qajar kings in Iran during the late 19th century. He said that his grandfather had used the sword to kill forty of the neighbouring Aimaq tribe in one day. The sword itself was a reverse scimitar and surprisingly light. It was one of four swords presented by the king to four khans in the Hazarajat in a bid to win their support against rival dynasties. He recounted his family history in detail, going back five generations to the point at which they had claimed their land from the neighbouring Aimaq. We talked about the elections. Ahmed said that he knew of over a thousand people who had voted for a certain candidate, yet the results showed he had only won two hundred votes. There was not point in complaining he said, since it was all fixed anyway.
I sat next to an engaging man called Ali Juma Khan who was the deputy director for all schools in the area. He talked me through the differences in the Arab, English, and Persian alphabets in a very didactic fashion and then questioned me to see how much I had absorbed. He was surprised that I could speak Arabic and we talked openly of our different faiths. “What comes first?” he asked. “The body...or the spirit?” I said that I believed God was eternal spirit and that the spirit therefore preceded the body. I added that the Bible describes the spirit as hovering over the earth’s surface before creation began. He asked me accusingly whether or not christians believed in Mohammad. We talked about the prophets in the Christian scriptures. I asked him whether it was true that one of their articles of faith was to read the Christian scriptures. Heated debate broke out amongst the men, with the teacher and me in agreement, struggling to convince the others. One of the men asked about the holy spirit and the difference between protestants and catholics. “What powers did the Pope have?” Whilst I struggled to remember details of the reformation, they asked about the Anglican church and the various denominations. I told them that the Archbishop of Canterbury’s position went back 1400 years to St Augustine when Mohammad was still a young man.
Lunch was served in the guest room by Ahmed’s eldest son Aziz. The room was lit by one energy saving light bulb and decorated with bright green curtains. We had soup and chicken, raw onion and a lettuce. The room was full of nine local elders, all visiting over Eid and most related to the family in some way. I was asked to sit in the far corner of the room. Ahmed’s youngest son offered me a jug of water to wash my hands and served me first. He was an attractive young boy who looked much younger than fifteen. The men teased him for being intelligent and said he would be a doctor one day. Mir Mohammad asked about wild animals in England. While I tried hard to convince him that stags could be very dangerous, Ahmed asked about the difference between Presidents Bush and Obama. Mir Mohammad interrupted again, this time with questions about the channel tunnel. “Is it true what they say? Can you you really drive underneath the sea from France to England?” “Did Princess Diana do this journey?” “She is very beautiful, a true princess.” “Who is the new deputy Ambassador at the British Embassy?”
After lunch Ehsan and I went for a walk along the river. We found a bridge where Ali’s younger brother was sitting dangling his feet over the edge. The river was very inviting and I stripped off and jumped 5m from the bridge into the pool below. Ali’s brother pointed to a spent grenade on the river bed and said this was where soldiers had come fishing with an Rocket Propelled Grenades. We walked on through fields full of corn and up a scree slope to a ridge from where we could see Ali’s house in the next valley. I walked straight past a grey and black snake. When we came back into the village, a man was skinning a cow. It had become bloated after eating too much grass and had to be killed. He was surrounded by a group of small children who watched intently as he cut the head off and sliced the knife down the belly. There was a pool of blood and the enormous cow’s belly was slowly revealed as the skin was pulled away. There were about 25 houses in the village, all occupied by tenants farmers who give a percentage of their crop to Ahmed, their landlord.
Ahmed talked a lot about the last king Zahir Shah and said that the country worked well until the Soviets came. “There was little corruption” he said. “There were schools, roads, trees and even security.” He said it was a great mistake that the international community had given power back to the warlords such as Dostum, Hekmatyr, Khalili, Mahmoud, Rabbani... Karzai. He said people trusted the international community to bring justice and remembered throwing flowers at them when they arrived. It struck me that, unlike in Iraq where the Coalition had identified Saddam’s cronies in a ‘pack of cards’ and then pursued them to the point of justice, there was no such process here; certainly nothing approaching a truth and reconciliation process. Instead the international community adopted a ‘nation building lite’ approach which relied on these warlords for local stability and restored them to positions of great power. Like Abdul Hamid, he wanted justice and to see things being built. He questioned why more wasn’t being done to help them when their region presented none of the security challenges of somewhere like Helmand. He credited local patronage networks with maintaining this relative stability and said that the region had hardly benefited from central government or the international community.
Supper was again very busy. This time we were served large plates of rice with mutton, sheep’s testicles and yoghurt. After supper, there was a period without conversation where we listened to the radio, slurped tea, and burped a lot. I imagined how sketching people would have been great entertainment during the long winter evenings on Rory’s walk across the country in 2001. I went outside to the toilet and was totally awe-struck by the star-lit sky. A star that must have been Venus shone brilliantly amongst numerous galaxies. There were so many stars, it took me about half an hour to find the Plough.
I woke early as Ehsan returned from his morning ‘fajr’ prayers and we both dozed a little as the sun began to light the room. Aziz brought me a jug of warm water to wash my face and I spent some time praying in the small copse next to the fort. An old tractor that he had driven from Kabul nine years ago stood in a clearing surrounded by willow and poplar trees. A stream tumbled down a bank and fed a small pond next to where I sat on a fallen tree. The smells were autumnal and reminded me of home. The stream reminded me of endless hours damming the stream at Everglades. It felt like a spiritual place. It was a rare moment of privacy and I read Psalm 27 from the prayer book Canon Kennedy had given me at my wedding five years ago.
I find eggs difficult at the best of times. So when Aziz, Reza, and Ali, Ahmed’s three sons served breakfast on the paranda, I was a little uncomfortable when first a plate of two fried eggs arrived, followed by a plate of two boiled eggs, and then finally a plate of scrambled eggs. Fortunately it was all washed down with delicious sheer chai (sweet milk) fresh from the cow and we began to discuss the day’s hunting. Mirza, another cousin, joined us for breakfast and was treated with great respect. Ahmed explained that he was a famous local hunter. His glasses were held together with string. He walked with a stoop and lent heavily on a stick. His trousers were padded and held together by a variety of colourful patches and he wore thick luminous green hand woven socks. He showed me the heads of three ghazal he had killed and told me that he had tracked one for four days before getting a shot in with his old rifle. He said this with a twinkle in his eye knowing that we were only going for a day and a jolly at that.
Four of us squeezed into a Toyota pick-up. Ahmed cradled a .22 rifle in his lap and I saw a kalashnikov rifle under the seat. It took us three hours to drive 25km up the valley. We stopped to rebuild the track on several occasions and at times were following no more than a donkey’s trail. Ruhollah came with us. His father had been killed by Iranian agents from the Sepah-e-Pasdaran for resisting their attempts to influence local affairs. We passed through several villages on our way to Kotal Kushan, one of the main passes on the route to Sar-e-Pul in the North. We stopped at several points to examine the ridge lines and caves with the soviet binoculars. We were looking for Ahoo (deer) but after Mirza’s knowing smile, I suspected this was no more than an elaborate excuse for a picnic. Ahmed told me that there were 900 people living up here in tents during the Taleban era. They had closed all roads and the UN World Food Programme had courageously brought ten trucks full of wheat up this valley.
We reached the top of the mountain and looked straight down into a deep canyon. We heard a whistle and turned to see a young shepherd boy who had emerged from behind a rock. I was slightly startled since we were miles from the nearest village but Ahmed, who seemed to know everybody, greeted him warmly and we posed for photographs with his ancient camera. We began to head down into the gorge when a man approached us on the trail leading a white stallion carrying two boxes of apples. Ahmed knew him too and before long I was riding on horse back down into the gorge while the others set about preparing lunch. We explored the gorge and washed the apples in a spring. Ahmed began to film me with his mobile phone and wouldn’t stop until we arrived back at the of the mountain, where Aziz and Ruhollah were cooking lunch. They had cooked up some chicken in a pot and we ate it with raw onion and fresh milk from a jerry can. After lunch, when we were certain we would not see any Ahoo, we set up sweet wrappers in the trees and took it turns to do some target practice with the old rifle. I went some way to convincing Ahmed I was not a total liability.
There was a funny moment on the journey back when a mother pulled her horse out of the way of the car and sent her small child spinning with a large sack of wheat on her head. She knocked into her little sister who then tumbled down the into the ditch. She started to cry and her mother scolded her for spilling the wheat everywhere. Ruhollah, who hadn’t said a word all day collapsed with laughter and said, “Thank you Mr Aziz!” We laughed all the way home. It was 18:00 by the time we arrived back at the fortress. Ehsan had been fishing with Reza and between them, they had caught a dozen small fish without having to resort to grenades. They were all talking about the local Lithuanian PRT (provincial reconstruction team) that had driven through the valley. Two tanks and two armoured landcruisers had stopped in the valley, consulted maps, driven a short way up the valley, before turning around and heading up a different valley. The old men did not know what they were doing and said that no one really understood why they were there.
We began our journey home early the next morning and stopped off at Band-e-Amir, Afghanistan’s first national park and one of its most beautiful attractions. There are a series of five beautiful blue lakes that lie at about 3000m. They have been formed by calcium carbonate deposits that have formed natural dams. Ali and I stripped off and slipped down the calciferous cliff into the water. A family was picnicking on the other side of the lake and young men were splashing each other from brightly painted pedalos in the middle of the lake.
As we approached Bamiyan, gone were the groups of gossiping women and instead, women lined the river bank washing pots and plates and clothes after the Eid celebrations. Children were no longer playing in the street but returning from school and we were caught in traffic as others returned home from family vacations. We slept on the floor in a dormitory on thin mattresses above a mechanics workshop. Ehsan and Ali lounged around and soon the conversation turned to typical male banter. They talked quickly so that I would not hear but I heard enough to know that it was little different from pub banter anywhere in England. They brought me into the conversation at the point where Ali was saying that it was a medical fact that having sex too many times in a week was bad for your health. Ehsan replied that this was nonsense and that he had sex whenever he fancied, which was at least ten times a week. Ehsan talked for half an hour on the merits of Head & Shoulders shampoo which he referred to as ‘shoulders’. He boasted of his new Gilette razor and they compared notes on how often each other washed. Ali was curious about pork. He said that his friend in Germany had told him that pigs have twelve piglets. “This is the ideal animal for Afghanistan!” he said “Cows and sheep only have two or three young.” Then he said that he’d heard that pork tasted really delicious. Ehsan, who had been growing increasingly indignant, put an end to this heresy and said that as a Muslim, he would not tolerate this sort of talk. It was afterall haram (forbidden). Ali changed the subject and asked about alcohol. I explained the different percentages of alcohol in wine, beer, and spirits. Ali looked a bit disappointed and said, “You mean my 5% beer drinking is no big deal? I should drink whisky.” He told me that people who have gall stones here are encouraged to drink beer for breakfast. Ehsan said it was true that drinking too much could make you blind and said that this had happened to a friend of his in Iran.
On our way back to Kabul, we struggled to overtake columns of Super Kamaz trucks on the winding mountain road. They were weighed down with bags of zughal (coal) and kachaloo (potatoes) and teetered precariously above the river as they negotiated deep ruts in the track. We passed a district governor’s office just out of Bamiyan and Ali said that this belonged to the nephew of Abdul Hamid. We stopped to buy some apples from a small boy. He must have had about 3 seer (21kg) which should have been worth about $16. Ehsan haggled with him and to his credit the boy was a strong negotiator. Unfortunately he did not fully understand the value of these apples and Ehsan unscrupulously bullied him into letting them go for $3. We stopped short of the road and spent half an hour washing the car. A small boy helped his father by wielding a hose that he could hardly lift and spraying everything but the car in the process. Once it was clean, they washed it again, and again. We eventually reached the metalled road and covered the 54km back from Charikar in under an hour.
The village where we stayed was 260 miles from Kabul. There is only a track and that is navigable only at certain times of the year in large Kamaz trucks or 4x4 mini-vans. Despite its remote location, the people are well connected to what’s happening in Kabul. They know the names of NGOs and foreign diplomats. They have a rich history and can recount their local history in detail. They are heavily dependent on a good harvest. Except for sugar, oil, and a few sundry items, everything that they eat is produced locally. Society is feudal and more or less based on a subsistence economy. Despite the large distances and inhospitable terrain, everyone seems to know each other. The same families have often ruled their local areas for centuries. Shepherds take their master’s flocks miles and miles over the mountains in search of new pasture. There are camps of nomads in colourful patchwork tents that exist in the most remote of places. People are proud to be Afghan and talk of the watan (homeland). They are suspicious of Iranian and Pakistani agents and want their country to stand on its own. On the surface, it appears that their women are treated as chattels and traded between families. The local dowry is three lak ($6000) unless a cousin is pledged in marriage, in which case there is some discount. Often, this sum is made up with cows, sheep, a tractor, or perhaps even a generator. Every community has been traumatized by war. Many families have lost sons and daughters and can describe tales of terror and conflict as if they were yesterday. Ahmed’s village was strafed by soviet gunships and a rocket lodged in their roof. Donkeys which cost on average $400 remain the mainstay of the working community and Kamaz trucks are relied on for transporting wooden beams, stone etc to remote valleys for the construction of schools etc. Above all else, most people want security. They do not however regard the Taleban as a major threat. In rural Ghor, it is the local qazi (judge) who distributes justice and most people seemed happy with that system. There is minimal crime and what conflict there is is normally down to land or family issues. The people I met on this journey want the international community to actually do something: to stand up to warlords, to build roads, bridges, schools, dams.
I speak enough Dari to hold a series of conversations on different topics. I know enough about the country to keep up in conversation and to understand what’s expected of me in different situations. However, it is very unlikely that I could ever persuade anybody of anything. I have no platform for assertive action whether it be religious, sociological, mechanical, or political. I am simply a guest. At the most I can hope for shared experience, some sense of mutual understanding, and the beginning of a friendship. My understanding of local politics is basic and my ability to gain a nuanced understanding of these deeply ingrained and complex kinship relationships almost impossible. Despite all these limitations, I feel that the two nights I spent with Ahmed and his family has given me a good insight into how best to help them, and enough shared experience to relate to each other as friends rather than host/guest or Afghan/foreigner. I wonder then about the usefulness of the Lithuanian PRT. I wonder how foreigners can hope to help, let alone change anything for the better, when they mostly lack the language, local knowledge, and personality, to access local power structures.
Kabul is often seems very political. Everyone is focused on the rights and wrongs of the current strategy. International donors and governments wield huge sums and try and use it for maximum political leverage. Detailed proposals are generated by literate and articulate theoreticians which in turn generate millions of dollars of aid. Conferences are held and papers written. Careers are forged and success stories gleaned from precious little. Security firms prosper and people live in fear. But in this village, they wanted to repair the road to Sar-e-Pul; that cow needn’t have died; and there are probably more efficient ways of storing food for the winter and of heating and repairing the houses. Local doctors need training. Teachers need training too and materials. Even if the Lithuanian PRT just employed people to build earthen walls, it would arguably be better than what they are doing now. People wonder what happened to all the money and expertise that they heard about on the radio. Seed fertilization, crop management, storage, drainage, water protection, animal husbandry - all these agricultural advances that are taken for granted in the west could have a huge impact on areas like the Hazarajat. The foreign contractors, the armoured land cruisers, the urban american-educated afghan interpreters, the salaries, the MREs (U.S army rations): none of it will work. Effective foreign assistance will only come through persistent, committed, courageous, modest, intelligent individuals implementing carefully chosen assistance packages alongside the local community.
If the last eight years have shown us anything, it is that aid and development alone cannot deliver security. There is no evidence that PRT schools and clinics in the south have won any hearts or minds. They are built and protected by foreign troops and their activities cease as soon as the foreign funding is withdrawn. It should not be a surprise that Afghans best understand local power structures and are therefore best placed to negotiate local deals. All we can hope for is success in a number of high profile projects that will encourage communities to ask for foreign support as and when their situation allows it. The Hazarajat seems like a good place to start. Foreign troops should reduce their presence in the south and let local communities organize themselves. This is likely to lead to some Taleban administered areas which are beyond the reach of the international community. But only when communities see what value the international community can bring, will we start to deliver projects of real worth.
We reached Charikar after an hour, and left the metalled road for a gravelled track that took us into the Ghorband valley. A Gurkha regiment under British command was destroyed here on November 2nd 1841 when British subsidies were withdrawn from the Ghilzai tribesmen. There was great concern at home over the heavy burden being placed on the Indian finances by the cost of maintaining an army in Afghanistan. At the same time, serious questions were being asked of the new Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel about a policy that was at once so costly yet so ineffective. Two months later a retreating force of 4500 men and 12,000 camp followers were slaughtered in the Khord-e-Kabul pass with only one apparent survivor.
We followed the Ghorband valley to Bamiyan, passing first through a series of Pashtun villages to the bustling bazaar of Siya Gird. The rocky escarpments on both sides of the valley were covered with white polka dots where de-mining teams had painted the rocks where the land had been cleared. We passed through villages of children chasing inflated inner tubes across our path and women sat in colourful huddles in the middle of the track. This was the first day of Eid. Little girls were sparkling in new dresses and boys were fighting over new toys. The women were momentarily relieved of household duties and gathered in groups to gossip on the banks of the river.
As we climbed higher, we left the river behind and snaked our way up the Kotal Shibar pass into a series of fertile green valleys. There were signs of development everywhere: great signboards marked the entry to NGO compounds and projects such as potato storage huts, passive solar greenhouses, hydro-electric turbines, and bridges. The Hazarajat has been relatively stable and accessible from Kabul and has therefore received a steady stream of foreign aid during the last four decades.
We continued to gain height, weaving our way in between donkeys and abandoned tanks on the way up the Kotal Shibardos pass, leaving a great cloud of dust in our wake. The final approach to Bamiyan took us through narrow defiles and boulder fields and out into a wide expanse of patchwork fields bounded on either side by great sandstone monoliths including the ‘red city’ of Shahr-e-Zuhak. This ruined citadel is 900 years old but it was the White Huns who originally developed this site in the 6th century. Genghis Khan’s favourite grandson is reputed to have been killed during the Mongol storming of this citadel. In revenge, he killed all the inhabitants of the Bamiyan valley. We were stopped at a checkpoint and asked for details of our journey. Reza, who was driving, replied that we were teachers returning to Daykundi province for the holidays. This seemed to satisfy the indolent policeman who waved us on whilst wiping kebab from his chin with his other hand. I looked at Ehsan as we drove through the barrier and he winked. He explained that the local police were not to be trusted and that they occasionally passed information on to would-be attackers further up the valley. I noticed that he never once told the truth about where we were going.
On our way out of Bamiyan, we passed the empty niches where the giant buddhas had stood until they were blown up by the Taliban in 2001. These monumental statues were hewn from the rock in the 6th century and would have once been painted in carmine red, with complex features detailed in stucco and a wooden mask to represent the face. Afghanistan was part of the the vast empire established by Ashoka the Great three hundred years before Christ. Buddhism thrived under generous patronage and was later developed by King Kanishka three hundred years later. This buddhist heritage is displayed in numerous stupas around Afghanistan and Japanese archaeologists even uncovered a 20 metre sleeping buddha last year.
The track took us past myriad caves and niches and up onto a desolate desert landscape where the road branched into a dozen different tracks all snaking their way through the sand and shale. We must have taken a wrong turning and emerged at the end of a prominent spur overlooking a valley below. I could see one of central Afghanistan’s highest mountains, the Koh-e-Sangagak, which still had snow in its upper gullies. We followed a precipitous route down the spur and arrived abruptly in a village where a group of women sat on their haunches around a grave, arranging flowers and making tea. Our mistake turned out to be rather fortunate as we followed a track through a beautiful valley full of golden corn, past a ruined fort and back onto the main track. The landscape was dominated by streaks of red oxide and constant variations of browns, reds, greens, and golds.
We reached Niyak, the administrative centre of Yakowlang district, after three hours and filled up with petrol, using an old t-shirt to filter the suspect fuel. The sun was low in the sky and it was beginning to get cold as we arrived in the Zareen valley. We asked for the house of Abdul Hamid and found it nestled into the hill with a commanding a view of the entire valley. He is the former head of this district (Oluswal) and his family have lived in this valley for at least five generations. He has not worked for most of his life but has survived numerous political upheavals and until recently, maintained a position of power and influence in the area. We drove off the track and over the fields and parked outside his gleaming white house. His garden was spread over three terraces and was full of vegetables and flowers, with a stream running through the centre. He showed us to the guest room and we did not see him again until the morning. We were told he had a funeral to attend. I was relieved as my head was pounding and I had not got much sleep the night before. His son Mohammad gave us tea and agreed to accompany us on a walk down to the river. We passed two large mastiff dogs patrolling the field and strolled through the fields as men threshed and winnowed the corn with oxen and pitch forks. We slid down a small cliff to the river and weaved our way through young willow groves up to the old fortress. A group of young boys fought in the fields with sticks and stones and then broke into smaller groups to play marbles. A young girl helped her father toss the threshed corn into the air with a pitch fork that was far too large for her to handle. It was dark by six o’clock and Mohammad brought us a plate of rice and some chicken. We drank a lot of tea and Ehsan and Ali played on their mobile phones, watching a video of a girl dancing before a room full of old men in Kunduz. I slept for ten hours and dreamt vividly.
The morning sun lit up the old fortress and its earthen ramparts shone gold against the clear sky. Our host Abdul Hamid joined us for a breakfast of bread and tea. He was in good form and admitted that he was trying to make up for his apparent lack of hospitality last night. He very quickly began to talk about politics and said that the thing Afghanistan needed most was justice, which he equated with construction. He reasoned that if you could see where the money was being spent, you knew that the money wasn’t being stolen or wasted. He pointed to the new wall that he had built for 25,000 Afs ($500) and questioned why there was not more construction locally. He suspected it was being stolen by the President’s cronies and foreign agents.
We followed a steep track out of Zareen which wound its way up another pass to the watershed separating the Hari Rud river in the west from the Kabul river in the east. The mountains extended to the horizon on all sides. An eagle perched on a rock ten metres to our front. With a couple of wing beats, it picked up a rising thermal, adding yet another drop of brown to an already crowded palette in the valley below. We joined the Hari Rud near its source and followed it to a village called Siya Cheshma. Groups of men were winnowing corn and preparing fodder for the winter. We carefully picked our way between them, picking up an old man along the way. We dropped him a day’s walk away near Qala-e-Now, where a large fortress sat on the far bank of the river. Soon we were in Safed Ab, the main local bazaar. Great blocks of salt sat beside the track and men were selling sour buttermilk in white triangular pouches. We crossed a river and emerged onto a wide plain in front of a row of teeth like hills. We threaded our way through long grass and boulder fields, dropped down to the river, and came up into the village, weaving our way between small huts to arrive at a large fortress: my colleague’s family home.
His cousin Ahmed greeted us and showed us to the the paranda (veranda) where a group of men sat drinking tea. They had been following our approach for the last ten minutes with a pair of old Soviet binolculars and had a commanding view of the entire valley. They were discussing the construction of a bridge downstream and whether the hydro-electric turbine, that they had built last year, needed repair before the winter. Women were preparing small dung cakes called chalma and stacking them on their roofs ready for winter. We drank tea and ate Russian fudge. There were between six and ten old men sitting with us. Every so often a visitor would arrive and join the group on the paranda for an hour or so before moving on.
Mir Mohammad Husayn Ghori arrived. He wore a beret, had a large white beard, and a belly to match his status as senior elder. His prayer beards were red and were decorated by an old coin that he said was Safavid. He showed me a sword that had been given to his ancestor Qalbi Reza Beg by one of the Qajar kings in Iran during the late 19th century. He said that his grandfather had used the sword to kill forty of the neighbouring Aimaq tribe in one day. The sword itself was a reverse scimitar and surprisingly light. It was one of four swords presented by the king to four khans in the Hazarajat in a bid to win their support against rival dynasties. He recounted his family history in detail, going back five generations to the point at which they had claimed their land from the neighbouring Aimaq. We talked about the elections. Ahmed said that he knew of over a thousand people who had voted for a certain candidate, yet the results showed he had only won two hundred votes. There was not point in complaining he said, since it was all fixed anyway.
I sat next to an engaging man called Ali Juma Khan who was the deputy director for all schools in the area. He talked me through the differences in the Arab, English, and Persian alphabets in a very didactic fashion and then questioned me to see how much I had absorbed. He was surprised that I could speak Arabic and we talked openly of our different faiths. “What comes first?” he asked. “The body...or the spirit?” I said that I believed God was eternal spirit and that the spirit therefore preceded the body. I added that the Bible describes the spirit as hovering over the earth’s surface before creation began. He asked me accusingly whether or not christians believed in Mohammad. We talked about the prophets in the Christian scriptures. I asked him whether it was true that one of their articles of faith was to read the Christian scriptures. Heated debate broke out amongst the men, with the teacher and me in agreement, struggling to convince the others. One of the men asked about the holy spirit and the difference between protestants and catholics. “What powers did the Pope have?” Whilst I struggled to remember details of the reformation, they asked about the Anglican church and the various denominations. I told them that the Archbishop of Canterbury’s position went back 1400 years to St Augustine when Mohammad was still a young man.
Lunch was served in the guest room by Ahmed’s eldest son Aziz. The room was lit by one energy saving light bulb and decorated with bright green curtains. We had soup and chicken, raw onion and a lettuce. The room was full of nine local elders, all visiting over Eid and most related to the family in some way. I was asked to sit in the far corner of the room. Ahmed’s youngest son offered me a jug of water to wash my hands and served me first. He was an attractive young boy who looked much younger than fifteen. The men teased him for being intelligent and said he would be a doctor one day. Mir Mohammad asked about wild animals in England. While I tried hard to convince him that stags could be very dangerous, Ahmed asked about the difference between Presidents Bush and Obama. Mir Mohammad interrupted again, this time with questions about the channel tunnel. “Is it true what they say? Can you you really drive underneath the sea from France to England?” “Did Princess Diana do this journey?” “She is very beautiful, a true princess.” “Who is the new deputy Ambassador at the British Embassy?”
After lunch Ehsan and I went for a walk along the river. We found a bridge where Ali’s younger brother was sitting dangling his feet over the edge. The river was very inviting and I stripped off and jumped 5m from the bridge into the pool below. Ali’s brother pointed to a spent grenade on the river bed and said this was where soldiers had come fishing with an Rocket Propelled Grenades. We walked on through fields full of corn and up a scree slope to a ridge from where we could see Ali’s house in the next valley. I walked straight past a grey and black snake. When we came back into the village, a man was skinning a cow. It had become bloated after eating too much grass and had to be killed. He was surrounded by a group of small children who watched intently as he cut the head off and sliced the knife down the belly. There was a pool of blood and the enormous cow’s belly was slowly revealed as the skin was pulled away. There were about 25 houses in the village, all occupied by tenants farmers who give a percentage of their crop to Ahmed, their landlord.
Ahmed talked a lot about the last king Zahir Shah and said that the country worked well until the Soviets came. “There was little corruption” he said. “There were schools, roads, trees and even security.” He said it was a great mistake that the international community had given power back to the warlords such as Dostum, Hekmatyr, Khalili, Mahmoud, Rabbani... Karzai. He said people trusted the international community to bring justice and remembered throwing flowers at them when they arrived. It struck me that, unlike in Iraq where the Coalition had identified Saddam’s cronies in a ‘pack of cards’ and then pursued them to the point of justice, there was no such process here; certainly nothing approaching a truth and reconciliation process. Instead the international community adopted a ‘nation building lite’ approach which relied on these warlords for local stability and restored them to positions of great power. Like Abdul Hamid, he wanted justice and to see things being built. He questioned why more wasn’t being done to help them when their region presented none of the security challenges of somewhere like Helmand. He credited local patronage networks with maintaining this relative stability and said that the region had hardly benefited from central government or the international community.
Supper was again very busy. This time we were served large plates of rice with mutton, sheep’s testicles and yoghurt. After supper, there was a period without conversation where we listened to the radio, slurped tea, and burped a lot. I imagined how sketching people would have been great entertainment during the long winter evenings on Rory’s walk across the country in 2001. I went outside to the toilet and was totally awe-struck by the star-lit sky. A star that must have been Venus shone brilliantly amongst numerous galaxies. There were so many stars, it took me about half an hour to find the Plough.
I woke early as Ehsan returned from his morning ‘fajr’ prayers and we both dozed a little as the sun began to light the room. Aziz brought me a jug of warm water to wash my face and I spent some time praying in the small copse next to the fort. An old tractor that he had driven from Kabul nine years ago stood in a clearing surrounded by willow and poplar trees. A stream tumbled down a bank and fed a small pond next to where I sat on a fallen tree. The smells were autumnal and reminded me of home. The stream reminded me of endless hours damming the stream at Everglades. It felt like a spiritual place. It was a rare moment of privacy and I read Psalm 27 from the prayer book Canon Kennedy had given me at my wedding five years ago.
I find eggs difficult at the best of times. So when Aziz, Reza, and Ali, Ahmed’s three sons served breakfast on the paranda, I was a little uncomfortable when first a plate of two fried eggs arrived, followed by a plate of two boiled eggs, and then finally a plate of scrambled eggs. Fortunately it was all washed down with delicious sheer chai (sweet milk) fresh from the cow and we began to discuss the day’s hunting. Mirza, another cousin, joined us for breakfast and was treated with great respect. Ahmed explained that he was a famous local hunter. His glasses were held together with string. He walked with a stoop and lent heavily on a stick. His trousers were padded and held together by a variety of colourful patches and he wore thick luminous green hand woven socks. He showed me the heads of three ghazal he had killed and told me that he had tracked one for four days before getting a shot in with his old rifle. He said this with a twinkle in his eye knowing that we were only going for a day and a jolly at that.
Four of us squeezed into a Toyota pick-up. Ahmed cradled a .22 rifle in his lap and I saw a kalashnikov rifle under the seat. It took us three hours to drive 25km up the valley. We stopped to rebuild the track on several occasions and at times were following no more than a donkey’s trail. Ruhollah came with us. His father had been killed by Iranian agents from the Sepah-e-Pasdaran for resisting their attempts to influence local affairs. We passed through several villages on our way to Kotal Kushan, one of the main passes on the route to Sar-e-Pul in the North. We stopped at several points to examine the ridge lines and caves with the soviet binoculars. We were looking for Ahoo (deer) but after Mirza’s knowing smile, I suspected this was no more than an elaborate excuse for a picnic. Ahmed told me that there were 900 people living up here in tents during the Taleban era. They had closed all roads and the UN World Food Programme had courageously brought ten trucks full of wheat up this valley.
We reached the top of the mountain and looked straight down into a deep canyon. We heard a whistle and turned to see a young shepherd boy who had emerged from behind a rock. I was slightly startled since we were miles from the nearest village but Ahmed, who seemed to know everybody, greeted him warmly and we posed for photographs with his ancient camera. We began to head down into the gorge when a man approached us on the trail leading a white stallion carrying two boxes of apples. Ahmed knew him too and before long I was riding on horse back down into the gorge while the others set about preparing lunch. We explored the gorge and washed the apples in a spring. Ahmed began to film me with his mobile phone and wouldn’t stop until we arrived back at the of the mountain, where Aziz and Ruhollah were cooking lunch. They had cooked up some chicken in a pot and we ate it with raw onion and fresh milk from a jerry can. After lunch, when we were certain we would not see any Ahoo, we set up sweet wrappers in the trees and took it turns to do some target practice with the old rifle. I went some way to convincing Ahmed I was not a total liability.
There was a funny moment on the journey back when a mother pulled her horse out of the way of the car and sent her small child spinning with a large sack of wheat on her head. She knocked into her little sister who then tumbled down the into the ditch. She started to cry and her mother scolded her for spilling the wheat everywhere. Ruhollah, who hadn’t said a word all day collapsed with laughter and said, “Thank you Mr Aziz!” We laughed all the way home. It was 18:00 by the time we arrived back at the fortress. Ehsan had been fishing with Reza and between them, they had caught a dozen small fish without having to resort to grenades. They were all talking about the local Lithuanian PRT (provincial reconstruction team) that had driven through the valley. Two tanks and two armoured landcruisers had stopped in the valley, consulted maps, driven a short way up the valley, before turning around and heading up a different valley. The old men did not know what they were doing and said that no one really understood why they were there.
We began our journey home early the next morning and stopped off at Band-e-Amir, Afghanistan’s first national park and one of its most beautiful attractions. There are a series of five beautiful blue lakes that lie at about 3000m. They have been formed by calcium carbonate deposits that have formed natural dams. Ali and I stripped off and slipped down the calciferous cliff into the water. A family was picnicking on the other side of the lake and young men were splashing each other from brightly painted pedalos in the middle of the lake.
As we approached Bamiyan, gone were the groups of gossiping women and instead, women lined the river bank washing pots and plates and clothes after the Eid celebrations. Children were no longer playing in the street but returning from school and we were caught in traffic as others returned home from family vacations. We slept on the floor in a dormitory on thin mattresses above a mechanics workshop. Ehsan and Ali lounged around and soon the conversation turned to typical male banter. They talked quickly so that I would not hear but I heard enough to know that it was little different from pub banter anywhere in England. They brought me into the conversation at the point where Ali was saying that it was a medical fact that having sex too many times in a week was bad for your health. Ehsan replied that this was nonsense and that he had sex whenever he fancied, which was at least ten times a week. Ehsan talked for half an hour on the merits of Head & Shoulders shampoo which he referred to as ‘shoulders’. He boasted of his new Gilette razor and they compared notes on how often each other washed. Ali was curious about pork. He said that his friend in Germany had told him that pigs have twelve piglets. “This is the ideal animal for Afghanistan!” he said “Cows and sheep only have two or three young.” Then he said that he’d heard that pork tasted really delicious. Ehsan, who had been growing increasingly indignant, put an end to this heresy and said that as a Muslim, he would not tolerate this sort of talk. It was afterall haram (forbidden). Ali changed the subject and asked about alcohol. I explained the different percentages of alcohol in wine, beer, and spirits. Ali looked a bit disappointed and said, “You mean my 5% beer drinking is no big deal? I should drink whisky.” He told me that people who have gall stones here are encouraged to drink beer for breakfast. Ehsan said it was true that drinking too much could make you blind and said that this had happened to a friend of his in Iran.
On our way back to Kabul, we struggled to overtake columns of Super Kamaz trucks on the winding mountain road. They were weighed down with bags of zughal (coal) and kachaloo (potatoes) and teetered precariously above the river as they negotiated deep ruts in the track. We passed a district governor’s office just out of Bamiyan and Ali said that this belonged to the nephew of Abdul Hamid. We stopped to buy some apples from a small boy. He must have had about 3 seer (21kg) which should have been worth about $16. Ehsan haggled with him and to his credit the boy was a strong negotiator. Unfortunately he did not fully understand the value of these apples and Ehsan unscrupulously bullied him into letting them go for $3. We stopped short of the road and spent half an hour washing the car. A small boy helped his father by wielding a hose that he could hardly lift and spraying everything but the car in the process. Once it was clean, they washed it again, and again. We eventually reached the metalled road and covered the 54km back from Charikar in under an hour.
The village where we stayed was 260 miles from Kabul. There is only a track and that is navigable only at certain times of the year in large Kamaz trucks or 4x4 mini-vans. Despite its remote location, the people are well connected to what’s happening in Kabul. They know the names of NGOs and foreign diplomats. They have a rich history and can recount their local history in detail. They are heavily dependent on a good harvest. Except for sugar, oil, and a few sundry items, everything that they eat is produced locally. Society is feudal and more or less based on a subsistence economy. Despite the large distances and inhospitable terrain, everyone seems to know each other. The same families have often ruled their local areas for centuries. Shepherds take their master’s flocks miles and miles over the mountains in search of new pasture. There are camps of nomads in colourful patchwork tents that exist in the most remote of places. People are proud to be Afghan and talk of the watan (homeland). They are suspicious of Iranian and Pakistani agents and want their country to stand on its own. On the surface, it appears that their women are treated as chattels and traded between families. The local dowry is three lak ($6000) unless a cousin is pledged in marriage, in which case there is some discount. Often, this sum is made up with cows, sheep, a tractor, or perhaps even a generator. Every community has been traumatized by war. Many families have lost sons and daughters and can describe tales of terror and conflict as if they were yesterday. Ahmed’s village was strafed by soviet gunships and a rocket lodged in their roof. Donkeys which cost on average $400 remain the mainstay of the working community and Kamaz trucks are relied on for transporting wooden beams, stone etc to remote valleys for the construction of schools etc. Above all else, most people want security. They do not however regard the Taleban as a major threat. In rural Ghor, it is the local qazi (judge) who distributes justice and most people seemed happy with that system. There is minimal crime and what conflict there is is normally down to land or family issues. The people I met on this journey want the international community to actually do something: to stand up to warlords, to build roads, bridges, schools, dams.
I speak enough Dari to hold a series of conversations on different topics. I know enough about the country to keep up in conversation and to understand what’s expected of me in different situations. However, it is very unlikely that I could ever persuade anybody of anything. I have no platform for assertive action whether it be religious, sociological, mechanical, or political. I am simply a guest. At the most I can hope for shared experience, some sense of mutual understanding, and the beginning of a friendship. My understanding of local politics is basic and my ability to gain a nuanced understanding of these deeply ingrained and complex kinship relationships almost impossible. Despite all these limitations, I feel that the two nights I spent with Ahmed and his family has given me a good insight into how best to help them, and enough shared experience to relate to each other as friends rather than host/guest or Afghan/foreigner. I wonder then about the usefulness of the Lithuanian PRT. I wonder how foreigners can hope to help, let alone change anything for the better, when they mostly lack the language, local knowledge, and personality, to access local power structures.
Kabul is often seems very political. Everyone is focused on the rights and wrongs of the current strategy. International donors and governments wield huge sums and try and use it for maximum political leverage. Detailed proposals are generated by literate and articulate theoreticians which in turn generate millions of dollars of aid. Conferences are held and papers written. Careers are forged and success stories gleaned from precious little. Security firms prosper and people live in fear. But in this village, they wanted to repair the road to Sar-e-Pul; that cow needn’t have died; and there are probably more efficient ways of storing food for the winter and of heating and repairing the houses. Local doctors need training. Teachers need training too and materials. Even if the Lithuanian PRT just employed people to build earthen walls, it would arguably be better than what they are doing now. People wonder what happened to all the money and expertise that they heard about on the radio. Seed fertilization, crop management, storage, drainage, water protection, animal husbandry - all these agricultural advances that are taken for granted in the west could have a huge impact on areas like the Hazarajat. The foreign contractors, the armoured land cruisers, the urban american-educated afghan interpreters, the salaries, the MREs (U.S army rations): none of it will work. Effective foreign assistance will only come through persistent, committed, courageous, modest, intelligent individuals implementing carefully chosen assistance packages alongside the local community.
If the last eight years have shown us anything, it is that aid and development alone cannot deliver security. There is no evidence that PRT schools and clinics in the south have won any hearts or minds. They are built and protected by foreign troops and their activities cease as soon as the foreign funding is withdrawn. It should not be a surprise that Afghans best understand local power structures and are therefore best placed to negotiate local deals. All we can hope for is success in a number of high profile projects that will encourage communities to ask for foreign support as and when their situation allows it. The Hazarajat seems like a good place to start. Foreign troops should reduce their presence in the south and let local communities organize themselves. This is likely to lead to some Taleban administered areas which are beyond the reach of the international community. But only when communities see what value the international community can bring, will we start to deliver projects of real worth.
Tuesday, 27 October 2009
Ramblings and somewhat self-important reflections!
Somewhere in between our visit to Delhi during the first elections and the announcement of the forthcoming second round next month, we celebrated one year of being here in Afghanistan. We’ve seen four seasons of the Afghan climate; snow, dust, storms and sun, lived in three different places, made and said goodbye to many friends and celebrated our fifth wedding anniversary. Some days have felt like a week, some weeks like a day!
Today we are both suffering from dry hands, faces and lips. The roses might still be in bloom, but recently the temperature has plummeted so that today feels like a late November day in Britain. We have just stopped eating our meals outside which brings an official end to what I was still calling the summer just a couple of weeks ago! Suddenly the mosquito nets have been taken down to be replaced by the bukhari sawdust stoves that we used last winter.
I’m still amazed and slightly embarrassed by the wonderful place where we live. Sitting in our new living room in the far corner of the courtyard sun is streaming in through the windows partially covered by morning glory. There are bright red pomegranates and furry green quinces on the trees and the scent of basil hangs in the air. Men are on the roof above my head laying down a fresh coat of mud and straw in preparation for the winter weather. It has always been a great relief to arrive home from work every afternoon. Immediately the dust disappears, I push off my headscarf and Pahlawan the dog comes to walk me home to our front door. Kaka (Uncle) Nabi will have carefully arranged our shoes in a neat line by our door and the bathroom will be gleaming. I remind myself to enjoy it while it lasts – we won’t live like this again, free of housework, cooking and utility bills for a long time (if ever)!
I was telling my mum and dad the other day how the time here seems to go by in waves of highs and lows. I don’t think I’m the only one who experiences this. Ex-pat workers who have happily been here for years will suddenly announce one day that they’re leaving Afghanistan – the next day they’re gone. And yet a satisfying day’s work will enthuse a person enough to argue, rant and rave for hours at dinner time, encouraged by their colleagues who have equally exciting stories to tell. Some days I arrive at my workplace and cringe – the last thing I want to do is to have to pretend not to notice the incessant stares and exclamations of kharigi (foreigner) wherever I go. I dread a knock at my office door, knowing it’s the 200th student coming to ask for an impossible group change. I’d like nothing better than to fly off to Dubai and indulge myself in the real world (ironic, as Dubai couldn’t be any more synthetic). Other days I must have taken my aid worker pill – I love seeing boys selling balloons, colourful kite shops, marble workshops, three people crammed onto a motorbike and old German buses that have been decorated with elaborate designs and names, often mis-spelled, like “Horny Bus” and “Fart Bus”. I love working with our student teachers who are so enthusiastic to learn and teach. I’m proud to see that our project is moving faster and more efficiently than many other foreign-funded programs in the country, and on a fraction of the budget.
Funny then, that I’ve never really noticed an Afghan going through these same highs and lows. In fact I find Afghans to be very passive people, happy to sit and wait it out. Wait what out? Well… the conflict, the day, life itself … I know very little about the subject, but I imagine this might be an illustration of traumatised society. People who had everything in their lives turned upside-down, and now that normality has returned they don’t know where to pick up again. It’s the ‘not knowing where to start’ feeling that we all have when faced with a huge amount of work lying ahead. The passiveness has varying levels of intensity. Mostly it’s the older generation that I notice – men squatting by the side of a road, seemingly waiting for absolutely nothing, women sitting in a dark corridor watching the people come and go.
What gives me hope for Afghanistan are the young people. The university graduates, male and female, who all express a deep desire to serve their people and country in the future. Young men and women who want to get to know me and the culture that I come from. I am privileged to work with them, impressed by their diligence in attending training sessions, planning and delivering lessons during their free time. Many of them do this alongside their final year studies. These are the future teachers, lecturers, managers and politicians of this country and they hold its destiny in their hands.
So when I have a low day I very quickly have to kick myself. I remember that I can home one day, back to what is comfortable and easy, back to my family and friends. But until then I have precious days in which to make a difference. It doesn’t matter if I stick out like a sore thumb – the kharigi – what matters is sharing what I have learnt from a privileged Western education and helping my colleagues here to become the best that they can possibly be!
Today we are both suffering from dry hands, faces and lips. The roses might still be in bloom, but recently the temperature has plummeted so that today feels like a late November day in Britain. We have just stopped eating our meals outside which brings an official end to what I was still calling the summer just a couple of weeks ago! Suddenly the mosquito nets have been taken down to be replaced by the bukhari sawdust stoves that we used last winter.
I’m still amazed and slightly embarrassed by the wonderful place where we live. Sitting in our new living room in the far corner of the courtyard sun is streaming in through the windows partially covered by morning glory. There are bright red pomegranates and furry green quinces on the trees and the scent of basil hangs in the air. Men are on the roof above my head laying down a fresh coat of mud and straw in preparation for the winter weather. It has always been a great relief to arrive home from work every afternoon. Immediately the dust disappears, I push off my headscarf and Pahlawan the dog comes to walk me home to our front door. Kaka (Uncle) Nabi will have carefully arranged our shoes in a neat line by our door and the bathroom will be gleaming. I remind myself to enjoy it while it lasts – we won’t live like this again, free of housework, cooking and utility bills for a long time (if ever)!
I was telling my mum and dad the other day how the time here seems to go by in waves of highs and lows. I don’t think I’m the only one who experiences this. Ex-pat workers who have happily been here for years will suddenly announce one day that they’re leaving Afghanistan – the next day they’re gone. And yet a satisfying day’s work will enthuse a person enough to argue, rant and rave for hours at dinner time, encouraged by their colleagues who have equally exciting stories to tell. Some days I arrive at my workplace and cringe – the last thing I want to do is to have to pretend not to notice the incessant stares and exclamations of kharigi (foreigner) wherever I go. I dread a knock at my office door, knowing it’s the 200th student coming to ask for an impossible group change. I’d like nothing better than to fly off to Dubai and indulge myself in the real world (ironic, as Dubai couldn’t be any more synthetic). Other days I must have taken my aid worker pill – I love seeing boys selling balloons, colourful kite shops, marble workshops, three people crammed onto a motorbike and old German buses that have been decorated with elaborate designs and names, often mis-spelled, like “Horny Bus” and “Fart Bus”. I love working with our student teachers who are so enthusiastic to learn and teach. I’m proud to see that our project is moving faster and more efficiently than many other foreign-funded programs in the country, and on a fraction of the budget.
Funny then, that I’ve never really noticed an Afghan going through these same highs and lows. In fact I find Afghans to be very passive people, happy to sit and wait it out. Wait what out? Well… the conflict, the day, life itself … I know very little about the subject, but I imagine this might be an illustration of traumatised society. People who had everything in their lives turned upside-down, and now that normality has returned they don’t know where to pick up again. It’s the ‘not knowing where to start’ feeling that we all have when faced with a huge amount of work lying ahead. The passiveness has varying levels of intensity. Mostly it’s the older generation that I notice – men squatting by the side of a road, seemingly waiting for absolutely nothing, women sitting in a dark corridor watching the people come and go.
What gives me hope for Afghanistan are the young people. The university graduates, male and female, who all express a deep desire to serve their people and country in the future. Young men and women who want to get to know me and the culture that I come from. I am privileged to work with them, impressed by their diligence in attending training sessions, planning and delivering lessons during their free time. Many of them do this alongside their final year studies. These are the future teachers, lecturers, managers and politicians of this country and they hold its destiny in their hands.
So when I have a low day I very quickly have to kick myself. I remember that I can home one day, back to what is comfortable and easy, back to my family and friends. But until then I have precious days in which to make a difference. It doesn’t matter if I stick out like a sore thumb – the kharigi – what matters is sharing what I have learnt from a privileged Western education and helping my colleagues here to become the best that they can possibly be!
Saturday, 3 October 2009
Dust and headscarves
A short update to our blog seems like a useful thing to do while I shelter from a dust storm and wait for my taxi to arrive to take me back home. Once again my headscarf comes in extremely useful, this time as a mask to cover my nose and mouth as the dust clouds engulf me. In the past my headscarf has done a great job of keeping my neck and ears warm (in the winter) and protects me daily from the black diesel fumes that fill the car on the way to and from work! On the other hand, it can be a pain in the neck, literally. It causes me to overheat when teaching and is constantly falling off my head so that my blonde locks are exposed to the world (horror!). This happens to the extent that I use hair slides to hold it in place and often do a very good impression of a WW2 field nurse, or a nun, depending on the colour. I am well impressed by the women here who manage to keep them cemented in place the whole day long. Fortunately for me I am able to whip mine off the minute I drive through the gates of our guesthouse! Back in my bedroom I have ammassed an impressive collection of scarves over the past year, most of which, i'm afraid, languish at the bottom of my wardrobe. They are a true reflection of the fashions here (headscarves have to match outfits after all) and many of the most garish were gifts from students and colleagues to mark a celebration such as teacher day and womens' day. There are shiny sequins and silver thread, peach pleats and transparent roses! Such a difficult choice to be made in the mornings!
Well, I hadn't intended to write a blog post about headscarves but there it is. Time to haed back out into the dust storm so I better wrap up well...
Well, I hadn't intended to write a blog post about headscarves but there it is. Time to haed back out into the dust storm so I better wrap up well...
Friday, 11 September 2009
Elections
Will: Today is Ahmad Shah Massoud day - the anniversary of the death of the renowned Northern Alliance commander who was blown up two days before 9/11 by two Algerian suicide bombers posing as journalists. It is also a national holiday and a chance to finally write a few notes for the blog.
September in Kabul is glorious and by far my favourite time of year. The internet is down, all meetings have stopped for the day, and there is only the fort to keep us entertained as we are limited to essential movements only due to instability in the city. These enforced breaks are often very refreshing. I noticed today that the pomegranates are almost ready to eat and the quinces are enormous. The apricots have all mysteriously disappeared. I suspect they were taken on the quiet by one of our Afghan staff. If you water plants here, they seem to gratefully yield fruit of generous proportions. The evenings are cool and the neighbouring roof tops are full of boys flying kites. Outside the fort though, the atmosphere in the city is tense.
The fall out from the Presidential elections continues to dominate conversations around town. Several weeks on and the paint used to mark voters’ fingers can still be seen under the fingernails of some of our colleagues. A friend cancelled lunch today as he had been called in for an emergency analysis of polling figures. There have been so many complaints that the UN sponsored Electoral Complaints Commission has been inundated. Karzai’s main rival Addullah Abdullah has called for the annulment of poll results amid accusations of ballot box stuffing. Even though the US envoy says that a rerun of the election is not possible, the Independent Electoral Commission is launching a recount in some southern areas. They say that there enough accusations of electoral fraud - mostly in the Pashtun belt - to deprive Karzai of 50% of the vote, thus forcing him into a second round. It is hard not to feel that regardless of the result, the political system here will be even less credible that it was before the elections.
I discussed this with colleagues over lunch in the old city. Some said that the country was too unstable to cope with a new President; that Karzai knew the ropes and was the best man to maintain security. Others said that Karzai’s inability to deal with corrupt and double-dealing senior officials just proved that he was part of the problem and the country would only continue to deteriorate under his leadership. One colleague told me, “Mr William, we Afghans are not political people. We know you British and Americans come here to do deals and you are very political people. We just want jobs and security.” In my experience, this is not true at all. The Afghans I have talked to are very politically aware and much better at cutting deals than the British and Americans. “Afghans will do anything for money,” he continued. ‘If you give me $100 I will go and find Osama Bin Laden for you. Are you telling me that despite all the Americans’ billions of dollars, they still cannot find him? No, it is because they do want to find him so that they can continue to keep their soldiers here into the future.”
I had a meeting at the US embassy yesterday with one of our principal donors. The US deputy Secretary of State who is responsible for a foreign assistance budget of $5 billion this year, addressed us, having just flown in from the States. He narrowly avoided being blown up by a large bomb as he left the airport along with four other senior members of the US administration. He was all the more resolute in his speech, speaking of the sacrifice that foreign service nationals and foreign service officers were making by working in this country. He painted a positive picture of the US intervention so far (no mention of the UN, EU, or other international allies) drawing attention to the heavy traffic as a sign of shopping, commerce, parents taking their children to buy new clothes for school. He was candid in explaining why Americans were in Afghanistan: to protect the US from extremists and state-sponsored terrorism. He described the enormous resources allocated by Congress, despite the economic crisis, for reconstruction in Afghanistan and emphasized his commitment to making this mission work. There followed questions about the length of tours and the number of agricultural specialists being sent to Provincial Reconstruction Teams around the country. However, it was the last question which was the most interesting. A young Afghan working at the embassy asked whether special immigration visas would be reinstated. His friends were clearly very sympathetic with the question. The deputy Secretary of State said that they had been granted for a time but that he obviously wanted talented Afghans to stay in Afghanistan and not to leave for the U.S.
This is the big dilemma. The Americans have an amazing ‘can-do’ attitude and cannot be faulted for their commitment. However, they have no viable partner with which to accomplish their mission. The prospect of leaving Afghanistan is incredibly appealing to most Afghans who work for international organizations and indeed many leave at the earliest opportunity, visa or no visa. The majority of the middle class left during the soviet occupation and civil war and most have not returned. Many of our staff are studying for MBAs before and after work hours, hoping that it will enable them to find work abroad. There are of course exceptions. I know of several highly motivated and respected young Afghans who have established NGOs or are working in business or government, determined to forge ahead and play a part in the reconstruction of their own country. Commentators talk of there being a window of opportunity between 2002 and 2004 when hope abounded and when the international community could move around the country at will. The international community is often accused of having squandered opportunities by pursuing a disjointed and unrealistic strategy of defense, diplomacy, and development. But when the light is shone on the Afghan government itself, they are equally guilty of the same charge. They have proved unable, and perhaps unwilling, to set aside their own private agendas and feuds to engage with a motivated and well resourced international community that does not really know what it is doing in Afghanistan. This is as true of the Demobilization, Disarmament and Reintegration programme in 2003 as it is of counter narcotics, construction, and counter insurgency in 2009. Many men of influence here appear so attached to their own fiefdoms, that peace, stability, and a functioning administration are not actually in their interests. When aid packages worth billions of dollars are published in the press, it is not surprising that their expectation are set so high; It is understandable that they should ask where all this money has gone when so little has been apparently been achieved.
Foreigners here work incredibly hard; most do so honestly and broadly for the right reasons. The problem is that Americans, and others, have no option but to deal with a very narrow sector of Afghan society in pursuit of their goals. These tend to be ministers, interpreters, public affairs officers, businessmen, most of whom have spent the majority of their lives outside Afghanistan. The majority of the population struggle with poverty, ill health, unemployment, illiteracy, poor harvests, and insecurity, while a few rich Afghans seem to get even richer. Large donors measure their success by how many clinics or schools have been built in the last year. Perhaps they should also begin to measure how many of their staff speak fluent Pashto or Dari; how many stay for longer than a year; how many have developed relationships of any sort of meaning with Afghans from different levels in society? The problem with this approach is that it requires a committed group of professionals, who are willing to settle here for a number of years and work alongside their Afghan colleagues with full support from the government. This very quickly looks like some kind of UN protectorate. Paddy Ashdown was close to being appointed the UN special representative to Afghanistan last year until his style was considered too imperial by the President and others in the Afghan government. In the Balkans, his success was partly due to the bold and assertive supervision of ministries and government departments through a team of international officers. The problem here has been that whilst ministers are often very talented and effective individuals, their departments are run by bureaucrats who struggle to get through their inbox in the morning. (Any success we’ve had as an organization has been due to the effective coupling of experienced Afghan staff operating freely in their own environment with international staff who know how to navigate the international system of funding cycles, deliverables, timelines, work plans, development strategies and reports.)
A friend told me today that they had just been given over $50 million to spend in the next eighteen months. “Too little, too late” he said. It is very hard to spend this sort of money intelligently in such a short space of time. He was expecting it to be wasted on a number of eye catching proposals, that sound exciting but lack the sort of management and commitment that are needed to make any project a success in this country or any other. “It will probably just make a few rich people even richer. We have just bought three new armoured Land Cruisers, so that’s a start” he said sarcastically.
September in Kabul is glorious and by far my favourite time of year. The internet is down, all meetings have stopped for the day, and there is only the fort to keep us entertained as we are limited to essential movements only due to instability in the city. These enforced breaks are often very refreshing. I noticed today that the pomegranates are almost ready to eat and the quinces are enormous. The apricots have all mysteriously disappeared. I suspect they were taken on the quiet by one of our Afghan staff. If you water plants here, they seem to gratefully yield fruit of generous proportions. The evenings are cool and the neighbouring roof tops are full of boys flying kites. Outside the fort though, the atmosphere in the city is tense.
The fall out from the Presidential elections continues to dominate conversations around town. Several weeks on and the paint used to mark voters’ fingers can still be seen under the fingernails of some of our colleagues. A friend cancelled lunch today as he had been called in for an emergency analysis of polling figures. There have been so many complaints that the UN sponsored Electoral Complaints Commission has been inundated. Karzai’s main rival Addullah Abdullah has called for the annulment of poll results amid accusations of ballot box stuffing. Even though the US envoy says that a rerun of the election is not possible, the Independent Electoral Commission is launching a recount in some southern areas. They say that there enough accusations of electoral fraud - mostly in the Pashtun belt - to deprive Karzai of 50% of the vote, thus forcing him into a second round. It is hard not to feel that regardless of the result, the political system here will be even less credible that it was before the elections.
I discussed this with colleagues over lunch in the old city. Some said that the country was too unstable to cope with a new President; that Karzai knew the ropes and was the best man to maintain security. Others said that Karzai’s inability to deal with corrupt and double-dealing senior officials just proved that he was part of the problem and the country would only continue to deteriorate under his leadership. One colleague told me, “Mr William, we Afghans are not political people. We know you British and Americans come here to do deals and you are very political people. We just want jobs and security.” In my experience, this is not true at all. The Afghans I have talked to are very politically aware and much better at cutting deals than the British and Americans. “Afghans will do anything for money,” he continued. ‘If you give me $100 I will go and find Osama Bin Laden for you. Are you telling me that despite all the Americans’ billions of dollars, they still cannot find him? No, it is because they do want to find him so that they can continue to keep their soldiers here into the future.”
I had a meeting at the US embassy yesterday with one of our principal donors. The US deputy Secretary of State who is responsible for a foreign assistance budget of $5 billion this year, addressed us, having just flown in from the States. He narrowly avoided being blown up by a large bomb as he left the airport along with four other senior members of the US administration. He was all the more resolute in his speech, speaking of the sacrifice that foreign service nationals and foreign service officers were making by working in this country. He painted a positive picture of the US intervention so far (no mention of the UN, EU, or other international allies) drawing attention to the heavy traffic as a sign of shopping, commerce, parents taking their children to buy new clothes for school. He was candid in explaining why Americans were in Afghanistan: to protect the US from extremists and state-sponsored terrorism. He described the enormous resources allocated by Congress, despite the economic crisis, for reconstruction in Afghanistan and emphasized his commitment to making this mission work. There followed questions about the length of tours and the number of agricultural specialists being sent to Provincial Reconstruction Teams around the country. However, it was the last question which was the most interesting. A young Afghan working at the embassy asked whether special immigration visas would be reinstated. His friends were clearly very sympathetic with the question. The deputy Secretary of State said that they had been granted for a time but that he obviously wanted talented Afghans to stay in Afghanistan and not to leave for the U.S.
This is the big dilemma. The Americans have an amazing ‘can-do’ attitude and cannot be faulted for their commitment. However, they have no viable partner with which to accomplish their mission. The prospect of leaving Afghanistan is incredibly appealing to most Afghans who work for international organizations and indeed many leave at the earliest opportunity, visa or no visa. The majority of the middle class left during the soviet occupation and civil war and most have not returned. Many of our staff are studying for MBAs before and after work hours, hoping that it will enable them to find work abroad. There are of course exceptions. I know of several highly motivated and respected young Afghans who have established NGOs or are working in business or government, determined to forge ahead and play a part in the reconstruction of their own country. Commentators talk of there being a window of opportunity between 2002 and 2004 when hope abounded and when the international community could move around the country at will. The international community is often accused of having squandered opportunities by pursuing a disjointed and unrealistic strategy of defense, diplomacy, and development. But when the light is shone on the Afghan government itself, they are equally guilty of the same charge. They have proved unable, and perhaps unwilling, to set aside their own private agendas and feuds to engage with a motivated and well resourced international community that does not really know what it is doing in Afghanistan. This is as true of the Demobilization, Disarmament and Reintegration programme in 2003 as it is of counter narcotics, construction, and counter insurgency in 2009. Many men of influence here appear so attached to their own fiefdoms, that peace, stability, and a functioning administration are not actually in their interests. When aid packages worth billions of dollars are published in the press, it is not surprising that their expectation are set so high; It is understandable that they should ask where all this money has gone when so little has been apparently been achieved.
Foreigners here work incredibly hard; most do so honestly and broadly for the right reasons. The problem is that Americans, and others, have no option but to deal with a very narrow sector of Afghan society in pursuit of their goals. These tend to be ministers, interpreters, public affairs officers, businessmen, most of whom have spent the majority of their lives outside Afghanistan. The majority of the population struggle with poverty, ill health, unemployment, illiteracy, poor harvests, and insecurity, while a few rich Afghans seem to get even richer. Large donors measure their success by how many clinics or schools have been built in the last year. Perhaps they should also begin to measure how many of their staff speak fluent Pashto or Dari; how many stay for longer than a year; how many have developed relationships of any sort of meaning with Afghans from different levels in society? The problem with this approach is that it requires a committed group of professionals, who are willing to settle here for a number of years and work alongside their Afghan colleagues with full support from the government. This very quickly looks like some kind of UN protectorate. Paddy Ashdown was close to being appointed the UN special representative to Afghanistan last year until his style was considered too imperial by the President and others in the Afghan government. In the Balkans, his success was partly due to the bold and assertive supervision of ministries and government departments through a team of international officers. The problem here has been that whilst ministers are often very talented and effective individuals, their departments are run by bureaucrats who struggle to get through their inbox in the morning. (Any success we’ve had as an organization has been due to the effective coupling of experienced Afghan staff operating freely in their own environment with international staff who know how to navigate the international system of funding cycles, deliverables, timelines, work plans, development strategies and reports.)
A friend told me today that they had just been given over $50 million to spend in the next eighteen months. “Too little, too late” he said. It is very hard to spend this sort of money intelligently in such a short space of time. He was expecting it to be wasted on a number of eye catching proposals, that sound exciting but lack the sort of management and commitment that are needed to make any project a success in this country or any other. “It will probably just make a few rich people even richer. We have just bought three new armoured Land Cruisers, so that’s a start” he said sarcastically.
Saturday, 20 June 2009
This one is for Jane & H2O
Will: Jane's imminent retirement from H2O (and all her other important work in the Benefice) reminds me of night-hikes, crocker on the Finstock common, sowing a smiley face with mustard seed, crazy dancing in the memorial hall, pillow fights, Easter drama, rapping around the pubs for 'Children in Need', and searching for toxic blocks of cryptonite in Peter Parker's wood to foil an assassination attempt on the PM. Her commitment over so many years to so many young people is a tremendous example of faithful service inspired by Christ-like love. One of the things Jane excels at, is creating the space for the young people at H2O to be themselves. They play, argue, tease, laugh, eat, create, learn, pray, all under the gentle supervision of someone who understands the importance of grace and unconditional love. I suspect that many of the young people who have passed through H2O may not have experienced this depth of love and understanding in many other people during their lives.
In the part of Kabul where I work, the children are a constant source of hope. They play contentedly amongst the waste of a hundred families. Excrement and household refuse litter the streets. The air is heavily polluted; buildings occasionally collapse; and drug addicts sleep in the alley ways. Yet, if you look up you are likely to see kites dancing in the sky. If you look down, you often see children squatting in a circle, playing marbles in the dirt. Children come tearing around street corners clutching their water bottles and tucking their shirts in, anxious to make it to school in time. In class, they sing at every opportunity and have recently designed their own playground with see-saws, slides, and fountains watched over by elephants, dinosaurs, peacocks and parrots. They sit in one of the old houses we have restored, enthralled by traditional stories from this part of the city, eager to learn more. But life is far from comfortable. Some are occasionally pulled from class to sell bread. Some mothers keep their children at home so they can fetch water and take care of their younger siblings. Some have to watch their mothers being beaten by their fathers and others are infected with Hepatitis B. One cannot help but be aware that life will change very dramatically for most of them as they reach puberty, particularly the girls. When school is finished I see boys from grades one and two, still in their uniforms, helping their fathers and brothers at work. I see little girls struggling down the street with a metal box of water balanced under each shoulder. This serves as an early introduction to some of the duties they will be expected to take on as they grow in strength and stature. The primary school that we have established in the old city has 200 pupils, all of whom come from the local community. It is a safe and clean environment where they can learn. There are other schools in the city where 25,000 pupils are taught in shifts by fifty teachers. Some children in the provinces walk for two hours to get to school.
I hope that all of you at H2O will aspire to live lives of imagination, hope, and ambition. And I hope that Jane's example of faithful service and compassion will always remind you of Christ's unconditional love for you. Don't lose sight of how privileged you are and don't forget that God has come not to condemn you but to help you live lives of freedom, adventure, and hope.
Long may the night hikes continue!
In the part of Kabul where I work, the children are a constant source of hope. They play contentedly amongst the waste of a hundred families. Excrement and household refuse litter the streets. The air is heavily polluted; buildings occasionally collapse; and drug addicts sleep in the alley ways. Yet, if you look up you are likely to see kites dancing in the sky. If you look down, you often see children squatting in a circle, playing marbles in the dirt. Children come tearing around street corners clutching their water bottles and tucking their shirts in, anxious to make it to school in time. In class, they sing at every opportunity and have recently designed their own playground with see-saws, slides, and fountains watched over by elephants, dinosaurs, peacocks and parrots. They sit in one of the old houses we have restored, enthralled by traditional stories from this part of the city, eager to learn more. But life is far from comfortable. Some are occasionally pulled from class to sell bread. Some mothers keep their children at home so they can fetch water and take care of their younger siblings. Some have to watch their mothers being beaten by their fathers and others are infected with Hepatitis B. One cannot help but be aware that life will change very dramatically for most of them as they reach puberty, particularly the girls. When school is finished I see boys from grades one and two, still in their uniforms, helping their fathers and brothers at work. I see little girls struggling down the street with a metal box of water balanced under each shoulder. This serves as an early introduction to some of the duties they will be expected to take on as they grow in strength and stature. The primary school that we have established in the old city has 200 pupils, all of whom come from the local community. It is a safe and clean environment where they can learn. There are other schools in the city where 25,000 pupils are taught in shifts by fifty teachers. Some children in the provinces walk for two hours to get to school.
I hope that all of you at H2O will aspire to live lives of imagination, hope, and ambition. And I hope that Jane's example of faithful service and compassion will always remind you of Christ's unconditional love for you. Don't lose sight of how privileged you are and don't forget that God has come not to condemn you but to help you live lives of freedom, adventure, and hope.
Long may the night hikes continue!
Saturday, 6 June 2009
Chaikhane
Will: There is a programme called ‘chaikhane’ which is broadcast weekly on the Tolo TV station in Afghanistan. A chaikhane is a traditional Central Asian meeting place where men gather to drink tea, exchange news, and occasionally stay the night. This particular programme is presented by Wakil Sulayman, a community elder from across the river, who hosts various personalities as they recall stories from Kabul’s old city. Several weeks ago the senior elder in Murad Khane, Pahlawan Aziz, invited Wakil Sulayman to present the programme in one of the first buildings that we restored. We refer to the building as ‘Peacock House’ due to the ornately carved peacocks that decorate the cedar shuttering on the front of the house. Three years ago it was on the point of collapse. The sole plate had rotted and a significant portion of the building was leaning alarmingly to one side. Yet the carved woodwork is exquisite. Intricate interwoven floral motifs are carved into the doorway and decorative niches around the room. Cedar shuttering mediates between the cool interior and the outside courtyard whilst stained glass allows light to fall playfully upon the rich red Turkmen rugs which cover the floor. The Peacock House is now used by the community for shura meetings. It is a very visual reminder, not only to the local community, but also to visitors, that this part of Kabul was once considered the cultural and commercial centre of the Afghan nation.
Over the course of the morning thirty two local elders drifted into Peacock House and arranged themselves around plates of nuts, raisins, and melon, sitting cross-legged on toshaks (cushions) around the room. Wakil Sulayman and Pahlawan Aziz sat vaingloriously in the centre of the room like the King and Queen from an oriental chess set. The young Tolo TV cameraman and his sound engineer buzzed around them like flies adjusting their equipment, and occasionally their well oiled hair. An ivory headed elder called Sayed Turab, whispered theatrically to a group of wakils (community leaders) from Bagh-e-Ali Mardan Khan, “Shush! Don’t talk. Millions are watching.” The man next to me nodded indiscreetly at Kaka Qayoum in the corner and told me that his grandfather, Shahkul, had been the wakil of Murad Khane and had lived to the age of ninety. He then told me with some degree of satisfaction, that his successor, Kaka Faqir, had been the first person in Kabul to own an iron sheeted roof.
Pahlawan Aziz cleared his throat and the eddies of conversation around the room began to trickle away. He talked passionately about the respect old men had always enjoyed in Afghan culture. Ironically, his flow was interrupted by the young sound engineer who beckoned him to talk closer to the microphone. Pahlawan Aziz resumed but not before catching the eye of the young protagonist with a look of contained irritation. He said that when he was a boy, he would have crossed the street to avoid walking past an elder and would never have entered a shop in which an elder was being served. Unfortunately, he was interrupted again, but this time it was by the local imam from Chindawal, another shi’a quarter across the river in the old city. Sayed Mohammad Ali Sadr wore the black turban and cloak of a descendant of the Prophet Mohammad and the aviator sunglasses which seem to be de rigueur for imams in this part of the world. The whole room rose to greet him and Pahlawan Aziz was forced to wait whilst he circulated the room greeting everybody with a kiss and a handshake, before finally taking his place next to Wakil Sulayman. Pahlawan Aziz tried again. This time someone started to open some of the shuttered windows to allow some air in. Sounds of a baby crying and children playing drifted in through the open shutters. There was the sound of a croaking frog and the Imam reached inside his cloak for his mobile phone.
Wakil Sulayman judiciously took the microphone from Pahlawan Aziz and began to talk about the famous poets and calligraphers who had come from this area. The microphone was then handed around the circle and in turn, the elders described their customs, traditions, and ancestors. Samir Jan said that he used to play in these streets with Dr. Najib, who went on to become Afghan President. Mohammad Qayoum described wedding parties and the custom of a groom seeing his bride for the first time through her reflection in a mirror. Mahmoud Khan Sabri said that his ancestors had arrived here 250 years ago and mentioned some of the famous religious teachers who have lived in this area.
Vast plates of kabuli pilau, the national rice dish, were brought in and the microphone was soon forgotten. The Imam asked me to come and sit next to him and I noticed that behind his white beard, aviator sunglasses, and black turban, he actually had quite a youthful face. He told me that he used to teach at the German school in kabul and loved coaching the basketball and ping pong teams. He invited me to come and see his takiakhane (shi’a centre of worship and community service) which he said was 200 years old. Pahlawan Aziz leaned over and presented me with a chunk of dunba (fat from a sheep’s tail). As he passed it over, it wobbled on the palm of his hand. He boasts that he eats 3 kilos of dunba before breakfast and always challenges me to a dunba eating contest. The joke is becoming routine as he says the same thing every time he sees me. I normally reply by saying that I will match his 3 kilos of dunba only if he eats his karakuli hat. This time I had no option but to accept the wobbly offering and tried my best to swallow it whole. My body was momentarily gripped by involuntary spasms of revulsion as it slipped down into my belly. I quickly looked for something else on the plate to take the taste away while Pahlawan Aziz searched for more fat to give me.
These elders have all lived through female emancipation in the 1960s, soviet occupation in the 70s and 80s, civil war and Taleban brutality in the 90s, and American bombing in 2001. But their memories extend far beyond these recent traumas to a time when the traditions and customs that they are so fond of, would have been commonplace. Events like this, which are broadcast to millions across the country, can be an important way of rallying a post-conflict population around traditional Afghan heritage and identity. It is a particular privilege for us that this episode took place in a traditional Afghan house that has had its pride restored to it through careful restoration and community involvement.
Over the course of the morning thirty two local elders drifted into Peacock House and arranged themselves around plates of nuts, raisins, and melon, sitting cross-legged on toshaks (cushions) around the room. Wakil Sulayman and Pahlawan Aziz sat vaingloriously in the centre of the room like the King and Queen from an oriental chess set. The young Tolo TV cameraman and his sound engineer buzzed around them like flies adjusting their equipment, and occasionally their well oiled hair. An ivory headed elder called Sayed Turab, whispered theatrically to a group of wakils (community leaders) from Bagh-e-Ali Mardan Khan, “Shush! Don’t talk. Millions are watching.” The man next to me nodded indiscreetly at Kaka Qayoum in the corner and told me that his grandfather, Shahkul, had been the wakil of Murad Khane and had lived to the age of ninety. He then told me with some degree of satisfaction, that his successor, Kaka Faqir, had been the first person in Kabul to own an iron sheeted roof.
Pahlawan Aziz cleared his throat and the eddies of conversation around the room began to trickle away. He talked passionately about the respect old men had always enjoyed in Afghan culture. Ironically, his flow was interrupted by the young sound engineer who beckoned him to talk closer to the microphone. Pahlawan Aziz resumed but not before catching the eye of the young protagonist with a look of contained irritation. He said that when he was a boy, he would have crossed the street to avoid walking past an elder and would never have entered a shop in which an elder was being served. Unfortunately, he was interrupted again, but this time it was by the local imam from Chindawal, another shi’a quarter across the river in the old city. Sayed Mohammad Ali Sadr wore the black turban and cloak of a descendant of the Prophet Mohammad and the aviator sunglasses which seem to be de rigueur for imams in this part of the world. The whole room rose to greet him and Pahlawan Aziz was forced to wait whilst he circulated the room greeting everybody with a kiss and a handshake, before finally taking his place next to Wakil Sulayman. Pahlawan Aziz tried again. This time someone started to open some of the shuttered windows to allow some air in. Sounds of a baby crying and children playing drifted in through the open shutters. There was the sound of a croaking frog and the Imam reached inside his cloak for his mobile phone.
Wakil Sulayman judiciously took the microphone from Pahlawan Aziz and began to talk about the famous poets and calligraphers who had come from this area. The microphone was then handed around the circle and in turn, the elders described their customs, traditions, and ancestors. Samir Jan said that he used to play in these streets with Dr. Najib, who went on to become Afghan President. Mohammad Qayoum described wedding parties and the custom of a groom seeing his bride for the first time through her reflection in a mirror. Mahmoud Khan Sabri said that his ancestors had arrived here 250 years ago and mentioned some of the famous religious teachers who have lived in this area.
Vast plates of kabuli pilau, the national rice dish, were brought in and the microphone was soon forgotten. The Imam asked me to come and sit next to him and I noticed that behind his white beard, aviator sunglasses, and black turban, he actually had quite a youthful face. He told me that he used to teach at the German school in kabul and loved coaching the basketball and ping pong teams. He invited me to come and see his takiakhane (shi’a centre of worship and community service) which he said was 200 years old. Pahlawan Aziz leaned over and presented me with a chunk of dunba (fat from a sheep’s tail). As he passed it over, it wobbled on the palm of his hand. He boasts that he eats 3 kilos of dunba before breakfast and always challenges me to a dunba eating contest. The joke is becoming routine as he says the same thing every time he sees me. I normally reply by saying that I will match his 3 kilos of dunba only if he eats his karakuli hat. This time I had no option but to accept the wobbly offering and tried my best to swallow it whole. My body was momentarily gripped by involuntary spasms of revulsion as it slipped down into my belly. I quickly looked for something else on the plate to take the taste away while Pahlawan Aziz searched for more fat to give me.
These elders have all lived through female emancipation in the 1960s, soviet occupation in the 70s and 80s, civil war and Taleban brutality in the 90s, and American bombing in 2001. But their memories extend far beyond these recent traumas to a time when the traditions and customs that they are so fond of, would have been commonplace. Events like this, which are broadcast to millions across the country, can be an important way of rallying a post-conflict population around traditional Afghan heritage and identity. It is a particular privilege for us that this episode took place in a traditional Afghan house that has had its pride restored to it through careful restoration and community involvement.
Friday, 22 May 2009
Recycling the Afghan Way
A curious thought occurred to me the other day - Afghanistan must be one of the most environmentally friendly nations in the world! Let's for a moment forget the 60 year old second-hand German trucks which chug through the city at night spurting out clouds of black fumes. And let's forget the overload of plastic bags which are obligatory to any purchase (not so different to the developed world) which end up flying around in the air. You see, many Afghans don't use rubbish bins. They just chuck things out of the window, the front door, straight on to the ground. Admittedly, this doesn't help to control the spread of disease or the aesthetic of the place. But what they do have is a automatic, natural recycling system! First of all, along comes an old man or woman, sometimes a child. They load the empty plastic containers into their sack for resale elsewhere in the city. They take out the pieces of old clothing and bits of rubber. Everything will be re-used. Next come the dogs to scavenge for old bones and vegetable scraps. When they have left, along comes the shepherd and his herd of fat-bottomed sheep and goats. Sometimes there are a couple of donkeys too. The rubbish heap is the herd's only source of food. They eat most of what is left, even some of the plastic bags. The shepherds spend their days taking their herds to the best 'rubbish spots' to be found around the city. Ultimately the sheep will become kebabs sold on street corners. What remains of the rubbish heap are a few cardboard containers and yes, the inevitable plastic bag that the goats passed by. These get trodden into the ground by the humans, animals and next load of rubbish to be left there...
Summer smells
What contrasts! I drove home the other day almost gagging at the smell of sewage that had been cleared from the drainage ditches, and left at the side of the road for the dogs and sheep to scavenge from. The hot air and sun are here to stay. They do great job of heating everything up so that for once my headscarf has become less of a hindrance and more of a useful weapon against those powerful smells. I then arrived home to the delicious scents of roses, irises and blossoms that pervade the fort courtyard. There are roses of many different varieties - each with their own unique colour and scent. The last couple of weeks have seen beautiful hot, sunny mornings which are followed by humid, stormy afternoons. I was teaching a lesson the other day when one of these storms broke over our heads. The electricity went out, hailstones flew in through the glass-less windows and the classroom was thrown into darkness. We did our best to keep the lesson going by the light of our mobile phones, but soon admitted defeat. When the torrential rains have passed over us, the sun comes back out again and heats up the land so that all the smells are heightened - grass, herbs, pine, blossoms, lilac.
Monday, 11 May 2009
Shifting Sands
I spent a few days recently preoccupied with thoughts about the concept of normality, and what it means. It is perhaps a sign of having been here now for eight months that there are many things which do not shock me anymore about Afghanistan. If I do see or hear something extraordinary, I find that I am quickly able to fit this new information into a relevant pigeonhole of thought about Afghan life. It seems that my perceptions of Afghanistan are more or less fixed now, but having a benchmark to work from, my ideas of what constitutes ‘normality’ are now being challenged.
What was normality? Well, I suppose that it was everything in the UK that I took for granted. It was children and teenagers surging in to school at 8.15 in the morning and then spilling out of the gates bang on 3.05 in the afternoon. It was the ability to drive 100 miles within about two hours with the guarantee that there would be smooth tarmac roads all the way there. It was the ability to have an almost instant connection to a phone line, electricity and gas. It is all the things that reflect a prosperous and developed nation, where systems work and things are fixed when they go wrong.
Perhaps one of the biggest tragedies of thirty years of conflict in a country is simply the way in which it pulls everything back, squashing what progress could have be made if there was peace. I have heard that back in the 1970s the Engineering Faculty of Kabul University was one of the best in the world. Thirty years on and the teachers are struggling to find desks and chairs for their classrooms. Glass in the windows is a luxury. Just think of the impact that this one faculty could have had on the current generation of young people here had it not been hindered by conflict!
So what is normality here? Well, it’s not smooth roads, children in school or regular connections to public utilities. It is young boys of no more than twelve years old selling crisps and chewing gum to students on campus at the University. It’s a horse and cart loaded with great piles of radishes and spring onions stuck in the rush hour traffic amongst hundreds of cars and lorries. It’s a young boy pushing an unlit cart up a steep and busy main road in the dark, cars rushing past him. And its men, women and children sitting on the floor of their one-room shop enjoying dinner by the light of a lantern.
Both ‘normalities’ are valid of course – one is the normality of a wealthy nation, the other is the normality of a war-torn nation many of whose population struggle to survive. But is it not true that our western normality is an abnormality? Almost half the world’s population live on less than $2.50 per day, like the librarian I met who earns $20 a month (not easy when petrol is $1/litre and enough bread for the family is about $1 a day) . The reality that I see here is the same as that of many nations in the world. Why am I saying all of this? Well, for me it has been a revelation, a shifting of my understanding. I’d really like to know what you think... Please do leave a comment!
What was normality? Well, I suppose that it was everything in the UK that I took for granted. It was children and teenagers surging in to school at 8.15 in the morning and then spilling out of the gates bang on 3.05 in the afternoon. It was the ability to drive 100 miles within about two hours with the guarantee that there would be smooth tarmac roads all the way there. It was the ability to have an almost instant connection to a phone line, electricity and gas. It is all the things that reflect a prosperous and developed nation, where systems work and things are fixed when they go wrong.
Perhaps one of the biggest tragedies of thirty years of conflict in a country is simply the way in which it pulls everything back, squashing what progress could have be made if there was peace. I have heard that back in the 1970s the Engineering Faculty of Kabul University was one of the best in the world. Thirty years on and the teachers are struggling to find desks and chairs for their classrooms. Glass in the windows is a luxury. Just think of the impact that this one faculty could have had on the current generation of young people here had it not been hindered by conflict!
So what is normality here? Well, it’s not smooth roads, children in school or regular connections to public utilities. It is young boys of no more than twelve years old selling crisps and chewing gum to students on campus at the University. It’s a horse and cart loaded with great piles of radishes and spring onions stuck in the rush hour traffic amongst hundreds of cars and lorries. It’s a young boy pushing an unlit cart up a steep and busy main road in the dark, cars rushing past him. And its men, women and children sitting on the floor of their one-room shop enjoying dinner by the light of a lantern.
Both ‘normalities’ are valid of course – one is the normality of a wealthy nation, the other is the normality of a war-torn nation many of whose population struggle to survive. But is it not true that our western normality is an abnormality? Almost half the world’s population live on less than $2.50 per day, like the librarian I met who earns $20 a month (not easy when petrol is $1/litre and enough bread for the family is about $1 a day) . The reality that I see here is the same as that of many nations in the world. Why am I saying all of this? Well, for me it has been a revelation, a shifting of my understanding. I’d really like to know what you think... Please do leave a comment!
Monday, 20 April 2009
Day by day
Every day in Kabul brings a new and fascinating experience, be it a simple observation from the car window or an afternoon’s adventure at work or in the old city. I’ll start with the latter – a certificate awarding ceremony for ladies who had completed their first year of a Literacy course. We gathered in a school classroom, the ladies squeezed behind the small desks designed for much younger pupils. While they patiently waited for us, the guests, to assemble ourselves a small, elderly lady who was sat at the back of the classroom started to sing a song. I later learned that she is in her early 90s, and she has waited all this time to learn to read and write. The other ladies ranged in age, I imagine from their twenties to their sixties. I handed them certificates and shook their hands in my new (unexpected) role as token ‘international’ in the school! After the formalities were over we did what Afghans do best – tea and cake. The tea is usually green, except when you eat cake, in which case it is black. The cake is invariably yellow – worryingly so, and often loaded with canned cream. In fact a good Afghan birthday cake, I have discovered, is generally a creamy mass dotted here and there with some sponge. I’ll never forget the mess all over the wonderful, shiny suits of my colleagues when we had such a cake to celebrate the end of the art exhibition back in November!
Day to day observations... They happen all the time and I always mean to write them down. Some are forgotten but here are a few:
A donkey running away down the street from his two young masters who are chasing after him, a fireman in full aluminium silver outfit standing on top of the fire engine as it speeds down the street, balloon sellers and ladies in burqas banging on the windows as we sit in traffic begging us to buy a balloon or give up some change, another donkey standing patiently next to the water pump waiting for his master to load him up with water containers, men wearing women’s perfumes (I assume they aren’t aware of this), sheep hooves lying in the gutter outside the butcher, men walking the streets with carts of strawberries piled up in gravity-defying mounds, a man driving his motorbike home along with a boy, two women and a baby on board.
A few nights ago we were able to experience a wonderful celebration of Afghan music and poetry, at a party to wave off the US ambassador. We sat on a roof terrace with a fantastic view of the city and surrounding mountains. The air was warm and scented with incense that wafted through the tent which we sat under. The poetry by Persian masters such as Rumi and Hafez was read in Dari and we were able to follow with an English translation in the programme. A traditional Afghan music group accompanied the poetry with various instruments including the tabla (drums) and tula (reed flute). Together with the beautifully recited verses they were some of the sweetest sounds that I have heard here in Afghanistan. It was a night for pulling the two cultures of the US and Afghanistan together in solidarity. We heard a poem from Maya Angelou and the night finished off with the jolly beats of a New Orleans Dixieland jazz band belonging to one of the US airborne divisions.
Day to day observations... They happen all the time and I always mean to write them down. Some are forgotten but here are a few:
A donkey running away down the street from his two young masters who are chasing after him, a fireman in full aluminium silver outfit standing on top of the fire engine as it speeds down the street, balloon sellers and ladies in burqas banging on the windows as we sit in traffic begging us to buy a balloon or give up some change, another donkey standing patiently next to the water pump waiting for his master to load him up with water containers, men wearing women’s perfumes (I assume they aren’t aware of this), sheep hooves lying in the gutter outside the butcher, men walking the streets with carts of strawberries piled up in gravity-defying mounds, a man driving his motorbike home along with a boy, two women and a baby on board.
A few nights ago we were able to experience a wonderful celebration of Afghan music and poetry, at a party to wave off the US ambassador. We sat on a roof terrace with a fantastic view of the city and surrounding mountains. The air was warm and scented with incense that wafted through the tent which we sat under. The poetry by Persian masters such as Rumi and Hafez was read in Dari and we were able to follow with an English translation in the programme. A traditional Afghan music group accompanied the poetry with various instruments including the tabla (drums) and tula (reed flute). Together with the beautifully recited verses they were some of the sweetest sounds that I have heard here in Afghanistan. It was a night for pulling the two cultures of the US and Afghanistan together in solidarity. We heard a poem from Maya Angelou and the night finished off with the jolly beats of a New Orleans Dixieland jazz band belonging to one of the US airborne divisions.
Saturday, 4 April 2009
New Beginnings
Time seems to have flown by since our last blog posting! It has been an action-packed month, starting with a great trip to Oman at the start of March, followed by Will temporarily taking on the reins at TM and me finishing one job, then starting another. Today is Friday, a day off, and a welcome opportunity to rest and catch up with ourselves.
We came back from Oman warmed by the gulf sun and feeling ready for a bit of spring weather. Fortunately we were in luck, as a warm breeze had moved in to replace the cold winter air while we were away. The weather stayed like this for several days after we got back, reminding me of the British summer. Then, in true British style, the rains came. At one point last week we were lying in bed wondering if the mud roof over our heads might not fall in with the weight of water! The Kabul River is fuller than I have ever seen it and the air is for once dust-free. It is all a good sign that the drought which has plagued Afghanistan for most of the last decade is on its way out!
With the rain the gardens of the fort where we live have suddenly burst back to life. Tulips and daffodils are blooming, and beautiful apricot and apple blossoms scent the air. Pahlawan the dog is enjoying his new bed - the bushy carpet of green lawn that has risen up out of the winter mud. The city too seems to have sprung into life. A whole row of mini gardening centres appeared overnight on the side of one of the city’s main roads. Afghans, it seems, love to tend to their gardens. I’m sure that thirty years of peace following the past thirty years of strife would give them the opportunity to bring this once bountiful garden of Asia back to its former glory.
My new job involves creating a curriculum to teach subject-related English to students of Science. I also have to train two young graduates in teaching methodology. It’s going to be a great challenge, and I’m already enjoying it. The young Afghans that I work with are inspirational, and the other ex-pats on the team are great fun.
Before I started my new job, I finished off my work in the primary school of the old city where Turquoise Mountain is restoring historic buildings. One of the highlights of each day that I had worked there were the school pupils who were always immaculately turned out – the boys in their blue shirts and red bow ties, the girls in their dark blue tunics and pale blue headscarves. I relished the opportunity to teach them, and correct some of their mis-pronounced English (“halla harraya” – “hello, how are you” being one example). I taught them English for three lessons, eagerly pulling every teaching trick that I could think of out the bag in a mission to demonstrate some Western techniques to the teachers who were observing. Having observed them teach myself, I knew that I had to match their impressively high standard. Honestly though, I think they probably thought that I was slightly mad when I started singing ‘Heads, shoulders, knees and toes’ in front of the pupils, followed by a game of monster drawing to practise numbers and parts of the body. Never mind! The funniest part for me was the fact that the teachers kept shouting out the answers every time I asked the pupils a question!! They were keen, I’ll give them that!
When I left, we went for lunch in a local restaurant. After our meal of Kabuli Pilau (rice & mutton) and mantu (beef-filled ravioli), they very kindly presented me with some jewellery and a certificate. I am touched by their generosity, and will remember them always with fondness, particularly when I look at the certificate, copied below:
Mir’s Lucy Burnhel,
The Principal of the school is pleased to award this certificate for all the hand works for Afghan people who suffered decades of civil war and wishes you a prosperous future career in all new Afghan educational departments.
We came back from Oman warmed by the gulf sun and feeling ready for a bit of spring weather. Fortunately we were in luck, as a warm breeze had moved in to replace the cold winter air while we were away. The weather stayed like this for several days after we got back, reminding me of the British summer. Then, in true British style, the rains came. At one point last week we were lying in bed wondering if the mud roof over our heads might not fall in with the weight of water! The Kabul River is fuller than I have ever seen it and the air is for once dust-free. It is all a good sign that the drought which has plagued Afghanistan for most of the last decade is on its way out!
With the rain the gardens of the fort where we live have suddenly burst back to life. Tulips and daffodils are blooming, and beautiful apricot and apple blossoms scent the air. Pahlawan the dog is enjoying his new bed - the bushy carpet of green lawn that has risen up out of the winter mud. The city too seems to have sprung into life. A whole row of mini gardening centres appeared overnight on the side of one of the city’s main roads. Afghans, it seems, love to tend to their gardens. I’m sure that thirty years of peace following the past thirty years of strife would give them the opportunity to bring this once bountiful garden of Asia back to its former glory.
My new job involves creating a curriculum to teach subject-related English to students of Science. I also have to train two young graduates in teaching methodology. It’s going to be a great challenge, and I’m already enjoying it. The young Afghans that I work with are inspirational, and the other ex-pats on the team are great fun.
Before I started my new job, I finished off my work in the primary school of the old city where Turquoise Mountain is restoring historic buildings. One of the highlights of each day that I had worked there were the school pupils who were always immaculately turned out – the boys in their blue shirts and red bow ties, the girls in their dark blue tunics and pale blue headscarves. I relished the opportunity to teach them, and correct some of their mis-pronounced English (“halla harraya” – “hello, how are you” being one example). I taught them English for three lessons, eagerly pulling every teaching trick that I could think of out the bag in a mission to demonstrate some Western techniques to the teachers who were observing. Having observed them teach myself, I knew that I had to match their impressively high standard. Honestly though, I think they probably thought that I was slightly mad when I started singing ‘Heads, shoulders, knees and toes’ in front of the pupils, followed by a game of monster drawing to practise numbers and parts of the body. Never mind! The funniest part for me was the fact that the teachers kept shouting out the answers every time I asked the pupils a question!! They were keen, I’ll give them that!
When I left, we went for lunch in a local restaurant. After our meal of Kabuli Pilau (rice & mutton) and mantu (beef-filled ravioli), they very kindly presented me with some jewellery and a certificate. I am touched by their generosity, and will remember them always with fondness, particularly when I look at the certificate, copied below:
Mir’s Lucy Burnhel,
The Principal of the school is pleased to award this certificate for all the hand works for Afghan people who suffered decades of civil war and wishes you a prosperous future career in all new Afghan educational departments.
Friday, 20 February 2009
Go with the flow
Lucy: One of the first lessons to be learnt by an international worker newly arrived in Afghanistan is that doing ‘work’ here just doesn’t happen in the way that it does back home. Some of us fight to keep to our well-established work routines but inevitably end up in a frenzy of frustration and madness at our much depleted levels of work output.
For the past three years back in the UK, I’d arrive at school by 8am, and hit the ground running. Sometimes it seemed that there was barely a second to say hello to your colleagues between 8.00am and the start of the day at 8.20am, while pupils came to your classroom to hand in money for school trips, and lessons had to be prepared. I wouldn’t stop until getting home in the late afternoon, only to face a pile of books that needed marking. This week I have sauntered in to work late three times, because all the traffic heading into town was being stopped by the police and the ‘tunis’ (minivans like the one that we travel in) were being turned back. No one knows why, but I suspect they may have had a threat warning of a planned attack. Back in Witney a small 10 metre long traffic jam on West End used to bring me out in a cold sweat but here I am more complacent. We’re in a country where things don’t run smoothly, and where you can’t control every minute of your day. Security alerts and road blocks are just one example. When I finally reach the office, I embark upon a great frenzy of kissing. Not the men, mind you. Just the ladies, some with a burqa thrown back over their heads, who take great pleasure in grabbing your hand and giving you three smackers on alternating cheeks. Then comes the awkward flood of greetings that take us reserved English types a good few months to get the hang of. It consists of two people asking a succession of questions to each other, in a sort of verbal competition to outdo the other with enquiries into their health, house and those of their family and family’s family. None of these questions are actually answered, right until the very end, when all possible variations of ‘how are you?’ have been spent, and the poor looser who didn’t have the last word has to give up with “thank you, may you live long”. An example of such a conversation goes like this (no apologies for my embryonic Dari):
Lucy - Salaam aleykum!
Opponent - Salaam aleykum Lucy jan! Khobasti? Chitorasti?
Lucy - Jan et jorast? Khana kheratist?
Opponent - Bahair asti? Jorasti?
Lucy - Jahan e jorast? Subhat bahair?
Oppon - Taklak tayar asti? Mandana bashi!
Lucy - (Aaah!) Tashakor! Zenda bashi!
Lucy - Hello! (Peace be with you!)
Opponent - Hello dear Lucy! Are you well? How are you?
Lucy - Is your soul prepared? Is your house well?
Opponent - Are you well? Are you prepared?
Lucy - Is your soul prepared? Is your morning good?
Opponent - Is your strength ready? May you not grow weary!
Lucy - (Aaah!) Thank you! May you live long!
Ten minutes later, and you’re ready to sit down at your desk. “Tea?” somebody asks. And soon we’re all sipping away and eating Chinese sweets. Conversation ensues, as I try to log on to my computer and get my emails. More and more people arrive in the office and sit on chairs placed around the edge of the room. I wonder if they’re here for a meeting. I soon realise they’re not. I try to get on with some work, and ask my boss a few questions in stilted Dari, which only invites a flurry of comment and, thankfully, compliment from around the room. Then begins the daily enforced English-Dari conversation exchange where someone points at an object in the room, and I have to say the word in English. I am asked to test them on their new list of English words, and spend a few minutes correcting spellings and meanings (I wondered why one of them had been taught the verb “to dash” when I realised that they were actually being taught the verb “to run”). Finally I start to type an email, and am soon surrounded by inquisitive faces trying to peer over my computer screen to see what I am doing. Someone spots the photo of our village in the UK which I have got as my computer wallpaper and asks to see more. By the time we’ve finished it’s 11.30am and time for another cup of tea. I’ve done nothing all morning and decide to get a move on. I ask the boss if we can have a meeting, but he looks at me inquisitively and says “but it’s almost lunchtime”. He’s right - cutlery and plates have already arrived, computers have gone into energy saving mode and more people have come back into the office again. We eat a very decent lunch, and take our time over it. In the afternoon, the electricity goes off. I manage to work for two hours before my ageing computer battery gives up the ghost and I decide it’s time to go home.
Over the course of the day, I achieve perhaps half as much as what I would back home. When I write something, I have to wait three days for it to be translated. Conversations take double the time because everything has to be interpreted into and out of Dari. When the translator is not here, it’s hardly worth the effort, because the degree of misunderstanding in a discussion usually leads to nothing being decided at all. But 5 months after arriving here, I’m over it. It was rewarding, inspiring and exciting to work for the past three years in a school with a highly polished routine and high output of ideas and creativity. But a lunch time of conversation with colleagues was rare, a break time even rarer. Here, output may be slow but relationships count. Problems are shared, achievements are celebrated amongst colleagues. Piles of celebratory biscuits are eaten each month and morning meetings might be spent in communal prayer for a lost relative. I would dare to suggest that many Afghans see their co-workers as family, the workplace as a space for socialising as well as working. And why not? Yes, Afghanistan may be struggling economically, but just you wait. One day a big American corporation will decide that its employees need training in relational skills, and who better to step in than a team of Afghans?
Below - a boy tells a story to his classmates during afternoon story club. I'm afraid I couldn't work out how to rotate the clip!
For the past three years back in the UK, I’d arrive at school by 8am, and hit the ground running. Sometimes it seemed that there was barely a second to say hello to your colleagues between 8.00am and the start of the day at 8.20am, while pupils came to your classroom to hand in money for school trips, and lessons had to be prepared. I wouldn’t stop until getting home in the late afternoon, only to face a pile of books that needed marking. This week I have sauntered in to work late three times, because all the traffic heading into town was being stopped by the police and the ‘tunis’ (minivans like the one that we travel in) were being turned back. No one knows why, but I suspect they may have had a threat warning of a planned attack. Back in Witney a small 10 metre long traffic jam on West End used to bring me out in a cold sweat but here I am more complacent. We’re in a country where things don’t run smoothly, and where you can’t control every minute of your day. Security alerts and road blocks are just one example. When I finally reach the office, I embark upon a great frenzy of kissing. Not the men, mind you. Just the ladies, some with a burqa thrown back over their heads, who take great pleasure in grabbing your hand and giving you three smackers on alternating cheeks. Then comes the awkward flood of greetings that take us reserved English types a good few months to get the hang of. It consists of two people asking a succession of questions to each other, in a sort of verbal competition to outdo the other with enquiries into their health, house and those of their family and family’s family. None of these questions are actually answered, right until the very end, when all possible variations of ‘how are you?’ have been spent, and the poor looser who didn’t have the last word has to give up with “thank you, may you live long”. An example of such a conversation goes like this (no apologies for my embryonic Dari):
Lucy - Salaam aleykum!
Opponent - Salaam aleykum Lucy jan! Khobasti? Chitorasti?
Lucy - Jan et jorast? Khana kheratist?
Opponent - Bahair asti? Jorasti?
Lucy - Jahan e jorast? Subhat bahair?
Oppon - Taklak tayar asti? Mandana bashi!
Lucy - (Aaah!) Tashakor! Zenda bashi!
Lucy - Hello! (Peace be with you!)
Opponent - Hello dear Lucy! Are you well? How are you?
Lucy - Is your soul prepared? Is your house well?
Opponent - Are you well? Are you prepared?
Lucy - Is your soul prepared? Is your morning good?
Opponent - Is your strength ready? May you not grow weary!
Lucy - (Aaah!) Thank you! May you live long!
Ten minutes later, and you’re ready to sit down at your desk. “Tea?” somebody asks. And soon we’re all sipping away and eating Chinese sweets. Conversation ensues, as I try to log on to my computer and get my emails. More and more people arrive in the office and sit on chairs placed around the edge of the room. I wonder if they’re here for a meeting. I soon realise they’re not. I try to get on with some work, and ask my boss a few questions in stilted Dari, which only invites a flurry of comment and, thankfully, compliment from around the room. Then begins the daily enforced English-Dari conversation exchange where someone points at an object in the room, and I have to say the word in English. I am asked to test them on their new list of English words, and spend a few minutes correcting spellings and meanings (I wondered why one of them had been taught the verb “to dash” when I realised that they were actually being taught the verb “to run”). Finally I start to type an email, and am soon surrounded by inquisitive faces trying to peer over my computer screen to see what I am doing. Someone spots the photo of our village in the UK which I have got as my computer wallpaper and asks to see more. By the time we’ve finished it’s 11.30am and time for another cup of tea. I’ve done nothing all morning and decide to get a move on. I ask the boss if we can have a meeting, but he looks at me inquisitively and says “but it’s almost lunchtime”. He’s right - cutlery and plates have already arrived, computers have gone into energy saving mode and more people have come back into the office again. We eat a very decent lunch, and take our time over it. In the afternoon, the electricity goes off. I manage to work for two hours before my ageing computer battery gives up the ghost and I decide it’s time to go home.
Over the course of the day, I achieve perhaps half as much as what I would back home. When I write something, I have to wait three days for it to be translated. Conversations take double the time because everything has to be interpreted into and out of Dari. When the translator is not here, it’s hardly worth the effort, because the degree of misunderstanding in a discussion usually leads to nothing being decided at all. But 5 months after arriving here, I’m over it. It was rewarding, inspiring and exciting to work for the past three years in a school with a highly polished routine and high output of ideas and creativity. But a lunch time of conversation with colleagues was rare, a break time even rarer. Here, output may be slow but relationships count. Problems are shared, achievements are celebrated amongst colleagues. Piles of celebratory biscuits are eaten each month and morning meetings might be spent in communal prayer for a lost relative. I would dare to suggest that many Afghans see their co-workers as family, the workplace as a space for socialising as well as working. And why not? Yes, Afghanistan may be struggling economically, but just you wait. One day a big American corporation will decide that its employees need training in relational skills, and who better to step in than a team of Afghans?
Below - a boy tells a story to his classmates during afternoon story club. I'm afraid I couldn't work out how to rotate the clip!
Saturday, 14 February 2009
Hammams
Will: I spent the morning with two of our architects in the old city. We walked across the pul-e-paysagi bridge and up to Jade Maiwand. This is a large road that cuts right through the old city on the south side of the river. It was a great feeling of exhiliaration simply to be able to walk. I saw a man cycling with the dismembered parts of a cow strung out all over him and his bike. The intestines were slung over the handlebars, the hooves round his neck and the head and skin strapped to a carrier rack at the back. There were huge stockpiles of wood and carts full of bright red oranges. We entered the first hammam, built in the 60s and were able to have a look round, but not to take photos. It was not hard to imagine whiling away the winter hours here in the warmth with the sound of men’s voices reverberating around the arched hallways and water trickling back down into the drain. One man was astride another in the corner lathering him up. I didn’t look to closely but this sort of male intimacy is quite normal. The hammam is open from 04:30 until 18:00 and people come and wash here daily. The proprietor wanted to give us something to remember him by and so despatched a small boy who returned minutes later with cans of Fanta. Outside there was a stall selling large pants with zipped pockets in the front and pumice stone. It also sold a brown rock which when wet produces a sort of shampoo. We walked on and Mohammad Nazir hailed a car. We piled in but the traffic was so bad that we ended up walking again to Pakhta Firushi bazaar where they sell a lot of pakhta – a cotton like white insulating material in great sacks. We turned off the main street down a small alley heading south. Although Jade Maiwand must have destroyed much of the traditional fabric of the old city, behind the ugly facades there still exist some real treasures. We entered an old hammam called Kitab firushi. The first hall was not particularly impressive. There was a man washing his son. But the second atrium must have been at least 150 years old. It was a perfectly vaulted hall with light streaming in from three sky lights. There was a tiled fountain in the middle of the room and private niches around the edges. From here we jumped in a car and headed up to Kot-e-Sangi to a combined men and women’s hammam. It was was larger by comparison and run by a large Hazara man with a black skull cap. We went round the back to look at the furnace. There were four fires all continuously fed by electric fans. A small Hazara man with a blackened face and one yellow rubber glove stood in a pit and stoked the fires. The grey water streamed out of the hammam full of gunge, hair and shampoo sachets. He said he used 2000 kilos of Balut wood every day and then pointed to a massive wood store in the corner of the compound.
On the way back Mohammad Nazir asked if we could stop for lunch. He looked delighted when I said yes and he proceeded to take us to his cousin’s restaurant. It was the opening day, the big launch. The small room was full of brand new glass tables and metal chairs. The tables had tomato sauce bottles for show (they were empty) and there were extraordinary pictures on the walls of cottages in front of waterfalls and giant mushrooms or a girl holding a lamb standing next to a water jug. The relatives were there including a local mullah dressed in a smart chapan. There was also a raised platform for those inclined to the more traditional way of sitting. I was asked to come and take photos of the blessing of the food. The mullah and few elders stood over a large copper bowl of rice and with outstretched arms gave thanks. Large bowls of very tasty Kabuli pilau then emerged with very succulent chunks of mutton buried amongst the raisins, shredded carrots, and rice. A large young man entered with a swagger and demanded to know who the foreigners were. He probably didn’t realise but he was wearing a girl’s fitted jacket, white with a faux fur collar from Top Shop and jeans that looked like they should belong to a painter and decorator. The funniest things of all was that he was wearing a Nottingham Forest football scarf! At the adjacent table there was a whole family, minus the women of course. The grandfather sat serenely in his chapan. The son looked fearsome with a jet black beard and with large hands, helped his son to eat the rice that was placed in front of him. They were all cousins of Mohammad Nazir.
Poo and the Princess
Will: Today was a typical Turquoise Mountain day. I spent the morning with my community council discussing how to solve the sanitation problem. I walked them over to the open cess pit at the back of a commercial warehouse and they all looked at it as if to say “what?” There were piles of shit everywhere and a 10 metre square pool of it flowing down into the foundations of a house. There were boys preparing chilis and playing footballl next to it. One of the elders slipped as he tottered down the slope. I caught him and he looked at me as if to say, “If you laugh, I’ll kill you.” Everyone else laughed. After this I went straight to lunch with Princess Bilquis, the eldest daughter of the late king, Zahir Shah. She was there with her younger sister and chief of staff. It was my first meeting with the royal family and the Princess was particularly charming. Her daugher is setting up a foundation in honour of the king to support agricultural, cultural, and educational projects. Kaka Hussein did a grand job of putting on a delicious spread. We gave her some calligraphy and waved farewell as their blacked out Mercedez left the courtyard.
Lunch with Dr. Forough
Will: Dr. Forough invited Lucy and me to his house for lunch. He works in our clinic. He picked us up in the family minivan, a Toyoya Town Ace (pronounced ‘Tunis’) and drove us back to his mother’s apartment. The apartment is in Microrayon 3. This is the third in a series of fifteen storey Soviet concrete tower blocks. They are much sought after locations and favoured by ministers and MPs. Dr Forough proudly pointed out that they had central heating. They did indeed have radiators and paid $200 a year for the privilege of central heating, produced just across the road by a power station with a red and white striped chimney. Every block we saw was decorated with colourful clothes lines strung out from even the highest windows. The shops are well stocked with fruit and meat and there are allotment and play areas dotted around. Dr. Forough’s mother had moved here from Herat 27 years ago and is the only person to have owned the apartment. Dr. Forough was married in 2005 to Narghiz and they have a 2 year old daughter called Khushi. His brother Farhad came to join us. He is four years younger but speaks very good English and is the country director of Marie Stopes International and travels regularly. In fact he is good friends with Sally, one of Suzanna’s close friends who also works for Marie Stopes. This was a good example of a middle class Kabul family. Dr. Forough is one year from finishing his medical training. The family was not outwardly religious. In fact, Farhad had never been to a mosque until the Taliban forced him to as part of his literature studies at the university. They are big fans of Afghan Star and are glued to it every Friday and Saturday. Dr. Forough’s favourite is a Hazara girl. He has just bought a new Suzuski Jeep and coyly lifted the cover that was protecting it. I understood now why he had asked for a payrise last month! His sister, probably about 16, Tamkina, helped serve the food and did all the washing up. We were treated to an amazing spread of dupiaza, kufta, kabili pilau, sabzi, coke, and kiwi fruit. Dr Forough explained that the cookies came from Hajji Aziz and are the best in town! We watched a war film on their cable TV. His mother said that she hates war. She has lived through more than thirty years of it. She said she was beaten twice by the Taliban for not being properly covered. They showed me pictures of the beards they had grown and laughed. For $200 a month you can rent a two bed apartment here. On the way, we drove past an American-Afghan housing project, where the houses were disproportionately large, white, with red roofs. They were advertising two bed apartments for $30,000 and five room apartments for $80,000. When asked if we had any children, we felt it was the one Afghan family who understood why we had not had any yet. Actually when Dr. forough dropped us back at the fort, his brother said, “Just let me know if you need any contraception any time, ok?!” He said that most of the Afghan religious leaders were in favour of abortion and that now Obama had lifted the funding restrictions, they should be able to get money from USAID to make abortion legal here. This surprised me. They kindly gave us a Maimana kilim as we left. We find it so hard to know how to repay such kindness.
The midget and the bodybuilder
Will: Lucy and I visited the midget in the local post office again to register. Someone had rather unfairly stacked a whole pile of ledgers on his desk all but concealing him from view. The only sign that there was anyone sitting there was a little pair of legs dangling beneath the desk. His colleague was boiling some tea by submerging an electric element into a teapot. Someone had been electrocuted in one of the ministries last week doing exactly the same thing.
I found out today that the man who ran the bodybuilding club where Zia and I used to go two years ago was made Afghan champion last year. He was the little man with huge wings who took me on as his 'project' and used to ask me to bring back white powder for him from UK.
Traffic police, refugees and rammed earth
Will: I seem to have spent a lot of time stuck in traffic recently. Of course this is maddening but it does allow your eye time to pick out things that it would normally miss. This week, I saw a man threading his way through the columns of traffic covered in European baby dolls. They had blond hair, pink dresses, and their blue eyes stared straight at me as they passed. Burqa clad ladies clutching real babies knock on the car window with their hand upturned making the whole scene even more surreal. As the traffic begins to move, it streams past numerous obstacles: ladies sitting cross legged begging in the middle of five lanes of traffic; pot holes large enough to swallow a fiat Punto; a herd of fat tailed sheep being driven to fresh pastures of city refuse. We drove behind a taxi full of cheeky children making faces at me today. I made faces back at them and this continued until we were able to overtake them, narrowly missing a donkey.
The traffic is sometimes so intense that it breaks off the road and streams through petrol stations, gardens, along pavements and through housing estates. A senior ranking policeman who demanded to see my passport stopped us today. Sometimes, my Witney library card or even my Youth Hostel Association card is enough to satisfy their curiosity. On this occasion I handed him my Turquoise Mountain I.D. He pretened to read it and waved us on. My driver Ahmed Shah laughed. He said that last week a policeman had looked at his I.D four different ways before letting him go. Sometimes a US military convoy careers into your path. This is invariably terrifying as they are not afraid to open fire, nor are Taliban afraid to detonate a roadside bomb at the first opportunity. Often an unmarked convoy of armoured land cruisers will dominate the road weaving back and forth. Last week a door was thrown open and a man in civilian clothes swung out cowboy style and told the traffic to back off. One wonders whether they wouldn’t be better off assuming a lower profile. Afghans must find the sheer power and arrogance of these convoys not only intimidating but profoundly humiliating.
I went to a meeting with the US civil affairs team at the Bagram airbase today. We broke down after five minutes. Ahmed Shah switched off the engine with a sigh of resignation, opned the bonnet, and climbed into the engine to fix a hose. It was actually quite nice to stop for a while and watch Kabul life pass me by. After some time, we drove out towards Der Sabz looking for the new metalled road to Bagram which my colleague was very excited about. Unfortunately it was closed so we followed a few other cars for 20 minutes in a long diversion over waste ground until we circled back round to the road. We hadn’t counted on a big drainage ditch and a small wall blocking our way to the road. There were four cars in front of us, including an ambulance. A digger briefly helped fill in the ditch and then disappeared. Slowly the traffic grew and a crowd gathered. Saboor, one of our foremen, jumped out and began to organise the crowd. After some time we edged our way over this makeshift bridge and got onto the road at last. Two or three diversions later we arrived at the refugee camp where my colleague has been building refugee housing with rammed earth.
The refugee camp is situated on a plain at the foot of the Hindu Kush Mountains. The land is poor quality, there are no services, water is pumped in from 6km away, and there is little to stop the wind from tearing across the plain and through the camp. Ironically the Americans have now built a road right passed it so that their base can be better connected to Kabul. This means that the refugees might now have a chance of setting up a shop or a fuel station but it also means that the land now has a value and the government are apparently seeking to move the refugees on once again. My colleague is looking to set up mud training schools there and has started work on a rammed earth house. We dropped Saboor with a group of men ramming earth into wooden formworks and headed to the Bagram air base. It took us an hour to get in. We waited with a long queue of tankers, presumably carrying fuel for the military aircraft. The first security check point was manned by young Afghan men in leather jackets, all of whom looked rather menacing. They had learned their American well and were suitably aggressive. We eventually made it through to the second check point where we were eventually ushered through by an Airborne corporal with a deep south drawl only to be turned back to the beginning again. After some time, whilst our host found his body armour, we waited and then a soldier turned up on a golf buggy followed by a white land cruiser. They escorted us through the various check posts and we snaked our way around the camp for 15 minutes until we arrived at the relevant office. My phone beeped and I realised by SIM card had been deactivated. Our host peeled off his armour with relief, his job done for the day. We waited alongside ‘Hesco’ crates full of earth which are used as protection against blasts and hostile vehicles. It costs $350 to build one square metre of wall in this way. There were a lot of soliders milling around, many with a polystyrene box of food in one hand and their rifle in the other (It was lunchtime). There must be about 20,000 personnel on this site. The female reservist officer conducting the meeting has been in Afghanistan for three months. She will leave after a further six months. She was faced with a room full of eight female provincial representatives and nine male representatives. I couldn’t help thinking it was a little humiliating for these tribal elders to be grovelling to a diminutive girl half their age. Lots of ideas were discussed but it was unclear whether any of them would be implemented. It will probably take her three months to make sense of the work left undone by her predecessor. She will then only have a few months to approve a few hastily assembled proposals before she returns to Washington. This will be her front line experience. As the meeting crawled on, I visited a portaloo in the carpark. There was all kinds of graffiti on the wall. “Only 2 months to go!” “The second coming is imminent!” and more besides. On the wall outside, there were two large photo collages in honour of two soldiers killed in the last year. The soldiers were shown pictured with their mums, grannies, class mates, and their comrades. The tone was very emotional and the location – on the front of the HQ building – was presumably calculated for maximum effect. They brought in lunch. The officer, who was of asian origin, smiled and said, “I bet it’s Chinese. They always give me Chinese because they think I’ll like it.” The first box was opened and it was full of noodles and egg rolls.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
