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) -

PICURE REMOVED

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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!

PICTURE REMOVED

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!

PICTURE REMOVED

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!