I AM SAFE IN KABUL

I AM SAFE IN KABUL

The flight to Kabul was full and the passengers were a split between westerners all of which were well built menacing looking security contractors & Afghans. Surprisingly the Afghan girls were quite made up & dressed quite provocatively, when they boarded in Frankfurt yet they almost all had headscarves & shawls on when they got off in Kabul. I did not get much sleep on my flight. I got moved to the exit row where it was nice to be able to stretch out & I was sat next to a guy from Kentucky Justin Smith a member of the US State department & the head of security at the US Embassy in Kabul. I interrogated the poor guy for what must have been a few hours getting as much information as I could glean from him before we landed. He said that he’d bet his pay cheque that almost all of the Afghans tickets onboard the flight were all paid with part of the $20 billion in corruption money that left Afghanistan last year. Justin was a really great guy & so helpful. I’ll contact him at the US Embassy later once I get settled. I haven’t contacted any Canadians or been to the Canadian embassy yet since I just arrived this morning.

Flying in looking at the brown barren Afghan landscape it looked as if someone had pushed the Earth together creating the creases and folds in the brown earth that are the rugged mountains that are so characteristic of this country. Kabul sits in a bowl surrounded by barren yet rough mountains. The first thing that struck me was landing in Kabul was the thick brown haze of smog and dust that hung over the city. I initially asked Justin if there was a windstorm or something & he laughed & said that it was pretty typical of the air quality in Kabul. Apparently there are 3,000 people die from water & air pollution illnesses in Kabul every year & it is the biggest cause of natural death in this city of five million & the US airfield in Bagram is 45 kms away.

I was exhausted after the long flight & chaos of getting into Kabul for the first time it was pretty stressful especially at the airport, as I left the terminal and I was harassed by taxi drivers, & I was trying to find Nazar’s phone number on our laptop screen to see where my driver was but with the glare of the sun on my screen it was next to impossible. Also my phone died (it accidentally got turned on in my bag during my flight!) in the meantime there with Afghans all over me. Luckily a 6 foot 3 Aussie contractor with a Mohawk & another guy with a shaved head, Oakley’s & a braided goatee took pity on me came over & called Nazar for me their phone. All of the contractors look more like MMA fighters than anything one guy with a patch on his backpack that said ‘I am a proud infidel’. ‘Contractor’ is generally code for private security worker & they all seem to be BAMFS. After walking in places I shouldn’t, it was pretty stressful but my driver & I finally met up after about an hour, he was there the whole time we just missed each other in the chaos.

After landing there is no doubt that I am in a war zone. Unlike in Europe where I take rogue pictures I do not dare take that risk here. Afghanistan reminds me of a combination of Sierra Leone in so many ways the crumbling buildings & intense poverty only without the garbage piled & strewn everywhere like in Africa & yet it also is kind of like the West Bank only that it is like one giant checkpoint. I was expecting to see many stray animals but I have seen none of that so far, Also believe it or not it is incredibly expensive here due to the massive amount of tax payer money that is being funneled into the city by governments and the various large contractors & NGO’s that are stationed here.

Most of you who have emailed asked me to be safe and I promise to take precautions. Christie, Nazar and close friends know where I am staying. I will not post the name of my guest house for security reasons. My shoes are right next to my bed & I have my escape route mapped out. My guest house certainly is not the Ritz here but we felt that it would be less of a rocket magnet than the Saffi or Serena Hotel s and considering this is a humanitarian endeavor it by far the nicest place that I have stayed on these type of excursions. They actually have a pool here although I don’t think that I’ll take a dip in it as there is a thick greasy film on it & green algae on the side tiles. It is important here to keep a low profile however being a 6ft tall, white blonde Caucasian male, trying to look inconspicuous here may be a little challenging. As much as I like to wonder about visiting & getting to know the locals I’m not sure if that will be happening here. I am told that it is best to stay in at night here. The risks can range from being a kidnapping target. Foreigners are high value kidnapping targets here, to being hit by a stray round (a U.N. worker was recently hit & killed by a stray bullet) to being collateral damage from a VIBED (vehicle improvised explosive device) which is used in the cities & are vehicles packed with explosives as opposed to an IED which is generally used in the country side & outlying regions. Last year militants wearing police uniforms stormed a guest house used by U.N. staff in Kabul killing 11 people. Although, the risk of kidnappings and violent acts in Kabul are a reality when you’re involved in humanitarian aid, it’s pretty hard to stay away from humans.

My experiences in Sierra Leone & last summer in the West Bank has led me to conclude that 99% of us are inherently good & decent people. Although we may have our idiosyncratic imperfections as cultures and as people most of us are inherently good civilized people. The 1% who executes dreadful atrocities against humanity also receives a disproportionate share of media coverage. Consequently, our perception of mankind may be slanted towards the sensational. My feeling is that most people here are like everywhere else they just want to raise their kids come home & kiss their wife. But being new in country I will soon learn I’m sure if my ‘koobayya’ attitude is naïve.

It seems at times we tend to over simplify things in the western media. The Taliban is actually pretty small in umbers & at times are named in attacks that are in reality perpetrated by other radical groups like Hezb-e Islami Khalis. Being intensely fundamental religious zealots for example the Talibs did not attack a mosque as was recently reported. But what they are is violent and it struck me that what they do is actually so similar to the tactics used by the mafia. The Taliban use intense examples of violence & intimidation & use fear to manipulate the general population. I asked Nazar if he thought the Afghan population actually wants the Americans & Canadians here, according to Nazar he said that it is 50/50. Many Afghans are just waiting for us to leave & see us as just another occupying force like all the ones who have come & left before, Alexander, Genghis Khan, the British in 1919, the Soviets in the 1980’s and I was surprised to learn that the Taliban are also seen by many as just another invading force from Pakistan and then…us. It is important to note that the Canadian mission here is twofold it is not only to fight insurgents but to help re-build Afghanistan & provide aid. There is obvious evidence of that driving into Kabul on Airport Road. There is an armed Afghan soldier (I have not seen a foreign soldier in the streets yet) about every 50 meters or so often concealed behind barbed wire and barricades. It would have appeared & there is quite a lot of infrastructure work on the roads going on here much of it done by shovels wheel barrows & hand. Improvement none the less and there seems to be many jobs for Afghans being created.The officially language in Afghanistan is called Dari although much of the population also speaks Pashto. Afghanistan is a potpourri of tribal cultures the largest of which is Pashtun. A third of the Afghans are Tajik and they live more to the North. There are also Hazara’s and Uzbeks and a few other smaller tribal groups. Justin claimed that the warring within the tribes has more to do with ancient tribal rivalries than religion; almost all of Afghanistan is Sunni Muslim. Nazar who is Pashtun claims that is not true; it is too soon for me to pass judgment on those differing opinions.

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *