Adventure on day 4!

What an amazing day – the highlight being a trip out of the compound and into Kabul proper – made even better by the sunshine and (almost) clear skies.

(boring techie stuff follows, feel free to skip to the next set of brackets)

I got a whole lot of kinda boring stuff done as well – mainly centred around working out how to obtain SP2 for a copy of XP which isn’t exactly fully licensed – and working out the only way to do that was to get a network admins copy from Microsoft – which weighs in at 260 odd MB – and over a microwave connection, and with a dodgy power supply, I wasn’t very hopeful of a successful result. Still, I looked for a decent freeware download manager, and actually found one at the dubious sounding “freedownloadmanager.com” or something like that – nothing very convincing anyway – I had to read about three independent reviews from reputable sites before I dared install it. And actually, it’s great – I started it at about 3.30pm, and its still going now at about 10kbps; it should finish just before 11pm, which is when the power got terminated last night (without any warning, thank goodness for laptop batteries and torches). I also was weeding out a very cluttered old laptop; using a selection of tools which I haven’t used for a long while – mainly based around msconfig and “hijackthis!” which I thought had stopped being updated, but the genius who put it together has gone back to regular updates. It’s one of the few freeware things out there where I’m actually tempted to click on the paypal donate button. I may well still do. Anyways, I’ve rediscovered a whole new slew of fantastic freeware utilities – and some more besides – that I’ll be bringing back to blighty with me.

(OK, boring bit over, welcome back, normal people!)

Between downloads and digital disinfecting, I took a trip to the roof with the decent camera that my work colleague (well, strictly speaking it was his wife, bless her) very kindly leant me to give it it’s first outing. Results below:

You can see that having a clear sky and a decent camera with a decent telephoto certainly makes quite a difference!

So I thought my trip to the roof would be as much as I could expect from today, but we need to get some RAM for the laptops here, and a few other bits and pieces – I was going to do a through audit of the components before we went into town, but it was suggested we go into town today and scope things out and then go back tomorrow – I jumped at the idea. I crammed a hat on my head to hide the shiny white dome of my head, stuck my little camera in my pocket on the off chance that I might be able to grab a sneaky picture or two without being killed, and got into the car with four other guys from the compound – including a security guy, H****, and our cook (who we dropped off on the way). We threaded our way into town past the bottom of the central mountain – I was right by the window facing the mountain covered with vertiginous stickle brick housing clambering up the brown rock face – an amazing sight, although I was too nervous to ask for the window to be pulled down and shoot a couple of pictures – although I was absolutely aching to get some; the sight was amazing, and the light was fantastic.

Soon afterward, I got more involved with the people than the scenery – I quickly realised that Kabul is full, jam-packed with people. And dirty cars. And people on bikes. And armed police at roundabouts (I was a little nervous as I’d gone out without ID). And old Toyota Corolla yellow and white (well, brown really) taxis, and busses. And one motorcycle. At least, that was impression I got until we turned into the street in the electronics part of town – and then I was faced with the rather daunting prospect of actually getting out of the car and being on a very busy street mixing it with the locals. I suddenly became very aware of my jeans and jacket, and my very pale face. I became aware of all the bustling going on – and the hundreds of ways I could get separated from my guides. Then I managed to relax a little and start to enjoy it. For a start, it may have been as busy as Oxford Street on Christmas Eve, but it was a whole lot more interesting. I was almost disappointed when we stepped into the computer place. I can’t call it a shop, it was more of a multilayered courtyard, feeling a bit like a slightly modernised and amplified version of some of the courtyards I’d managed to stumble into in some of the darker recesses of Istanbul’s labyrinthine markets – and I loved the dank atmosphere, with computer shops stacked on top of each other like battery chickens.

We trotted up to the third floor into a little shop known to the guys – well, it was the owner, not the shop that was important, obviously – and it became pretty clear that, as far as hardware is concerned, I’ve got a little way to go. Still, I have a few hours tomorrow to get my facts straight before we go back – guess what internet stuff I’ll be doing tonight? So much for the flown in expert, hey? Oh, I don’t feel so bad, I never said I was a hardware expert when I asked if they could use my help here – and it’s not like I didn’t know what I needed, just a few of the details!

Anyway, we’re at the top of this amazing place, and I’m starting to feel a little more secure, like nobody’s about to kill me, and so I finally get the courage to get my camera out, though I did ask H**** to take a couple of pictures initially for me; hence the cheesy one of me next to the laptop shop.

The courtyard, looking down

Then I discovered there was a balcony that looked over the street, and I was in heaven (not literally, you must understand).The view was outstanding – from the view of the buildings and mountains, to the countless thousands of people who could be seen in the middle distance crawling alongside the Kabul river and down the roads leading to and from where we were. The sheer scale of people was amazing – the last time I’d seen a scene anything like as busy and muddy as that was when I saw an exhibition on miners in Brazil in indebted servitude crawling over open cast gold mines. It was amazing. I’m sure my pictures don’t do it half the justice it deserves – tomorrow I’m going to take along the decent camera.

When we finally spat ourselves back onto the street, waiting for out driver, I saw a street vendor cooking corn in hot sand – I think it was corn, although it certainly wasn’t for the cinema market. I’m quite pleased I got a photo at all, the street being as busy as it was, and not wanting to draw too much attention to myself. I thought I got it, until I checked the actual picture at full size tonight and realised that some dude had managed to walk in frame exactly over where the guy was. And the dude was blurred, to add insult to injury.

The drive back to base was even more spectacular than on the way in – we drove through the market, and inched through the mass of people I’d seen from the balcony – and I started feeling nervous again – what if someone took exception to my face, and dragged me out? We were travelling at less than walking speed, and we weren’t in the 4x4. Still, I found the market incredibly engaging, with nearly all the stalls being on handcarts, with a few on boards on stools, and an unlucky few being on sheets on the ground. I lost the opportunity to ask what the big piles of orange coloured nut type things were – what particularly attracted me to these (invariably huge and well proportioned) mini mountains was not so much the product as the few spindly plants stuck into the top which looked like they might have once been flowers.

I also had more overwhelming urges to take pictures, but common sense made me stick to trying to shoot out of the windshield from the fairly unobtrusive vantage point between the shoulders of the two guys in the front. Sadly, but rather predictably, the pictures weren’t great – a shame, as being crammed in the crowds reminded me what a handsome lot these Afghanis really are. Obviously hardship is good for the face, if not a warm sense of security.

The guys took pity on my photographic efforts once we’d cleared the melee, and we stopped for a couple of seconds, my window was wound down, and I managed to get a picture of a pretty yellow mosque which looked like it had been designed by a 19th century Bavarian architect.

When we got back I was exhilarated, and can’t wait to get back out there. I’m especially looking forward to getting fitted for my Salwar suit - the sort of suit that most of the men wear here. It doesn’t seem particularly warm, but these guys are a hardy bunch, and I guess I’ll have the option of getting a waistcoat and hat (I’ve wanted one of the afghan pie type hats since I first saw them on students at my old University, over ten years back)

The evening was quite relaxed after my busy day – I got to know some of the local staff a lot better, and gave news of some of the people I’m friends with back home who have been through Kabul in years gone past. They remembered C**** and M**** with particular affection. Then I taught some of the guys the much underrated game of “lie dice” and won some instant converts. I plan to expand my dice playing empire tomorrow.

Day 3 - down to business - properly!

Today’s entry is going to be short, as I’m pretty tired – although I do have some rather fetching pictures of the compound in the sleet to show you.

I had an early start – and a hot (!) shower - I was bracing myself for freezing water, one of my pet hates, so I was very pleased to get hot water. I know this doesn’t say great things about my personal hygiene that it takes two days for me to get into a shower, but you have to understand my phobia of cold water.

Speaking of which, the weather has been pretty dreadful today – rain, that’s turned gradually throughout the day into a freezing sleet – it looks like it might settle tonight; which will at least cover the mud for a bit. It meant that I’ve been stuck in the compound all day today – but at least I was able to keep myself busy with my job here – and I actually managed to get a couple of computers back up to optimum operation. I think I’m going to have to take a trip out to the local computer suppliers to get a few fistfuls of RAM – that really is the main problem. If I’m lucky, I’ll also be able to score some hard drives for some of the older computers – and then I’ll have to find a copy of Norton Ghost or similar to clone the current setup. Actually, I could always use a copy of true image, I think. Details, details. Bringing along a bunch of 1Gb USB sticks has gone down very well – I really am mister popular, although I’m waiting until I know exactly who is permanent staff here before I start handing out the techno-candy.

I had the joy of trying to dismantle a Toshiba laptop today to figure out why it wasn’t working. I didn’t get very far, although I concluded that it was probably more to do with the power supply than the laptop – this was after I’d cannibalised the RAM to put into a computer which was running very slowly – and it certainly perked up after I’d slammed it in; although I had a nasty moment when I thought I’d permanently locked out the user after putting in the wrong system password three times. Didn’t help that it was one of the directors computers.

I was pretty exhausted after lunch – my cold is definitely receding, but its going out with a fight – so I came back to my room and read some Bill Bryson – “Down Under” – pretty surreal, reading an Americans account of travelling though Oz as a Brit in Kabul. Still, It was good to wind down and to get started on my pistachio mountain.

I leant another interesting cultural difference today which made a lot of sense about the frustrations I’ve heard from other people who work in developing nations. It came about when I borrowed some tools off Dan (after stripping the heads off my cheap jewellers screwdrivers) – and he told me about the trauma of actually owning tools in Afghanistan – because nobody else does. They don’t have a concept of “do it yourself” – if something needs fixing, they get somebody else in to do it. Need a hole in the wall? Go down the street and hire somebody to do it for you for $2. Over here labour is far cheaper than tools. Oh, how different from London can you get? The upshot is, if you have tools, you have to watch as people tend to borrow them and never return them. On a slightly deeper cultural note, I guess it also highlights a difference between a community based urban economy, built on networks of (so called) expertise that’s been in operation for hundreds of years in places like Kabul against the independent, self reliant and resource rich cultural factors we have in the “modern” world. It would be easy to make some kind of value call at this point, but, as we know, the real world is far more complex.

I’m really getting to know the guys here better – and I’m confident with about half of the names – this is helped by the socialising together – mealtimes and games of cards in the evenings – I won last night, but I’ve been invited to another game tonight. And no, it’s not poker. I’ve also been having some wide ranging discussions with an Australian ER doctor (Anthony), which may culminate in me helping him revise for an exam when he goes back – he’s a very laid back kind of guy, so it should be a fair old challenge – although it’ll be interesting to revisit medical textbooks, which I haven’t seen since my first degree! Oh, hark at me with my educational name dropping. It was a medical science degree, the poor mans version of medicine. Feel free to send complaints if you're a fellow BMedSci grad.

OK, well I promised you pictures, so here you go!

This is where I stay – at the front of the compound on the first floor – I’m on the right hand side; and I’ve got a window (with mirrored plastic) facing the street

This is the office from the bottom of the apartments. The generator is housed in a building on the left. The plastic sheeting is a basic method of double glazing during the winter

This is a corner of the roof, where I watched the pigeons yesterday. Those little square boxes are where the bukharis vent.

And here is a view of the mountain in the centre of Kabul from the roof – I had to bump up the contrast a lot, but I hope you can make out the houses clinging to the sides.

Day 2 in Kabul

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ok, first things first – apologies for the lack of update between last week and now – it was a combination of drama and forgetting my password for this blog! Doh.

The truth is, I only got into Kabul today – my Arianna flight from Dubai was cancelled yesterday – not the best when you’ve got up at 3am to catch the flight. I hung out with some ex-pats at the airport and found that it was the second day in a row for cancellations – apparently they’d sent the plane to Delhi. I found this out after a few Afghanis (who I’d been exchanging mutually frustrated “isn’t this awful” type conversations with) came up to me and asked me to ask the representative – as they thought I was more likely to get a full answer than they would. Unfortunately for post colonial cultural advancements, they were right.

Still, I got to hang out in Dubai for another day with my new friends - friends of friends who put me up and took me to the airport (and back again, yesterday)- and who had a pretty crazy valentines party on Friday – where I was even persuaded to do a bit of Karaoke, which everyone regretted.

Run for the hills! Leons got the microphone!

So flying into Kabul was a pretty big shock – first it was the snow – our flight was delayed – I’d bought a Kam Air ticket after thinking that it was pretty unlikely that I’d get on a Arianna flight after two days of cancellations (and paid another $200 for the privilege), but Kam Air were a bit jumpy about flying into Kabul in bad weather – it’s totally surrounded by mountains, and last year they managed to fly into one of them in the exact same conditions – though I misheard and thought that they’d crash landed in a mine field. So I was totally confident about the flight, as I’m sure you can imagine.

In actual fact, the flight was pretty good – and the landing was excellent – although we did fly at quite a leisurely pace. The terminal, however, was something else. It was like someone had thrown a grenade into a half-built garage – no ceiling, wires hanging all over the place, no lights and no heating. Kind of like Luton airport on a bad day, really.

The face says it all, I think.

The qeues for passport control were pretty incredible as well – and once I’d inched past and into the non-functioning baggage hall, I managed to find my bag in a dark corner surprisingly quickly. I’d lost my baggage reclaim ticket (well, the ex pat who I’d hooked up to buy tickets with had it, and she was a bit behind me) – but I managed to bustle my way out of the terminal, past the x-ray machine, past the attentions of locals trying to take my bag for me, through the mud and past the armed guards to where I finally saw my driver, who was holding up a picture of me that I’d sent at the beginning of the week.

The fetching mugshot that greeted me

Still, the English wasn’t great and I wasn’t entirely convinced I hadn’t been kidnapped until we got to the **** compound after about half an hour driving through crazily pot-holed roads full of mud, dirty rainwater, slush and rubbish; past buildings which seemed to be in states of both demolition and shanty building at the same time, and stalls struggling for business in the mud, construction with concrete and what looked like long twigs, and locals traipsing through the slush and mud in open sandals.

It felt like being in a really hard-boiled film – and I loved the chaos, and squalor, and energy of it – part of me was itching to get out and take a million pictures, part of me was thinking “how can these people keep on living like this” but the most part of me was just totally excited that I’d finally landed in somewhere completely, totally foreign and alien, about as far from being a tourist as possible. Though, lets face it, that's kinda what I am out here.

The fact is, I’m going to have to make those impressions last – because once I was delivered into the (unmarked) **** compound, and met the local and ex-pat staff, I re-realised that I’m not going to be seeing too much of the outside world – though we will get out and see a bit, I’m pretty certain. I just hope I’m busy enough to keep cabin fever at bay.

At least we have a pretty good broadband connection here, which is going to make my life a lot easier!

Almost Ready

Hi there!

You're probably reading this as you saw a "out of office" reply to one of your emails, and are wondering what on earth possesed me to take a three week trip to Afghanistan in the middle of winter.

It's fairly simple really - about a year ago, my church was asked if we could do a collection for a small orhpanage in Kabul that had narrowly avoided being demolished, and was in a pretty precarious state. We managed to raise about £30 000; and that was the end of that, as far as I was concerned - just another fundraiser that went well, another charity to forget.

However, during the year I went on a holiday to California to see a freind, and ended up meeting a lot of new people, and having a few conversations which made me feel that constructive holidays, at least for me, are a lot more rewarding than just running around on my own, which has been the sort of thing I've done over the last few years.

A couple of months later, the director of the projects in Afghanistan (who was partially responsible for the rescued orphanage) came through London to give us an update on the orphanage project - it's still going, and going pretty well (though always in need of more money) - and I thought it would be pretty cool to actually go out and put my mouth where my money was, so to speak.

The last thing I wanted to do was become some sort of "aid tourist", pitching up with nothing to do; and I also knew that I'd only have a limited time and budget. As my job involves quite a bit of technical support and training (as many of you know); I thought that I'd ask if there was a need for three weeks of free technical support and IT training for local users of the charities services - frankly, I was doubtful that such a niche would exist, but I got a very enthusiastic reply - so I'll be leaving for Kabul tommorow (thursday 15/2/07) to provide training for local people in IT skills - basic office and maintainance stuff; but useful for the day to day operation of several projects, and also for a skills set which will make them more employable in the longer term.

I'm really loooking forward to my three weeks adventure, which I will keep updated on this blog. Hopefully I'll also be able to post photographs as I go along.

I won't touch down in Kabul until Saturday Morning (as I'm going via Dubai), but I hope to keep you informed as much as possible!


This trip is entirely self funded, with no outside support. If you'd like to know how you can support this project either financially or practically, please contact me by email at leon @ crowbar.co.uk (remove the spaces!)

Speak to you soon!