The Journey home

Well, it’s still a little early for reflections on the whole trip – for a start I need to go back and read all my entries again - the time went so fast it seemed like a couple of days. It’s been a bit difficult – my friends asking me how it was – and how do you sum it all up in a pithy comment? It’s beyond me at the moment.

So, I’ll entertain you with the details of my trip back.

The staff all sent me off in the morning meeting – I was given a small handmade rug featuring the sheep game (like polo, but with a dead sheep) and I was able to make a small speech – I’d picked up on the fact that in any farewell, the Afghans always include something along the lines if the following: “If I caused any offence or hurt anyone, I’m truly sorry, it was purely accidental and I hope nobody holds it against me” – the first few times you hear it, it makes you double take a bit, and you start to protest – “of course you didn’t!”, to a fairly blankly embarrassed response, Then you realise it’s a bit of a social nicety – and so I was pleased to be able to use it in my little farewell speech. I did mean it, of course! I was also really pleased to be able to give out my stash of 1gb memory sticks as presents to the computer users – and they are actually really expensive still in Afghanistan, so they went down really well. Sadly, I didn’t have quite enough for everybody, so Sudha got a smaller one, although I tried to make up the difference by giving her one of my heat gel packs – I learnt that this winter was her first cold winter ever – and believe me, it gets cold in Kabul during the winter.

After packing, and redistributing some of my uneaten pistachios to the drivers, we were ready to go – F*** and H**** took me down, where I experienced again the frenetic chaos of Kabul International Airport – although I was lulled into a false sense of security by the security before I got in – who relieved me of the shell casings I’d picked up on top of TV mountain – although I put them on top of my luggage so as not to seem like I was trying to smuggle them out. Mind you, if I had hidden them a little better, I think I could have got them through the metal detector, no worries. I’m not sure it actually worked at all. Maybe Kabul really did make me far too cynical.

I then ran the gauntlet of another hand baggage search – funny they searched me so much on the way out, not the way in. Of course, they charge you 500 Afs (about $10) to leave as well. Then my bag was grabbed and “helped along” for a “donation” – of course, all that meant was that a guy took my bag to the end of another long line. Still, I had plenty of dollars, and I wasn’t being charged a fortune – by western standards.

Then I waited to be cleared through passport control – to leave – and I waited, and waited, made sure I was in the right line, almost lost my place, waited some more, and started to understand the impetus for bribery. I really started to look for an opportunity to assert my britishness and expedite some movement. A bit sad, really, the way I went full circle from when I was on my way in at Dubai airport.

So, eventually got through, herded upstairs to a chaotic waiting room, where I tried to hear the announcements of the flights – a guy dashing in and talking in a normal voice to the whole room, followed by confused masses going down the same stairs as incoming people were trying to come up – I went down early, but didn’t fancy going back up, seeing the amount of confusion. In the end, I just tried to keep an eye on the colour of the tickets in the hands of the line going by – until I spotted a slightly battered looking Brit, who I cautiously attached myself to – turned out to be a “Risk Consultant” who had a background as a “private military consultant” or some such happy euphemism for “mercenary”. Still, nice enough fellow, though I doubt a night out on the town together would be a particularly clever idea. Good job we were only on a plane. Going out of Afghanistan. Though I was a little alarmed that, once we were airborne, the announcement that we would be in Kandahar in two hours. I was a little alarmed, thinking that Ariana had switched flight plans on me. My fellow Brit allayed my fears, and some of the other passengers laughed at my confusion – and slight fear. Which I felt was fair enough, really.

The flight itself was beautiful – amazing. We circled around Kabul to gain height – for a fair old while. And we were flying out, at a good height, or so I thought until I caught a glimpse out of the window, and saw mountain tops very, very close indeed. Suddenly I was very glad I didn’t know exactly how high the mountains were when I flying in in the snow. But it was breathtakingly beautiful – I almost expected myself to go blind with it – I mean, I really thought it was pretty much the pinnacle of everything I’d ever seen. No pictures, though. I wasn’t at a window seat.

Dubai was pretty relaxed, and felt extremely bright, shiny and new after Kabul – I actually thought the guys I was staying with had redecorated since I’d been there last, it looked so neat and new and clean after Kabul (it wasn’t). And going out for sushi with Chris in an air conditioned mall seemed like an exotic dream. The sight of women in figure revealing clothes felt very strange as well – for a while, at least.

I got lucky with my flights out – one of the guys (Nikolai?) was due to pick up someone from the airport early in the morning anyway, so I didn’t have to ask anybody to put themselves out for me. And I got to hear the morning call for prayer roll around the city at 5am, whilst overlooking the graveyard in front of the flat. Apparently they bury their dead vertically – though sometimes not quite deep enough to keep away the attentions of dogs – hence the graveyards being dog proof. The graveyards I saw in Kabul were almost communal spaces, in some places, with stalls and kids playing encroaching on the margins, and in some places co-habiting the same space.

After that, the journey back was pretty straightforward. I saw the wonders of Dubai Duty free – lots of gaudy gold, not much in the way of diamonds – I looked! I met a nice German lass, who I gave a dollar to as we were both guiltily buying McDonalds, and on the flight on the way home I sat next to a really interesting Ugandan Indian gentleman who had had a history in preventative medicine, public medicine and tropical medicine all across Africa and a bit of India. He talked a fair bit about himself, but it was fair enough, as he was a really interesting bloke. I’m planning to invite him and his wife over for dinner sometime.

And when I got home, it was really good to catch up with Sarah – and between her and work, that’s why this update is up a little late. The delay is worth it though – at least for me.

The next update will be about my impressions of the whole experience now I’m home.

Home Safe

Just a quick one to say I'm back home in green old Blighty.

My priorities today are catching up with Sarah and my folks, having a roast dinner and freshening up - I've had an interesting journey back, but I'll write about it all tomorrow!

Day 17 - Final full day

Well, it’s sad to think that today is my final full day in Kabul, and I can’t believe it’s flown by so fast. It was a day where I tried to wrap things up, but got frustrated by the vagaries of Windows networking wizard. Now I know why networking people get the big bucks – though the truth is probably more that I don’t know the technical ins and outs of XPs network handling, and a short conversation with somebody who knows will sort me out – it’s a project I’m going to do at home and then write a simple guide for the guys here – well, if it is simple, anyway. At least I know what the setup is though. It’s a shame they don’t have the bandwidth to PC anywhere here – they already pay $250 / month for a slightly flaky microwave connection – and doubling it, even for a month, is unjustifiable.

Much of the morning was spent virus fighting – I thought I had it all under control, but one computer had slipped though the net (so to speak, although the computer itself doesn’t even have a network card driver, and ended up re-infecting another three computers die to USB stick usage. Makes me think that my gift of a bunch of USB sticks (which I’m going to give out tomorrow) may cause trouble. Lets hope not, hey?

The guys went down to Malali Hospital this morning whilst I was trying to sort out my final things – as I haven’t ever been down, I haven’t mentioned it in the blog, which is a shame as it’s one the major projects that ****** Afghanistan. It’s a Women’s hospital (OB/GYN), which handles over 150 deliveries a day. Pretty busy. ****** is involved in building a new emergency room – and Anthony, as a big wheel in an Australian ER, has been assisting. Like me, he’s not done what he expected to do – he was hoping to be far more hands-on, but the governmental / hospital regulations and bureaucracy have meant that he can only act in an advisory capacity – and he’s been getting used to doing lecturing, a fairly new experience (with it’s fair share of frustrations). I suppose on one level it’s understandable – after all, we’d hardly countenance some foreign doctor waltzing in and taking over a department for a very limited time, without much introduction in our own countries, but, on the other hand, these hospitals are in desperate need for some good quality help. Which, I suppose, leads back to a training rather than hands on role. What Anthony has really had issue with is the level of authority that this kind of role requires, and if it’s something you weren’t prepared for, and haven’t had need for before, it can make life hard.

Still, the doctors have seemed to appreciate what he’s been able to do, on the balance of the reports I’ve heard. We’re also hoping to build and train staff for an outpatients department at the hospital, although anything beyond just construction with restricted funding becomes a very complicated proposition – although these difficulties serve as just another challenge amongst the general operational juggling that the guys have to deal with here.

S**** was also busy today – he had his first final (exam) to qualify as a lab technician – his first of 15 continuous (weekends excepted, I think) days of exams. He came back to the compound (which is more than what I would have done in the same circumstances) in good spirits – his first exam had gone well, which was great to hear. He spent most of the afternoon in one of the cars, in a little private study space. It’s amazing that he’s been here (i.e., with HOPE) for about 6 years, and he started when he was in his teenage years.

This evening we had a treat – we went out for a triple celebration – my departure, D**** Birthday (on the 8th) and P**** Birthday (yesterday) – we went to the ever so slightly surreal “Popa Lano’s” an Italian restaurant run by Afghans, with a menu about three times as large as the actual availability. Although I did discover something I’m definitely going to take back home with me – spite with lime juice. Yum. And I have to say that the food, when it did come, was actually very good – us newcomers (Kelly, myself, and to a lesser extent Jason, although he has an iron stomach to rival Anthonys’) were pleasantly surprised that the food surpassed our sadly low expectations. I had quite a lot of meat – some beef and chicken dish which advertised itself as a steak dish, but seemed to have been pounded for quite a while with a blunt instrument before it had been cooked. Still, it was very nice for it.

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Me, Dan and Mary, looking authentic

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Asif, me and Abid. I look a little less authentic here, In fact, I look positively pensive

We drove back through Kabul in the dark – We’d driven there in an amazing dusk, which really painted the town in a new, subtler light. I always enjoy the dark, with the drama and slight sense of unease that comes from a combination of false fog from the dust on the roads and the appalling (and practically non-existent) street lighting . To add to the drama, we got stopped by the police – well, they peered through the window when we came to one of the chouks in the centre of town, but waved us straight on.

The evening was rounded off by a game of lie dice – it’s good to know that even if I haven’t achieved all the things I wanted to in this trip, at least I brought a game which everybody has got instantly addicted to. I’ll have to re-stock on dice when I get back home though!

As I’m going to be overnighting in Dubai tomorrow, it’s unlikely that I’ll be able to post – though this will not be my last post about Kabul. Oh, and I should probably say that, much to my surprise, I got my ticket from Ariana this morning without any drama. Well, H**** got it for me, so maybe there was, though Hezbullah seems to be related, or at least know, most of the people in the city. At least that’s how it seems!

Day 16 - hard at work

Well, as the title suggests, I’ve been hard at work today – mainly trying to get to the bottom of a few file sharing headaches, which I’m sure are going to continue to give me a few more headaches tomorrow as well. Fortunately, Jason and Kelly are the sort of people who know enough about computers to get stuck in without too much anxiety – which is a relief to know.

The highlight of the day was a trip to the Ariana office, where I went to try and a) get a paper ticket for my flight out on Wednesday and b) try and get refund for my cancelled flight when I came in – in that order. Good job I went today, as there was evidently a mix up when I bought my tickets on line, and the booking had never been confirmed internally – so if I’d turned up with my email confirmation on Wednesday, I wouldn’t have had a seat on the plane – it’s still being worked out now, to be honest.

On the way to try and sort out my Ariana tickets, we went via the Pakistan embassy, where J**** and K**** went to get their visas sorted out . Remember what I was saying about emergency evacuation precautions? Well, this wasn’t for that – although you do have to get Pakistan visas for some internal flights as sometimes they get diverted to Pakistan. Pretty much the whole eastern border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is pretty porous, and most of the southern half is bandit country where the Taleban go back and forth with bases in Pakistan and operations in Afghanistan. Hardly surprising really, as the border was a pretty arbitrary line drawn by the British (like a lot of the Middle East and central Asia) based on physical, rather than ethnic waypoints.

Anyway, I was talking about going to the Pakistan embassy – so, we parked up as J**** and K****, along with H****, went to get in line. And I suddenly realised that I was feeling quite nervous. I’ve gotton used to being constantly on the move in Kabul – always driving, or walking, or inside. To be parked outside in relative plain view for a fairly significant amount of time made me feel pretty exposed. I know the fact that there were armed guards milling around should have reassured me, but, until I had taken time to think it through, it didn’t. My sitting there was a strange exercise in the delicate balance of vigilance and maintaining a low profile, and avoiding eye contact. Come to think of it, it’s quite like being on the London Underground, really. Anyway, I learnt to relax after a group of lads started using the back of the car as a temporary writing desk without paying me any attention, and our driver (whose name I shamefully still can’t remember) propped his door open a little whilst on the phone. Still, I suppose I was glad that we went in the morning, when the American troops managed to shoot some more people later in the day on the other side of the province.

Anyway, I was glad to be out of the embassy zone, even though the concrete chicanes and heavily armed guards and soldiers did lend it a slightly more post conflict aura, which is what I expected to find all over the city before I got here.

I suppose I really should have said that I was really glad that I was finally out and about in my Shalwar Kamese and Masoud hat, along with my blanket cloak over my shoulder – here’s a couple of pics of me squinting to prove it.

Personally, I can’t wait to head into work on the tube one day in this getup. I expect it would make it pretty easy to get a seat.

Day 15 - approaching the end

Today has been an important way point in my life – for today marks the day where I bought my first Masoud Hat; a Northern Afghan hat that I’ve been wanting to get since the first time I saw one at my first university, 13 years ago. And you thought my romance with Afghanistan was recent!

I spent more today than I have the rest of time put together – we went to the Zardozi artisan market – sadly not the bustle of the handicraft market, but it has some high quality stuff there, so I was able to pick up some nice gifts. And a few other bits of clothing for myself as well, which I’m looking forward to sporting in London – though I might pass whilst clearing passport control. My other stuff is getting cleaned tonight, so I’ll give you some pictures tomorrow.

You may think from this blog that all I do is go out everyday – and it’s true, I’m very lucky to have been able to get out so much, but I do do some work – this morning I was fine-tuning some aspects of the wireless network and writing a basic user guide for the administration they’ll have to do here when I’m gone. I also reconfigured one of two PCs I’ve got left to clear up. Tomorrow I’ll be networking the printers, something I’m not exactly 100% on, but I know the basic outlines. I also need to re-arrange the power sockets and voltage regulators in the main office (I think the voltage regulator in my room has hit the wall whilst I’ve been here), and a few other bits and pieces – it’s amazing to think I’ve been here over two weeks, and I definitely want to come back.

I was able to be involved in a conversation about the **** orphanage and where **** would like to go with a landmark orphanage project here in Afghanistan – and how we’d love to bring in **** as part of it – I’m going to try and link up with the remarkable founder of **** in London when I get back, to be able to express my appreciation of what he managed to start with such incredibly limited personal resources.

I definitely want to come back here – this is a place which constantly challenges the views we get from the media – it’s been interesting to be reading the BBC news website whilst I’ve been out here – with the suicide bombing of Bagram base last week and the US armies shooting of civilians (accidentally) near Jalalabad today – these places look frighteningly near when you put it on a map, yet feel so distant when you’re here in person. That’s not to say that it isn’t dangerous here – something that **** mentioned in passing underlined this – that most NGO staff over here keep their Pakistan entry Visas up to date, just in case they have to evacuate in an emergency. The really interesting thing that that implied for me was that any evacuation that might take place would quite possibly be by road – and that really is an arresting thought, when I’m so used to international travel by aeroplane.

I also like the way that being in a new culture (which is under constant scrutiny by the western press) is constantly throwing up new nuances; that I constantly find myself surprised by my own ignorance (especially of local politics like the controversy of the presidents brothers supposed agricultural activities, and the self absolution of party members who used to be warlords here). It’s easy to think that I should maybe not make any assumptions, or try to figure out anything on my own – but then again, if I hadn’t have made some assumptions, I would have never have come over. I think you have to have a small base of confidence in order to move, but you also need to be open to correction without embarrassment to be able to thrive if you’re going to enjoy the dynamics of putting yourself into a new culture – otherwise you might as well just go to the Costa Del Sol and find the nearest British Chippy.

I want to come back, I just hope that the security situation gets better for the people here rather than worse - I at least come here voluntarily - the citizens here have to live with it, no matter how bad it gets.

Day 14 - Sightseeing

Woke up this morning to more snow – this made me strangely cheerful, as I’d felt bad about being a bit sniffy about Sahars offer to go up TV mountain today – mainly due to going up two days ago. So the snow meant we couldn’t have gone up anyway, well, not safely anyway; although “safely” is a pretty relative term here.

I was cold though, so I had the bright idea of putting the bukhari up to maximum for a bit to warm the room a little - of course, when I went to turn it down, the control knob had melted. So I spent a couple of panicked minutes convinced my room was about to burst into flames, until I finally got the thing under control – well, switched off, anyway. Of course, it takes quite a while for the diesel to burn off, so you’re not quite sure if you’ve succeeded until the flame is almost out.

So, disaster averted, I braved the snow (for 30 yards) to get to the office – where I had a bite of breakfast, and, in pretty short order, rescued a laptop which had had a user password changed accidentally to something unknown. Thankfully, the other account was an administration account, and I was able to change the user password from the control panel – otherwise it would have been out with the disk, off with the data, and on with a rebuild. Thankfully it didn’t come to that!

Anthony and I talked to S**** about his experiences of the conflict, and what his (and others) views were of the arrival and continued presence of foreign military troops in Afghanistan. We got a good lesson in the complexities of regional politics, and I had a fresh appreciation of how even a simple comment from London or Washington can have a profound effect on the security and anxiety of huge swathes of people totally outside of American or British sovereignty.

S****, as arranged, came round and made some cool suggestions about where to go over lunch – she managed to cram Anthony, J**** and K****, herself and I in the 4x4 – I got prime position up front with the driver (although there are different theories on the safety of having foreign nationals in the front – although as a male it was better for me to be up there) – where I got to get some good views of the city as we went through it, something I always enjoy. The driver was excellent as well – you get a feel very quickly for how good someone is at avoiding potholes whilst driving quickly, and this guy was excellent.

The first port of call was Darul Aman Palace, next to Kabul museum, both picturesque but somewhat sad places – the palace being a shelled out skeletal box on the top of the hill, a reminder both of the conflict of the last few decades, and the relative prosperity and world citizenship that Kabul held into the mid 70s – if there’s one thing you feel in Kabul, it’s the almost mystical seperation from the normal day to day business of the rest of the world. It’s like you’re stepping into a slightly nightmarish fantasy world, where the normal rules and conventions are just slightly askew. Like stepping back and sideways in time a few decades, or a couple of hundred years.

But enough melancholy prose, here’s the pictures:

Darul Aman Palace, looking forlorn in the snow

After we’d taken the requisite number of photos of the palace (I was getting a little snap happy and was in danger of gallivanting all around the area quite alone), we stepped into Kabul Museum. Even though the top floor was undergoing renovation (after being totally destroyed by the Taliban in 2000/1 and then being rebuilt), it was still an amazingly empty place. There was one, fairly large room with a collection of striking wooden Parun Kafir (supposedly descendants of Alexander the Great) figures, and not much else. Even these figures had been reconstructed after being hacked to pieces by the Taliban. There were two side corridors with photos of destroyed objects, and a few sad display cases; although there were a few Buddha figures, which, I suppose, had been reconstructed like the rest. Still, I think the museum is limping back to life, although with the deteriorating security situation, any resources are likely to dry up unless things get considerably better.

The outside, however, had a really interesting exhibit – propped up, in the snow, with their windows open to the elements, were a brooding gang of ex diplomatic / presidential cars, all with various (and historical) kinds of bullet proof glass – all shot out. The combination of black paintwork with polished chrome, with bullet shattered windows invaded by snow made an arresting visage, like a 50s American auto advert, subverted by the modern age.

After we’d been kicked out of the museum (because of closing time) we headed off to Qargha reservoir, by way of Kabul golf course. Apparently, its situated on a old minefield, and all the mines have been cleared, although you’d have to make a good case for me to get on the fairways there. Though, to be fair, you’d have to make a fairly compelling argument to get me on a golf course anywhere.

Kabul Golf Course – where landing in a bunker has a whole new meaning!

The reservoir itself is like a summer resort for the Kabulis – and, like every summer resort, looked like a ghost town in the winter. Undeterred, our driver took us down onto the “beach”, which turned out to be a sea of sticky yet slippery mud, in which we gallivanted for a while. We then decided to drive further along, a plan we abandoned a little while later when we found ourselves in a position where the wheels were moving in a way that would normally produce forwards motion, but we were moving gracefully sideways and backwards at an arresting angle down a mud bank. Thankfully, we got back to the road, eventually, although I did note the telling action of our driver putting on his seat belt. Always something to worry about in a city where the purpose of a seatbelt seems to be often unknown.

It was beautiful though, and good to feel you could get out and walk freely.

On the way to and from the reservoir, we passed though some pretty poor housing areas – pretty poor even for Kabul. Sahar pointed out a couple of forelorn tents in the mud, which were being used as housing. Perhaps more disturbingly, especially in the winter snow, was an open air tented school.

I can’t even imagine what it would be like to try and learn anything here – and this is something which has been provided by the international aid community – it just brought home how bad things really are out here.

Day 13 - Too much fun

OK, sorry about the lack of update last night - Don't worry, I'm still alive and well (obviously); I just like to inject a little artificial drama into my postings.

Actually, that's completely untrue; I actually was having far too much fun playing an crazy inversion of uno with the Pakistan / Indian expats - lots of shouting, and so much laughter that I thought I was going to throw up; anyway, we played right up to 11, which is when the generators get pulled. So, no update last night.

As last week, it was a pretty quiet day - though no security alerts, thankfully. We did have a fairly big event yesterday though - we had two new members of staff arrive - Jason and Kelly.

J**** and K**** are here for at least 6 months, and would like to be here longer, although they're self funding, but as a fellow couple of (low) 30 somethings, their personal resources aren't huge. anyway, they've given up their jobs to come over here, which is a pretty big deal, so I hope the funds come through one way or another that allow them to stay a bit longer - Afghanistan is full of NGOs that have a constantly rotating ex-pat staff - one of the real strengths of the operation of **** here is the long term commitment of the staff - at around 15 months, J**** and M**** are already the old folks (in a purely metaphorical sense!!) on the block; which gives them great relationships with the local staff, and helps them to become go-to guys amongst the larger NGO community - which helps us to have a healthy influence despite our comparatively tiny size.

Anyway, J**** and K**** seem to have settled in very quickly - in fact, they managed to learn lie dice and win convincingly after travelling for two solid days. Not bad. It's that sort of adaptability which I'm sure will be very useful here!

So, without further ado, here's a picture of everyone in the house last night (including the reprobates who kept me up) -

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