Me, myself and I

A little chilly maybe...

Only weeks ago were were working lying on the floor (because the heat rised in the room), right next to the fan and finishing each day with a little water fight consisting of someone running to fill a bucket of icy water, then running back towards someone else who invariably said oh please yes, go ahead!

Now, however, it's so toes-curling fucking freekish cold that I'm thinking of going to bed at 6 pm everyday and never getting up again. Or change country. Or both. If you're dealing in winterization programme in the region, please count me in as beneficiary!

Three bird stories

Three birds falling down their nest at the dawn of the day...

Some friends have taken up to rationing their beautiful black cat and her lovely shy kitten. I reckon they want to see how long they can go on, until the cat rises and fights back. In the meantime, though, the cat has decided to take her fate in her own paws. Thus last evening, she happily walked into their living room, onto their beautiful Persian carpet, and dropped a dead pigeon there. The kitten arrived wailing like he had not eater in a month. Although the feathers and blood gave a little vavavoooom to the living room decoration, dinner and the two cats had to be chucked out to finish the feast.

Apparently dinner indoor was more to their taste, so they ran back to the carpet, still with the dead bird and had to be chucked out again.

Later on that night, on the streets of the Afghan Gotham, a night owl, probably on his way home, probably very tired or who had spent too much time smoking the nargile, parked his car in the side ditch.

You know the open sewage canalisations that are about 75 cm wide and deep? Running between the sidewalk and the street? Full of dirt and muddy water, that you avoid like the plague in fear of loosing a limb if you ever felt? Well, he probably tried to park along it. Somehow though, he managed to get two wheels full on in the ditch.

It's the second time I see anything like that in Afghanistan - the first one was even better, as the car was some gigantic 4x4. I bet it's going to take a while before that car drives again...

This morning, a third bird came around this way. I went to the kitchen to see if I could get fried eggs and, for lack of a cook, proceeded to make them myself. Only one pan present and properly filled with 3 cm of oil. The one used for my colleague's eggs. No other pan around, so I was forced to make deep fried eggs. Terrifying, I never even knew eggs could fry underneath the layer of oil. My arteries were pretty much screaming I was going to die five years younger, so I tried and wiped the best part of the oil with a tissue afterwards. A little voice in me is now saying the reason why eggs fill you so much here is only for all the oil that coats your stomach wall.

And that was my week starting the way I like it. Let's rock and roll!

Of ISAF in Afghanistan

I know the ISAF presence, like any international military presence, is not an entirely unambiguous issue in Afghanistan. Especially so when, along ISAF, you have Coalition forces actively engaged in their 'war against terrorism' in the south. There's obviously always a risk for the two forces to be assimilated, at least in people's eyes, with the ensuing risks for ISAF forces - a rather softer target, I suspect, for the laziest Taliban, than the Coalition forces. This ambiguity is only made worse by the fact that some troops, like the Brits, partake in both forces and as a result may sometimes wish their action were more concurring, hence the British plea to have ISAF troops in the south from 2006 more actively involved in the said fight against terrorism. Part of me fears blurring the two mandates is likely to lead to yet more attacks on ISAF and to undermine their overall responsibility to support law and order outside the terrorism realm.

In case any ambiguity subsides, I do think though that ISAF's presence brings an element of stability to the country. Well possibly except where tensions are such that it would take a 100-strong group of men to demilitarize one or two streets. (I'm thinking of Faryab, where militia fighting is still unusually common in some spots.) That's obviously exclusively based on my all-too-subjective perception however. Arguably, the fact that ISAF is made up of NATO nations or, in other words, basically of European ones (Turkey will appreciate) also creates an element of familiarity and therefore trust that partly explains my feeling. Anyhow, as they increasingly have groups of men, if only small ones, patrolling outside provincial centers and trying to keep themselves updated on the local situation, I have the feeling that often, they may appear like a reasonably neutral, if foreign, actor, not involved in local strives. I'm sure I'm overlooking here the quasi instinctive distrust many Afghans feel towards any foreign force interfering in their affairs. Still, for those Afghans who did grow tired of the war and, most likely, grew tired in particular of local warlords fighting each other over a few strips of provinces and a little more power, the presence of military outsiders reasonably neutral to these disputes may appear like a welcome relief.

Anyhow, these are all wild guesses but here is the one thing I can tell you for sure. I find that quite a few of the ISAF forces present here deserve respect for their attempts at bonding with the population. Whether it's just foot patrolling and talking with people on the streets, it is sufficiently remarkable as it is, given the number of attacks targeting them, including in the north. I mean you must have respect for British ISAF, for instance, who days after an attack in the heart of Mazar leading to the death of one of their men were patrolling on foot again in the city.
Additionally, even though I know ISAF's priority shouldn't be to make sure a little female expat worker here feels safe and secure, I have to admit had it not been for a really really tall Dutch ISAF guy guarding the site, Id have been too uncomfortable to ever stop in Maymana park, as I once did, to watch the football match opposing the local team to ISAF. As it is, all the stares were sufficiently obviously on me that it even made ISAF guys nervous. I thus decided to bugger off, but still, ten minutes of game watching had been worth it.
Similarly, today, when the police in Mazar airport decided to record my identity (why exactly I cannot tell except probably out of boredom, as no other city seems to do that upon arrival...), a couple of seconds later a German ISAF guy was in the office too. Feeling a little overconfident about my inexistent German, I saluted him with Guten Morgen. (As I write these lines, I'm not even certain of the spelling, that's how good my German is). Then he asked me something with quite a few words, in German, and I thought fuck, so long for my great language skills. My brain somehow decided that the correct response had to be 'Belgium'. I could have said Belgie too, but all in all I wasn't sure keeping the conversation running in German was going to be that effective. Come to think of it, I'm not even certain what the question was. I may have heard 'land' in the sentence suggesting he wanted to know where I was from. Or I may have gotten that totally wrong cause really, guessing games usually lead you to reply such a thing as 'No, thank you.' to the question where do you work. Anyhow, I'm fairly confident the second question involved something like is there any problem here. That, at any rate, would seem like the obvious line given the number of sleazy policemen hanging around that office. To which I replied 'Keine probleem. Danke.', which must have expressed well enough that all was fine since the guy left as swiftly as he had arrived. Still, as the ISAF guys can't have failed to notice the slight pervert side of most police officers in this airport, I though it had been very civil of him to show up. Civil and discreet. When the police officer asked me what the man had said, I suggested he had just saluted me as my mom is from Germany and so is he. A lie, maybe not a credible one, but something that sounded innocent enough to avoid any tension on the side of the officers towards the ISAF guy.

Anyhow, in the greater scheme of things, I know it was a really unimportant and ultimately unnecessary gesture on the part of the German bloke to come and check if all was fine, but somehow, I really appreciate he did it.

Buzkachi vs. Riots

In Afghanistan the buzkachi season has just started, while in Europe the riot season is well under way. Two regions, two sports.

In our free time, we have had many fascinating discussions on the social divide in Western Europe, on the level of disaffection of the youth, on their lack of social opportunities and so on. We have had discussions to try and figure out whether the kind of riots seen now and then in the States could take place in a similar fashion in Europe, eg whether at the first display of weakness by the State, populations would within minutes take to the streets, robbing shops and burning down cars. We were fairly convinced it wasn't the case, and indeed, I still believe it isn't.

Why is it so? Because to start with, I do not believe that, when in a neighbourhood, some disaffected members of the population take the street to burn down private and public properties alike or to fight with the police forces around, they are representative of that neighbourhood's population at large. We saw on Euronews some random educator testifying that the ongoing unrest was the result not only of the accidental death of two youth, but also of the general disatisfaction of the local population with police harassment and more generally with their social situation. Arguably, there are truckloads of studies demonstrating that people coming from a certain geographical and/or social background, especially those who are the offspring of first and second generation migrants, are overall failed by the State, in that their chances of social success are far lower at every step of their existence than the rest of the population's. Yet, should I understand from there that mothers of two and three are currently on the streets of France burning down buses? Does it mean that 40-something manual workers are currently harassing police officers patrolling?

The truth is whether in Jo'burg or in Paris' suburbs, the first people to fall victims of such riots in poor suburbs are the local populations, eg the poor are the first to suffer. Because the unrest targets local private property, local public facilities and creates opportunities for further crimes, thefts, etc targeting whoever is close by. In that sense, there should be no misunderstanding that, when failing to calm down such situations, the State is not failing the said disaffected youth, nor possibly those wealthier populations whose very location protects them from such violence, but primarily those people who may indeed feel some level of disatisfaction, yet still express it for most during elections, or public demonstrations, or even during discussions in cafes, but are unfortunate enough to share their neighbourhood with a handful of rioters.

This said, it is also interesting to concentrate for a while on the said disatisfied youth. Again, should we expect that each and every young man and woman in poorer, marginalised neighbourhoods, is currently out on the street, challenging locally the forces of order?

Certainly I cannot pretend I grew up in some of the poorest suburbs. I had a supportive family, with a mind set on sending me to uni, should it turn out to be what I wished to do. I still had to work part-time, to be able to afford the kind of independance most fellow students took for granted, though. Most of my colleagues at the time, in the various bars and cinemas I roamed in during my undergrad years, were similarly students working to be able to afford their studies and lives. Some of them were more successful at uni, some less, but overall all did give it a good try and had their mind on eventually succeeding. Is there any difference between any of them and those kids out to destroy anything they can put their hands on until someone stops them? Probably some: better family support, possibly a better education to start with, teachers more present at school. But mostly they have decided on doing something with their life and they are working on achieving it. Meanwhile, the rioters of Paris, Birmingham or Brussels remind me of this line in Trainspotting: 'Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a fucking big television and wondering who the hell you are on a Sunday morning. (...) But why would I want to do a think like that?'

Maybe, only maybe, these disaffected youth are not children of France failed by the republic. Maybe they are just a bunch of dangerous brats, whose teenage negative energy could not be used in paintball fights, due to lack of funds. Whose energy could not be re-channelled towards actually doing something with their lives, out of lack of imagination. Who, in short, have merely elected to remain passive towards adversity, to use such convenient excuses as their social condition, the ugliness of the suburbs and society's back turned on them to channel all their energy towards something infinitally simple: destroying as much as possible in as little time as possible, without being caught. Because trying to express genuine social and political anger through music or art or political activism would take far more courage than they are able to display. Because trying to change the system for the better would take perseverance. Because building an actual life of their own would take real men and real men don't need to burn down schools to feel good about themselves.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, plenty of kids starting with an otherwise difficult passive, are taking every opportunity they can to attend English and IT classes outside school. In fact, I've known some radio operator who attended for a year, while in a refugee camp in Pakistan, an English class around 5 am, before going to regular school. The same people work ridiculously hard to take the university entry exam, often while working full-time. If they are accepted, it will probably not be for the course of their choice, due to the number of applicants and the limited positions. And they will still more often than not work part- or full-time throughout their studies to continue supporting their family. Surely, here too there are some brats who will choose any excuse - an MP's murder, the Karzai government, the international presence, female NGO workers - to go out and be as destructive as possible. Yet, it seems sometimes like it is those starting with the greatest passive who are most able to set their mind on building, building as high and as solid as possible. One would wish that the handful of disaffected, unhappy, aimless kids of Europe who seem to take pride in their internationally publicised little successes could try and live up to these standards and ambitions too, so it wouldn't take children from Karte-Se to remind them they only have very flimsy excuses to turn their back on society and behave like gangsters.

Pop Pop Pop Music!

During those long days driving around (and those seem to increase exponentially lately), one sees and hears a lot of things. In particular, one gets speaking, I suspect, of love. Unusually high pitched female voices that make the hair on your neck raise. Keyboard sounds that you had always thought unlikely to hear ever again in the 21st century. And for those drivers with the most unusual tastes (I'm thinking of a funny Kabuli one here, who used to always listen to the same tape that reminded me of being once 10 years old), mixes of Indian pop and old Angl-Saxon tracks. In that respect, I am particularly fond of a song that starts with the intro of the 'Final Countdown' of old memories, and goes on to turn into something Indian revolving around a chorus that repeats 'Zouzou zoubizoubizoubi'. Absolutely fascinating. I'll sing it to your someday if we meet.

And today, I wish to introduce you to the driver of C46 and his ever astonishing tastes. First you'll have to forgive me for not giving out his name. As it is, I beleive it's Ahmad Mohamad. But given that it is also the name of almost all of our driving staff, identifying them by their car is as much, if not more, effective. Anyway, the first time I drove around in Mazar with him, he had some Britney Spears on. As it further turned out, he has a full tape. Or possibly everything she has ever recorded since her birth. I let you imagine the beautiful blue mosque of Mazar, with Britney in the background. There's something so unauthentic about it that one comes to regret the good old times of Afghan music, which in its rough simplicity, fits particularly well those bare lands and dry mountains. And naturally one can only long for some Iranian music, which gives the level of poetry and spirituality to those landscapes that makes driving around in a 4X4 resemble a ride in the desert on a camel's back.

Anyway, as it is, our C46 driver does not restrict his tastes to Britney: he has a full tape that inclucdes Jennifer Lopez and even Tom Jones' Sex Bomb. Somehow driving to work is not the same experience anymore: it feels more like walking into some English pub on a Friday night in Dubai or Brussels.

Today, however, is the day we reached a climax in all this lyricism. As we hit the road to Kabul, I was shocked to hear a rap version of 'Manu', a French song from Renault. Fortunately my co-travellers could enlighten me by explaining that it comes from the soundtrack of Taxi. Relevant, I suppose, if only for the driving speed. As it is, the rest of th tape also included a hip hop version of 'Mourir pour de Idees', which includes a beautiful line that goes something like 'Dying for ideas, sure, but preferably of a slow death', as well as 'Dying for ideas, sure, sounds great, but which ones exactly?'. After that, a hip hop version of 'Ces gens-la', from Brel, and I almost felt like I was back home. I mean I'm a bit of a purist, but these tracks were actually fairly good adaptations. From there on, I expected more hip hop interpretations of French-speaking classics. Alas, it was the end of the tape.

The man therefore starts searching among his tapes (while driving, obviously) and apparently satisfied, takes one out. I'm afraid the picture on it rings a terrifying bell. I am not sure I am ready to face the truth, but before I have had time to scream 'Noooooooooooo', I find the tape is in the tape player and the terrible noise is coming out. Yes, you've probably guessed it by now, we are now listening to Modern Talking. Unbelievable. And not just one track either. There seems to be 500 of them on there. I had no idea they had even composed so many songs.(A point of clarification, I'm using the term 'song' here as an internationally recognised term to describe this kind of thing. Noise is, however, more what's on my mind) And here I am, hearing some odd beats and keyboards, which, with the dreadful sound system in the car, remind me strangely of chalk on a blackboard, or else of a camel giving birth.

And suddenly the thought springs to my mind. What if this poor man, next to me, who is afflicted of what is likely to be the poorest musical tastes in the entire country and, worst of all, is somehow hopeful that we share his taste for cheap pop, what if he is just re-enacting tortures he has undergone in Baghram. I mean I have no clue indicating that he has ever been arrested, or ever been to Baghram, or even ever been a muj (although he is after all one of our drivers, so the latter is likely to be true). But then again I have no clue indicating he hasn't. And as all know, experiences in sensory deprivation and stimulation have been among the modern refineries of torture practices. (Well in all fairness, they've always existed, but seem on the way to becoming highly fashionable, probalby thanks to their effectivity, combined with the lack of physical evidence). Anyway, my hypothesis is the following. No person who was not forcibly subjected to repeated sessions of Modern Talking would listen to them. C46 driver listens to them. So C46 driver has been forcibly subjected to these. Given that I suspect Talib torture would preferably involve recordings of Mullah Omar speaches. Given further that Dostum torture usually involves locking up large numbers of prisoners in remorques and leaving them in the desert until all have died (let the one who thinks maybe that man shouldnt occupy an official position please stand up...). Given finally that most of the bad musics inflicted upon us has been Anglo-Saxon (with the exception of the French stuff, but I'll have to assume some expat gave him these), then those responsible for the abject treatment this poor man has been subjected to have to be Americans. Man, these people have no shame.

As it is, right now I still probably have about an hour of Modern Talking to go. It makes me feel like I'm in a bad computer game, which somehow ruins a little the beauty of these majestic gorges surrounding us. Maybe I should consider death. Either his or mine. Oh well, I'll probably go for mine. As the song has it, 'the suicide is painless. It brings on many changes. And I can take it or leave it if I please'.

Love letter from Jalalabad

Here is a love letter that happened to cross my path on its way to Europe. I thought it my duty to share it with you...

My love,

I am writing to you from my lovely house in this beautiful country. You will have to forgive my handwriting: the bukhari broke down last winter and we have not been able to find a budget to purchase a new one. I have been able to light a fire with the help of our sweet old guard however. Unfortunately, I have run out of wood and as it is now Eid, our guard is away for the next four days and so are the rest of our staff. I would go to town to purchase some wood myself, however my burqa burnt during the last riots and I feel the population is still a little hermetic to seeing a woman on her own with hardly more than a headscarf - nothing, really... - to protect her modesty. It is by no means a major problem, but it means my fingers have been a little numb since yesterday morning and I have had to use both hands to hold my pen. Anyhow, I do hope you feel the same pleasure in reading me, as I feel in writing to you.

I was glad to hear that you sent me those vitamins recently. Sadly, as the road to our beautiful city has been closed to international vehicles for several weeks now, I do not expect to get them before Xmas. I have talked about my problems of bleeding gums and black legs to our hygiene coordinator three days ago and she very kindly indicated a few plants that I should try to help out. I feel already much better, and the dizziness has stopped altogether. Unfortunately my stomach and bowels have gone worst, but you'll find me so slim next time we will meet that I take my ability to digest food within 10 minutes as a bliss. Oh I realise, I cannot be too long now. Our maid was kind enough to bring me food during her day off, and I find that the mutton fat they use to cook the rice turns solid much faster with the cold. But how lovely of her: I just realised she added three slices of tomatoes to the rice! It's true that Eid is a major celebration over here, so one shouldn't fear to have a special meal for once. I really find astonishing all they manage to feed me with, on just 3 USD per day. Such wonderful cooks!

My only (small) criticism of her has to do with her pet policy. Of course I too try to be respectful of all forms of life, but I am not sure that keeping this family of red cockroaches at home is really the way forward for more tenderness. Of course, it does create a feel of company and, at stage, I am happy to salute the mother or one of the children. (There are six of them, including four children. I have given them a name too.) Only I am wondering what will happen the day I leave. I mean not all expats may feel so much tenderness that they will feed these little creatures and I wonder whether it isn't a little cruel to give them a home and food only to kick them out at a later stage.

Speaking of which, do you remember our dog Barky? You know how concerned I was after bringing it into the compound. I mean I understand they are considered impure animals and all. However, as soon as I saw our two pleasant stock keepers, Azeez and Haroun, playing with it and throwing a metal bar so Barky could go and catch it (Once by accident they threw it on Barky! Poor little dog was so scared. How we laughed at the poor honey...), I realised my worries were unfounded. So when they offered to take Barky away for a couple of days so he could get married to a lady dog and have puppies, I was quite enthusiastic, as it seemed like a fair thing to do for my baby dog. Unfortunately, they told me two weeks ago that Barky died while she was givign birth. Not sure how that could have happened, but I imagine maybe even dogs can be killed by emotions or something. I was so sad I even cried, but I am much better now. And the cockroach family has definitely been a help.

At work, not much to say at the moment. I know it is only November, but our educators said so much snow had fallen in some districts they could not reach villages anymore. The engineers also confirmed the temperature dropped to such an extent any work was impossible. Plus they say there are wolves around some of these villages and naturally, I don't want to expose them to unnecessary risks. They expect we can resume the programme beginning of March. In the meantime, we have great discussions about the Pashtun wali and things like that. And I learnt something new: apparently, very fervent Muslims do ramadan for not just one month but two or even three in a row. So I have offered that those still doing it be allowed to continue working the normal ramadan hours and to leave at 3 pm instead of 4 pm. And believe it or not, but more than 75% of the staff turned out ot be doing ramadan for two months. It's so admirable, so much spirituality!

Anyhow, in spite of all that, I have been able to address the problems I had mentioned to you in that small village in Mihtarlam. It turned out that the commander had not collected these wooden beams from our beneficiaries out of greed at all, but because he himself needed a new shelter as he has many wives and children. And he showed me his youngest son and it's true he looked all small, so I don't think he lied about how difficult life was for his family since the government started the disarmement programme. So I managed to contact our capital office and twisted the story a little until they agreed to assist him. I am so pleased about that outcome!

It was fortunate I called them on that day, though, because AWCC has been down ever since, so I can only communicate with the capital via radio. Internet has also been down for 7 weeks, but I am optimistic that the line will be back on before our programme resumes.

Anyway, I hope our accountant will be able to post my letter as promised, and that it will find you well.

I miss you and look forward to seeing you on my next R&R in June.

Yours,

Your ducky from Jalalabad