Return to Kabul

Hello from Kabul!

I must be getting old because life is starting to seem to be passing me very quickly. It seems as if I only just started blogging but since being intimidated into it by my friend Quokka when I was here in the summer of 2005. I have since moved to and worked in Liberia, Sri Lanka, and now right back to Afghanistan.

I arrived last Sunday.

I moved immediately into a very comfortable guest house in Kabul. I’ll be here (when I’m not travelling elsewhere in Afghanistan) until the end of September. Then I’ll house–sit for my boss for two months, and finally in December I’ll move into my own place, perhaps sharing with my old hilarious friend Alan.

The next couple of weeks will feature intense travel – I'll be going to Herat, Mazar, Bamiyan (which I've been to before) and Jalalabad.

As mentioned before I’m working for Equal Access. All early indications are positive and I have no doubt at all about the importance of our work. Time will tell about the effectiveness but I’m optimistic.

A few friends have expressed concern about security here. It’s a worry but our response is thoughtful and reassuring. We use unmarked cars and our office is unmarked because attacks on international staff have been on ‘high profile’ targets. We have VHF radios but no ostentatious Codan HF systems. We have restrictions against travel in taxis or even on foot in town (which is a bit of a necessary bother) but we don’t have a curfew – I really think we have taken all the right measures (and none of the wrong ones). The best thing is that the measures are not arbitrary and they do seem open to discussion.

It can not be denied that the security is poor. There was a suicide bombing at Kabul airport last Friday. I have already attended a weekly NGO security meeting where I heard some pretty grim details about the south of Afghanistan (where I won't be going). There was a lot of discussion about the recent kidnapping of South Korean and German hostages who were almost certainly released after payments by their governments. Most NGOs pledge not to pay ransoms but governments tend to bow to domestic political pressure which puts us (and the rest of their nationals) at much greater risk.

There are better responses to kidnappings. I believe petitions can help. I am grateful to my friends who told me they signed the petition demanding the release of the South Korean hostages. Those whose lives were spared returned to South Korea rather humbled, and South Korea will not allow any more Christian fundamentalist evangelists to travel here. We don’t do anything like that and we don’t travel on the known dangerous road they on which they were captured.

I think I’m going to like being back here. Afghanistan is a very troubled country but a very beautiful one and people are very friendly. My only regret is that as we work from Sunday to Thursday it is going to difficult (depending on time zones) to watch the remaining Formula 1 races, even if I can find a TV that shows them.

2005 wrap up

Kitchen department, Liberian Government Hospital, Buchanan, Liberia

December 31, 2005

Best wishes for a wonderful 2006 to any readers out there.

I'm writing this at 10:13pm on New Year's Eve and I think I'll be too tired to stay awake until midnight.

What an amazing year I've had. In these 12 seemingly brief months I took a mere 60 flights, visiting eight new countries (Brazil, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Ireland, India, Nepal and Liberia, bringing my official country total to 40), riding overnight trains in India, Canada and the US, and setting foot on five continents. I finished one job (working for the Survey Action Center in Afghanistan), started and finished another (with Oxfam in Afghanistan) and begun a third (with Merlin in Liberia).

Amongst my adventures were the following (not quite chronologically):

• Leaving Afghanistan on Business class, drinking Turkish coffee in Istanbul - and then finding myself back in Kabul six weeks later;


• Dancing until dawn in Itajuba, Brazil during Carnaval;


• Being spied on by monkeys with Jenny on the Pao De Acucar in Rio de Janeiro;


• Riding an elephant through the jungles of western Thailand after rafting through gorges, jumping off waterfalls, and enjoing welcome serenity in an eco lodge;


• Learning to Scuba diving at Koh Chang, Thailand;


• Taking my most comfortable (yet affordable) overnight train trips ever (Bangkok to Chang Mai) in Thailand;


• Climbing and pondering the incredible monastery at Angkor Wat, Cambodia;


• Swearing yet again that I'd attended my last Formula 1 Grand Prix (this time in Malaysia);


• Gazing up (from valley floors) and down (from tiny aircraft) at the most beautiful country (Afghanistan) I've ever seen;


• Being given an improbably large number of interpretations of whether or not the Holy Koran permits alcohol consumption;


• Being told (before takeoff from Yawkalang airfield above 8'000 feet in the Central Highlands of Afghanistan) that we would make an immediate right-turn because otherwise "if one of the engines fails we'll hit that hill...";


• Being the only person to follow Blue Rodeo around all twelve of their UK tour gigs - and in so doing drinking Guinness with some of them until long after their Bambridge show, being played 'Lost Together' for my personal loyalty in Leeds, and bar hopping with some of them and their most wonderful fans in Dublin;


• Continuing the process of falling in love with Scotland;


• Realizing that the Kings Cross bomb exploded 48 hours to the minute after I'd been there;


• Visiting the incredible Taj Mahal but also the arguably more wonderful nearby Agra Fort;


• Being required by kidnapping threats to ride cars from within and between walled compounds in Kabul;


• Emerging from an ultra-modern cinema in Delhi into a darkened shopping precinct and bumping into a very dark and sacred cow;


• Feeling a gentle swaying of the ground in Kabul - then flying to Delhi before learning that it had been a devastating earthquake in Kashmir;


• Reaching out to hold hands with friends - riding in a separate speeding auto rickshaw weaving in and out of Delhi traffic;


• Discovering truly wonderful restaurants in Delhi that would star even if I hadn't just emerged from Afghanistan;


• Relaxing on a houseboat in Srinagar - then while at 10,050' in Indian-administered Kashmir being hailed by my tour guide from western Thailand;


• Wallowing in the friendliness and extreme comfort of Kathmandu;


• Feasting at American Thanksgiving (with great friends old and new);


• Confirming once and for all that I'm too old to sleep on transcontinental railways without a bed;


• Not sleeping in one bed for more than five consecutive nights between October 8 and December 25 (as I've already moaned);


• Requiring the services of an English <> English translator in Liberia;


• Beginning my potentially most rewarding and meaningful job ever.
  

Above all meeting lots of people in lots of countries, almost all of whom are immeasurably more gentle than their governments, and meeting and revisiting many wonderful and very very special friends (in one or two cases, quite unexpectedly). Almost my only regret in 2005 was that I couldn't go to see all the rest of my friends. You're all welcome to come and visit me in Liberia!!

Happy New Year.

Delhi Tuk-Tuk drivers

Jane and Jonah, Edmonton

June 2000

I like our Oxfam New Delhi (Regional Center) colleagues. Last night we went out to a bar in a completely-western-style shopping mall. I admit to loving the cleanliness and westernness. Then we rode auto-rickshaws ('Tuk-tuks') to the Thai Wok restaurant. Our gang required three Tuk-tuk and we were sometimes holding hands between them as we sped through the traffic.

I've asked every taxi and Tuk-tuk driver I've met whether they know India's Formula 1 Grand Prix driver Narain Karthikeyan. I thought he was supposed to be the newest hero of India - he's certainly in a lot of the ads I saw during the Belgian Grand Prix - but so far, nobody understands who I'm talking about. I shall carry on with the research. And if I see a Narain t-shirt I'll probably buy it.