Day 11 –

Today was full of action – and success. I finally got the wireless router configured, and I’ve just renamed its broadcast name to be something a little less obvious than the “**** wireless” I initially set up. And yes, I know I can set it up not to broadcast, but I need to make it as simple as possible for people to connect - although I have setup a password as well. So it’s good to get that out of the way.

Our lunch was the highlight of the day, as we were saying goodbye to W**** – and I had a visitor coming along as well – I talked to M**** about the girl I met on the plane, and she suggested I invite her to lunch, which would get the best of all worlds with none of the complications. After I emailed her and suggested this, (and after she’d accepted) it turned out that she was inviting me out to meet a few friends at a licensed place which, as a foreign national, I’d be totally fine in. Still, it was good to have her share lunch with us all – and it was good to introduce her to D**** and M****, who’ll be here a fair bit longer than me!

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S****, M**** & D****

After the meal, all the local staff got together to get a picture with them and Wahid – I just spotted them doing it and was able to take a photo for them all together, and a photo for myself – It’s not common for Afghans to smile in photos (in fact, a lot of the local staff here asked for their photo IDs to be changed because they were smiling in them) so it was nice to get the following picture with them nearly all smiling – and this is all the local staff – the doctor, engineer, housekeepers, security, logistics, deputy HR, drivers, and of course our fantastic cooks!

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I thought I’d be up for a concentrated afternoon of work, but D**** invited me out to observe a meeting at the Ministry of Public Health – the meeting was the Construction Task Force. At the moment, a lot of the projects that **** Afghanistan have are construction – D**** really wants to get a greater diversity of projects going – and we’ve certainly had a diversity over the years, but construction is what’s been happening at the moment – and these meetings happen once a week with the minister of public health and various major players in the international development field. There was a senior representative from USAID, as well as a number of other local and ex-pat members, all sitting fairly informally in comfortable chairs discussing quite a range of projects. It’s fairly impressive really, like me stepping into Patricia Hewitts office to be an informal observer. Anyway, the meeting was pretty interesting – I learnt that insulation can make the difference in hospital heating costs from an insulated figure of $80 / sq m / year to an uninsulated $300 / sq m / year. Now you might not find that particularly interesting, but I do. Fuel and heating is a very interesting thing over here – most places don’t rely on a centralized heating system, but on removable bukharis, like the one in my room, only larger. Or you have a big generator running, pumping out a fixed energy supply, consuming a standard amount of fuel per day, so the idea of fuel efficiency becomes a bit alien, - if you turn off all your lights when the generators still running, it’s still going to be using the same amount of fuel – so why worry about the way you use electricity? It’s a bit of a poser really.

The really interesting thing, however, was my feelings about having the US military in the meeting – it’s the first time I’ve seen any US military personnel (in fact, the only ISAF members I’ve seen on the streets was a lone group of black painted Turkish armoured troop carriers a few days ago) in Afghanistan – well, in the flesh; and at first I was a little uncomfortable – had the room just become a prime target? Suddenly the ease in which I’d sauntered in became a source of worry. The handgun strapped prominently to major Ready’s (yes, Major Ready) leg didn’t do me any favours either. Though after a while I started to warm to them – for a start, they were obviously keen to give out money and support to relevant projects, and seemed to have a desire to bend as much of the police focused work they’d been assigned to the civilian population. It also seemed that they had a personal involvement with the work they were doing as well, which was heartening. The other thing that helped was that the other guy was a good old fashioned computer geek. So we had a few things to chat about afterward. I have to admit I felt a bit conflicted about them – Though it would have been a lot worse had we been in Baghdad (Well, beyond the obvious levels of violence, anyway). At the end I just had to accept that meeting people in person brings a level of human complexity and subtlety that abstract, unengaged discussion cannot cover. I’m not saying that I approve of military intervention, but military people wanting to do constructive things? Well, that’s a lot more of a grey area for me.

On the way over, we’d skirted through the East side of the city, as security forces had blocked off a couple of streets (Its ironic that the more security forces there are on the streets, the less secure you feel), and as we didn’t think sitting in stationary traffic by potential targets was such a great idea, we swung round a part of the City I haven’t seen so far – and we went past old bullet pocked Soviet housing blocks with hundreds of lines strung between the blocks and adjoining trees, covered with brightly coloured washing, quite a festive sight as we flashed on by.

We went past the stadium where the Taliban used to conduct public executions – now the have little mobile threshing carts outside, selling lengths of sugar cane.

We crossed the Kabul River a couple of times – though sometimes their state of repair left something to be desired:

Troubled bridge over waters – mind the gap!

We also went past an aircraft “museum”, which had the distinct air of a glorified junkyard – but looked like a lot of fun nether the less.

After we got back, I was sure all the excitement for the day was over, but I was presented with my Shalwar Kameez – my afghan outfit of long shirt and baggy trousers. And when I say baggy, I mean that these things have a waist of about ten feet in circumference. It’s quite an art to get all the pleating right with the cotton belt. Those of you who know me will be heartened to hear I managed to spill half a bowl full of Dhal all over it within a couple of hours of wearing it. Typical! But at least it got christened. I’m determined to et a hat and waistcoat as well, and as the outfit only cost $20, I’m sure I can find something. No pictures until I sort out the entire look!