Flatmate

Some of you will remember the house I moved into in Kabul with its eclectic group of inhabitants. Five of us initially: Three men, two women; a lawyer, a journalist, an accountant, one NGO head and our baby development worker. A mini NATO: Two Germans, one American, a Canadian and me, a Brit.

A trio of Afghan guards: Nabi, Mohammed Toy and the very tall one whose name I forget (or never knew). The maid, and then her cousin. Two tortoises and then Oscar, our orphaned gutter kitten. We were by no means perfect, but it worked – most of the time. But then came the consultant, who we will call Greg, who initially was gong to live in a yurt (nomadic tent) in the garden, before we all agreed that perhaps he could stay in the basement.

Then the night before he was to arrive, an email preceded him: "I will be coming with someone else. My wife. She's pregnant." The result, so it seems, of an unplanned one night stand.

And so there we were: seven . Well, seven and a fraction at that time. 

It wasn't long before the fractures appeared. The newcomers did not like Oscar. They complained about the risk of toxoplasmosis, even though you're more likely to catch it from uncooked meat than cat feaces. Still, they put up signs on their door “no toxoplasmosis” with a picture of a cat with a cross through it. Oscar was on to them – and would dash out of any room they were in, usually the rest of use felt like doing the same.

Other signs began to appear. We were entreated to close bathroom doors and wash our hands. I was chastised in an email for leaving one bathroom door open. Where the rest of us used what ever was in the fridge and topped up next time we were in the shop, they wrote their names on their vegetables.

Then one day I made the big mistake of asking Greg to wash up at least one of the two espresso makers he used each morning, and to please not stack up all the glasses in the cupboard. Ok, so a bit anal, but I did ask nicely.

Greg, however, did not like being asked to do something. He never used the espresso maker again, and started purposely stacking the glasses one on top of each other. I would take them down, and he would stack them back up …. When things finally came to a head and one of my other flatmates, who they had referred to as the Nazi because she had asked them to keep the kitchen clean on a Friday (no maid day), confronted them about the atmosphere, they brushed her off saying every one was petty and that someone had been eating their jam (I confess, that was me!)

In the end, I was asked to move out, and so Oscar, the Nazi and I left and found a lovely place just round the corner. Greg later did a runner, taking $10,000 from his NGO.

So the point of this story (despite having a little dig at Greg) is that you would have though that after that experience I would have been a little wary of living with a complete stranger again. But no, there I was in Brighton taking a lease on a two-bed place by the sea and advertising on websites for a flatmate.

And along came the mad scientist. At first, it sounded like a pretty good match. He's a physicist at Sussex University, who works on the Hadron Collider, a vegan and loved the cats. But the woolly hat had me worried, and when he showed up with three black bin liners worth of belongings … he's 44 mind you … I was well on the way to saying no, I've changed my mind. But I told myself not to judge – I could be wrong.

It became a three-month nightmare. First, he refused to talk to me most of the time, addressing all his comments to the cats. He would come into the house, completely ignore me in the living room and mumble to Woody and Ray “Oh, hello, how are you, ok, let me put the shopping down first, ….”. The only time he did talk to me was to tell me the cats were hungry/thirsty/tired/upset/bored etc … or to point out that my biscuits were not vegan.

He seemed to have an aversion to any type of cleaning, and became quite defensive and hostile when I asked him to throw away a basil plant, dead for days. He stormed out and came back quite drunk.

Then there was the shouting. Occasional bursts of expletives from inside his room, and what sounded like door kicking.

In the end, I asked him to move out. He responded “It's inconvenient”. I said, “tough”. He then preceded to go to Switzerland to bash atoms together and refused even to answer emails or texts about his plans. Finally, he returned and I confronted him. What are your plans on moving out? 

“Well, I've been away so I haven't found anywhere to live yet.” 

Me: “But you're rent has run out and you are now eating into your deposit.” 

"So, use my deposit." Door slams.

Eventually, he did move out, taking his black plastic bags with him, but slashing my bike tyre on the way out and leaving behind a charming picture of skulls in the bedroom.

End of Term

So the first term is over. Ten weeks, 20 subjects, 1,500 pages of reading, six learning journals, two term papers, 1 presentation and a 3.5 hour exam … yes, that is writing, with a pen, for three and a half hours. We received the paper two days before the exam, which in theory means it should have been a piece of cake, right? Well no. The questions were of course meant to test our understanding of a concept – just repeating the reading wasn't going to help.

The three questions I answered (in case any one is interested) were:

1. Take an example of “personal rule” within a government/organisation, explain how power was exercised and discuss the advantages and disadvantages for the country/organisation.
   1. I wrote about Mahathir in Malaysia who used the country's democratic institutions to do his authoritarian bidding …
2. Choose one of Nancy Birdsall's “seven deadly sins”. Explain its relevance in a particular country or donor organisation and make some suggestions about how to fix it.
   1. The seven sins are donor failings. I chose sin #1: Impatience, and looked at how the international community's impatience with institution building, impatience to see results and impatience to spend money had impacted on real progress in Afghanistan. I had few suggestions about how to fix it though, with the international community on their way out and the Taliban on their way in …
3. Is good governance necessary for economic development?
   1. This was a tricky question as “good governance” is one of those nebulous, hard to pin down concepts (as most are in political science) and which varies according to the academic or donor. But the crux of this question is that “the suits” (ie: the World Bank and IMF) have tied lending to developing countries to a transition to democracy and open markets, yet there is plenty of evidence to suggest that these policies are not necessary for growth. China, Singapore, Taiwan, S. Korea and even Hong Kong all developed under authoritarian rule with their infant industries protected by trade barriers until they were ready to compete. What's more, what the Bank and IMF fail to mention is that the US, UK and other developed countries also had very protectionist policies to mollycoddle their infant industries back in the early 20^th century and I certainly don't think anyone but the elite in Britain had a say in politics … so it's a great question to waffle on about how disingenuous donors are when they preach open markets and democracy to developing countries.

With that over, wrists aching and head pounding, it was off to a group meeting to discuss a project for an impact evaluation course, (the demobilisation programme of Taliban militants in Afghanistan) and then a brief introduction to some field work we need to do for a course next term: Empowering Society.

Finally. It was the bar, and the panto, an IDS tradition where the students mock the teachers, and everyone mocks the industry. Based on the occupy Wall Street and everywhere else movement, it featured a crew of hippy “occupistas” camped at IDS; a researcher intent in studying their participatory-led community-based sanitation; throw in a Lady Ga Ga number and a West Side Story style dance off between the "suits" (see above) and the occupistas, and that, was the end of term. 

Learning Journal

So the essay was handed in and we now have to wait for the lengthy marking process. Apparently, we don't get the essay back, we just get a typed list of comments. Bah!

Every week we are expected to write a learning journal which we email to our main tutor, who returns it with her comments … I find this quite a useful tool to get ideas and thoughts out of my head and on to paper where you can see if you really understand something or not. Sometimes I use it to develop an idea within the readings or lectures and sometimes to disagree with what has been said.

Here's the one I did for last week, I have added a few comments n parentheses for clarity.

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There has been a thread running through my thoughts these past few weeks that I've been struggling to come to terms with, that is: how can you work in development without being interventionist? We know that the most successful projects are those where the community has a sense of ownership; sets the agenda and takes control. The developmental states we have been taking about; Singapore, Taiwan South Korea, Botswana – and perhaps we should have included Kenya - all progressed because they set a course and had, for the most part, consensus. (A developmental state is one which has a more involved government, possibly authoritarian, which takes decisions primarily to move the state forward)

Yes, they had some support. Open markets for Taiwan and South Korea in the US, and Hong Kong obviously had support from the UK .. but on the whole it was their own path. Even with participatory projects (projects where the beneficiaries are involved in decisions that affect them), we have seen those where it has been an organic development from the ground up are more successful than those where the spaces are invited or imposed. So it has made me think, how, as a foreigner, can I work in overseas development when every project I run, is already at a disadvantage because it has a foreigner running it instead of someone local.

I don't have a skill, I'm not a doctor or an engineer or an architect, I'm beginning to think that the media is the only thing I have.

The Robert Chambers workshop (an all day workshop with the participation guru the previous Sunday) helped somewhat. He mentioned us working as “facilitators”. Of spending more time listening and asking questions. He gave that wonderful example of what did we think a Kenyan sex worker would ask for to make her life better. We all chimed in with noble thoughts; housing, heath clinics, respect, schooling for children … when in fact, what they asked for, he said, was swimming lessons. It's a great example as it really does illustrate that while we, as outsiders, can have the best intentions, we can get things so wrong because we do not listen or ask questions or understand the context.

One of my last jobs in Afghanistan was to help my organisation win a proposal utilising new technology to improve the work of human rights groups. To get the proposal, we needed several groups to agree to be our beneficiaries. We chose women's rights groups and I was sent out to speak to several of them to explain the project and get a signed acceptance of their willingness to participate.

The idea of the project would be that women could text in reports of attacks or domestic abuse and this would go to a centrally held database from which maps (like google maps) and reports could be drawn. The groups would be able to see the locations and types of attacks and generate reports based on this. I visited several different groups, including one which provided refuge and shelter to battered or run away women, an organisation supporting disabled women and FEFA, the Afghan free and fair elections advocacy group.

In my very first interview I realised how ridiculous our project was. The shelter group told me that 99 % of the women who seek help from them are illiterate. What good is a mobile phone?

The internet map was also pretty useless as in the areas it would be most useful, the south and east, mobile phone masts were constantly being blown up by the Taliban, causing disruption to service. One group did not want to work with us as it was a USAID funded project and they thought that the link with the US would put their staff at risk.

Returning back to the office, with only a few signatures of those I had managed to convince, I learned that the project idea had been conceived in California without a singe Afghan voice. I understand that this is how it often works in the development world, but there's my problem, I don't actually want to be part of a project that does work that way.

So I think I came into the Leftwich reading (about how those East Asian Tigers/developmental states all developed) with this in mind, and was shocked to see his abstract about the policy implications. (he said that instead of trying to set up institutions in these countries, what donors needed to do was find those elements within a state that appeared to be capable of achieving development and support them, a process that has worked so well in the past … not! AN argument I made in class)

I did actually find it interesting, the reading, the seminar and lecture. I especially liked thinking about Hong Kong as I grew up there, lived there pre and post 1997 handover and so it's probably the closest thing I have to a home.

Hong Kong is an interesting story. In my mind, the change from pre handover is extraordinary. Hong Kong Chinese have gone from not caring about their home … perhaps because it was never theirs … to being fully involved. The last decade has seen an explosion of community groups and NGOs. I like to think its because they have taken ownership.

Academia

In less than a week I have a 3,000 word essay to hand in. Two days before that, I have to give a 10-minute presentation on five readings for a seminar on Foreign Aid. So it makes perfect sense that I am sitting here in the library – down in the dungeons where talking is prohibited – updating my blog, staring out of the window at a column of golden trees and an overcast sky and flipping through the pages of Cosmo on Campus (I kid you not).

I sat in this same seat yesterday until 8pm, next to the same woman whose name I still do not know, as all we do is smile our greetings. At least yesterday, I got the last reading done for the Foreign Aid seminar: Judith Tendler's 1975 book, Inside Foreign Aid, a look at the organisational environment of USAID, the US government's development arm, and how the very nature of it being a government agency compromised its development mission.

Quite revolutionary for its time – written just a decade after AID was set up (incidentally, the gov't expected it to close within a decade or two) -- although now there are a raft of articles and a whole shelf of books on what's wrong with foreign aid and aid agencies. One of my other readings, by a UK-based governance research group looks at the strategies African countries adopt in negotiating with donors, what factors lead to strong or weak negotiating positions and how a weak position can often push a country to accept projects/programmes that do not fit within its national strategy and ignore some of the key issues that need addressing in favour of donor “pet projects”.

Its readings like these, and indeed, in researching this essay (yes, I have done some work!), that I question what role or even why I want to be involved in such a paternalistic industry. But it's not even that, it's that there isn't an answer on 'how to do development' and so in the process, we, as the west, are continuously screwing up countries by trying to squeeze them into a model that worked previously. Like Tendler says, development approaches have to be innovative, creative, responsive. Different approaches work in different countries, but because gov't development agencies such USAID, which must be the largest (aside from Word Bank and IMF) donor, has to account to Congress and various oversight committees for its expenditure, often goes for non-risky programmes that may have been effective elsewhere.

What really has shown to be effective in bringing greater freedoms and accountability to people is their own participation and ownership; but how does the US get its name on that?

Anyway, I think this is part of the course. They want us to question why we are here; our 'positionality' as they call it.

The essay title, in case you're interested is: “Development is about making the world a better place, discuss the disadvantages and advantages of this definition.'

When I tell my classmates I am struggling with my essay, they look surprised. “It's easy for you Cassie, you're a writer.”

True, but that doesn't mean I don't agonise over every word and sentence, in fact, having looked at some of their essays, I probably worry about words, rhythm and structure too much.

My biggest concern, and which is probably why I am sitting here flicking through the pages of Cosmo (skimpy shorts over black tights, preferably ripped or torn at the sides, if you are curious), is that I am a bit at a loss when it comes to writing like an academic. When we first arrived we were asked to write an introductory essay on the challenges of studying development studies. I waffled, threw in some of the names of those whose books I had flicked through, added a bit historic context, and mostly talked about my own personal challenges and experiences. I thought that was what we were here to do.

Oh, how wrong I was. Seems I was supposed to present a “balanced argument”, not, as my professor said, with strong statements, and make reference to specific authors and their books, articles and even page numbers. PAGE Numbers!!! Who remembers page numbers??? 

 Surprising how people can assume you are together when deep down you are just held together with bits of frayed string you found at a bus stop.

Oh well, back to the essay.

Back to School

Ok, so I'm using my blog as an excuse to avoid working ... I've always been like this. When I was a teenager, instead of writing an essay on the betrayal of Julius Caesar or memorizing quotes from Coriolanus, I wrote poetry and short stories. When I was at college, I started a journal where I opined about the state of England while avoiding writing my thesis on why women are funnier than men. And in every case, when I eventually knuckled down to work, when I had hoovered every inch of the floor, scoured the baths, rearranged my bedroom and DVD collection and made the necessary drinks and snacks needed to work, I found that I actually enjoyed it and wished I had more time.  

 

But I have been meaning to update this blog for some time – so much has happened – and I need a bit of practice writing again, so here goes.

I left Afghanistan in July after spending my final three months there setting up a training and community media centre in Herat, -which was amazing, and needs a whole entry of its own. And, after 11 years on the road -- almost to the day --  I moved back to the UK, as ever to start something new.

This time, I've embarked on a Masters programme, something I had been thinking of for a while.  I'm at the Institute of Development Studies, in Brighton, on their Governance and Development programme.

Yesterday was the first real day and it started with a four-hour "participation" workshop with Robert Chambers, who if you don't know (and why would you) is THE rock star of the development world. He has been at IDS since the 60s, as an undergraduate, then later as a professor and researcher, and revolutionsed the way in which development was "done". He advocated for a “bottom up” approach to development, in which the marginalised; women, poor, disabled, excluded, were asked to participate when it came to policies that affected them. It's startling really to think that it took until the 1980s for this to be taken seriously … now it's de rigour in development work, with varying degrees of success.

So, yesterday, there he was, Robert Chambers, turning 70 next year, tall, wiry, with a shock of white, untamed hair and a megaphone, encouraging us to ride our bikes to uni no matter the weather. I had had a bit of a heads up that he would want us to be doing some touchy feely type of bonding with fellow classmates, so was not really looking forward to it. Like most Brits, there is only so much bonding I can do outside of the pub.

But, Chambers had a surprise for us, well me:

"I want everyone to walk around the room, weave in and out of people, but keep your eyes on the ground, don't look at anyone."

Oh phew, I thought … I can do this!

Of course we weren't allowed to stay in our own private bubbles for ever; he then had us greeting each other with smiles, elbows, knees and then bums (the bottom up approach?); but it broke the ice and when you've gone bum to bum with a woman from the Congo, you've got nothing left to hide.

So the rest of the time he had us running around, forming groups identified by our MAs:

Governance

Globalisation

Gender

Participation and Social Change

Science, Technology and Development

Vulnerability and Poverty

Knowledge and Power

Human Rights

Climate Change and Development

Anthropology and Social Transformation

And into our previous occupation. Surprisingly, there were a few journalists, but also doctors, engineers, local and international NGO workers, social workers, government officials, think tank analysts, consultants, a sports therapist and those who had come straight from undergraduate degrees.

And then it was outside, where we split into our countries; India, the largest contingent occupying the much of the bottom end of the grassy hill. Snuggled up alongside them; Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan. 

The African continent. Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, Gambia, Congo, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone, Central African Republic and South Africa. 

From the Middle East it was only Iran and Egypt; from Asia, Japan dominated followed by South Korea, then China, Indonesia and Thailand.

From the West, or the Global North in development speak; a smattering of Brits, Americans, Canadians, Italians, Spanish, an Estonian, Germans, Swedes and French.

Brazil was the sole representation from the central and South Americas.And from Mexico (which although is in North America geograhically, it is considered the global south here).

I admit, I did have fun; people have the most amazing stories. I met an English woman with an American accent, who like me turned chameleon to adapt to different school environments, an American journalist my age with a friend in common, an Indonesia woman who I knew in Afghanistan, a Pakistan government official who I spent hours with talking about Haqqani and the ISI, a Canadian guy who spent the last four years working for the UN in Bangkok, an Egyptian who has been working to get youth involved in the reforms there ... and there are so many more to meet. At least I found out  am not the oldest person on the course, in fact, the average age is about mid to late 30s.

I will try to keep my blog updated as it'll be a great reminder of what it's all been about. Let's see what happens. 

What we don't know

It’s been nearly four weeks since I’ve been back in Kabul. You’d have thought there’d have been at least one blog worthy event. Well, yes, there have been several ... suicide attacks, snow storms, shootouts, parties, excursions ... it just goes past in a blur sometimes.

Part of the reason for not blogging about what’s news here is that what you think you know one day turns out to be something very different the next. I mean, who really knows what’s happening with the private security companies. First Hamid Karzai described them as thieves and mercenaries and gave them an end of year deadline to pack their bags and get out ... then he softened and said those protecting embassies, reconstruction projects and convoys could stay ...  now I read in the Guardian that he has all but rescinded the entire order and will be allowing 11 contractors  with “a good record” to say. Among those groups, the Guardian says, is Blackwater, now known as Xe Services, a private security firm whose behaviour has already seen it thrown out of Iraq. Chalk one up to the west!  

A few days after I got back, on Feb. 14, there was a suicide attack on a shopping centre moderately full of Afghans buying presents for their girlfriends/boyfriends. Yep, believe it or not, Afghanistan, home to the ultra conservative Taliban, loves Valentine’s Day. Go figure!

Anyway, like with most things in Afghanistan, the story has several shades of reality. 

Our first lead was that a suicide bomber blew himself up at the entrance of Kabul City Centre, a rather empty mall attached to a hotel often used by aid workers for meetings, and which is known among the foreign crowd for its cheap knock off DVDs. Anyway, this bomber blew himself up, but, according to witnesses and other random sources, there were another two insurgents who had made their way into the building and were in a shootout with police.

We even had a quote from a “witness” saying he saw the other two attackers enter the mall, and then heard explosions and gunfire for about five minutes.

Except, that’s not what happened.

Our editor in chief was at the mall, or about 10 metres away, intending to buy a gift for his Valentine – his second wife, but that’s another rant. What he said he saw was one suicide bomber, who was shot, in the leg, by two security guards. As the guards approached him (duh!) he blew himself up, and all three were killed. One of those guards had five children.

There was no second or third, or as in some reports, fourth gunman/bomber. And the firing, he said, was caused by the arrival of the police, who, being kids and spooked, started shooting up the place.

Here’s another example. Two weeks ago, I had a few friends round for dinner. That morning, four rockets – possibly three or maybe five – were fired at something, no one really knows for sure what the target was, but they fell close to where two of my friends lived. One friend spent an hour in a safe bunker, the other was told to stay in her room.  An hour later, the all clear was sounded, everyone returned to work without so much as a follow up mail.

So that evening, I guess everyone is spooked because there have been far too many reports of suicide bombers roaming  the streets looking for targets. Every other day, there is a new alert for one restaurant or another. Someone I know, who has close ties to intelligence and security contractors, sent out a rare text advising his friends to stay away from high-profile western restaurants  and bars for 10 days. Ten days, what is there an expiry date on suicide bombers, they self-detonate after 10 days if they haven't found a target? 

So there we were at home, eating vegetarian shepherd’s pie, drinking our overpriced $25/bottle red wine, and pretending Afghanistan was just another developing country, whe “beep, beep, beep”, the first security alerts start coming through.

At first, and it’s always vague: “Incident at the Lebanese. No movement.”

Well, what incident, and which Lebanese? There are two Lebanese restaurants we usually go to; the Grill and the Taverna.

The second comes through: “Shooting at Lebanese. No movement.”

Then nothing. We go online, looking to see if any of the media had picked up the story. They hadn’t, so we rationalise it must be something small and continue with our dinner party. 

The next morning, amid the stories of foreigners having to be airlifted off the roof of the restaurant, my housemate shows me the security briefing she received by email on the shooting. It seems one guard at La Taverna restaurant accidentally set off a security alarm. Spooked by his own actions, he started to run. A second guard thought he was an attacker and shot him.

Ridiculous, but true.  So you shrug, you joke about the incompetence of the guards and police and shake your head about Afghanistan taking the lead on its security, and then you let it go.  

But, that wasn't the end of the story.

A few nights ago, I sat in a bar with a friend and her security detail. I mentioned the Taverna shooting to him as a way to discuss the capacity of police and security guards here. He looks at me quizzically. “It wasn’t the Taverna, it was the Golden Key, the Chinese restaurant."

Press Pass

I took a walk along the Nile yesterday, admittedly it was to the Ministry of Interior to apply for a press pass, but still, I can at least claim that I saw something of the sites in Cairo.

The government had decided that as of yesterday, all journalists who wanted to enter Tahrir Square --- where all that wonderful colour and all those passionate voices are --- would need to register with the ministry for a pass. Up until that time, it had been somewhat random in whether the military would ask you for credentials. So off we went, clasping our photocopies and official letters from the paper.
The area outside the ministry, defended by a dozen or so tanks, is the same area where my colleague was beaten up a few days ago, as police and soldiers looked on. He was understandably a little spooked, but that day, the area was full of people, heading to work, selling cigarettes and drinks and of course, foreign journalists all clutching their papers.
As we entered the ministry, our passports were handed like a baton from one person to the next as they led us through a warren of rooms until finally, upstairs we were given a form to fill in. Names, addresses, media we work for, purpose of our visit and who we wanted to interview.
The women working in the press centre seemed remarkably efficient.
We asked them how long the pass would take and they told us a couple of days. "So we can't go to the square without it?"
No, they replied, but you can go anywhere else. That seemed a little illogical, but nevertheless, we decided we would try to get in to the square without the pass.

Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays are the "million man" days at Tharir and when we got there, again there were thousands of people queuing so patiently, just waiting to get in. We pushed our way down to the front, squeezed through the barbed wire, in between the tanks, many of them covered with graffiti, and without so much as a question from the military, we were inside.  So much for the official bureaucracy that was supposed to make our lives much harder.

The atmosphere was even more electrifying than before, and much more organised. The night before the Google executive. Weal Ghonim, who had been detained several days ago, had been released and given an emotional interview on TV. His speech and possible presence that day galvanised the protesters -- people are talking about him as the voice of the revolution. Yet for many young people I spoke to, there was a sense that he alone could not be the opposition leader.
"This revolution is for all people, and we must have a leadership that is reflective of everyone's interests. Ghonim can talk for the young, and the elite, but there are Muslims and Christians and women and workers," said one rather erudite 17-year-old girl.
I spent a couple of hours wandering around, got caught up in a women's march, which had stunned the men who were frantically taking photos of them on their mobile phones.
What do you think of women taking part in this protest, I asked one guy, a mechanical engineering student at Cairo University. "Women have as many rights as men do," he told me, pointing out that his sister was also part of the protests. Again, he also told me. "This revolution is for everyone."
Every time I ask someone about women's participation and the role of women in the protests they tell me that women are not oppressed in Egypt. They are in control of their lives, can work, can drive, can say what they want. Yet, that very fact that their protest around the square that day drew so much attention from the men, makes me think that perhaps it is not quite as free as they make out.
I read somewhere that in the early days of the protests, women were told by female organisers to wear two layers of clothes, in case pro-Mubarak thugs tried to rip one layer off. When I put this to one woman, a well-educated saleswoman, she said "this is war, the vulnerable are always targeted. If the men are fighting, they too have to take precautions to protect themselves".

But the role of women is indeed something new. Previous protests have garnered about 10 percent female participation. These protests in Tahrir, I would say about 40 percent are women.

It's unclear what is happening with the movement now. The US seems to have backed away from demanding an immediate transition ... are they worried that Mubarak will refuse to go which could force them into taking action they do not want to take? Or are they just being pragmatic, they do not want to atagonise an ally in the vastly anti-US Middle East? There is also the issue of Israel, America's other ally in the region, with its powerful Jewish lobby. Mubarak has honoured his predecessor's peace deal with Israel, something the US s loathe to upset, while Israel fears a greater role for the Islamic Muslim Brotherhood.
These are oversimplified thoughts, I'm sure, but it's worrying to think that these people who are protesting with so much heart and strength -- last night they went to Parliament -- will lose everything in the coming months because of internal US politics.

Cassie

The army and the matchbook

I woke up yesterday morning thinking I would work on a story from the hotel. I needed to make some calls, and just rework what I already had.

I washed my clothes in the sink (saving on extortionate hotel laundry costs), and hung them out to dry on the balcony. Predictably, just a few minutes later, my colleague rang.

“(the foreign editor of the paper) wants us to go to (can't mention it as we haven't run the story yet). How soon can you be ready?”

We had been ding a lot of stories about the people at Tharir square, getting colour and quotes on a daily basis. Now it was time to see how other parts of Egypt were reacting. 

Five minutes is what I wanted to say, but I thought a senior editor shouldn't sound that eager about a little day trip, so I said I'd be down in 30 minutes. Then I worried about how I was going to wear my boots without socks – my only pair being sopping wet and drying on the balcony. I came up with a cunning plan to wrap hand towels around my ankles to beat the chafing, and hurried down to the lobby where my colleague had already lined up a car and driver for our journey.

The hotel desk had told him XX was only a 45 minute drive from Cairo, it was actually about 2 hours away. My colleague wanted me to sit in the front, as a woman with a headscarf he thought I would attract less attention.

But really, headscarves, or the hijab, are worn different depending on what country you are in. Egypt is much more flexible when it comes to pious dress; many Muslim women do not wear a headscarf at all, despite being what they would call devout. So while in Afghanistan where the hijab is mandated, and of course many women are forced into wearing a full burqa, women push the boundaries (much like you would with a school uniform), allowing wisps of hair to escape their confines and often allowing the scarf to slip down the back of their head.
In Egypt, or Cairo at least, it makes no sense to wear a hijab improperly if you don't have to wear it at all, and properly here means tight under your chin, and pinned tightly around your head. So with my loose head dressing, I wasn't fooling anyone.

As we left the city, it was obvious that Cairo was very much getting back to work. Several banks were open with a few dozen people cramming inside and around the ATMs. About 50 percent of shops were open, including the glitzy City Stars mall, where everything is “imported and expensive” according to our taxi driver, Tareq.

But what really made it clear that the city was back to normal was the traffic. Honking streams of it clogging the roads; black and white Lada taxis and battered and scraped Honda civics, beetles and Corrollas and Landcruisers. Compared with Kabul and the ubiquitous Toyota, it was a delight for my eyes, if not ears.

The day was grey and overcast, misty and full of potential.

The buildings we drove past; modern I was told, but built 30 years ago, some were grey concrete blocks, crumbling and unappealing. Others had beautiful iron balconies, and porticoes that gave them a colonial European look.

As we headed out over Nasr bridge and towards the memorial of Anwar Sadat, the former Egyptian president assassinated in 1981 (the year Mubarak came to power), there was a worrying development. Nose to bum, along each side of the road were hundreds of tanks and armoured personnel carriers, all pointing in towards the city. They had not been there before when I arrived in the city just a few days earlier. At any other time, I might have though the army was preparing for a coup, or worse, to attack the protester unrelenting in their protests in Tahrir Square.

But our driver seemed to think nothing of it. It was the army after all, and they were on the side of the people.
I find this love of the army interesting. Egypt is ruled by former generals and military men. Mubarak is a former air force commander, the new vice president, Omar Suleiman, is head of the military intelligence and the new prime minister is also a former air force commander. Yet still, the people believe that the army is their saviour.

As we neared our destination, we were stopped several times by the army, by soldiers in jaunty red berets, and our passports checked. But each time, the soldiers were polite and apologetic. At one checkpoint, we were asked to get out of the car and enter the army post, I left my bag in the car, with my notebook and point and shoot camera. As we walked into a small empty room, where two men sat frowning over our passports, I smiled and my colleague was able to chat to them in Arabic. They smiled back, apologised for causing us any problems and asked if we had a laptop or camera … nope we replied, and they waved us through. “Welcome to Egypt,” a refrain I have heard time and time again.

Perhaps it's because everyone must do mandatory military service at some point, except women, so Egyptians feel a certain amount of empathy with the army. But also, there's a structure within the armed forces, and a leadership that has not been corrupted, at least not in the ranks, unlike the police, whose sole job seems to be harassing and brutalising civilians. 

The army told us our destination was now calm, and we could talk to whomever we liked. But at a tea shop in XX, as we sat drinking sweet, black tea and chatting with men over a game of dominos, two patrons slipped quietly out the door and came back a few minutes later with the army.

We were beckoned across the road towards an armoured personnel carrier – there were several on the streets of what had just a few days earlier been a scene of intense violence. The commander, looking rather suave in his neat camouflage and red shoulder bands, unfolded himself from the front seat of the apc and took our passports. What are you doing here? he asked. We explained that we were journalists working for an Abu Dhabi newspaper, and again, I was pleased that I still had that visa in my passport (no one seemed to click that it had been cancelled a year ago).
There are no protests here anymore, why do you want to talk to the people, he asked, and we explained that our intention was just that: to explain to the world that the place was calm, to counter some of the wrong media reports about parts of Egypt.
He nodded, apologised that he had to check with his commanding office, and after asking if we had laptops or cameras (did I blink when I said no?) handed us back our passports, and wrote his name and mobile number on a Marriott matchbook which he said we were to use if we ran into any trouble. After that, there was a lot of smiling, shaking hands, apologies, welcome to Egypts, and off we went.

At first we did not want to go back to the same cafe, fearing perhaps our brush with the army may have tainted us with our new friends. But our driver insisted, he said we needed to show that we were ok, plus we had the matchbook.

People were noticably hesitant. There have been so many stories in the Egyptian state press about foreigners stirring up trouble, acting as spies for countries such as Israel and Iran, that they were unsure about who we were. “Are you Israelis?” one guy asked … .a word unmentionable in most Muslim countries. But after a while, they relaxed, helped by the countless cups of coffee and tea we bought, and of course the matchbook, and the stories that were told kept us enthralled for hours.

In general, while the protests in Tharir Square are a call for the removal of Mubarak, in more remote parts of the country, they are after more practical demands. Higher salaries to counter rising prices, an end to police brutality and corruption. Better job security and opportunities.

Many people still like Mubarak. "I have a picture of him in my house," one man said. But they feel he is too old to lead anymore and is being misled by his lieutenants. Elections may bring some relief, but for many it is more about survival. 

When we left, our notebooks, and bladders, were bulging. 

They are not stopping

If Mubarak though that by opening banks and urging everyone to go back to work on Sunday it would stymie the momentum of the protesters, he must have been sorely disappointed. Three of us headed down to the square on Sunday afternoon. Our taxi driver told us how he had been at the square every day since Jan 25, but needed to go back to work to earn some money. He showed us marks on his hands where he had been hit by rocks. When we go to the bridge that leads across the Nile to the square, we were surprised to see the tanks had gone. For the last two weeks, two tanks had cut the entrance to the bridge where soldiers checked IDs. We thought the fact they had gone was a positive sign, that the protesters were winning and the army was now on their side. But we were wrong.

All along the bridge a single file of people snaked. Hundreds of people waiting; patiently waiting, laughing, holding bags of food and  medicine for those who have not left the square since Jan 25. As we moved our way towards the entrance, the crowd thickened and we saw where those two tanks had gone. There were now three tanks and an armoured personnel carrier blocking the entrance to the square. It took us maybe half an hour to get from outside into what felt like a holding pen. Tanks on one side barricading the entrance to the square and barbed wire behind us and about 500 people in between. For anyone whose ever been in a crowd/protest, this is probably the scariest moment, where more and more people pour into a restricted area, where protesters are relentlessly chanting, "We won't go until Mubarak goes", ignoring the army shouting through bullhorns; where the soldiers, standing on top of their tanks, young and armed, looking jittery can't control the crowd; more people pouring in, pushing towards towards the entrance ...

But as has happened every day here, Egyptians have surprised me, both the protesters and the army. One protester hoisted his two-year old girl up on to a tank and the soldiers loved it.

So after about an hour and a half, we finally pushed our way  through into the square. It was incredible, the number of people in there.

If Saturday was like a carnival, with people sitting around and chatting and eating and chanting. Sunday was like a football match .... the chanting didn't stop, flags waving, fists pumping n the air; anger and passion. There was no where to stand, or to sit, people filled every space.

There were Muslims and Christians sitting together, Christians standing in a protective circle around Muslims as they prayed.

Families; husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends, so many children. Conservative Muslims with long beards and tight hijabs, the protester cut across all social classes, religions and genders. Tuesday, Sunday and Thursday have been designated "one-million" days, and it certainly looked like they had achieved that.

I stopped to talk to one man, Ahmed. He told me he had been at work that day as a supervisor of a university hotel and had come down to the protest when he finished. He asked me what I thought of the protests and where I was from, and when I told him the UK, he said "Please tell the people of England that the people in Egypt want freedom.

"We do not eat Kentucky Fried Chicken (state media has been trying to downplay the economic demands of the protesters by saying they eat KFC so can't be that bad off). We eat foul (beans) some bread (at this point another protester gave him a bit of his bread) and very little water. Please tell people of England that."

We talked a bit longer, but I did not get out my notebook. With so many people, it was one of those days where the atmosphere could change on a dime. I moved away and found a quiet place on a step and pulled out the tiniest scrap of paper I could find in my bag and started to write. Two feet appeared in my line of vision, and they seemed to stay there for a while. I looked up, and a guy was watching me write. I smiled, he smiled back, but still, I thought ...

Unlike on Saturday, I hadn't seen any one with notebooks out. There was a radio crew or two, and a few foreigners wandering around, but perhaps we all had the same thoughts ... today, was not the day to make yourself known as a journalist.

It is true that reporters are still being harassed. But mostly they are wondering around areas that are controlled by pro-Mubarak supporters when they get attacked.

Back at the hotel, it was interesting to see how many journalists were checking out ... do they think that the story is over? Today showed me that it certainly isn't.

Breathing

My cowardly side struck this morning. The crazy Moroccan radio/Spanish journalist with whom I spent all day yesterday in the square, interviewing women and actors and protesters, who was supposed to move into my hotel room today, to share the inflated $250/night cost, and whose name I still don't know, was arrested by police this morning.

I had wanted to go down to the square to see a Christian Mass, it was a brilliant, sunny day. So I texted my friend. No reply. But her English is not so good, so I figured she didn't have the time to text back. I called several times, no reply. Then finally I got through. Police sirens filled the phone. "Are you in the square? I shouted. "What's going on?"; "I am with the police. They have arrested me," she shouted back.

And then the phone went dead. I tried calling back several times, but no answer. I don't even know her name.

I decided the square could wait this morning, and I would work on a story back at the hotel.

Tahrir Square

After two hours sleep, I headed down to the hotel breakfast room to meet a colleague. It was surreal. From the emptiness of last night, the cafe was packed: with journalists. I eavesdropped on a conversation about a correspondent who had been roughed up by some plain clothes security a night or two before at Tahrir Square, at the heart of the protests.

So when my colleague told me he was going down to the square that day, my heart skipped a beat. Two Irish reporters from RTE had secured a car and driver, and it was “safety in numbers at least”. As we headed out of the hotel, we met a Spanish woman for Moroccan radio and the five of us squeezed (and I mean squeezed) into the driver's compact car. He drove us though the back streets, avoiding checkpoints, he told us, but later, when I walked from the square back to the hotel, I realised just how badly he had ripped us off. The streets were still empty – trees and branches blocked the roads , but we were stopped only once by the army who checked our passports and apologised for doing so.

We planned to be there only an hour. I thought it was all my heart would be able to take. But I ended up going home about five hours later, my notebook full of quotes from women whose passion and commitment was inspiring and addictive. By the time I left, many hundreds more were queuing in the drizzling rain, chanting “Out, Out Mubarak. We want in”.

I spoke to university students, doctors, teachers .. women in their 20s, 30s, 40s. All told me: "We want free elections, we want a Parliament, we want a better life!”

It was hard not to get caught up in the atmosphere. People sat on the ground painting protest pictures, painting on the cement ground. Hoisting their children on their shoulders, they waved Egyptian flags, they prayed, they laughed and they debated … so many discussions about the future, about politics. As I sat on a step making sense of my notes I was handed a raisin pastry and a cup of black, sweet, hot tea. When I tried to give the guy some money, he laughed and shook his head. A free clinic was set up for those who had been injured. And everywhere you looked there were people with bandages on their heads, eyes, with broken legs or arms from where they had been injured Thursday and Friday when the thugs on horses and camels poured in.

One 72-year old man told me he had seen with his own eyes (?) that the thugs had been given money, between 50 and 300 Egyptian pounds ($8-$50) and food, to attack the activists inside the square. “Why do they do this?” he told me, struggling to make me understand what was needed. He drew on my notebook a hierarchical drawing of Mubarak at the head of a connected state apparatus, the army, the police, the Interior ministry. Then he drew an X over Mubarak, and said all the others would fall too.

On stage, a six year old girl led the chants against Mubarak. A woman stood up next and said she was a doctor in a hospital in Mubarak's home town. “We have no medicine, no IVs, how can Mubarak care about the country when he doesn't even care about his home town.”

A farmer then took the microphone and spoke about how the soil used to be healthy, but now, Mubarak had allowed his cronies to build on the land. "We cannot grow food, the people are hungry, but Mubarak is making money.”

The crowd shouted their empathy.

No one believes that the concessions Mubarak has made, announcing that neither he nor his son will stand for president are worth considering. “We have heard so many promises from Mubarak, why should we believe him now?” one woman told me.

“We want a transitional government. We want free elections. We want a better life. We deserve a better life."

But there also isn't any single character they want to lead a transitional government. Most are lukewarm about Mohammed ElBaradei, the former head of UN weapons inspections, and Amr Moussa, the head of the Arab League who joined the protesters on Friday.

I was interested in what had given the protesters this unshakable belief that if they stay, Mubarak will eventually leave. Back in 2008, the protesters came out on to the streets in support of labour unions. Like now, it was organised by bloggers and through Facebook. But they fizzled out when the state started rounding up the Internet protesters. This time, there are thousands more and they are unrelenting in their protests.  "Tunisia of course was a spark. People now see that protesting can bring change, " a researcher at a think tank told me. "But also we are fed up. We want change.  This is a revolution."

The government is still trying to make it difficult for journalists.

Organisers were asking for press passes. None of us had brought ours fearing they could be used to identify us as journalists if we were stopped, and I had thrown all of my business cards away in the Abu Dhabi airport toilet. When asked why they had changed the rules, one organiser said it was a new request by the military because many infiltrators from foreign countries were acting as spies for other countries.

I asked if they thought that about British passport holders. Come on, Britain doesn't need spies here.

“Remember when Mossad used British and American passports to kill that Hamas leader in the UAE, that's what they think is happening here,” the organiser told me.

Inside, a plain clothes policeman approached me. I know he was a secret policeman because he was clean, well dressed and his hair was combed."Is any one arresting you, intimidating you, kidnapping you?" he asked me as I sat on a step, my notebook out and chatting to a university student. "No," I said, somewhat bewildered by where this was going. "Well, make sure you write about that!" And then he was gone.

Kabul to Cairo

It started with a pre-dawn rush through the swampy mud streets of Kabul, the rain still drizzling, to the Serena hotel, where I hoped the internet would be working so I could print out my plane ticket for the first leg of my trip to Abu Dhabi.

Less than 24 hours later, I was making my way slowly, through the grey dawn and eerily empty streets of Cairo, scene of a historic, if often violent, uprising that for some reason I felt compelled to see for myself. I have to admit there were times, many, many times over the past week that I questioned my own judgement about going to Cairo. How would I get to the hotel if there was a nighttime curfew? What of the vigilantes and police who were targeting journalists? What would I do when I got there?

 I had half expected Etihad to cancel the flight from Abu Dhabi, but was surprised, and perhaps relieved, to see about 100 people on board. All Egyptians, all clutching their green passports. If they were going back, perhaps it was not so bad as the media was making out.

My first real wobble came when I went through immigration at Abu Dhabi, and the guy looked at my passport, at my old visa for the Abu Dhabi Media Company, and said, “Oh, a journalist. Good luck.” Fuck, I'd been lumbered. I then went through my bag, throwing out all the name cards that labelled me as a journalist, something I would regret a bit later.

Four hours later we were in Cairo, and from the pilot's announcement , you could be forgiven for not knowing there was an uprising. “The time is 3:20am and the weather is 16 degrees. Have a pleasant stay in Cairo. We hope to see you again.”

I breezed through immigration and customs. and found a taxi almost immediately. Megahed Zaghloul, my driver, not only kept up a running commentary of Cairo's sights .. "This is the military academy, the biggest in the Middle East", "This is the soccer stadium .." but his easy going attitude with the countless military blockades ( I lost count after eight) meant we stayed out of trouble for the most part.

Every 200 metres or so, two Bradley tanks blocked our way forward. On the first couple of stops, the military barely glanced in my direction, just checked my driver's ID and waved us through. Some of the soldiers were sleeping on top of their tanks, wrapped up in blankets against the chilly night air. “The army are good, friendly,” Megahed said. He then pointed to a few guys in plain clothes ... “those are the police, see they are not doing anything”.

As if to emphasise this point, we approach our first police checkpoint. One man holds a long iron pole on the top of which he has attached a serrated knife. They peer into the car. I wave and say salaam. They check my passport, and I hold my breath. Please, please don't look at my Abu Dhabi visa. Since the protests started Jan 25, one journalist has been killed and nearly everyone I know has been roughed up in some way. Others have been detained by the military police or roaming groups of vigilantes.

They take away my passport and there is some conferring, before it is handed back to me and we move on.

As we trawl through the night-time streets, all along the roads are small bonfires, and groups of men with baseball bats and sticks .. .protecting their homes from looters and the thugs hired by supporters of the president, Hosni Mubarak. “I have been a driver for 35 years and I have never seen it like this,” Megahed tells me time and time again as he points out how the streets are usually full of people on a Friday night. "Cairo is a 24-hour city."

Another checkpoint, more tanks and armoured personnel carriers. Several men gather around the car and my driver, bless him, laughs and jokes with them. My passport is once more spirited away through the window More conferring and then a guy in plain clothes leans in through the window. “Why do you want to come to Egypt now?” he asks.

It is a question I had been thinking about. I initially thought I would say I was a nurse, or medic, but decided to play the foolish tourist. He looks sceptical, “But things are very bad here,” he tells me. I tell him I think it's important to be here, not to shy away and to support Egyptians. He nods, and apologises, saying he will have to check “everything”.

I climb out of the car, and the guy introduces himself as Capt Wahid, head of the military intelligence, and soon we are on first name basis. As he hands me back my bag, he says: “Welcome to Cairo, Cassie.”

The next checkpoint, a big, burly camouflaged soldier is called over to look at our car. I wave and salaam, adjust my headscarf, which I decided might actually help in this case, and he doesn't smile. He again, rifles through my bag, pulling out my laptop, a pile of clothes which he dumps on my lap and I am thankful I did not buy that new camera I had hoped to. He leaves me with a pile of clothes on my lap and climbs into the front seat, waving us through another two more checkpoints, before he climbs out, also welcomes me to Cairo, and lifts up our windscreen wiper to signify we are “ok”.

As we pass the Egyptian museum, at the heart of where the protests are taking place, and cross the bridge into the leafy green residential island of Zalmanek, we are stopped another two times, this time by young kids, manning ad hoc roadblocks. They carry baseball bats, and this is possibly one of the most worrying as they are unpredictable, local vigilantes. But they all smile when they see me, and like all boys, giggle when I wave and smile back.

It is hard to see much of Cairo in the dark, and with my focus just on getting through the checkpoints, I don't know whether I love it or not. I can't tell whether the rubble that litters the streets is remnants from the stone-throwing battles between pro and anti-government activists, or this is what Cairo is like. Bands of dogs roam the streets. The Nile seems quiet. Stores are shut. Megahed tells me this is a good time to visit the pyramids.

After two hours, all I want to do is get to the hotel. I am worried my luck will soon run out.

As we draw up to the Novotel, where I have a booking, it is ominously quiet. Not a light in any room or a person outside. Granted it is now 5:30am, but it looks shut, so we move on to the Marriott where I know another friend is staying. They almost fall over themselves to welcome me. The bellhop tells me they have over 1,000 rooms, but occupancy is just 18 percent. I'm not sure how they can justify $250/night, but for the moment, the journey is over.

"We can't even go shopping anymore"

When Finest, a Western supermarket, was hit by a suicide bomber yesterday, I received nine phone calls in the space of about 10 minutes from friends here checking to make sure that I had not, as could so easily have been the case, stopped to pick up some groceries on my way home from the gym.

The calls and emails continued through the day as we learned that it was not a gas canister exploding, but an attack. Someone wrote, “I hope no one you know was affected”.

Yet, the target of the attack -- a supermarket most of us use in the diplomatic part of the city -- meant we were all affected. I had been in that shop three times over the past week; to use the ATM, on the hunt for tonic water and with my first overseas guest, both of us with stinking hangovers looking for something to rehydrate with.

That day, I had been to the gym and had lunch with a friend at the Serena hotel, itself the target of an attack three years ago. We spent a couple hours chatting, drinking coffee and then she paid the bill. As we called our respective cars, I thought about stopping by Finest to pick up some groceries, but I was coming down with a cold, and decided to skip it.

My friend, perhaps having exhausted her money by buying lunch, decided to use the ATM at Finest. The line was long, and so she went up stairs, an odd choice for a browse as there is little up there bar pet products and cleaning items. That’s when the bomber struck. Shooting first and then throwing a hand grenade before blowing himself up. My friend is fine, shaken, but unhurt, luckily because she was upstairs. Several other people, including at least three foreign women, were killed. A dozen or so more were injured.

The phone calls all started, “just checking to make sure you are ok”, and “have you reached so and so?”, but the single most repeated refrain after that was: “I can’t believe it took them so long”. And indeed, it’s true. The Western grocery stores, and there are three main ones in Kabul; the two branches of Finest and a Spinney’s (no connection, I believe, to the one in the UAE) are a fundamentalist’s wet dream. Not only are they full of foreigners; aid workers, UN and NATO staff, journalists and diplomats, their logo emblazoned SUV’s blurting out their presence, but their shelves are packed with products imported from the West; pepperoni pizza, pork sausages, caviar, Bollywood films and even muscle and sex enhancement aids.

Finest was one of those places that seemed to be a cultural free for all. Wealthy Afghans in shiny suits or shawar kameez stocked up on junk food, toys or household appliances; their wives, their headscarves slipping dangerously down the backs of their head and teetering on impossibly high heels watching on anxiously. I too always lost the headscarf the minute I walked inside.
Chinese and Filipino women often came in wearing skin tight jeans and thigh-length boots. Outside, beefy looking body guards wearing sunglasses jostled with kids trying to sell  gum, and there was always a woman in a burqa, one hand cradling a baby, the other outstretched until you got in your car.

The guys at the cashiers were professionals. They had only within the last few months installed a scanner at the checkout. You could pay in dollars or afghanis and someone would carry your groceries to your car for you. The selection seldom varied. Occasionally they would run out of ryvita, or skimmed milk or tonic water, and so you would hustle up to the other Finest or Spinney’s to see what they had.

Security was ridiculously lax. A couple of Afghan guards sitting around on plastic chairs, their AK-47s perched on their laps as they leered at the women entering the store.

One security guard quoted by the BBC yesterday summed up their attitude towards their job:
"I was standing here when I suddenly heard a bang. After a few moments, I heard another bang. I didn't go inside to find out what's happened."

The attack on Finest doesn’t feel like an act of war, but more a personal attack on a group of people who are trying to help this country stand on its own two feet.
While the Taliban have claimed they were targeting the head of the security contractor Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater, it was in fact a personal attack on the international community. The last time this happened was in February of last year, when they attacked an Indian guesthouse.

Today, on the way home from getting a pedicure (life must go on you know) my taxi driver and I drove past Finest. The doors were boarded and gated and there were a few police rangers outside. But otherwise there was little to tell of the horror that had taken place there that day. It still isn’t clear how many people died, some say eight others nine. A child was among them ... probably one of the chewing gum sellers. Perhaps the boy that my friend that day last week gave her can of soda to as he asked her for money.

The attack will certainly scare some people off. Another friend lamented: "We can't even go shopping anymore". But it seems to have the opposite effect on me. I needed to get some money, but I also needed to prove to myself that I wasn’t afraid and so I had the driver stop by the new Finest ... a second branch of the supermarket just around the corner from my house.

There were no UN or NGO cars parked outside, and surprisingly (although this may show me up to be naive) not a shred of extra security. Inside it was quiet, there were no foreigners shopping and only a handful of Afghans. Did they hate me I wondered, for threatening their safety, but yet the business had been making money on people like me for a few years.

It was a stark reminder of the relationship between the international community and Afghans here. They don’t like us being here, but neither do they want us to leave.

I got my money, my vegan soup and cans of hummus and went home.