The Culprit
Here I was, Saturday morning, minding my own business, when I spotted something gray in my front yard. Thinking it was another cat trying to pop a squat in my marigolds, I ran outside. It was a monkey. I saw the first couple of monkeys two weeks ago. They were walking along the front wall of my yard, not bothering anything.
I live in the capital of Ethiopia. I live in the city. I am truly puzzled as to how these primates are making their way into my yard. Moreover, I am pissed off that the little motherfuckers are eating my flowers.
I used to like monkeys--buy pyjamas with monkeys on them, subscribe to Monkey Wire news alerts, enjoying looking at them in zoos--but when they start destroying my property by pulling up plants whose seeds my husband brought from China, well, a monkey ass is going to get a hammer thrown at it.
It's on.
Caliente!
The husband and I were reluctantly stuck in Dubai for Christmas Eve and Christmas on our way back to Afghanistan because the Kabul airport was closed due to snow. My husband was recuperating from a nasty bout of food poisoning brought on by some questionable pork fried rice consumed in Thailand, but we decided to venture out to the Diera City Center mall anyway. (Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I fucking HATE Dubai. There is nothing to do but troll the malls while trying to suppress the DTs brought on by the lack of alcohol, save for the $8 cans of Heineken at the overpriced hotels).
Bored, with nothing but a spirit-free hotel room or more mall, we decided to go see a movie. I chose Babel, not because the hottest man in the world is in it, but because I supposed it would be a thought-provoking drama about bridging cultural differences between the “developed” North and “underdeveloped” South. Boy, was I wrong.
Now, I saw the toned-down “Arab version” which left out a lot of nudity, but kept in the scene where the 12-year-old Moroccan boy beats off to his 10-year-old sister and where the estranged couple reunites over a bed pan, and what was the relevance of the deaf Japanese girl trying to have her dentist molest her? It just seemed way too long, too sexualized and too—vapid. The movie just reinforced streotypes. There was no real look at issues, no examination of why the North African police beat suspects or why Americans automatically assume that any act of violence in a Muslim country is assumed to be terrorism, it was just three hours of filler with no point.
(However, I do have a point.)
As we left the theater, I asked my husband, “what did we learn from this?” He replied, “never to let you pick a movie again?” No. The lesson is: brown people get fucked, while white people with the right passports will get their stupid asses saved in any situation.
And being in the Dubai airport brought this all home. While my husband and I could hop in a cab and head to the Sheraton for the night, the Afghans waiting on the same flight had to sleep on the concrete floor of the airport. They had no visas, no money, no food, no family in UAE to help them. The airline (Kam Air, you fucking bitches!) only gave these 150-plus Afghans food coupons on the THIRD DAY after the flight was cancelled. Most of them were being deported for being in the Emirates illegally.
When will the media really look at how the rest of the world lives? When will films examine all the things that we white, privileged folk take for granted? Probably not soon, and Hollywood has just shown us that. While critics rave about the “serious drama” about “real issues” in movies like Babel, I just roll my eyes.
The last three days of the month are always my least favorite. I am not sure how this happened, but in my previous office (in the building that was torched during the riots) and in my new office on the third floor of another building, I am right next to the fucking cashier. This means that on the last three working days of every month nearly all of the 700 Afghans working for my organization come in to get paid.
So for three solid days, there are at least fifty Afghan men (and sometimes two or three women) crammed into the narrow 3-foot wide hallway in front of my door. They like to stand in front of my office door (which opens outward), essentially blocking anyone from entering or exiting. Often, I try to open the door, only to hit someone, who will then refuse to move. If I have to walk down the hallway to anyone else’s office in the building, the bearded men in their turbans and patus stare at me as if I were naked. Added to this is the smell and the noise. The smell—well, it defies definition. I can best describe it as a mix of sausage pizza, wet dog and used maxi pad. The heat of the summer amplifies the odor.
These people like to talk while they are waiting on their monthly pay. They talk loudly and ceaselessly, forcing Schwig, my Cheesehead officemate, to go out at least three times a day to announce, “Bubakshah (excuse me) shutthefuckup. Tashakour (thank you)”. Telling the crowd to quiet down usually works for only a few minutes as there are soon more people cycling in, getting their cash, and leaving.
This is another aspect of my life in Afghanistan I don’t want to forget about. The bureaucracy, the virtually non-existent banking system, the lack of faith in the existing banking system, the dearth of running water or perceived importance of bathing; the way the men stare at women who are not in burqas, the way this stare makes me feel. I have mixed feelings about Afghanistan. I hate it, especially on days like today when I cannot fly out to Kazakhstan because of snow, but then there is the guilt of having to leave good people behind. Good people who only want to earn a little money, own a house and watch their children grow up. The guilt of being a person who just can’t relate to their situations and their needs because I have never and will never experience such circumstances.
More on that later—got to finish washing clothes.
I don't know why, but that old joke always makes me laugh: "A man who walks through the airport turnstile sideways is always going to Bangkok".
And it seems like I am always going to Bangkok (rather than "bang cock"), too, and that I always find out that I am going with less than seven days to prepare. Today my boss came and told me, "you can go to the conference next week if you want, HQ agreed to pay the costs."
Thailand is my favorite country. I go there at least twice a year whether I plan on it or not. I can drink grass jelly as I get on the sky train, head out to get a Thai massage, eat spicy green coconut curry, jump on a marshrutka and go to the beach, shlep around town with a big Chang in my hand wearing nearly no clothes. I can nearly taste the lemon grass and exhaust now.
There are direct flights, the costs are covered, why not?
A fitting beginnging to my last full day in Afghanistan: a window-shaking explosion at 6:45am. I had just gotten out of bed when I heard it; 20 minutes later and still no news on whether it was a rocket or an IED. (Actually, in the end, it was a gunpowder storage shop that exploded on accident.)
On a lighter note, something happened that made me laugh until my sides ached yesterday. See, there are these poor kids who hang out by the US Embassy/USAID/ISAF base in Shash Durak trying to sell things. Usually they sell newspapers or copies of the Afghan Scene, or chewing gum. These kids are RELENTLESS, springing into action at the sight of a foreigner, repeating "gum, madam? Gum? Madam, one dollar, gum?" Yesterday, I was running to have a quick beer with my friend Sas who is stuck in the USAID compound when I had to pass ISAF and the throng of kids. One jumped out in front of me with a plastic snake. "Snake, madam?"
So today is my last day. Praise to Allah.
I know you all thought that an UXO (unexploded ordinance) had gotten to me, but in reality I was in America ("Amrika") for the past month.
Some disturbing American trends:
-Crocs (you saw that coming): mostly sighted on overweight women who do not comb their hair and, cruelly, small children under the age of six;
-Drivers from Virginia and Ohio taking to the roads;
-Cell phone usage: On at least three occasions women were talking on their phones IN THE TOILET STALL NEXT TO ME. This seemed to happen often at Atlanta Hartsfield Airport. (Why is it so impossible to conjure up disgusting noises when they are most appropriate?);
-Cell phone usage with the cyber head gear: A guy in CVS paced up and down the aisles breaking up with his girlfriend LOUDLY while I was trying to select glitter for my workshop poster session--he was wearing one of this god-awful things;
-Leggings: Need I explain?
-Capri Pants (AKA "Clam Diggers"): Again, do I really need to tell all of the 5'1" women out there that these make you look dowdy and even shorter? Nothing says "granny" like capri knit pants and a matching shirt and cardigan!
Well, at least the disturbing things in America are not this disturbing.
Hey Afghanistan--things are not all bad. In a few months all of those unbought Crocs will turn up over here as American aid.
I want to start out by saying I know cold. I have lived in Siberia for two years and have seen my share of -53 degrees days. However, not even a stint in a Soviet gulag could prepare me for the cold I now have to endure in Kabul, without the warmth of a coal-burning electrical plant to fire my radiators in the depth of the Central Asian night.
A lot of people assume that Afghanistan is a warm place, that it is mostly desert and that it rarely dips below 80 degrees. For those people I have two words: Altitude, baby. Kabul sets in the Hindu Kush mountain range and the capital is about 4800 feet above sea level. Its location between hell and the devil’s anus means that summers are long, dry and hot and winters are snowy, cold, and also long.
Now, I know that everyone bitches and complains about cold weather. Even in Atlanta, I have known people to work themselves up over 50 degrees during the winter. However, these people have access to central heating and constant electricity. Here in Afghanistan, there is no electricity. Sure, during the summer there is central power almost 12 hours a day, but in the winter, you are lucky to get six hours every two days. Central heating is unheard of. That heat pump you’ve got out back or that sputtering radiator in the kitchen--Afghanistan has not seen technology like that since General Najibullah was around.
In order to keep warm, Afghans (and white folk like me) use bukhari. These are little stoves with chimneys that feed into the wall. Generally, these are diesel or wood burning and need to be refueled every few hours. They heat only one small area, so running to the bathroom at night results in a severe and immediate drop in body temperature.
Bukhari. My carbon footprint is bigger than yours!
But there is another, more sinister effect of the cold: frozen pipes. Here there is no central water system, no sewage system: wells are the name of the game. White folk (like me) generally have a well in the yard and an electric pump that forces water into a tank on top of the house. Most Afghans in the capital have this system too, but outside of Kabul most people carry water in buckets to their houses—all year. When you have a tank, the miracle of gravity brings this water to your sink, shower and toilet. Frozen pipes prevent this water from reaching your sink, shower and toilet, resulting in dirty (frozen) dishes, unwashed bodies and solid streams of urine to greet you in the morning.
This past weekend, my husband and I had the trifecta of cold-related problems: no electricity, frozen generator and frozen pipes. On Friday, we were surprised when our generator was frozen solid, so we spent the evening baking brownies by candlelight and drinking copious amounts of contraband alcohol. Saturday was even more surprising because when the generator finally started, we discovered our pipes were frozen. Forced to shower at my husband’s office on Sunday before work because we had NO water (Muslim workweek is Sunday-Thursday), I had no idea I was in for the greatest surprise of all: frozen pipes at work. Now, it is one thing to have to face your own frozen pee in the morning, but it is a whole ‘nother issue to have to stare down the excreta of your fellow employees. Plus, I had my period.
Why am I telling you this? Because I don’t want to forget how shitty (no pun intended) living in this country can be. I don’t want to think for a minute that things were OK here and not really that bad and that I could do it again. You might read articles about Afghanistan that are romantic and poetic about the country, but when it gets cold, all bets are off. The beauty is gone and all you are left with is exhaust from a diesel heater and yellow snow. I have no idea how people live here in mud brick buildings with one room and no toilet or running water. I have no idea how they sleep at night with one thin blanket and go to work wearing a patu and no coat. No idea. White folk (like me) just can’t.
Dear Applicant,
Thank you for submitting your resume for the Gender Officer position in Afghanistan. There were several moderately qualified candidates and therefore, the selection was slightly difficult. I regret to inform you that you were not selected for the position due to one, or a combination of, the following:
1. You mentioned your “mental state” on your CV as “rural, urban, cosmopolitan”;
2. You sent me a long email after the phone interview explaining what you really meant to say during the interview, but just couldn’t;
3. Your writing sample included the phrase: “poverty has a women face” and/or “empowering the powerless through concretization”;
4. Your references told me how you “did not dress appropriately” when you worked in Kabul two years ago;
5. Your writing sample was 32 pages long, written in 2002, had eight annexes (including an ORGANOGRAM) and was over 1.5 MB;
6. Your writing sample had several misspellings and grammatical mistakes;
7. During the interview, you described your management style as “authoritative”.
Due to some, or all, of these reasons, we cannot extend an offer of employment to you at this time. Thank you for your interest.
Sincerely,
Confection
Why is it no matter where I go I get cat-called? I can be wearing anything, any time of the day in any part of the city and men cannot help but yell something at me! Walking back to my office from lunch with my husband a man pulled up next to me in his car and yelled, “sexy!” And last week, wearing sweats with greasy hair going to play Frisbee a man in a minibus taxi pulled in between me and my husband just to holler at me (I was walking with him and three Ethiopian men, but the driver was undeterred): “Hey baby, how are you?”
What are these guys thinking? Seriously, is there some myth about white women that I have not heard? Do they think that I am going to talk to them? What gives them the fucking right to walk past me and whisper, “sweet, sweet sister”? What gives them the right to even talk to me at all? I just want to yell “LOOK, I AM WALKING WITH MY HUSBAND, THE ONLY WHITE GUY WITHIN A TEN MILE RADIUS AND I AM WEARING BUSINESS CLOTHES. I AM NOT A PROSTITUTE AND I HAVE NO REASON TO TALK TO YOU. FUCK OFF.”
I really need to invest in a tazer.
Not sure why, but all last Monday and every day since, I have that song "Terror!" by The Rakes in my head:
And my job in the city won't matter no more
When the network is down and my flesh is all torn
Every plane is a missile
Every suitcase a bomb
There's no reason in my head now
Only fear in my bones
So now things are getting back to normal. I am packed into a cramped office with my colleagues, with no air conditioning, bad connectivity and no privacy. Oh yes, and there is lots of B.O. too. I am becoming an involuntary mouth-breather to survive.
There are lots of promises about which agency will pay for all the stuff I lost. But really, I am not that concerned. Every morning we sit out on the lawn and have a meeting (finance took over the conference room) and talk about what is going on. It is what is revealed in these meetings that is foremost in my mind. Some of our staff were tied up and all of their computers taken out of town and set on fire in one of the provinces last night. They were warned not to associate with international organizations (these staff implement an education program). There have been more aid workers killed in the first six months of this year than probably the last three years put together and I can't help but wonder, was this riot an abberration or is something worse on the horizon?
I have been in Afghanistan for over 14 months now. I have dealt with the kidnapping of a colleague, the riots, daily stares and harrassment and yet it has not even occurred to me until now that maybe it is time to pack it up. But packing it up is not that easy. I love what I do. I really feel like I contribute, like I am helping people. I like the Afghans and the foreigners I work with (except for one, but more on that later) and my husband, for once, likes what he does as well.
A few weeks ago I was compiling the results of a survey from our widows' program. One of the beneficiaries wrote, "God bless you people. I pray for you every day". Is it worth it, to have job satisfaction if I have to deal with the potential of having all of my shit looted, my office burned and to be kidnapped? I honestly do not know.
This isn't Iraq--things get done. We are building houses for returnees, digging wells so schoolchildren have clean water, educating little girls and boys, helping widows to live in dignity and trying, generally, to get the people of Afghanistan back on their feet again after all of these conflicts. It's like it doesn't matter anymore who you are or what you do; if you are preceived to be on the wrong side you could get killed. I think that is the part I am having problems with.
Maybe this is just an expected after-effect of all of the "Terror!" I've been through lately. But the good news is that on Sunday the old man and I are off to Bangkok for a conference and then a week on Koh Samet. Hopefully my pallid ass in a bikini will not incite some terror of its own.
Over the past four days, it has snowed in Kabul. This is strange because usually there isn’t snow until after the first of the year and usually it doesn’t snow for more than a few hours at a time. As a result, the airport has closed. The Kabul airport has no radar equipment, and therefore the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF, i.e. Coalition Forces) who runs the airport would not allow planes to land without three miles visibility. My boss (Suka) has been stuck in Dubai for the past three days and there are consultants and various others stuck either here, in Dubai, in Pakistan and in other parts of Afghanistan. Welcome to the 21st century.
Snow is not the only thing accumulating in Kabul. Consider the following, clear indications that it is time to get the hell out of Dodge:
1. My boss (Dutch) has requested that all international staff submit to him, in sealed envelopes, three proof of life questions in case we get kidnapped. (This reminds me of when my coworker was kidnapped last year and the security guy when to her house to “get some DNA” in case she didn’t come back alive.);
2. This article and
3. The Taliban Code which inclues this passage:
Those NGOs that come to the country under the rule of the infidels must be treated as the government is treated. They have come under the guise of helping people but in fact are part of the regime. Thus we tolerate none of their activities, whether it be building of streets, bridges, clinics, schools, madrases (schools for Koran study) or other works. If a school fails to heed a warning to close, it must be burned. But all religious books must be secured beforehand.
(I work for an NGO.)
Next week I am interviewing for jobs in Africa and Southeast Asia. I can't wait until I can file all the "things I worry about" under "not my problem".
I know what you are thinking: Yes, you live in a shit hole, but what do you smell like? So, since this is a forum about BPAL after all, my top ten:
1. June Gloom
2. Persephone
3. Grog
4. Lady MacBeth
5. Queen of Sheba (which I named--look it up)
6. Bordello
7. Black Pearl
8. Jailbait
9. Trick or Treat
10. Maiden
I also wanted to share something cute I saw yesterday. Strangely enough, it rained for about 20 minutes in Kabul yesterday which never happens in July. While I was driving home, I saw a little girl about eight years old standing on a balcony with her pink and blue child's umbrella. She was out in the rain singing to the people on the street. It is refreshing to see a kid act like a kid for once in a country where most children are working and not going to school.
They said there were six VBIEDs in the city that the Taliban is just waiting to set off.
This morning's makes number two.
I was sitting at the computer when I heard the explosion (which must have been big because we are across town). Then I got a message from my friend at the Embassy: "Can't make it to dinner tonight--we have been attacked". She thought it was a rocket, but it was a suicide car bomb.
Kabul, you look more like Baghdad every day.
From the NYT--I knew that the Ethiopian Government was restrictive and authoritarian, but sanctioned rape and torture?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
June 18, 2007
In Ethiopian Desert, Fear and Cries of Army Brutality
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
IN THE OGADEN DESERT, Ethiopia — The rebels march 300 strong across the crunchy earth, young men with dreadlocks and AK-47s slung over their shoulders.
This is the Ogaden, a spindle-legged corner of Ethiopia that the urbane officials in Addis Ababa, the capital, would rather outsiders never see. It is the epicenter of a separatist war pitting impoverished nomads against one of the biggest armies in Africa.
What goes on here seems to be starkly different from the carefully constructed up-and-coming image that Ethiopia — a country that the United States increasingly relies on to fight militant Islam in the Horn of Africa — tries to project.
In village after village, people said they had been brutalized by government troops. They described a widespread and longstanding reign of terror, with Ethiopian soldiers gang-raping women, burning down huts and killing civilians at will.
It is the same military that the American government helps train and equip — and provides with prized intelligence. The two nations have been allies for years, but recently they have grown especially close, teaming up last winter to oust an Islamic movement that controlled much of Somalia and rid the region of a potential terrorist threat.
The Bush administration, particularly the military, considers Ethiopia its best bet in the volatile Horn — which, with Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea, is fast becoming intensely violent, virulently anti-American and an incubator for terrorism.
But an emerging concern for American officials is the way that the Ethiopian military operates inside its own borders, especially in war zones like the Ogaden.
Anab, a 40-year-old camel herder who was too frightened, like many others, to give her last name, said soldiers took her to a police station, put her in a cell and twisted her nipples with pliers. She said government security forces routinely rounded up young women under the pretext that they were rebel supporters so they could bring them to jail and rape them.
“Me, I am old,” she said, “but they raped me, too.”
According to Georgette Gagnon, deputy director for the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, Ethiopia is one of the most repressive countries in Africa.
“What the Ethiopian security forces are doing,” she said, “may amount to crimes against humanity.”
Human Rights Watch issued a report in 2005 that documented a rampage by government troops against members of the Anuak, a minority tribe in western Ethiopia, in which soldiers ransacked homes, beat villagers to death with iron bars and in one case, according to a witness, tied up a prisoner and ran over him with a military truck.
After the report came out, the researcher who wrote it was banned by the Ethiopian government from returning to the country. Similarly, three New York Times journalists who visited the Ogaden to cover this story were imprisoned for five days and had all their equipment confiscated before being released without charges.
The violence has been particularly acute against women, villagers said, and many have recently fled.
Asma, 19, who now lives in neighboring Somaliland, said she was stuck in an underground cell for more than six months last year, raped and tortured. “They beat me on the feet and breasts,” she said. She was freed only after her father paid the soldiers ransom, she said, though she did not know how much.
Here are the rules that were in effect in Afghanistan until November 2001:
General Presidency of Amr Bil Maruf. Kabul, December 1996.
1. To prevent sedition and female uncovers (Be Hejabi). No drivers are allowed to pick up women who are using Iranian burqa. In case of violation the driver will be imprisoned. If such kind of female are observed in the street their house will be found and their husband punished. If the women use stimulating and attractive cloth and there is no accompany of close male relative with them, the drivers should not pick them up.
2. To prevent music. To be broadcasted by the public information resources. In shops, hotels, vehicles and rickshaws cassettes and music are prohibited. This matter should be monitored within five days. If any music cassette found in a shop, the shopkeeper should be imprisoned and the shop locked. If five people guarantee the shop should be opened the criminal released later. If cassette found in the vehicle, the vehicle and the driver will be imprisoned. If five people guarantee the vehicle will be released and the criminal released later.
3. To prevent beard shaving and its cutting. After one and a half months if anyone
observed who has shaved and/or cut his beard, they should be arrested and imprisoned until their beard gets bushy.
4. To prevent keeping pigeons and playing with birds. Within ten days this habit/
hobby should stop. After ten days this should be monitored and the pigeons and any other playing birds should be killed.
5. To prevent kite-flying. The kite shops in the city should be abolished.
6. To prevent idolatory. In vehicles, shops, hotels, room and any other place pictures/portraits should be abolished. The monitors should tear up all pictures in the above places.
7. To prevent gambling. In collaboration with the security police the main centres
should be found and the gamblers imprisoned for one month.
8. To eradicate the use or addiction. Addicts should be imprisoned and investigation made to find the supplier and the shop. The shop should be locked and the owner and user should be imprisoned and punished.
9. To prevent the British and American hairstyle. People with long hair should be arrested and taken to the Religious Police department to shave their hair. The criminal has to pay the barber.
10. To prevent interest on loans, charge on changing small denomination notes and
charge on money orders. All money exchangers should be informed that the above three types of exchanging the money should be prohibited. In case of violation criminals will be imprisoned for a long time.
11. To prevent washing cloth by young ladies along the water streams in the city. Violator ladies should ‘be picked up with respectful Islamic manner, taken to their houses and their husbands severely punished.
12. To prevent music and dances in wedding parties. In the case of violation the head of the family will be arrested and punished.
13. To prevent the playing of music drum. The prohibition of this should be an-
nounced. If anybody does this then the religious elders can decide about it.
14. To prevent sewing ladies clothes and taking female body measures by tailor. If women or fashion magazines are seen in the shop the tailor should be imprisoned.
15. To prevent sorcery. All the related books should be burnt and the magician should be imprisoned until his repentance.
16. To prevent not praying and order gathering pray at the bazaar. Prayer should be done on their due times in all districts. Transportation should be strictly prohibited and all people are obliged to go to the mosque. If young people are seen in the shops they will be immediately imprisoned.
If you look in my gallery you will see pictures of a co-worker's engagement party. One of people killed in this attack was the brother of the groom.
Road Blast in Afghanistan Kills Three Aid Workers
Anti-Taliban Offensive Launched in 5 Provinces
By Pamela Constable
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, September 17, 2006; Page A18
KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 16 -- Three Afghan aid workers were killed Saturday when their vehicle hit a bomb on a highway just south of the capital, while 7,000 Afghan and U.S. troops launched an operation against Taliban insurgents in five eastern and central provinces.
Police said the unidentified aid workers were killed and a fourth was injured when a remote-controlled bomb exploded under their vehicle. The attack was the fourth major bombing in eight days.
I hate flying. Don’t get me wrong, I am not afraid of a terrorist attack or mechanical problems or the plane being shot out of the sky; I hate the process of flying. Going to the airport two hours before the flight, checking in bags, going through security, standing in line at passport control and customs, sitting around in the waiting area. And then, once I get on the plane, having to deal with people standing in the aisle putting bags away (unable to move for three seconds for me to pass), sitting next to the middle-aged Indian guy who farts and snores the whole ten hour flight, dealing with the toilets at the end of the flight with pee all over every possible surface and used tissues sticking out of every nook and cranny. The crying babies with the parents who act like I should give a shit that their kid is crying, while I put in earplugs and wait for the Xanax to kick in. Then getting off the plane somewhere in Europe, sitting around an airport for five hours and then doing it all over again.
And while I absolutely hate flying for these reasons, my hatred has suddenly become acute. Why? Ariana Afghan Airlines. Now if these three words do not make your blood run cold, consider the facts: in its 25 years Ariana has had one hijacking (in 2000 five Afghans took an internal flight to London—you probably heard about this on the news recently as all of the hijackers were granted asylum) and five crashes. Since moving to Afghanistan last year, I have been forced, repeatedly, to take Ariana Airlines when I want to get the fuck out of Kabul and each time has been a terrifying, humiliating and life-changing experience.
I must say that I am no light-weight when it comes to traveling. I have flown on Yak-40s, Tupelovs, and planes decommissioned by the Democratic Republic of Congo for christssakes, but nothing prepared me for the deep, irrevocable fear I feel when flying Ariana. This fear emerges when you first get to the gate. When traveling from Dubai to Kabul, you must go to Terminal Two. Terminal Two has none of the restaurants, shops and aesthetic touches of Terminal One. Indeed, Terminal Two is at the gateway to hell; a small hallway that looks like a series of trailers slapped together. The flights that leave from Terminal Two are only to god-forsaken places like Afghanistan: there are flights to Baghdad, Djabouti, and remote areas of Iran from Terminal Two, but never to any place with consistent electricity, running water, or a lack of armed conflict for the past 5 years. While purchasing alcohol at the one duty free shop in Terminal Two, I ALWAYS see the Russian pilot of my plane (he’s wearing an Ariana badge) buying vodka, which I pray he does not consume in-flight, but realize it might not be a bad idea. While checking out with my liquor stash the Phillipina behind the register asks me with wide eyes, “where are you going?” and “is it safe there?”
The atmosphere of Terminal Two is a microcosm of the situation in the Middle East and Central Asia: there are fatties from the Midwest with their “Operation Freedom” shirts, African American men wearing jeans and sneakers, white women who look like they took a flight from Wal-Mart to the UAE, Afghan men in their shalwar kamezes and wool caps, and Arabs in traditional headdresses. I always try to bury my head in a book and distance myself from the Americans, they are so culturally inept and embarrassing. I mean, you are going to the Middle East for fuck’s sake—do you think it is a good idea to wear a “Christ’s Gym” t-shirt?!?!
Once you check in it’s every woman for herself. In the waiting area, you will hear stupid British mercenaries go on and on about what happened recently in Kandahar while the Afghans (all male) sit and stare at everyone in silence. Once the airline worker walks through with a radio you know you’d better jump-the-fuck-up and run hell for leather to the door to be sure that you are the first motherfucker on the bus to the plane. Once on the plane, I notice that I am only one of about three women—all foreign—of the 150 passengers. The plane is hot, it smells like body odor and three-day old dahl. It’s an old Soviet plane, probably built in the 1960’s or 1970’s and it appears to be held together with duct tape. As I walk down the aisle the Afghan men eye me in fear that I will sit down next to them. Invariably, my assigned seat is broken, so I usually park it next to some pasty old Western dude. The Afghan men all stare at me like I am going to jump up and take off my top as we taxi.
Once in the air, I dare not look out the window at the jagged mountain tops mere feet below us. If I do, I start wondering how in the hell we could make an emergency landing if we needed to and every small tremor of turbulence makes me put a death grip on the armrests. I take more Xanax and try to sleep. Soon the food is brought around: a greasy chicken leg, a half a lemon, a hot pepper, some potatoes, and Afghan naan. I eat the hot pepper in naan and wonder, did they prepare this in Dubai? Before realizing that in fact the food had come from Kabul the day before and had been transported across Iran twice before it reached my folding tray.
The decent into Kabul is sharp; there are mountains all around and it is a quick two minutes till the plane is on the ground. As soon as we touch down, five Afghans stand up and open the overhead compartments while the crew yells over the loudspeakers in Dari for them to sit down. After we stop, I put on my head scarf and maneuver as quickly as possible to get off the plane. I have spent two hours in passport control before (a supervisor slapped a border worker, causing a work slow-down) and I wish never to repeat it.
Once I am off the plane, it doesn’t all seem that bad. We made it. But I know it is just a matter of time before the inevitable happens with Ariana; after all, it has happened five times before. So next month, on my way to Bangkok, you can bet your ass I will not be flying Ariana. I will be safe and sound on a UN plane.
OK, I try not to talk about domestic issues, because this is a blog about my experiences in Afghanistan, but this is very alarming.
So let me get this straight, seven months before September 11 my government decided to start spying on me? I hope a motherfucker gets impeached and thrown out of office on his monkey ass if this is true.
Speaking of "domestic spying", we have moved into a new house (our old house was looted and almost set on fire) and there are guys coming and going to do repairs. Last night about 7:00, one of the neighbors (an old, white-bearded Afghan) came over to talk to my husband (who had been drinking since noon because he had the day off). They were outside talking for at least 45 minutes--in times like these I am glad I am a woman in Afghanistan--and the purpose of the meeting? The neighbor asked my husband to inform him when people will be on our roof because he has daughters and the men could see them!
(Honestly, I was quite relieved because I thought for sure he had come to admonish me for prancing around the house and yard in my underwear.)
Meanwhile, just got a phone call that two improvised explosive devices have blown up at the Ministries of Internal Affairs and Finance.
Nothing left to do but post a little GET YOUR WAR ON:
The funny thing about the latter comic strip is that international donors (UNDP, for example) have poured millions of dollars into programs to disarm former militia members, and now Karzai wants them armed again because apparently the program was a fuck up and a little too premature, no?
I picked the wrong day to wear my sandals with four-inch heels.
Yesterday started out like any other: I went to work at 7:15, had meetings until 10:00 and then left the office to go four blocks to another meeting on gender issues. On the way out of the office, I saw three German ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) tanks moving down the road away from the Hanzalla Mosque in the direction of Taimani street. While an odd sight, I didn’t think anything of it.
I got to my meeting at the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief and proceeded to totally walk all over the condescending Afghan man holding the meeting (hence the four-inch heels, if you are going to railroad someone you need to wear stylish shoes). Basically, this guy wants to merge meetings on gender in the Afghanistan Development Strategy with meetings on programmatic gender issues which I oppose because in the past he was in charge of the meetings and nothing got done. When I got up to explain my position he acted like I shot his dog and then tried to ignore everything I had to say.
At 10:20 the phone rang, it was my husband but I didn’t answer because I was in the meeting. A few minutes afterward, I got a message from him that read: “I was told to stay inside rogur in streets because of car accident”. I had no idea what “rogur” meant so I sent back the message, “what?” but it didn’t send. I didn’t know it, but the network was overloaded which is what happens in Afghanistan when there is a bombing or kidnapping. At 10:40 someone at the meeting from Counterpart received a call that there were riots (aka "rogur") and that we needed to either leave for our offices or stay there. I called a car.
While waiting for the car I tried to call my husband but kept getting the “network busy” sign. As I got into the car, I asked Fraidoon, the driver, what was going on. He said that there had been a car accident with American troops and some people were killed. On the way back to the office I got a hold of my husband, “Where are you?” he demanded. I told him I was on my way back to the office. He said that there was a mob moving up Taimani street (the street my house is on, by the way) and to stay at the office.
When I arrived at my office, I went to talk to some of the people who were leaving from an earlier meeting I had left to go to ACBAR. I asked what was going on and they said 30 people were dead. The Americans shot at a group of people in Sarai Shomali (a place at the end of Taimani street where I buy plants and flowers) and the group decided to take the demonstration to the Parliament, the Ministries and any international group they could find.
I searched out our security guy—he was a mujahadeen back in the day—he acted totally nonchalant and told me to stay at the office, that it would pass. Besides, the group was far away. I turned on my four-inch heel with a “I am going home, I don’t know about y’all” and walked to my office to get my laptop. My husband called again and told me to get out of my office and come to his office across the street. “There are armed guards,” he reasoned, “you will be safe here”. I gathered my things and left my office for what would be the last time. At the door, a group of staff from Administration asked where I was going and a coworker urged me to go to her house. They told me not to go to my house on Taimani. The protesters were coming that way. I went to my husband’s office to wait.
At about 11:45 the shots started. We heard shouting and it sounded like there was gunfire coming from all directions. I kept searching google news to try to find out what was going on. There was an intense firefight around the corner. We thought it was DynCorp (big security firm with a bad rep among Afghans) but we found out later it was at the German Embassy. I stole looks out the window of my husband’s office. I tried calling everyone I knew, but AWCC, one of the only two mobile service providers in Afghanistan, was down. I tried to call my boss who was at the American Embassy when everything happened, but I found out later he was on “lockdown” in a secure place in the center of the Embassy and could not answer his phone. I called over the radio to let my organization know that I was OK. I heard a barely audible response—something about bombs and fire at my office. I tried to call two of my coworkers who live together to make sure they were safe at home but they both had AWCC phones. I called over the hand-held radio and got a short response from a woman I work with: “radio about to die”. I tried calling again over the next few hours but there was no response.
At 12:30 my husband and I joined his coworkers for lunch at the guesthouse adjoining his office. About ten minutes later we heard shouting and chanting and then loud booms against the side of the building. The crowd, taking advantage of a construction site across the street, was throwing rocks. One of the Afghan women who was there collapsed on the floor and started moaning and screaming. She obviously was terrified by the noise which brought back memories of past conflicts.
Once the group passed, we went upstairs to inspect the damage. A few broken windows, but that was about it. We went back to my husband’s office to wait. During this time, I was emailing my other boss who is in Bangkok at a workshop. Her partner (who is still in Kabul) had sent her an email saying that our office had been breached. I went out on the balcony to see what was happening. There was white smoke coming from the direction of my office building. My husband and I went back inside where it was safe and heard gunshots and explosions and saw people running from that direction.
I called my boss in Kabul and was able to get through. I told him what I knew and he said he would try to get in contact with the people still at the office over the radio. He said that quite a few organizations had their offices burned: IOM, UNOPS and a few guesthouses as well. There was smoke visible in different parts of the city. It seemed like there was shouting, gunfire and smoke everywhere I looked.
At 3:00, a former colleague of mine who just moved to Kabul called. “Your office is on fire and it’s on Yahoo news!” she yelled, with a little too much glee in her voice. I quickly got online and pulled up the slideshow she was referring to. There it was, my office, in flames. The crowd had looted it and set the computers and files in the middle of the street and set them on fire. The loud explosions we had heard earlier were gas cylinders in the kitchen being set alight. I started to cry. Then I saw something on the slideshow even more upsetting: houses were being looted. I panicked. At 4:00 one of the drivers from my husband’s organization agreed to take an unmarked taxi (all of his organization’s cars are marked with company tags) to the house to see what was going on. 30 minutes later he returned with the bad news: our house had been looted. They took the TVs, DVD players, satellite dishes and our laptop into the street and burned them. Nothing was left but the carpet, he said.
At this point the stress level was so high I was not sure how I could handle it. My husband, trying to find out as much as possible, sent the driver back with a camera because we were not allowed to leave the compound. He brought back the camera and we finally got to see how bad it was. Everything was turned over and smashed. They broke the windows, the dumped out our clothes, they broke dishes; everything was messed up. Then I realized I did not have my passport. It was in the living room at home. There was nothing to do, I got a drink.
I continued to check CNN and BBC to try to find out what was going on. There, on the front page, was a specific reference to my organization’s offices being burned down. I decided to call my parents because if they saw this and didn’t hear from me they would have assumed the worst. I told my mom all about the office and my house but told her not to worry. She laughed sarcastically. She was glad that I called, though, and I promised to keep her posted.
The person at my organization who manages the houses called and told me they would secure the house. I asked him to look for my passport and for my husband’s. He said that the group who looted the house tried to set it on fire but a neighbor intervened. Things could have been worse, I decided.
My husband’s organization gave us a room at the guesthouse for the night. I had a few more gin and tonics, all the while getting phone calls from friends and colleagues to ask if we were OK. Right before falling asleep, the guy at my house called to report that he had found our passports. I went to bed about 9, but woke up at 2 and could not go back to sleep. I kept wondering what had been taken, what did they want, how did this happen, and what could I have done to have prevented it. Without any sleeping pills at my disposal, I went downstairs to try to get my hands on some chamomile tea but the closest thing available was Horlicks (which is really gross and is non-narcotic so I am not really sure about all of those sleep-inducing claims). I went into the kitchen and struck gold: NyQuil. I knocked back a shot and went back upstairs. My husband was in the bathroom puking from all the stress.
This was in the news today. And while all of the ISAF, American and British forces are focused on the Southern Provinces like Helmand, Uruzgan, Zabul and Kandahar, the Taliban has gone and set up it own governmental office in the Southeastern province of Ghazni.
This is a big deal: mostly because Ghazni is not on the front lines. While there have been bombings and assasinations in Ghazni this year, there are no foreign military troops there to keep peace, but this is the new front. Especially when these Southeastern provinces are on no one's radar (no pun intended) and the Taliban can hang out a shingle without anyone stopping them. There are also reports that the Taliban have met with men over 60 in Ghazni center to ask them to become suicide bombers.
What's more, in talking with some of the Afghans I work with, apparently in Peshawar (in Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan), the Taliban is openly recruiting people with storefronts to travel to Afghanistan to carry out bombings, kidnappings, etc.
All of this really saddens me. When I came to Afghanistan in spring 2005, Ghazni was the first place outside of Kabul that I visited. It was gorgeous: the fruit trees were in bloom and the fields were bright green. The mud walls of the buildings and the remnants of the ancient empire that once ruled parts of India made it seem like I was in another time. It bothers me that the little girls I visited in their classroom might not be able to go to school much longer and the peaceful, sleepy town I visited might be irrevocably changed for the worse.
First, I want to point out that one cannot listen to text; conversation or dialogue yes, but you can only read text.
Two-way radio training. Since the riots and our office was burned we are all about security. Part of this new initiative is radio training. Yesterday afternoon, my boss came to ask me to come to hand-held radio training. I told her that I had been to radio training last year and that I did not need to sit around for an hour and a half to learn how to hold a walkie talkie upright. “No, this is advanced radio training, you should go.”
On the way up the stairs back to my office, I encountered two colleagues: “I hope y’all brought your crack ‘cause this is going to be the most boring shit you have ever encountered”, I warned.
The training was held in one of the burned out containers that used to house part of the finance department. Hot is not the word, the temperature was at least 98 farenheit, and without air conditioning the container was like a toaster oven. I sat down and our Afghan IT guy launched into his presentation.
The first power point slide was entitled, “What is Communication?”. I just shook my head. This was the same drawn-out remedial bullshit I had to sit through last year. I felt like standing up and saying, “What is communication? I am so happy we are addressing this question. Here I have completed graduate school and worked professionally for five years and I had no idea what the fuck communication was!”, but I restrained myself. It got worse.
While the swarm of flies in the room settled on my face, toes and hands and sweat beaded up, the IT guy took ten minutes to talk about all of the different types of communication and specifically, the types of communication we use in our offices (CODAN, VHF radios, e-mail, cellular phones, smoke signals, carrier pigeons). My boss told him to cut to the chase, and was backed-up by the finance manager.
So we fast forwarded to the section about “How to Speak Over the Radio”. I swear to god, some of the bulleted points included, “do not shout” and “speak in short sentences”. Then, there were definitions of radio lingo that included, “hello: a greeting”, “out: the conversation is finished” and a stern lecture about not using phrases like “roger, over and out” because they are WRONG and anyone who says them will go to hell. Then we talked about the “wolume” (volume) control and were subjected to more slides sprinkled with misspellings and poor grammar.
Finally, my boss put her foot down: “What I need to know is not how to turn on the radio. I need to know if someone breaks into my house at night or if we have another situation like the riots, what do we do?!?” The IT guy sheepishly replied, “I only can give training on how to use the radio. Those systems are to be decided by the Security Specialist.” At that point, I got up and I walked out. Forty minutes of my life lost and two reports to submit. This is my life.
I just got a text that someone has left me a voice message on my cell. None of the mobile providers in Afghanistan provide that service, but it was nice for them to let me know that somewhere out there someone has left a message for me.
A colleague just called, it is 9am here and already three explosions (there were two yesterday). One hit an Afghan Army bus and there were a high number of casualties.
I am at home today, however; I am not sure why, but sometimes I get migraines and I start vomiting for hours. After everything is out of my system I am OK. It doesn't matter what I eat or drink or my stress level, it just happens. Anyone have any ideas what could be causing this?
It's going to be a long summer.
Damn--the rundown as of 1:30 pm:
1. 0725hrs. Location. District 2, Asay Watt area, close to the Ministry of Communication. A Remote-Control Device/bomb (RCIED) in a trash bin beside the road exploded and 39 Afghan National Army (ANA) personnel were wounded. The bus then went out of control crashing into a shop selling gas bottles and fuel, causing an explosion and a fire.
2. 0800hrs.
Incident report: C2606015- 0049, Lab-e-Jar Khair Khana, District 11
Location: Lab-e-Jar Khair Khana , Kabul City, District 11,
Incident type: RCIED attack
Date/Time: 05 July, approximately 0800 hrs
Report status: Confirmed
Information: Reports received indicate that a handcart packed with explosives was detonated via remote control in the above mentioned area. The intended target was a bus belonging to the Ministry of Commerce. As a result of the explosion, 4 passengers were reportedly injured and one killed. No further information at this stage.
Casualties: 4 wounded and 1 killed
Arrest: Nil
Assessment: The exact motive behind this attack is unknown however these types of attacks are usually carried out by Anti-Government Elements (AGE’s). This is the second attack this week which has been targeted at government structures. More attacks of this nature; particularly targeted at Government facets should be expected in the near future.
3. 0840hrs. The US Embassy is allowing official Americans to travel in Kabul only for essential reasons. The Consular Section encourages all Americans to limit their travel in the city as well, and cautions Americans who do move about Kabul, to avoid those neighborhoods and to be particularly vigilant.
4. 0925hrs. British Military & ISAF have just placed the city Out Of Bounds (OOB) to non-armored vehicles, further emphasizing an increased threat across the city for at least the rest of the day.
5. 1200hrs. According to unconfirmed information received, the Terror Network Al-Quaida has allegedly claimed responsibility for the 2 explosions this morning in Kabul city. As reported the statement included that another 26 explosive attacks would follow today in Kabul city. This report is as unconfirmed as it gets in the moment but already circulating around Kabul city. In order to mitigate risk to our staff in case there is some credibility to this, I have advised our staff to stay clear of all Military/Government vehicles and compounds as they would be the most likely target and restrict movement to essential only for the time being.
6. 1230hrs. ISAF report that to date, 2 x Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) detonated and 1 x IED was found and controlled detonated in PDs 1/2. A further 3 x IEDs have been found around the city at undisclosed locations. No details of the IEDs have been released.
