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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Day 12 - Top of the world

The day dawned clear and bright, so after lunch we headed up the mountain at the centre of town. It was covered in little dry stone and mud brick houses, which will all self destruct at the mearest hint of the next earthquake, and kids roamed the street in happy packs amogst the rubbish and sewage as we lurched up higher in our trusty Toyota towards the battle marked peak.

Starting at the top:

The red stones mark the edge of the area cleared of mines

Remember kids - it's not cool to mess around next to a minefield!

The debris of war

This was taken a five minute walk from the minefield

Seriously, this is how all meat in Kabul is displayed and sold

Back at street level

It's been good to have a SLR in my hands again - thanks to the O'Haras! Of course, this now makes me really, really want to spend large amounts of money on my own swanky digital SLR - I've been operating with a little compact for a while now, but today has really got the feel of a decent camera back under my skin!

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!

Day 10 - techno annoyance

Well, I’m sitting in the office rather than my room as even though we have city power, for some reason we don’t have power in our flat – good stuff, hey? And I’m meant to be skyping with my girlfriend at 11. What a palaver.

Today has been full of headaches – especially in the morning. It took three hours to try and fix a CD drive in one of the older computers – complicated by the fact that I spent about an hour trying to get it back on the net – and then I had to download some propriety utility which was written in some really poorly translated japlish; all for a CD drive – and the company only ever seemed to have made two. Talk about overkill. I was not particularly pleased. And then, in the middle of this, people kept asking me to do more and more jobs that were niggly – like fixing a couple of printers, taking a look at a misbehaving memory stick, sorting out online storage for files that could be downloaded from a blog, fixing a broken dictionary, copying a copy-protected typing tutor – and I still have a stack of things to do – creating a small network, arranging simple automatic scheduled backups, trying to stabilise the network infrastructure, sorting out a wireless access point, and doing a complete hardware and software inventory, as well as trying to do a little techie training for one of the more savvy guys here. I have to admit I had a bit of a sense of humour failure. But I suppose I should look at it on the flipside – what I’m doing obviously fills a need they have here, and people are appreciating what I can do, and how it can make their lives easier.

Anyway, I got the chance to unwind a bit after lunch – D**** invited me out, and I almost turned down the opportunity because I was feeling that I was running out of time fast – D**** then reminded me that he was the boss, so if he was inviting me out, then I could put a pause on the work – which was good to be told! What I really appreciated today was working in an office full of techies back home – if there’s something you can’t work out, then you just ask someone else – and the stuff gets shared around, or at least you get a break to think about a solution - and the problem is being looked at by someone else at the same time. At the very least you can bounce problems off each other, whereas here I’m on my own. Still, it’s what I signed up for, and I suppose a little harsh reality is good from time to time.

It didn’t help that the office was getting darker and darker as I was sitting in it – not from the effects of the weather, but because of the 4000 schoolbags that were being piled up outside – these are going to get delivered to seven schools somewhere in the **** region sometime over the next couple of weeks – obviously I can’t be more specific for security reasons, but I can show you the big pile of boxes containing the bags:

Anyway, I got to go grocery shopping after lunch, and I was in the mood for comfort food – so I went and spent my dollars on crunchy nut cereal, Marmalade, chocolate, biscuits, some delicious Afghan cookies, and honey flavoured cream in a can. I don’t intend to eat that, just take it home as a trophy, if they’ll let me through customs. The banana flavoured cream didn’t appeal, even though it seemed a tad more bizarre. (I still think my best travel food score was my can of “semtex” energy drink from Slovakia; which my brother annoyingly drank a while back). So yes, my prediction of appreciating foods from home (at least not from Afghanistan anyway) growing with time was certainly accurate.

The Kamiri supermarket, home from home

Welcome to the Kabul intercontinental! No guns!

On the way back, D**** and M**** took me to the Kabul Intercontinental Hotel – we went through three barriers and had (one side) of our car checked for bombs – though having five in the car (me, M****, D****, our driver (whose name I still haven’t quite got) and Anthony) would have made us pretty inefficient suicide bombers. Inside, the hotel seemed very empty – though the “bookseller of Kabul”s (the real character from the book) franchise was open, although with no-one to be seen. Some of the prices seemed frighteningly expensive, but I’m getting used to paying Kabul prices. We were surprised to see the shop open at all, because the last we knew, the guy was in a stalemate standoff with the hotel. There were more empty shops than open ones in the lobby, and the whole affair looked a little sad. There was a nice little Jewellery one open though, where I picked up a couple of things.

The bookseller of Kabul – one of his outlets

After we’d had tea, I got a few more pictures to add to the ones I’d taken before we went in:

Fancy a dip? This gets filled occasionally, allegedly.

Looking towards the HOPE compound, which is the other side of the mountain past the bread factory (the yellow building that looks like a brewery - the tall one)

Taking in the view



This used to be a vineyard, given recent political events here, I’m surprised it's lasted so long.

After my refreshment, the afternoon went much better – although I had my fair share of frustration as P**** and I tried to unlock the secrets of how an old A3 printer worked – or didn’t, as the case was. P**** was far more motivated than me, because he could really use it for his site plans, at the moment he’s restricted to using A4 print-outs, not good by any means. We managed to get some printing going, but the sheet feeder doesn’t work, and neither does the manual feed. We both ended up filthy, and a little frustrated, and so the evening events were a welcome relief!

Day 9 - Window Of Hope Orphanage

Quick as I can tonight – we’re on generator rather than city power, and I know it’s going to get cut at about 11pm. So I need to be nice and concise – what are the chances, do you think?

So, let’s be orderly about this – the main highlights of the day were:

A) Going to the **** Orphanage
B) Going to the tailors.

B was after A, but I’ll deal with it first as it was extremely short. At about 4, S**** whisked me off (with a driver, of course) through the snow (we had a blizzard which started about 12 and has been going all day) to a tiny shop about 5 minutes away – the shop was so small that the patrons didn’t bother to take off their shoes, even though they were in various stages of relaxation on a battered old sofa in the murky interior. There was a big cloth cutting table which took up most of the space, and slightly disconcertingly, a number of brightly coloured dresses hanging from the walls – in fact, the shop sign was a woman in a bridal gown. Anyway, I was instructed to remove my fleece (on top of another jumper) and I was measured – fairly differently to the UK as well – no inside leg measurement, for a start. It was all over with about six measurements. I’ve no idea when I’ll be back, if I’ll need a fitting or if it’ll just get delivered to me complete.

So, on to the orphanage.

In the morning, before going down to the orphanage, which is currently housed in the old **** offices – donated when the **** orphanage (****) original building faced demolition, I got to see plans for a brand new, purpose built orphanage which is at the proposal stage. **** Afghanistan and ****, despite their similar names, are tow completely separate organisations, whose similarity in names is just a happy coincidence. They came into contact about a year ago when the original building housing the 14 or so kids was almost demolished during a slum / wasteland regeneration drive (and it was right on the verge of being flattened by a JCB before someone inside noticed just before they were about to be flattened). They issued an urgent cry for help through the NGO community, and **** Afghanistan sacrificed their offices to house the orphanage. Then a call for external funding was made, and the organisation I’m in back in the UK decided to make a donation last year.

PICTURE REMOVED

From this rather ad-hoc starting point, things have stabilised a lot – the old office has been converted into a fairly comfortable house for the gaggle of teenage boys and handful of special needs children – the stability has really helped the health and care of the special needs kids, and there hasn’t been any need to take them for expensive hospital treatment over the last year – and about 8 months ago they were able to take in a child abandoned on the street with pretty horrible head injuries (and undoubted psychological issues); and there has been remarkable progress in their health and mobility. The teenage boys are a good bunch as well – when we arrived, they were having an English lesson from a hired treacher – and we got to sit in on some of the lesson. It reminded me of how much I don’t know about the structure of my own language. Not that this will come as a great surprise to any of you who have suffered reading this blog.

And to be honest, the orphanage was the main reason I came – I decided to actually check out one of the projects I’ve given money to – I wanted to make a more meaningful connection than just a signature on a cheque. So it was good to finally be able to make the connection, and be totally happy about how it was being used – as well as being happy about the use its been to the operation of **** out here as well. To give a little bit of a breakdown of the situation; there’s a two year commitment to funding the operation – the basic housing rental is $750 a month. On top of this are the staff expenses – the director, the security guy (pretty much a requirement here), the special needs carer and any teachers they employ. Then there are things like food, heating, and all the other day to day expenses that occur – fuel for heating over the winter cost $1000 alone.

So, yes, the money gets used. But everyone was happy – well, except one of the special needs kids, who we were told was Mr angry – mind you, by the end we almost got a smile. And it was more of an intense cantankerous nature than anger, I’d say.

It was good to see how closely D**** and M**** - and the other **** staff – are tied to the orphanage and the kids – it’s fairly close, about a five minute drive away , and the kids regularly come over for dinner, and parties, and volleyball (when the front isn’t a sea of mud or snow!)

After seeing a bit of the English lesson, I was told that when the boys are at a sufficient standard, they can start some computer training – which will really strengthen their vocational education, and increase their chances of getting decent work. I met the lads after the customary photo shoot – though I spent a lot longer with the special needs kids, who were a real joy.

The proposal for the new centre is very exciting, and it would certainly be great to have purpose built accommodation with long term planning, stability and family-like support for these and other orphans – and it would be great to be able to provide the kids and staff of **** with this. It would also be great to have an ongoing project that **** could provide it’s considerable worldwide experience to; and be able to produce a centre of excellence in Afghanistan. Dan gave me a fly through of the proposal – the building plans and projected budget, and it was exciting stuff. I’ll be taking a copy of some of the plans to show the folks back home!

Day 8 - Man about town

Where do I even start today? At one point I had so many ideas jumbling for attention in my head I had to start taking notes – in a car!

Well, as you can probably ascertain from my introduction, I got to leave the cosy environs of the compound to go into town – I grabbed the loan camera (i.e., the big, conspicuous one) and hopped into one of our cars with P**** (a VERY slim Pakistani guy, who’s a great guy but not the most secure defence against violence) and jumped into the car with our slightly burlier driver to head into town to pick up the computer bits and bobs, and to visit a construction site that HOPE is overseeing.

Before I go into the adventures of town, its worth saying a couple of things about the morning meeting – Sunday here is the first working day of the week, so we had our customary transport (ie, who’s going where) meeting, and then we had the start of week “big” meeting. This was a bit of an emotional affair, as D**** had to announce the laying off of one of the engineers here. One of the reasons for the laying off is financial – the are simply not enough ongoing projects that can support the guy (a local, and one of the highest paid of all the staff) - which meant that D**** had the tricky task of explaining the layoff in financial terms whilst trying to assure the rest of the local staff that his priority was to keep their jobs secure – and try to avoid getting them panicked and start to go look for other jobs for themselves. It went fairly well, and the Engineer (****) was told by the local staff that he was always welcome to come and eat lunch with us, and that he would always be a friend – and it was also said that as a professional – an engineer, that finding a new job should be relatively easy. Still, a tricky meeting nonetheless.

The issue is that there are two sorts of funding that **** Afghanistan receives – restricted and unrestricted. Restricted is the type that generally means fairly large money, but it’s all tied to very specific projects, and can only be spent in explicitly prescribed ways – and they generally don’t cover administrative or ongoing costs. Even things like IT components can be recalled at the end of a restricted budget project. Unrestricted funding is the sort that comes from individuals donors, or group donations like church collections – this money can be used far more flexibly – from the slightly boring day to day ongoing costs, which tend to keep the local workers employed and secure beyond the limits of a restricted budget project, to the more attention grabbing projects which present themselves out of the blue – things like the rescue of the **** Orphanage, and various other little - but important – things that come up – things along the lines of the prison initiative I’ve mentioned earlier. It’s easy to hear the big numbers involved in the restricted budget awards and wonder what difference a small personal donation can make, but the flexibility of unrestricted funding means that sometimes a lot more meaningful and long term – and personal assistance can be given to projects and people that might just otherwise slip under the radar.

Ok propaganda over, back to the adventure of the town trip – we took the back (i.e., more bumpy) way into town as we had to inspect the progress of a maternity unit that P**** was responsible for. The sad fact was that there wasn’t much – Peter was understandably annoyed at the lack of progress and cut through the excuses of the local foreman who was there, but without his workforce. He did offer us a cup of tea. I’m glad to see that some things are the same in Afghanistan and the UK. The offer was refused – quite a show of annoyance in this part of the world. I’d taken my camera out to get a picture, but I felt a bit bad about picturing a scene where I’d just witnessed another sort of a scene. So no scenic building work shots here. Just imagine unplastered fairly rough brickwork of a light mud colour, placed between concrete uprights and lintels, and you won’t be far off.

Slightly unsettled, we headed into the chaos of the city centre, where all the joys of street life represented themselves to me – fish hung up on boards on the pavement, bicycles parked hub deep in filthy water in the open gutters along the side of every road; street vendors cooking pretty much anything on tiny portable chimneys, people on underpowered motorbikes negotiating the traffic in suicidal fashion with 40 gallon battered drums of oil (or similarly flammable material) bouncing around on homemade jigs behind them; occasional women, occasionally dressed in blue burkas drifting along like ghosts, invisible – unknown appearance, age, ethnicity, comfortably anonymous amongst the hustle and bustle. In fact, it was only when I happened to see someone with her burka pushed back over her head (for some reason or other) and I saw a deeply lined, totally characterful face, that I appreciated the anonymising power of the burka – who knows what you’re like underneath? It’s almost like a personal invisibility cloak. I’m not saying that I’m all in favour of them, or that everyone who wears one wants to wear one; but I can see how some people might actually appreciate some of the things it gives them – especially in such a male dominated place as here. Of course, the problem is just that, if you want to take a sociological view – male dominated. I have seen, however, groups pf women walking comfortably together as friends, some wearing the burka and others not. There seems to be a slightly more relaxed attitude than we traditionally associate with Afghanistan back home.

Of course, to see evidence of the (sometimes quite cheeky) individualism of the Afghans, you really need to start looking at the vinyl decals they’ve attached to their white Toyota Corolla. And believe me, it’s going to be a white corolla. Unless it’s a Taxi, in which case it’s a yellow and white corolla. They’re all pre-owned (I suspect referring to them as second hand would be being a bit too generous) and the majority of them come from Germany. There’s the occasional Town Ace MPV (Toyota again), but any other make is more than likely to be an NGO vehicle. Of course, you’ll know its NGO because it’ll have the NGO (or army or police) logo in huge letters on the side, it’ll be a new vehicle, and, crucially, it’ll be clean. They’re usually very big as well, and if you’re lucky, it’ll have a huge antennae on the front bumper. Needless to say, I was in a dirty old white Corolla – nice and anonymous, just the way I like it. But I was talking about decals, wasn’t I? Yes – the cars have all sorts of decals on the back windows – eagles are popular, as are wildly inappropriate claims (in English) about the power, or ability of the vehicle – or, as I found particularly intriguing just after going past a group of burka clad women, a particularly attractive woman’s face. I say face, but it was really the eyes and top of the nose, because you’ve got it, it was a decal of an attractive woman wearing a veil. I couldn’t quite get my head around it.

We got to our first computer store – the one in the courtyard tower, and the guy had managed to get us a genuine Toshiba power lead – good news indeed – not the usual Chinese generic product they get over here. The first thing people ask when they buy something electronic over here is “is this western Chinese, or Afghanistan Chinese?” – because there are two, quite different standards of manufacture for the same brands. Like Sony – there’s the good quality “Japanese” (and you can bet it’s actually Chinese) Sony, and then the far more dubious “Chinese” Sony – so beware of any real bargains. Mind you, the adapter we got was a fair bargain at $30 – I’d be pushed to get a genuine charger replacement for the same price – but I do suppose the chances of getting a new one would be higher. Still, I was pleased. And I managed to get some street scenes from the first floor – hanging over the balcony, hoping that I wouldn’t fall.

I may not get the pictures up tonight – the power got cut at 11 last night and I’m cutting it pretty close right now) (ok, so this is obviously out of date now, and I did get the pics up, but I think I'll leave it right threre as a reminder of what it's like here!)

One of the many street food vendors - though I think I'll stick with the food back in the compound. For a start, at least I know how to ask for it!

I hate to think what happens when it rains. I'm guessing these things don't come with a worldwide warranty.

Then we went to City Centre, where I was convinced I’d spotted that bargain RAM – and it was still there. Unfortunately, it didn’t fit. We found a 1Gb card that did, and when I tried to use the 512s ridiculously low price to lever the price of the 1Gb card down, they spotted their mistake! Still, they gave us a good price on the 1Gb module – but we had to stay for about 40 mins whilst a utility I’d hooked off the net did a through job of testing the RAM – I didn’t want to fork out other peoples money on something that wasn’t going to work. I made a bit of a deal about looking at their laptops; which I think might have helped the price to come down that little bit more. I also exchanged a couple of photo opportunities with the young sales assistant you see below:

Hello sir, how may I be of assistance? Perhaps you need instructions with your camera?

I think this kid may have a future. Nice composition!

On the way back, I managed to snatch some pictures of Kabul, though I chickened out in the market again – I was determined to get at least one picture, but I never felt quite confident enough, though I had been very jaunty with Peter when we had been waiting for our driver to turn back up, standing around waving laptops and cameras around with an air of unworried bonhomie. I swear I’ll get at least one meaningful picture of the market before I go! I was pleased, however, to get a couple of close-ups of the crazy hill clinging houses on the side of the road.

I know I said I got two pictures, you only get the one. Only the best for you guys!

Yeah, strolling across the road is like a national passtime here. No rush, mind you.

The afternoon was a lot more laid back, although I had a lot of work to do in the office – and it turns out that at least one of the voltage stabilisers is probably up the spout. Probably Chinese. Afghan Chinese, that is. It looked like I might get out the **** Orphanage this afternoon as well, as the director showed up for a meeting with D**** – unfortunately, we didn’t have a driver available, so I’m going to be going tomorrow.


There was a bunch of other stuff I wanted to talk about today as well, like small buisiness advertising, the meaning of adverts in English with high production values scattered round town – i.e., who are they really for; and the idea (and reality) of NGO branding – a good or bad thing? Have a guess what I think.

Day 7 - techno-awe

Well, I’m afraid it’s going to be another day without pictures today, as we were inside again. I’ll be sure to get some staff pictures when I’m sure of everyone’s names – I’m at about 80% at the moment – a little ways to go.

I had a lie in, which would have been more effectual if I’d got to bed at a decent hour, but I ended up trying to coax my laptop to install Skype, without much success. Of course, when I ran it today it installed fine – typically.

But I was glad that it did as I was able to have a good catch-up with Sarah (the girlfriend) – we’d had a bit of a miscommunication on Thursday, and I was a little worried that the conversation would be a little fraggy due to the microwave link, and the fact that well, I’m in Kabul. I tested it out with my mate Roger in London, and yes, it was a bit laggy, and only one person could talk at a time (good old half duplex) – but then again, he was using a webcam. And as he was on, Sarah logged on unexpectedly – so I dumped R and talked to Sarah - and as there were no cameras involved, the quality was fantastic. Fair goes to skype, they’ve made something possible that was scarcely conceivable by Joe public as recently as five years ago. And it was great being able to have a relaxed catch up with my girlfriend, although it does make me sorry I can’t just pop round and see her like I’d normally be able to – but I’ve got less than two weeks to go. Time flies.


Mind you, if D**** had his way, I’d be here for much longer. He was very kindly saying how useful it was to have me around, and how an IT person could be really useful as a permanent fixture. He was also throwing big hints at Anthony, the visiting ER specialist, who’s helping set up an ER department in obstetrics (I’m pretty sure) that **** are in charge of here in Kabul. I’m not going to make you suffer the internal dialogue I had about the pros and cons of living in Kabul – mainly because I fulfilled my personal angst quota for the week yesterday, but also because it’s really not an issue right at the moment – I’ve got far too much keeping me in London at the moment – which I know Sarah and my boss will be glad to hear (and mum and dad too, of course!) – I was paying close attention when I watched “The Last King of Scotland” before I came out!

The thing that really struck me when D**** and M**** were talking about the various projects that **** Afghanistan is responsible for here is the sheer scale and variety involved – they’re project managing some essentially very complicated, professional areas – as disparate as engineering, architecture, medical projects, social and educational projects amongst others, doing large and small scale things, things which are funded by corporations, funded by foreign governments, the Afghani government, external groups and individuals – all of which have to be properly managed and accounted for. Add to this the HR and diplomacy issues of dealing with government red tape, and local staff, and breaking across a cultural barrier and work ethic which is totally at odds with just general day-to-day expectations in more settled economies, and I’m surprised that they have any hair left, let alone go about their jobs – vocations – with the energy and happiness that they do.

I find it especially remarkable that rather than being ground down into a resigned and somewhat detached mild cynicism, they really enjoy working in this dysfunctional country, despite the frustrations – and, even more importantly, keep looking for ways in which they can use their personal resources to make a direct impact in situations which might get lost amongst the bigger projects they’re responsible for. I’ve seen quite a few NGO staff who are highly professional and effective, but who have lost their compassion somewhere along the way – and it’s so easy to do. It’s great to be reminded that this isn’t necessarily the fate of everyone who tries to help in complex situations.

Oh, and I read about the train derailment yesterday on the route up to Glasgow back home – a route I take every so often to work. Who’d have thought staying in Kabul would be safer than catching a train to work? Well, given my experiences with the public transport system in Blighty, I can’t say I’m particularly surprised. I think I may write a letter* to the Metro about the whole affair.

(* thanks for the suggestion, Sarah!)

Day 6 - the day of rest

Well, I’m tempted to write nothing at all today – after all, everybody deserves a day off, right? But this is the internet, ever hungry for information, and I am but it’s humble servant.

To be honest, today was very laid back. The big demonstration (which went way over 20 000 people, according to the ANSO alert (Afghanistan NGO Safety Office)) dispersed without incident, which I guess is good news for everybody. There also seemed to be quite a lot of traffic around for blocked roads, but who am I to question the Afghan polices efficiency? And we still have city power! Talking of which, I managed to wire up one of our new voltage stabilisers successfully – at least I hope so, because that’s what I’m running my laptop on at the moment. Its been going for a couple of hours and coped with a couple of spikes, so I guess my wiring isn’t too bad. Just got to keep my fingers crossed – I’ll hook up the “server” tomorrow.

It was a funny day really, I thought I’d be bored out of my head being stuck in the compound all day, but A**** (one of the Pakistani expats) has two of his brothers staying here over the weekend, and so we had quite a full house, even with the local staff being away. Its heartening to see how quickly I can get used to life without TV (although I still take fairly regular looks at the BBC news website, so I know all the important stuff like Brittany Spears shaving her head) – and how much time just socialising and playing games together can take up. And it’s not like time goes any slower, or the pace seems wildly more relaxed here – it’s just that it feels like a big family, all hanging out. Good stuff, I say.

The other interesting thing is that I’m noticeably losing weight. This can’t be to do with exercise, as I don’t do more than walk from the flat to the office, or, if I’m lucky, from the car to a shop and back; and it’s not to do with the amount of food I’m shovelling down – two substantial meals a day, with eggs for breakfast as well – although I’m not eating huge amounts of meat – I think it probably has more to do with the fact that I’m not drinking my regular couple of glasses of wine with the folks every evening – not something I’ve been doing over here. You’d think it would be impossible to get alcohol over here, but there are a few bars in Kabul – mainly in Hotels, but they exist. In fact, I suppose I should really see one before I go, as the woman I flew over with bet me a drink that we weren’t actually going to get to leave Dubai that day, and a drink (alcoholic) was the price. Though, to be honest, I feel a bit dubious about collecting on it. This is for a few reasons a) Even though it’s totally above board, I feel a little weird about going out for a drink with a woman I only just met when I have a girlfriend back home (which I made very clear, and I’m sure its just about hanging out, but, you know how these things can look), b) Doing something “Western” isn’t very appealing, to be honest – especially if I’m going to be going into town to do it (and a man and a woman hanging out together really is very western), c) I’m getting used to not drinking, and d) The whole idea of going to go somewhere where there will be a concentration of western people doing something profoundly anti-cultural and anti-Islamic strikes me as a fundamentally bad idea. I mean, the phrase “fish in a barrel” springs to mind. Still, She really helped me out with getting over here, we got on well as potential friends – and I’m always up for getting new friends (that’s GETTING, not REPLACING, folks!), and she’s involved in some interesting things that could interest a couple of my friends who are planning to come over later in the year – and it would be plain rude just to blank her, especially after she called me to check I was OK after being picked up. So, what to do? I’m not quite confident enough to get a driver to take me out on my own for a meeting, but that may change over the next week. I do like making dramas out of the most inconsequential things. Give me a genuine emergency any day of the week, thank you!

Oh, and I also know that a hotel bar was raided a couple of days ago by the police, and, although I like experiencing cultural differences, I draw the line at testing prisons.

(Talking of which, M**** and D**** went to the women’s prison in Kabul the other day – and I got to hear about how it operated. The thing that sprang to my mind almost immediately was 18th century descriptions of Newgate debtors prison, where those with families outside could live an almost bearable life, having provisions brought to them, whilst those without lived a pretty miserable existence. And as a majority of women in Kabul prison have been sentenced for murdering their husbands – and I’m sure you could find several mitigating circumstances, given the history of these things – they have no one to support them or their children when they’re in prison, making the experience much, much worse for them)

I’d like to end this post on a slightly less self obsessed note, and say I learnt something profound today, but the closest I got was this morning when Dan gave me a shout from the roof – the weather has been getting better and better, and the clear air gave a breathtaking view of the mountains. I’m not going to show you here as a) too many rooftop shots get boring very quickly and b) I didn’t take my camera up in the morning. I did take it up tonight though, and got a couple of nice long exposure shots of the houses (like birdhouses is how Anthony described them) clinging like little lamps to the hillside. I need to take some time to review if any of them came out well, so no photos for tonight!

Sorry, I couldn't resist it!