Why I am writing a blog

Not long time ago I mentioned to some of you in an email that the primary purpose of having a blog is to offer an alternative view on Afghanistan to friends and relatives back home. Although that's still true, there seems to be a second, very simple reason for writing a blog, too: It seems that I have always been taking notes of my life.

Few days ago, while sitting on my desk in my old room at home, I looked at the shelf at eye height, and what did I see? Dozens of books, whose content covered almost twenty years of my life (it's nearly twenty years ago that I learned how to make use of a pen and a paper). I first started writing a little diary during summer holidays. Due to the lack of a camera, I added my own drawings to it. The things I wrote were of a simple style, such as "today I met my best friend, and we played in the swimmingpool. This was really nice". Or: "today I did rollerskating. This was wonderful".

During the successive years, writing became a bit more sophisticated, and a tool to read and understand my surroundings. Not only did I write what I did, but also what I thought about certain things, what I felt, what I discussed with people. My first kiss for instance marked an emotional outbreak which my writing style had never seen before. Unfortunately, the guy lived far away in Berlin, which eventually forced me to abandon dreams to see him again and instead turn my ambitions towards people in closer reach. With time, my books became less centered around my doings, and more around my thoughts. Much later, observations of the world around me became the focus of my writing.

Sometimes, when reading through the books of the years between my childhood and adulthood, I feel a bit sorry for the people who lived with me. Foremost, I seemed to be - by principle - against everything which was told to me by people around me, regardless of whether they were older or younger, relatives or friends. The only thing I seemed to believe in was the "wisdom" I got from books written by Hesse and Kafka. I also feel a bit sorry for myself when I read my own writings from those times today. How much energy must I have vasted by simply being against everything. How much of these efforts could I have invested slightly more useful things.... But than again, one has to learn her/his own lessons, as a german saying goes. I guess my parents accepted that saying one day and though I didn't acknowledge it by then, they helped me a lot to go through these years of teenage rebellion and eventually find an exit to get out of the "me against the world mood". When I read through the diaries today, I see the lessons which I learned, and I am happy that I learned them.

So, it seems that writing a blog is not simply a mean to provide my relatives and friends with an alternative view upon afghanistan, but simply a continuation of what I have been doing througout my life: taking notes of what I observe and of what I think.

Around my village

Earlier on I mentioned how much I adore the beauty of the place where I grew up, even though I don't feel entirely familiar anymore with it's inhabitants. With the pictures above I would like to share some of my favorite spots with you. Enjoy :)

Talking about who is who

For three days I have been home again. Home in my tiny village in northern Italy. It's an average village, with few schools, few churches, and few bars. It hasn't changed much over the last 26 years, except that some of the old houses have been removed, and some new houses have joined in, and some few acres with apple trees and vineyards have been sacrificed for even more houses. Yet, every time I come home from Africa and nowadays Asia I feel a bit more like a stranger to this place.

Though the place still looks the same (with the minor changes mentioned above), and though I can still walk with my eyes closed through the forests around my village, something has changed. It's these totally irrelevant encounters like the one today in the bus that make me realize that though I simply love the abundant beauty of the place where I grew up, I am not connecting to it anymore the way I probably did years ago when I was still permament resident here.

Today I was sitting in the bus, and few rows in front of me were few elderly women. Immediately after arranging themselves on the not very cosy seats of the bus, they started the "who-is-who" chat. For one hour they continued exchanging news about who has married whom, who has died, who has gotten a baby, who is ill, who is happy in life, who has a new pet, who is in love with whom, who is related to whom, which female-who is not very happy with her youngster-who, and which female-who is very blessed with her youngster-who, and so on. Since the variety of surnames is not very big, the same names kept on popping up: Trettl, Meraner, Wohlgemut and few others. They sounded familiar to me, but despite all these names and seemingly important news being mentioned just few seats in front of me, I wasn't able to match faces to any of the names. Slowly I started wondering if that means that I am not any longer socially "fit" enough to survive in the village I grew up in? I also wondered if my name pops up, too, in the neverending who-is-who chats? After all, there are not many whos in my region who live in Afghanistan and previosly in Somaliland ;)

Anyhow, the who-is-who is after all not very important. Just wanted to share few lines on it, since thoughts about the conversation by these ladies in front of me in the bus kept on coming back while I was walking through the forest once again with my dog this afternoon. Last but not least, I have to say, that even though I don't know many who's in my place any more, I met enough precious people around the globe, who, even though I might not know what they are doing nowadays, if they are married or not, if they have kids, if they are healthy or not, still live on in my memories :)

Just arrived, and already on my way home again.

Unbelievable how fast time can pass by! It feels as if I would just have arrived in Kabul, and now I am already on my way home again, to celebrate christmas (for the first time in four years!) with my entire family. It will be the first time in nearly three years that we are all under one roof (me, my sister, my brother and my parents) and I am quite looking forward to it, though I am also a bit anxious about the chirstmas "stress". After all, I haven't been exposed to any real and fake christmas glamour in four years.

The first two months in Kabul have - all in all - been great. It was such a good feeling to be in a new place. While I initially felt like looking at a map with only the physical features, but no names, I have - by now - added quite some few names to it: names of people, places, things, thoughts. I am truly looking forward to add even more color to my imaginatory map upon my return to Kabul in January!

In the meantime I hope that I will be able to add some few more pictures and stories from the last two months onto my blog, while at home in Italy. Johanna

People

My recent trip to Jalalabad was not only a good way to see a bit of Afghanistans' country side, but also an excellent opportunity to meet and talk to the people I am here to assist through my position of VET (vocational education and training) coordinator. This year alone my department has trained (through local training centres) over 2500 people of all ages, in a variety of skills. When I visited Jalalabad, most training courses were already completed, and we thus had a chance to visit some of the graduates in their work place (at least those who had succeeded to access employment/self employment). In most places that I passed to visit trainees, people were extremely friendly and welcoming. In three days, I have drunk more tea and eaten more candies than I would usually do in an entire week (in Afghanistan, there is just no way you could meet with somebody without being offered tea and candies - instead of sugar). Whenever I took out my camera, a crowd of kids usually gathered, asking for pictures. Funny, other than in other countries I have been too, people in Afghanistan simply seem to enjoy being on a picture (in other countries, the request for pictures is often linked to some money and/or promise to send back at least one of the pictures).

Below are some of my favorite pictures, memories of some of the encounters which I had with people in and around Jalalabad
Kids in the streets of JalalabadCommunity members during a graduation ceremony for project beneficiaries who had just completed a tailoring course
A group of women in Sheihk Masri, one of the officialy land allocation sites provided by the Government of Afghanistan to the returnees from Pakistan and Iran.
Trainees from a carpentry course. The one in the background has participated in a training last year, and is by now a master trainer, too.
Again, Sheikh Masri. I will defenitely write more about these land allocation schemes more one of the next days...
And again, Sheikh Masri land allocation site. More to follow

Jalalabad

Bollywood Ritschkas in Jalalabad
Bazar in Jalalabad
Fuel station in Jalalabad

Into Jalalabad

Few days ago I finally got a chance to get out of Kabul. It was the first time since I arrived here in Kabul on the 22nd of October this year: not just the first time outside Kabul, but also the first time to see a blue sky and to breath fresh air (Kabul is - as I had to discover few kilometers outside the town - indeed covered by a layer of smog and dust!)

The destination of my trip was Jalalabad, a town approximately 100 miles east of Kabul. The town is situated much lower than Kabul and thus enjoys a warm climate. Although they towns are only a short distance apart, the landscape changes dramatically between Kabul and Jalalabad. The first - and infamous - leg of the journey on the Jalalabad road goes past military camps and the grey-brownish industrial area of Kabul. Few kilometers outside of town, the road enters a narrow valley, which turns more and more narrow and rocky the further one proceeds. Than, all of a sudden, the road ends into seemingly nothing. It felt a bit like floating on a river that leads straight to a steep waterfall. But there was no rush - instead, Indian music best known from bollywood films filled the car. Wondering if the car would spread out hidden wings and fly down the walls, the road finally became visible again, sneaking down the rocky gorge like a mountain python. Despite the fact that the road is relatively wide and well tarmacked, it was still scary to sit in the car and watch other cars and trucks overturning as if they would be on Route 66... (I have never been there myself, but whenever I saw pictures of route 66, it seemed to be one endless, straight road with nothing but desert to its right and left...)

Once down the hill, the valley got wider again, and we continued our drive along the Kabul river. It's waters are of an icy blue, and every now and then green fields border the river bank. Beyond the green fields, there is nothing but mountains. I guess it was the view of these mountains that finally made me feel to be in the right country (sounds weird, I agree... but than again, it doesn't need much for me to be happy: some mountains, some interesting scenery, some funny street signs, some nice people :)

At one point, our car made a strange noise, as if the wheel would would have suddenly decided to go on leave... We stopped, and what I saw on the opposite side of the road was not very promising: a broken down car. Those are the kind of coincidences which I don't really like. Anyhow, our driver just muttered a brief "mushkel nes" (no problem), and drove on. I wonder what commentthe driver from the car on the opposite side of the road made to his passengers before ending the journey once and forever.

After two hours of driving, the first palm tree stood like a lonely messenger of the sub-Indian continent in the middle of a otherwise empty field. Not much later, olive trees, akacia and sugar cane diffused a mediterranaen-tropical flair. For a slight moment I stopped thinking about the country I am in, ignoring the white painted rocks that signalled cleared mine fields in a proximity of the road.

Jalalabad itself was filled by a hustle and buslte that only countries like Afhganistan can have. All types of wheel based-moving whatever things combined mediaval, Asian and somewhat modern transportation systems, ranging from carosses to ritschkas, cars and trucks. The local bazar was full of people (mainly men), selling whatever can be sold. Fascinatingly, bazars in Afghanistan are still organized according to trades, meaning that each trade has one section in the bazar. So you can walk past ten shops with textiles that all look the same for the imbicil outsider, and end up in the metal section, where each shop again seems to sell exactly the same items.

While the fields immediately around Jalalabad burst in green, few kilometors beyond the fertile grounds of Kabul and Kunar river, a desert of stone begins. Build into this desert like pieces of skin are tiny villages, and it remains a question to me how people manage to survive in this harsh environment. Some few sheeps every now and then, but other than that? The only real color that these villages have are the signboards of all the international and local NGOs that have supported their existence (and thus, justified their own existence). Every few hundred meters they try to convey the endless tale of development; sometimes, they stand next to a water well, in other cases next to a tented school. Sometimes, there is just the board.

There are still hundreds of impressions which I collected over the past few days and which I would like to get down on paper before they fade out. But its already half past ten, and my eyes will be totally red tomorrow if I don't stop looking into this piece of electro... in front of me. So for now, enjoy the pics below and I will write more, soon. Johanna

Maintenance flight

Friday in town ... though many of you might think that there is nothing to do in a town like Kabul, there are indeed quite some few things one can do. Not long ago for instance I got a chance to jump on a helicopter flight. OK, I want elaborate too much on the circumstances (it was a maintenance flight, which basically means that some repair work had to be done on the helicopter and to see whether the repair was useful or not, a little flight is undertaken). Lucky I was just standing next to this friend of mine when he got invited to join his colleagues on the flight, and so, two hours later, we drove into the heli section of Kabul airport, witnessing the last screw of the rotor blades being tightened. After a short, but professional introduction (ala "in case we have an emergency landing please try to remain calm") we took off. I felt a bit queasy when we were all of a sudden lifted up into the air, as if somebody would pull on the rotor blades of our helicopter - but once I got used to, I just loved it! The feeling of buzzing like an bee through the sky and looking down upon the hustle and bustle of Kabuls streets and the quietness of the country side around Kabul. And, with a little bit of photoshop, I was able to get rid of the smog that blurred the pictures initially :)

Andy, Wendy, and Jared, getting ready for the flight (while last repairs are done on the blades...)Centre of Kabul Road to the Airport (great visibility of aid money...)Country side around Kabul - geometry in its best

Around Kabul
Myself, laughing over all the funny stuff that pilots from russian planes are shouting into their radios

Thanks for looking at my blog :)

Hey everybody out there,

great to see (thanks to this lovely tool called clustermaps) that people are actually looking up my blog. It's kinda a good feeling to know that people take interest in whatever I am doing in Kabul. Internet connections are pretty slow today, and since I am just out of a day long meeting, I don't feel like writing much. There weren't that many good news today, anyway, at least not regarding security in Afghanistan (one suicide attack this morning in Kabul, kidnapping threat against national staff members (it's sad to see how little the international press talks about all these national NGO and not NGO workers who get threats AND kidnapped on a constant basis, much more actually than internationals do), and another kidnapping warning against international NGOS in Jalalabad (a town I am supposed to travel to soon, since we have some of our projects implemented there).

So, lets leave it like that today, but I will try to post some more interesting and encouraging stories over the weekend (and great air views of Kabul from a helicopter flight that I joined recently :)

Best

Jo

My way to work

Sometimes I feel like prison break when I am driving to my work. While the first half part leads through a pleasent suburb (Shar-e-naw, which means "new city" if I am not mistaken), the second part is a slalom past highly armed embassies, the ISAF headquarter, and last but not leats, just in front of my office, a compound of guys who deal with anti narcotics business. Surely, understandable that they have to protect themselves (in a country where opiom production reached last year a peak never seen before, people who try to interfere with this trade are not the most welcome guys in town...). Still, despite understanding that my neighbours have to fear for their life, it feels a bit odd when driving past this gate, where all around the clock a guy stands with a gun directed towards everything that is passing by. Even though he usually tries to smile at me (by now, they know that I am part of IRC), I am sometimes getting a bit scared....

My counterstrategy to all these highly armed security guards is reading my dari phrase book, which can be quite amusing. Today for instance I leared that one of my colleagues is called "sun" (Aftab), and that sitara, the name of another friend of mine, means "star". If I ever happen to have kids, I will defenitely go for one of these meaning-beautyful dari names!

cheers
Johanna

Sare ko barf nast!

Sometimes the smallest and seemingly unimportant things can make me feel happy and smile for an entire day. This morning, when driving out from my yard onto the street, blended by a huge red early morning sun, I turned my eyes away from the sun and looked into the other direction. And there, not far from the city, I could all of a sudden see an entire mountain range, shimmering in a bright white, illuminated by the red sun. How comes that something so simple as snow can be of such beauty? I felt like jumping out of the car and running towards the mountains, so as to touch this first sign of winter, so amazed I was by this white powder in the mountains above the city. Instead (my driver wouldn't allow me to jump out and run around the car like a mad person), I learned how to talk about snow in Dari:

Sare ko barf nast - there is snow in the mountains
Dar shar barf nes - there is no snow in the city
Badan barf mebatab - there will be snow in the city

asman - sky
zamin - earth.

So at least when I am turned again into a small child when seeing snow, I can share my happiness with people around me :)

More pictures from Kabul

An astonishing view of Kabul from the top of a hill. Once in a while the sky is clear enough to see the mountains in the background.
The old swimmingpool - never seen water so far, and chances that it will ever see water are slim. In the meantime, it is happily used as sports ground for kids from the surrrounding quarters
Other then in some other countries I have been to, taking snaps of people does not seem to be an issue in Afghanistan, or at least not in Kabul. I recently went up to the old soviet swimmingpool (more to that one at a later stage), and as soon as I took out my camera I was surrounded by kids who simply wanted me to take a picture of them. No asking for Money, no asking for my camera, no camera stolen... I like this place!