Lucy: Home from home

You’d have thought that coming back to the UK following a three month stint in Afghanistan might have come as a bit of a culture shock. As it turned out, we forgot Kabuli life long before we reached Heathrow, possibly at the moment when we wisely decided to put down our plastic forks and avoid the mixed grill kebab meal that was being offered to us for breakfast on our 9am flight to Dubai with Safi Airways (who?, I hear you say). We descended the steps of the plane in glorious, warm sunshine, together with crowds of other international workers who had sat with us, all heading home for the Christmas break. As we breathed in the warm Gulf air, and admired our curiously dust-free surroundings, the thought of a short holiday in Dubai suddenly seemed very appealing before heading back to frosty England. Will and I achieved this in a small way when we managed to sneak into the Emirates business lounge, and our eyes were opened to the world of frequent flyer benefits. I hesitated to approach the buffet bar, fearing that a waiter would jump out from behind a corner, brandishing menus with extortionate prices, before recognising us as un-businesslike impostors and throwing us out the back door. I suggested quietly helping ourselves to a newspaper and a cup of tea. Will however, clearly accustomed to such perks, had already identified the free beer fridge and multiple hot dinner options. It was still only 11am, but without a cash till in sight suddenly large helpings of kebab, casserole and curry didn’t look as unappealing as they had two hours earlier. Feeling slightly sick but now eager to make the most of our (free) luxury experience, I found the courage to head for the massage chair. Rather embarrassingly it was placed right in front of the help desk, so that I felt a little silly as I took off my shoes, put on special massage socks and lowered myself into the chair, which promptly sprung to life and clamped down my head, hands and feet. There was no escaping now. I had chosen the ‘acupressure’ massage, and quickly realised that this mostly consisted of squeezing my ankles and wrists very hard, whilst sending vibrations through my body, causing rather disconcerting waves of ripples around my stomach, which I was sure everyone could see and were quietly sniggering at. I kept my eyes shut just in case, and tried to relax...

I was reminded where I’d travelled from when mum cried as we walked into the arrivals lounge. Travelling along the M25, however, I was taken aback at my indifference to the world around me (not that the M25 would inspire anything but indifference). My mind was full of family news, Christmas parties and the excellent Mamma Mia film that I had just watched on the plane which had made me cry. It was the film or it was the wine - perhaps it was both. Suddenly Kabul was a dream, so far away, and so removed from our first world lives of massage chairs, tarmac roads, clean water, comfortable cars and a happy, healthy family. We rested, we drank, we ate and we were merry.

Our privileged lives are so far removed, so fundamentally different, from those of many Afghans. I wonder how we in the West will ever be able to understand this part of the world simply through the medium of television and radio beamed into our comfortable sitting rooms. For me, I may have loved going home, enough perhaps to write a whole blog entry about it (!), but now I’m back I also feel incredibly excited to be here – to have the opportunity to stretch my mind and imagination, to challenge my own prejudices and to get to know Afghanistan for the breathtakingly beautiful and culturally-layered country that it really is.