Another week in Kabul

• NATO Fuel tankers bombed in Jalalabad
• Taliban take over a town in eastern Nuristan
• A suicide bomber blows himself up outside a military caterer in Kabul
• NGOs warned they may be the target of attacks due to proselytising Christians

I went to a party the other night. A correspondent who had written for me while I was at The National was having a barbecue. It seems like the thing to do here on a Friday – a barbecue in the garden. As we sat among the roses on Afghan cushions in the dimming light, eating burgers and salads and drinking beer from the can, a murmur went round. Heads started to turn and a whisper gathered voice: “legs” was all I heard. Then I saw her .... the woman in a skirt. It’s not that she had the type of legs that make men cry. It was simply that we could see them, from the knee down. I looked away almost embarrassed.

It’s strange how conservative we become when we live in countries where covering up is the norm. But we were at a party – where it was mostly internationals (the euphemism foreigners have awarded themselves here). There were no women in headscarves, although most had scarves draped around their neck and chest. There were tight jeans, tops that just skirted the hips, but nothing quite so daring as... gasp ... bare legs.

I never did get a chance to meet the bare naked leg lady but there were plenty of other interesting people. In fact, it is impossible to meet anyone boring (although it is possible to meet someone you don’t like) here in Kabul.

No one works in a biscuit factory – or if they do – they are making high energy biscuits for pregnant Afghan women, incidentally, one of whom dies ever half an hour due to complications.

There was the German woman working for a small Dutch NGO that helps refugees returning from Pakistan and the internally displaced with livelihood projects; the American woman who’s been here a dozen years and is a gender and environmental specialist; the Harvard fellow doing his Phd in nation building and who comes from Banda Aceh (my favourite place in the world); the Italian running an advocacy group; the Indian journalist who’s been here seven years and has found a house and a husband; and the girl like me - a British journalist who's doing some training.

Even my housemates are all quite fascinating (and should stop reading now); the country director of a German NGO who previously worked in Swat (the place, not the American crack police force); his colleague who gave up a lucrative career on Wall Street to do something good, his pregnant wife who wants to do a Phd on the structures of Pashtun tribal communities along the border with Pakistan; the Canadian lawyer; the ridiculously laid back 50-something German who's been here five years and can not only get his hands on a car, but into the ISAF camp for a booze run as well; and the young 20 something in her first month here who has lost one Afghan colleague in a plane crash and her boss in an attack on a project site in the north east.

I find myself saying "wow" a lot, bit like a teenager among really cool adults.

 Discussions are usually about, well Afghanistan.

 I met an American woman last week at the Grill, a Lebanese restaurant that serves hummus and falafel , and occasionally alcohol, although after the vice and virtue police cracked down last month, it is pleasingly dry. It was raining when I arrived - the garden empty. A few tables inside were full of Afghans and westerners. One (american)  woman was dressed in a red satin, sleeveless, strappy top.The woman I was meeting, an embassy official, was thankfully dressed in a jumper and jeans.

Part of her work here involves setting up prisons, training police and the judiciary. Not an easy task.
Illiterate villagers are given six weeks of training and a gun and told they are now police. They are also paid $185 a month. A translator at my office gets $400. A driver for the UN can make $600. No wonder there are problems encouraging locals to join the private sector when they can make so much money in NGO work. It's cannibalistic. The very money that is supposed to be furthering and developing the economy is stymieing it, as what educated Afghan will become a provincial judge on $150 a day if they can get 10 x that as a political analyst for the Canadian embassy? At some point the NGOs will leave and the economy will crash.

 The American woman I ostensibly work for, "the mother of Pajhwok" says that one of her greatest personal achievements was in making the staff at the agency believe in a future. How can you plan for tomorrow when your country is being torn apart by civil war, when you don't know if tomorrow you will be on the side of the victors or losers. How do you convince someone they need to make a plan, a system for hiring, for news coverage, for expansion, to prepare for a workshop next week even, when they don't believe in tomorrow.

So it was something of a personal moment for me when one of the editors I am training, who has for the past week or so been showing up in the last 20 minutes of my lessons, asked me yesterday morning, "so we have a lesson today Cassie?".

I told the American woman, who replied "Awesome! So do you think you'll want to stay longer?"

Mission Essential

So it's certainly been an interesting week.
First, I popped my suicide blast cherry. Last Tuesday, a suicide bomber rammed his car into a NATO convoy at about 8am. Most of those who were killed were Afghan civilians travelling on a passenger bus.  I was getting ready for work when I got the first text ....

"Explosion heard, please report your location."

Actually I was playing with the kitten and waiting for my ride, so didn't see the text until the next one came; 20 minutes later while I was in the work minivan chatting to the photo trainer about the ash cloud that had once again closed airports in the UK

"Suicide bomb Darulamum road. no movement until all clear. please acknowledge .."

Well, we were on our way to work, miles away from Darulamum which is the old presidential palace (incidentally already bombed out from the civil war), and so we continued down our street, famous perhaps only for its watermelon stands, oh and the lovely flower street cafe nearby.

Once we got to work, it was all about the story. What was the target, were there any casualties and what nationality? The usual stuff journalists crave.

So it wasn't until I started to wrap up to go home that I checked my phone again.

"New threat report indicates that other SVBIED ( for those not in the know .. suicide vehicle borne improvised explosive device) are located in the city and looking for opportune targets. Restrict movement to mission essential over the next 24 hours."

A few minutes later a friend texts with yet another warning of attacks in specific areas of the capital.
I have to say it didn't really help that I had a terrible hangover. I got home, and went to bed.
The next morning, I wake up feeling bright and breezy to:

"Report from BEK and US Mil of imminent attack in Shash Darak district, also of insurgent attack in the area of Jalalabad Road. Limit movement to mission essential only."

It is my first day of training. I'm running a workshop on writing good ledes, so again, it's not really what I need to focus on right now. Plus, the only people going to Jalalabad road are either soldiers going to the ISAF base, or expats looking to buy booze from the ISAF base (more on this later).

But within a few hours, we have information that there has been an attack on the heavily guarded Bagram Airforce base just north of Kabul. At least half a dozen suicide bombers, some in cars tried to enter the base. Dozens of other militants fired grenades and small arms at the base. It was an unprecedented attack, but they never got further than the outer perimeter wall.  One US contractor was killed.

So the training went well and was a lot of fun, although one colleague showed up for the last 20 minutes and another for the last five, and one of the Afghan trainers "supporting me" hijacked the show. When I asked him if he wanted to comment on an issue, he pulled out a powerpoint slide show and began to give his 30 minute presentationon om ledes, all  in Pashto. But everyone enjoyed it - not to mention enjoyed the tea and biscuits which I think is the reason anyone goes to the training room. I have my own reasons to go to the training room, since the new 23-year-old Afghan assistant joined (more about that in another post, I think).

So its 5:30pm, when I get another text:

"Movements to Shash Darak can resume, but threats of a complex (that's attacks on a compound/guesthouse) tonight have not lessened. Palace, ISAF, Embassy have all been mentioned. Once home, stay home, no movement except in emergencies arranged by Des (I have no idea who Des is)."

 Well, that's OK as I like staying in my home, with its bottles of wine and gin, funny little kitten, rose garden and ever growing numbe of housemates (there are seven of us now, including a pregnant woman).

We're driving home in the van, and as usual it's dark and there are only one or two streetlights working. Afghans on bicycles appear out of nowhere in the gritty darkness, or run across the road. We drop one of my Afghan colleagues off first, but the other, who like most people at the office, seem to have at least two jobs, is heading to his other office to play pool. So there I am driving around the backstreets of the capital, looking for this guy's office when I get another text.

"Threat reporting from ISAF. NDS report insurgent planning SVBIED against Serena Hotel, MoE, KMTC (no idea what this is) German and Indian embassies, a guesthouse near US embassy & Parliament members using 2 motorbikes & brown toyota. advise Total lock down until 07:00hrs tomorrow when will be reassessed."

Needless to say I am now scanning before long, toyotas, the faces of everyone driving a toyota - and believe me there are many in Kabul - for signs of someone being newly shaved. Apparenly you need to be clean if you are going to martyr yourself. Some even shave off all their body hair.
I make it home safe and sound, and for once, everyone is home, with a couple of extras too. We break out the gin, the wine and someone makes pasta and heats up some leftovers. The kitten crawls on my lap, an Ipod plays in the background and brown toyotas and suicide blasts are left far behind.

Notes from a small island:

A kitten came into our lives. He's called Oscar as we found him in the gutter. He is six weeks old and a prettty adorable bundle of fluff; loves attention and is forever finding things to climb; cushions, legs, mosquito screens. As he's so young, he's not supposed to be eating too much solid food; so I'm mixing milk formula in a baby bottle. Who would have thought! The guys in my office didn't know what a kitten was, now they call him the cat kid.

Ali, the joker, and I were talking the other night about names for the "cat kid". Something Afghan he said, how about Mullah Omar I suggested, as a joke. Later that night, I get a text from Ali. "Mullah Omar has been captured". I immediately go online and look; nothing. Ali, I text back - I can't find the story. he sends me another text. "Oh, I thought with the cat kid having his name, we would be lucky this time."

I have been to the gym four times now, after I signed a form promising a) not to wear lycra b) not to reveal anything. The former, yes of course, the latter .. reveal what? My age, my weight, my real hair colour? I have now managed to get up to 25 minutes without collapsing a lung - I am acclimatising.

My colleagues are a strange bunch. They keep inviting me to visit their home provinces, especially the ones that are the most violent, and suggesting that I wear a burqa.

One colleague, Muzhary, has been back and forth to his home in Ghazni province quite often recently. He told me that he has some family problems ... oh, I ask .... thinking a family drama of some sort. Yes, my relative has been kidnapped by the Taliban. It seems the Taliban think his relative, a cousin I think, is a spy for the US as he was working in a shop that sold American goods. Gotta give it to these Taliban - they know how to use logic! They do not want a ransom, they only want evidence that his cousin is not a spy.
But don't worry Muzhary says, if they kidnap you, I will also find a way to free you.

Muzhary, who is 26, is contemplating his marriage choices right now. There is the daughter of his aunt whose house he is staying in in Kabul, or the daughter of an uncle back in Ghazni. The aunt's daughter is more educated, but that means she is not as "submissive", he tells me. But the educated one will be able to teach his children well, he says. Perhaps she can teach you somthing too I say. No, there is nothing she can teach me. I even cook better than she does. He promises to cook me something vegetarian.

Naseh is 24. He is already married. he laughs all the time. He now no longer stares at my chest all the time, which is a good thing. I ask him how he met his wife, she's 18. I saw her come into my village and I told my aunt, that I wanted to marry that woman. But how do you know what she looks like, I ask, as she must wear a burqa in his village in the east. He told his aunt and sisters to go and see what she looks like, is his reply.  She is uneducated but cooks and will look after his children. He doesn't want children for three years, he tells me. They are expensive and we are still young.

One of my colleagues, Ali, who I never know if he hates me or loves me, insists this is me on facebook and has already requested this woman to be his friend. I lie and say I don't have a facebook site, I think it's safer that way.

Trapped in Kabul

I have hit the wall. The honeymoon is over. Yesterday, it struck me. I am in Kabul, a war zone, and those beautiful mountains that I glimpse every now and then with their rivulets of snow, are just a dream.


What is real are the three security checks I pass on the 10 minute drive home every day; the guns that the 12-year- old military guards tote like manbags, swinging from their wrists; the 8-foot by four-foot cavern that is our safe room when the attacks do occur; and the sludge that the streets become after the rain.

So what's made me so sensitive. Probably because it's almost as if I can touch reality here, but never quite. This fear of walking drives me insane. I spend 20 minutes thinking I'm going to do it, I'm going to walk to the shop. I get ready, wrap up and then I talk myself out of it (it's a bit like going to the gym. Once i'm out there, it's fine and I love it). Then I prevaricate about calling a cab to take me the 3 minutes to the mattress shop, not wanting to be the princess expat.

All my housemates have company cars, they work for governement non-profits and are not allowed to take cabs, or walk. The cars are there for them whenever and to take them wherever.
One housemate suggested I get my company car to stop off on the way home and wait while I buy a mattress.

But I don't have that access, and to be honest, I would not want it. My ride home is often a Pajhwok minibus, which drops not just me but my other colleagues home as well. Sometimes I get the corrolla and its just me and the driver, but still I could not ask for an extra stop.

Incidentally, I have not yet ridden in a car that does not have a cracked, splintered or broken front window.

So yesterday, having been undecided for an hour about just what to do, I decided to go to the gym. I called a cab. Trust Taxi had been recommended to me by a journalist here and, as I later found out, is the preferred transport for the family of one of Kabul's warlords.

I've used them several times, they speak great English, and fill me in on the life I am missing out on. Yesterday, it was Akhbar, who has driven me several times. We chatted on the way to the gym. He said I would be fine walking to the shop, and to a nearby cafe, which is owned by the same warlord as the gym; he's also a former minister of higher education who was recently sacked but still has a lot of power in the country. The cafe has its own security, as does the gym, because with power comes unpopularity. And so, having told me how ridiculous it was to fear walking in Kabul, when I asked, OK, so where is not safe to walk, he said "Everywhere".

It's this, the unpredictability of Afghanistan that is probably the cause of so many burn outs. How do you protect yourself from something you cannot understand or know?

It's almost worse I think than somewhere like Somalia, where the threat is obvious and blatant. It's that everything looks so normal on the surface.

Two days ago I received a security message by text that the Taliban were planning suicide attacks on government offices and foreign missions. Today, the message is that the insurgents have a Ford Range Rover belonging to the army and are launching attacks on Afghan and international soldiers, and that we should avoid military checkpoints.

There are three on my way home, how do I avoid them?

I put this to my colleague Naseer, who seems to be tapped in to most things here in Afghanistan (he just told the British photo trainer that whistling in the presence of women is unacceptable).
Naseer's response to my question of safety in Afghanistan, "Oh, don't worry, I will take you to my province of Logar, but you need to wear a burqa. You can come with me, my wife and children."

The UN and NGOs have something called "white city", when the threat is so severe, that you are not allowed to move around. It's then that I think we will go into our bunker. Martina, a 23-year-old German woman who I live with, and I went down to check it out. It's musty and damp and there are, of course, no windows. The steel door was put on backwards so that the lock is on the outside, and the light switch too was on an outside wall. Not a great start.

Martina, who was here for the big attack on the Indian guesthouse, sent me a text today, saying "I hope this attack comes soon, as then everyone will stop acting so nervous".

I don't know if that's something to wish for or not.

It rained again last night. The drain outside my room rattled like a tin drum and took me back to the flat in Beijing - no not the one with the hose pipe for a shower the one with the rattling tin drain pipe! This morning, the garden was a brilliant green and I noticed that in my absence, the  roses had flowered. Afghanistan may not be known for its roses, but it should be. A housemate has a project in eastern Afghanistan in which farmers give up poppies to grow roses, the petals of which are then distilled into rose oil which is marketed and sold in Europe. A purchase for peace, perhaps.

I found another flatmate (the Candian lawyer) examining a sprig of parsley in the garden and he showed me the biggest rose in the world (see pictures attached). Unfortunately they seem to be roses without a scent.

This morning, I set myself a challenge. I would walk to the supermarket. Yes, it's not exactly jumping out of a plane, or saving the planet, but it is the first step, I think, to feeling comfortable in this country. Yes, Kabul is dangerous, but not everywhere and not everyone. And to be honest, as lovely as my house is I do need to start exploring. So I wrapped up well, texted a flatmate to let them know what i was doing (most still being asleep) hid my camera in the folds of my scarf and set off.  It was a beautiful sunny day, and outside people were walking, pushing carts, driving horse and carts and cars. A woman striding down the street in front of me was dressed in a full burqa. People looked and stared, at me, not the woman in the burqa. I waved and salaamed the security guards at the end of our road, hoping that if they got to know me, it would add that little bit of extra protection. The guard who saalmed back, had the bushiest of beards. The most difficult aspect of my 10 minute jaunt was trying to avoid the slimey mud puddles caused by the rain. Kabul is a city of mud - many of the houses are still built of mud and it lines the streets, turning to sludge when it rains.

But while Kabul is poor .. dirt poor ... there is also a tremendous amount of wealth. Much of it is drug and mafia money. Money that buys nice houses and apartments in blocks that would not look out of place in any city ... and while some of the warlords have paved the roads on which  they live - the rest of us having to suffer bumpy, potholed dirt tracks -  even their wealth is not enough to improve the elecricity grid. Brownouts are common. And everyone who can afford it has a generator.

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