Dreams about curfew and why I sometimes feel like a pumkin

Did you ever wonder how life would be if it would have elements of a fairy tale? Did you ever wonder if fairytales can come through? No? Are you curious to find out? Yes? Than you should come to Afghanistan. Every Thursday night, the start of a new weekend in Afghanistan, I and my car are at serious stake of turning into a pumpkin.

For reasons which are still a bit obscure to me (as most security incidents happen during daytime), IRC staff members in Afghanistan have to be at home by midnight. Therefore, we start our weekend as soon as possible, so to say immediately after work (which is, as it happens, often eight in the evening). The usual but pleasent mix of restaurant, party and bar follows, and while initial beers are enjoyed in peace, latest by eleven one joggles betweeen another drink or calling the car to make sure that we are home by twelve. Comes eleven thirty, those who are curfew free start the usual joke: hurry up or your car will turn into a pumpkin! I feel slightly flattered by the fact that people draw parallelities between me and cinderella (does that mean that a prince is somewhere out there?). As it happens, I actually never manage to be home by 00:00. It's always something in the range from 00:01 to 00:10. Last Thursday, I found it particularly challanging to leave the french bar, one of the usual thursday night hang outs. First, I had to say good bye to few people. Then I had to finish my drink. When I was already out, I remembered that I had forgotten my shawl. I went back in, asked few guys in a polite way to get up from the sofa, as they might - unconsciously - rest on my shawl (nice trick ;). As I couldnt find it, I decided to go out again. Mentioning it to my friend Kate (who is also part of the pumpkin gang) insisted that we go back in, look for the shawl and send out some last good byes. So back in, I finally found my shawl and thus had no further excuse not to go home. Though we reached home at 00:20, our car didnt turn into pumpkin (would have been too nice if fairy tales could come true... damn, does that mean that the prince doesn't exist?). Instead, I continued dreaming about staying on in the french bar. In my dreams, I lost first my shoes, then I couldnt get hold of the driver, then I started talking to my ex b'friend (something I try to avoid in real, but as Kabul is a very small town, we bump into each other at least once a week). At one point in my dreams, I decided to walk home (how unresponsible). As far as I remember, my dream ended with me getting fired, instead of turning into a pumpkin. But then again, who would expect a fairytale to come true in a city like Kabul?

What would a psychologists answer to my dreams be? That I am a hopeless believer in fairytales, surrounded by a reality that is just not a fairytale at all?

Whats going on in Afghanistan?

During my daily sport session this morning I came accross some shocking, yet not surprising news about Afghanistan. It's an article about a research undertaken by OXFAM on aid delivery in Afghanistan.

"Some $10bn (£5bn) in aid promised to Afghanistan has still to be delivered, aid organisation Oxfam has said. It also finds that two-thirds of aid is not spent through the government and 40% goes back to donor countries in consultant fees and expatriate pay... "

The article goes on telling some numbers of development aid versus budget for the military. Guess: its 7 (development):100 (military) Million a day! No wonder the country isn't moving into the direction it should!

read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7311972.stm

What a life

Sometimes I wonder where I got myself into. My current schedule looks like the following:
5:50 am - generator is switched on, waking me up
5:55 am - alarm clock goes off, reminding me that I should get up
6:00 am - start doing sport for half hour (running, sit ups and push ups - basic, but efficient)
6:30 am - quick shower
6:40 am - coffee and a shot of news (todays news: aid to Afghan is short by 10 bn $; 7 million $ a day go into development, whereas 100 million $ a day go into military - its a weird world, really!)
7:00 am - into the car and up for the office
7:30 am - checking personal mails and writing on my blog how difficult life is
8:00 am - getting myself convinced that I should really start looking into the two proposals that have to be submitted by the 31st of March. Its worldbank format, so loads and loads of attachments and other stuff
13:00 pm - quick lunch, afghan food: naan bread and greasy beans (lucky I do sport in the morning, otherwise I would soon look like one of these short round beans as well...)
13:10 pm - continue working
16:00 pm - go for meeting
17:00 pm - relocate for coffee shop, continue working (thanks god there is wireless internet in Afghanistan!)
20:00 pm - home, cook some spinach to get the necessary vitamins to get me through these days
20:20 pm - continue working
00:30 am - decide to put my computer on stand by and go to bad
00:35 am - can't sleep, as my mind is too agitated from all the thinking and writing
5:50 am - wake up - happy that I had managed to fall asleep at least at one point.

I guess once I have these two proposals out of my sight, I will take a day or two off ... to take care of myself, my blog, my friends, my plants and continue working on my plan for the next five years (I can't do without life planning - though of course, these plans never work out :)

Mobile Butchery - only for people with strong stomachs

Over the past years, I have seen many things being transported on these black universal bikes: chickens, eggs, corn, living goats, hay, metal and wood poles, kids, charcoal, you name it. But yesterday it was actually the first time ever that I saw a slaughtered cow wrapped around a bike. I know I shouldn't put such pictures at my blog, as some of you, especially the vegeterians, might feel offended. However, the sight of this mobile butchery was simply too unique, making it difficult for me not to jump out of the car, take a picture and get it on my blog. At the end, I guess, living abroad for several years has somehow increased my attraction to unusual things and lowered my treshold for slightly disgusting stuff, as long as it has this extraordinary, unusual touch. The good thing is, that you only have to open your eyes a bit wider, overcome your initial culture shock, and places like Kabul which many believe to be not the most beautiful and attractive place on earth suddenly turn into a never ending universe of fascination ... ;)

Kids of Zandajan

On the Silk Road

The Silk Road, a ancient network of trade routes between the East and the West, has over thousands of years crossed Afghanistan. Uncounted numbers of traders covered parts of the route, passing on items from one trader to the other, adding value at each stop. The route sprang into life in the first century BC, when China established embassies with Parthia in modern Iran and Ferghana in central Asia.

Afghanistan has both been producer and trader along the route. The desire among Romans to get silk was so huge and the textile so expensive that the Roman Senate even tried to ban it, on moral as well as economic grounds. As the Chinese guarded the secret of silk production, the textile was only produced in the Far East, and remained an expression of luxury and wealth for centuries. Over the coming centuries, other items such as paper, porcelain and tea, gold, horses and ivory were traded along the road as well. The road was also a highway for ideas, and it was the Kushans who send Buddhist ideas from Afghanistan to China and Buddhist Art to India.

The road reached its peak in the first and second century AD. It was the collapse of the roman empire and the Han Chinese empire some centuries later that caused the collapse of the trade network, while the rise of Islam further changed to balance of the trade in the region. Discovery of the sea routes marked the final decline of the road.

Afghanistan has been one of the witnesses of the surge and decline of the Silk Road, hosting both producers and processors. Today, not much is left from this ancient trade. My current task, to develop a proposal on SME (Small and Medium Enterprise) development for a rural silk enterprise gave me a chance to visit and interact with actors along the silk value chain. On a sunny morning we traveled out to Zandajan district in Western Afghanistan, past the Hari Rud river. Along the river, the landscape is green, but behind the first elevation up from the river bed, the fields are dry. I heard predictions for both floods and droughts that are supposed to hit Afghanistan this year – looking at these landscapes, drought looks more likely. The landscape is only interrupted by clay villages and herds of cashmere goats, bushy as they haven’t been combed yet. Once we entered the village, I felt somehow thrown back in history. Wouldn’t there have been a power line that supplies power from nearby Iran, and the occasional car and mobile phone, I would have been unable to say which century we are in. I wouldn’t idealize it – life in these villages is for certain not easy. But they do have a special charm, comparable to forgotten and abandoned villages in rural Italy, where only the old are left, enjoying a unspectacular life day in day out. With the difference that staying in such remote villages is not a luxury in Afghanistan, but business as usual.

As I had never seen silk production before, I was captured by the humid and warm air in the semi dark room where dried cocoons are boiled to unravel the silk. A silent surren filled the second room, where the silk thread is spun, and the third room where thick silk thread for carpets is produced. Once I had been shown the thread production, we sat down and discussed the opportunities and threats that the silk industry is facing nowadays in Zandajan. Though it still gives part time employment to a considerable number of households in the district, the demand for silk has experienced a decline over the last years. On one side, men are not obliged anymore to wear silk turbans as they were under the Taliban; on the other side, many items that were previously made out of silk are now made out of cheaper, synthetic products. I wonder if a heavily supported rural enterprise will save the industry from decline. Though I would love to spend time out in these districts and villages (its just so much better than hanging out in Kabul), I have my doubts about the potential of success.

Cock fighting

Waiting to compete
Warming up
The twisted dance ...

Showing off
Yahuuuuuuu!
Youngsters getting ready to be part of the adult world
Close capture

What do adult and less adult men do on a sunny friday morning at Babur Garden? They carry around their roosters like little pets to get them compete in cockfights. It's not these bloody cockfights where animals are killed. At least I didnt see any blood or any wounded animals. Each fight takes only about half a minute, until one of the roosters bends down. Evidence that this fights are truly capturing: none of the exclusively male viewers took any notice of me, as I approached the stage in my non-islamic dressing (had forgotten to take on a long t-shirt or Kamiz that would cover my bottom). Usually, you can't get unnoticed as a western woman here in Afghanistan - but not even a western woman seems to be able to compete against the attraction that this game has on Afghan men.

Imagine that

Imagine that despite the fact that Kabul has gone through centuries of destruction (started long time before the Russian invasion), there are things like this grave behind me that have survived all this and remain up to date a silent reminder of Afghanistans rich history

Imagine that you're in Kabul, and you get a breakfast in a french bistro, with warm, crispy croissants, mild cafe o'lait, fresh orange juice and home made jam; would there be champagne in addition, one could mistakingly believe to be in paradise for a short while :)

If you love the problem...

If you love it, the problem is beautiful like a sunset.

Says a good friend of mine, and for good reasons I have to say that it's one of the most beautiful - and true - sayings I have ever read. I am going through a time of little hickups, with a donor refusing to give money and a guy I like deciding to exchange me for his ex girl friend. How much worse can it get? That's why I like this saying. Because - alas` - if you look at the problem as a sunset, it suddenly isn't a problem anymore :)

Women in Afghanistan - first part

This is an article that I came accross in Reuters yesterday. Liked it a lot and thought its worse to share with you, as it demonstrates that there is some progress in Afghanistan (as it is, I see it as my duty to uncover among others the untold stories of Afghanistan)

KABUL, Mar 17 (Reuters) As a young girl living under hardline Islamist Taliban rule, Mahboba Ahdyar could only run around the small courtyard of her house in the Afghan capital. Now she is getting set to race in the Olympic Games.Ahdyar is the only woman among four Afghans due to represent the war-torn country at August's Beijing Olympics and the slightly built 19-year-old 1,500 metre runner stands little chance of a medal.Competing, however, is more about pride and showing the world what Afghan women can do.''When I was small I used to run in my house and watch my brother who was doing body building. I kept my exercising secret even from my neighbours because of the Taliban,'' she told Reuters at the Kabul sports stadium where the Taliban held public executions until they were ousted from power by US-led and Afghan forces in 2001.The Taliban banned women from working or leaving the home without a male relative. Girls could not play outdoors and sport was out of the question.But while some things have improved for women since 2001 and Afghanistan now has female athletes, a women's soccer team, even boxers, many in this deeply conservative society remain hostile.''Some people in our society are against sport for women,'' said Ahdyar. ''They want us only to stay at home, but I disagree with them; God gave the same rights to men and women, that is why I don't care what they say.'' Ahdyar said she was lucky to have the support of her family. ''I'm so proud of my daughter representing Afghanistan at the Beijing Olympics,'' said mother Majan Ahdyar. ''She is so fond of her sport, she even exercises at night outside in the street because our house is not big enough.'' NO FEAR But some neighbours jeer at the athlete as she travels to and from her small mudbrick home in a poor area of Kabul for training.''My father, mother and brother all support and encourage me that is why I am here now,'' said Mahboba. ''The problem is with my neighbours; they are trying to humiliate me, that is the main problem I have.'' The Taliban have now come back to fight an insurgency against the pro-Western government and foreign troops in Afghanistan and many ordinary Afghans have fallen victim to suicide bombs, assassination and kidnapping. But Ahdyar is undaunted.''I'm not scared of anything because God created me one day and I believe that one day I will die,'' she said. ''Whatever is my destiny will happen. I am choosing the right way which is for my benefit and the benefit of all young people.'' Ahdyar trains in a loose tracksuit and headscarf, something she says she will not change to compete in the Olympics.''I am an Afghan and a Muslim girl and wearing a headscarf is an obligation for Muslim girls,'' she said. ''I will not take off my scarf in China when I race because it is symbol of Muslim women.'' Apart from a spell as a refugee in Pakistan, Ahdyar has never travelled abroad, but she and Afghan male sprinter Masood Azizi are soon due to travel to Malaysia for a five-month training camp before going to China.Facilities there will be a world away from those in Afghanistan.There is not a single proper running track in the whole country and the pair of Olympians train on a concrete track circling the dusty soccer pitch inside the main stadium. The more basic problem of lack of a good diet also dogs Afghan athletes.Ahdyar is reluctant to predict how she will perform in Beijing.''I don't want to forecast what will happen to me, but I believe in God and I want God almighty to help me.''

Can a phone company reshape our lives?

Not long ago, I paid a visit to a place called Barik Ab. The place is a land allocation site, north of Kabul, designed to be a home for people who have lost their home across decades of war and flight. It’s a desperate piece of land, stuck against mountains at one side, dry land on the other side. The quietness of the place is frequently cut by rotor blades from black hawks that patrol the sky between Bagram and Kabul, and military tanks that speed on the narrow road between Bagram and Kabul, past Barik Ab. Despite the high tech military equipment that inhabits the air and land around Barik Ab, there is little that reminds of technological invention inside Barik Ab. The place is cut off from power supply, roads are impassable most of the time around the year, and school is held in the open space in the center of the town. Few shops sell sweets and sticky orange juice in dusty packages to those who can afford. Can a mobile phone company reshape the lives of those in Barik Ab? I asked the owner of the shop where he got the sign board from. He didn’t remember. What counts for him is that it protects his shop from wind, sun and rain. So in one way, the mobile phone company does reshape lives. In this case just not through communication, but through a more hands on support.
Note: ROSHAN is one of the biggest mobile phone companies in Afghanistan, owned as far as I am aware by the AGA KHAN network.

What's forever?

As a child, I remember, one of my teachers explained eternity as the time that a single bird would need to carry away a whole mountain if it flies by every 100 years and picks up one single piece of sand at a time. My answer was disbelief, since one day, even though trillions of years away, the bird would have completed its task, and the mountain would have flown away together with it. So what’s forever? I think it was this story that made me never ever again believe that anything in this world could be forever. Nothing and nobody have since succeeded to convince me of the opposite. Whatever we see, whatever we do, whomever we meet, has an expiry date printed in small letters somewhere, even though sometimes it takes you some time to find it.

At the lake

Karga - lake, golf course, restaurants: recreational area not far from Kabul and yet so different. Friday afternoon you can see batallions of kabuli families pilgraming out to grasp a bit of sun and breath in some less polluted air. Basically the same what we were doing for the first time this weekend. Escaping from Kabuls traffic chaos and the layer of smog, from the constant noise. A bit of peace? Somehow.

Four months Kabul

Ignoring the Christmas holidays which I spend at home in Italy, I have been living in Kabul for about four months already. The city hasn’t lost any of its fascination since I arrived here in late October, but many things which were then obscured by the fog of the unknown, are now known and don’t scare or surprise me anymore. The blind map which Kabul was when I first arrived has since been filled with a multitude of spots, standing for people I met, places I visited, things I saw. I drive through the city in a much more relaxed mood than I would have done three months ago, knowing more about security and potential risks. I don’t take much notice of the hundreds of heavily armed security guards along my way to the office. I ignore the awful huge barricades behind which ISAF and diplomats and private contractors are hiding. If there is a bomb blast somewhere, I continue working as if it would be the most normal thing that could happen. I also got used to the ever bigger growing mosques all over the town, whose owners seem to have a silent competition going on of who will build the highest minaret. Over the past four months, I succeeded to develop small habits to make this place more feel like home: plants in my room which I carefully water every morning; some large photographs from mountains on the wall; regular walks on the weekend to Babur Gardens or the lake at the edge of the city; brunch in a French café on Friday morning with croissant and café o lait; occasional bbq’s; and sometimes a drink straight after work in one of Kabul few pubs.

I have learned the basics of Dari, and am now able to correctly say “ma Darira kam kam mefamedum” – “I know a little bit of Dari”. Besides that, I am able to say “mushkel nes” – no problem, and “Roze Kosh” – have a nice day.

I have seen autumn colors, winter cold and the first messengers of spring.

Work wise, much has changed since I arrived: originally meant to coordinate a vocational training program, I have been turned into a proposal writer for rural livelihoods programs and – the newest – I am about to develop a proposal for small and medium enterprise implementation support. Especially this latest proposal makes me feel very much as if I would be back in University. It reminds me of these situations where I had to write a paper about a subject that is so totally out of what I usually write that it takes me weeks and weeks of staring onto a white paper until I finally find the key for how to write a paper about a subject I know nothing about. Unfortunately, the real world is less generous than my university, and so I was only granted few days of staring, knowing that in two weeks the fifty page proposal on how to make enterprises working here in Afghanistan has to be down on paper and on the desk of the donor. ARRG!

Social wise, not much have changed. I basically still enjoy to finally again be in a crowd large enough to keep some level of anonymity, and being able to talk to a guy without half of the town suspecting I am having a fling, as it would have been the case in Somaliland. Nonetheless, I still miss few people from Somaliland, and a very tiny bit of me is playing with the idea of taking up a job that would allow me to go back and forth to Somaliland, Kenya and Ethiopia, without necessarily having to be based there.

Four months Kabul and two years Somaliland have also made me realize that though I like being in places like Afghanistan, I more and more miss those things I crave most in life: ability to take a bike on an early Sunday morning, breathing in fresh cold spring air, and driving without goal, just for the sake of experiencing this unique feel of freedom; climbing up a mountain, leaving behind the dust of everyday life; leaning back in a soft chair inside a cinema and watching films; spending hours and hours in a semi dark second hand book store, smelling this unique scent of old books. But than again, if I would be in a place where I could have all this, I would most probably miss the chaotic, yet charming lifestyle of places like Kabul and take the first opportunity to go back to these places

Sleeping well?

Must be a cosy place for a little power nap :)

Spring time

Three weeks ago I was still hovering next to my bukari, trying to stay somewhat warm, and all of a sudden, little flowers, messengers of a new season, are popping up in my garden. It's quite unbelieveable how quick seasons change here in Kabul. Yesterday I still wrapped myself in several layers of cloths, resembling and feeling very much like an onion, to keep myself warm, and today, I am sitting outside my house in short sleaves, dreaming of an icecoffee and swimmingpool.

Its the first time in four years that I experience a real change of seasons, and maybe thats the reason why I am so excited about it all. I haven't missed seasons for the first two years while staying in east and horn of Africa. But towards the end, I really started missing icy winter nights, forests dipped into an endless variety of autumn colors, and chilly, fresh spring mornings. There are many things I liked about staying in Somaliland and Kenya, but I think at the end of the day, I am simply not made for a life in tropical areas. Sun and warm weather is just so much more enjoyable after a harsh winter! In that sense, I think that I am and will always be a child of seasons, for which extreme changes between winter, spring, summer, autumn is enough to feel happy.

Shomali plains

Apologies that I communicate mainly through pictures these days. Not that there isn't enough to tell - as always, there are hundred of stories and thoughts swirling around in my mind. But I need time to write them down - to concretize them and bring them into a format that other people could make sense out of my toughts, too. So thats why I am posting mainly pictures - but remember, these pictures are in essence showing all these little and great things that capture my attention. So in one or the other way, they are also part of my stories and thoughts.
Above are some of the landscapes of the Shomali plains, just outside Kabul. Wonderful places, which I could drive through and look at for hours and hours without getting bored (walking over these field is unfortunately not possible due to the hazard of occasional mines)

In the middle of no where

Forty kilometers outside Kabul, I came accross this signboard, an advertisement for a beauty saloon, where women get dressed up for weddings. It's one of these things that shows that defenitely, there has been a change over the past seven years. It's unlikely that any such signboard would have lasted long under the taleban regime.

How you wouldn't name your shop in Europe

Can you imagine a store called the "calory store" in Europe? Must be one of these cultural differences!