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.
2 comments:
I like your country ! a marvellous remind for me !!
Ph
Sounds intrigiung - when were you in Afghanistan? Sadly my time here is almost up.
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