Day 2 in Kabul

I didn’t have a very good sleep last night – it’s winter, and it’s fairly cold in Kabul – there’s still a fair bit of snow on the ground (although it melted quite fast today); but no, it wasn’t the cold that kept me from sleeping well last night – it was the heat!

My Indian roommate (who left for India today to try and arrange a marriage for himself) likes to keep warm – as most of the Indian ex-pats do around here – so the heater was cranked up high all night, and, combined with my cold, I woke up feeling like I’d spent the night on the town, not in bed.

It’s probably good to explain exactly what the heater is like – as there’s one in pretty much every room, and they’re pretty scary beasts when you first realise what they are. They operate on diesel fuel – so you don’t have to worry about the constantly fluctuating power situation (more on that later) – you get it going by adjusting two valves which drip feed the diesel into a pan at the bottom of the heater, where you drop a match onto it and it starts burning merrily away. Of course, you have to be pretty good with your aim, or wait until the pan is almost covered with diesel so you don’t have to aim too much. This isn’t quite as dangerous as it seems, because diesel doesn’t burn too ferociously if it’s not compressed. Lighting fires under frozen diesel tanks now seems to make more sense (now I haven’t had my eyebrows singed off). The whole contraption has a long stovepipe running from it to a hole in the wall near a ceiling – and it’s this pipe which gets hot and really heats the room – so, the longer the pipe, the warmer the room. Hence, you get these bukharis (the afghan term, I’m not sure about the spelling) in the middle of the room, taking up tons of room. The good thing is that in the summer, they just all get torn out and put into storage. Well, torn is an unfair word, because they’re made to be dismantled pretty easily – a reminder of the stark extremes of weather they get here.

Just a hunk of burnin' love, complete with voltage regulator. Oh, I've just realised how close this is to the exit door. I guess I always have the balcony onto the street...

Anyway, tonight I have the room to myself, so I can turn it down a little – although I managed to actually turn it off – hence my familiarity on how to light it!

Today has been an interesting mix of orientation, cultural education and work. First the cultural education, because that’s the most interesting. I learnt yesterday that blowing your nose in public is considered totally disgusting by Afghans – I have to say that I tend to agree, although it’s a little hard when your nose is running like a tap. Still, it seems to be getting a little better. Its also considered bad to have the soles of your feet facing other people – this makes mealtimes particularly difficult, as you all sit at floor level in cusions with the food spread out on a mat in front of you. The best way to get round this problem is to sit with your legs crossed, but when you’re a little inflexible, this soon gets pretty uncomfortable, and it makes reaching for your food a lot harder. On the plus side, you do find that people help each other a lot more with their food. When leaving or entering the dining area, its important not to step on the food serving area – you’re stepping on the table, another bad move. Instead, you have to clamber behind people on the cushions – which feels very strange until you work it out in your head, and realise that as you always enter the food area without shoes, and you change shoes when you’re inside, that actually it’s the most logical thing to do. It’s not like you’re going to tear up the cushions with a big pair of dirty boots or anything.

Thank you is “tak-shure” – I think! To be honest, as far as memory feats go, I’m still trying to get my head round everybody’s names here – it’s coming on, but rather slowly.

I got my first outing today as well – down to the grocery store – I enjoyed seeing the outside world again, which looked almost cheery as a lot of the mud and slush had dried up. The grocery store was a triumph of western food consumerism – I must admit I picked up a packet of Hob-Nobs; although I think it’s the sort of place I’d really appreciate after being out here for longer – with all the familiar brand names, I can see how it could be quite a comfort zone. Saying that, I did get very greedy and pick up a kilo and a half of pistachio nuts – I love them. I don’t suppose I’ll manage to get through them all, but I’m sure it’ll be appreciated if I leave some! We actually get fed very well here – I had mutton last night, which I was a little worried about, and although I had some strange dreams last night, I’m pretty sure that it was to do with the heat and my cold rather than any food.

I think the highlight of the day was when Dan took me to the roof and showed me the first layer of mountains that are around Kabul – I’ll get some proper pictures tomorrow – I couldn’t see too much today as the cloud was still a little low – but what really made my day was being shown two guys on nearby rooftops flying their pigeons. Unlike in the UK, where people fly their pigeons from point to point, these guys just send their flocks up and around, waving rags to bring them back – like kites without stings. It’s pretty cool to watch separate flocks wheel around, and over your head – and then to hear that rivals will try to steal pigeons from each others flocks by getting them to fly close to each other, or tempting then with calls and gestures. Apparently, this happens all over the city, and it was one of the things banned by the Taliban.

The other remarkable thing about the Afghans in Kabul is just the sheer variety of styles and ethnicities – not that you see much in the way of obviously Scandinavian, African, Indian or South East Asian features, but besides that there are people who look like they could be from western Europe, southern Europe, Pakistan, Arabia, north Asia or Pakistan / northern India, or even from the Slavic countries.

I also got a bit more of a grip on the stuff I have to do here – where I am is the co-ordinating centre for about five major and numerous other minor projects around Afghanistan - as far as I’m aware, anyway, though I think the scope may be larger. They get funding for these projects (which generally have a large component of building in them) from various sources – private individuals, collections, corporate sponsorship and international government regeneration and development grants. It’s a fairly complicated mix that has to be administered correctly – and attracting highly qualified and experienced staff who are willing to stay long term in Kabul is pretty challenging. They have quite a bit of IT equipment, but it’s of varying age and functionality, and the software is a bit hit and miss as far as licensing goes, which presents its own challenges.

As with any IT system, things get complicated quickly, and machines are stretched beyond their limits – combine this with the fact that some of the software hasn’t been installed properly, and you have quite a tangle to sort out. My intention when I first came was to do some basic training – but it looks like the main thrust will be to get the computers and laptops up to full operational capacity. I’d forgotten how long it takes to nurse a machine that isn’t running on a richness of resources – and then combine this with the fact that I’m running updates through a microwave internet link, and it gets interesting.

What really ramps up the fun is the power situation – the city only has power from a random point in the afternoon (anytime from 3 to 7PM) to a random point at night (10pm to 7am) – although as the snows are melting, the times are longer as there’s hydroelectric power available. What they do with the power for the rest of the day, I don’t know – it’s certainly not used for lighting up the arrival hall at Kabul International Airport, I can tell you.

Outside of these times, the compound here runs on a generator – which is turned off at 12pm for half an hour to cool off – that’s when we have our lunch. There’s plenty of light to see, so it’s not so bad, and we’ve got the big bukhari pumping out heat all the time.

The other problem with these power supplies is that they tend to spike – quite viciously. So the whole compound is dotted around with heavy duty voltage regulators. All very well and good until they catch on fire – which happens from time to time. I also made the rather alarming discovery that only one computer in the main office is hooked up to a voltage regulator, which means that the whole lot could get wiped out very easily. Looks like we might be doing some shopping soon.

Just before I sign out tonight, I better tell you about one of the proposed new projects that Mary told me about today – she’d been down to the women’s prison – which isn’t too crowded, it has about 70 women there – which wouldn’t be so bad in itself, only they also have about 40 children there as well – because they have nowhere else to go. So, you have kids growing up as prisoners – and it’s not like Afghanistan is the sort of place that hands down 28 day sentences either. So **** are trying to figure out a way to help out these kids – like perhaps building an orphanage / foster home near the prison, just so these kids don’t have to grow up inside the confines of prison walls, just because their mothers are there. Thinking about these things makes you realise just how big the scale is of helping people is here, and just the resources that have to be found and administered wisely.

Still, I’m really starting to feel at home here – don’t get me wrong, I’m coming back; but I’m starting to feel Kabul as a real place, and not as some crazy legend.