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.