Hirat

Hirat Airport, the most confusing Airport I have ever been to. It's a ever changing environment, where you can never be quite sure of where to check in, where to get your bags controlled, where to deposit your luggage, where to go to the toilet, where to get your cup of coffee... thanks god at least planes have so far continued to land in the same spot!
Traditional houses along the highway to Iran
And once again, a glimpse of the great landscapes of Afghanistan, this picture taken not far from the border to Iran

What I have been up to lately

Surely not updating my blog! Apologies to those who keep on looking it up for updates... I haven't been very good in doing so lately. Work has been cracy, as it tends to be here in Afghanistan, with few new projects starting up, some new proposals to write, field trips to Hirat, Gardez (didn't have time to put pictures from that trip on the web yet, but will do so as soon as I get more time) and Jalalabad. Next week I am back to Hirat, thereafter again Jalalabad and then - thanks god - finally again out of the country for a conference in Oxford, few days at the end of July. I feel that I am turning a bit into a jetsetter (humanitarian jetsetter?), but whats good about it all is that my work, though way too much according to my personal preference, is fun, interesting and gives me new things to learn every day.

Just for the case work doesn't keep me busy enough, recent developments in Afghanistan, particularly in terms of security ensure that I am not getting bored. Bad news dripple in on a daily basis, with the spectacular prison break in Kandahar (you must have heard of that) just one of the highlights. Afghanistan is becoming a more and more hostile environment for NGOS to work, and for millions of Afghans to live. Every month it seems more red - no go - dots fill the map of Afghanistan. Security has been tense in Kabul as well, with repeated threat warnings against so called "expat" locations.

Besides worrying worsing security, there are clear signs that this years lack of rain, combined with global food shortage and high food prices will have major impacts on Afghanistan.

I read a quote in an article yesterday, which I somehow agree too, even though it is depressing: "Afghanistan isn't a failed state, because it has never been a successful one". I sometimes stop and wonder how much we can really achieve in a country as fragile as afghanistan

babur garden

Inside Babur Garden with my friend Jake (who loves jumping into the air and tickling a laugh out of kids) on a Friday morning. Already at eight in the morning, afghan families started flocking into the park, with kids, jars of hot tea, gas cookers, containers with meat, and everything else a real afghan needs for a proper picknick. I think it's great that somebody took care of rehabilitating and maintaning this hundreds of years old recreational site, despite the hardship and destruction this city has gone through, and despite all the other things that have to be fixed.

Sunset

Courtesy of a friend, who is not just a great photographer, but in addition one of the most creative persons I have met so far when it comes to manipulating pictures posthum :)

Prisonbreak

From New York times... Prisonbreak is real!

Taliban Free 1,200 in Attack on Prison The New York Times By CARLOTTA GALL June 14, 2008In a brazen attack, Taliban fighters assaulted the main prison in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Friday night, blowing up the mud walls, killing 15 guards and freeing around 1,200 inmates. Among the escapees were about 350 Taliban members, including commanders, would-be suicide bombers and assassins, said Ahmed Wali Karzai, the head of Kandahar’s provincial council and a brother of President Hamid Karzai. “It is very dangerous for security. They are the most experienced killers and they all managed to escape,” he said by telephone from Kandahar. A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, said that the attack was carried out by 30 insurgents on motorbikes and two suicide bombers, and that they had freed about 400 Taliban members, The Associated Press reported.The breakout from Sarposa Prison will present enormous security challenges for Afghan and NATO forces surrounding Kandahar, President Karzai’s home city but also the spiritual capital of the Taliban. Traditionally, Kandahar is home to the rulers of Afghanistan, and control of it is seen as critical to the government’s hold on the entire country.The city has been in a precarious situation since Taliban forces massed in the nearby district of Panjwai in 2006. Since then Canadian forces have struggled to secure the area, and the Taliban have repeatedly sought to gain a foothold in the districts surrounding the town. The prison break is also likely to increase pressure on President Karzai, who is coming under increasing criticism at home and abroad for his faltering leadership and his inability to manage the country. Even as international donors pledged $21 billion in aid for Afghanistan this week, many of them have criticized his failure to tackle the problems of security and corruption. The attack began at 9:20 p.m., when two truck bombs exploded at the prison gates, breaking down a part of the mud walls, Ahmed Karzai said. It seemed to be well planned, officials said. After the bombings, a group of fighters armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles mounted an attack, said a spokesman for the provincial governor. They then ran through the prison, breaking open the cell doors.The prison lies on the west side of the city. Residents living about a half mile away in the center of town said the explosions broke windows in their street and that they could hear fighting raging for an hour after that. Mr. Karzai said that the attackers focused their efforts on the political section of the prison, where the Taliban suspects were being held. There is also a section for ordinary criminals and one for some 80 female prisoners. Mr. Karzai said that the police and prison guards managed to prevent around 200 prisoners from escaping, but other officials contacted in the town said that every last prisoner had escaped.While there were also ordinary criminals in the jail, families of many of the prisoners have said their relatives were swept up in military operations and wrongly imprisoned. Villagers living near the prison said they saw prisoners running along the roads, and scattering into nearby villages, generally heading north and east to the districts of Dand and Argandab outside the city, a security official in the city, Abdul Haleem, said. He warned that the Taliban could be sheltering very close to the city. Canadian troops, part of the NATO force that is based outside Kandahar, were deployed to the prison but arrived after the prisoners had escaped. Afghan Army, police and intelligence personnel were pursuing the prisoners in the surrounding villages, Mr. Karzai said.The prison was recently the scene of unrest, with some 400 prisoners staging a hunger strike in May to protest their long detention without trial. Some had been held for as long as two years without trial, and some were being refused the right to appeal very harsh sentences, they said. More than 40 of the prisoners stitched their lips together with needle and thread to demonstrate their determination. Some 300 women who came to protest outside the prison at the time said their relatives inside had been picked up by NATO and American military sweeps and were innocent but nevertheless held without trial for months and even years. Local elders and government officials negotiated an end to the protest and promised better conditions and justice. Yet, the jailbreak is likely to prove popular with many local families.Taliban prisoners staged another escape from the prison several years ago by digging a tunnel from a cell. Officials at the time said some of the guards had been bribed to look the other way. Carlotta Gall reported from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Abdul Waheed Wafa contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan

Dust & heat

Two things take away the joy of sumer in Kabul: Dust & heat.
Dust is basically everywhere: it's deep in the carpet floor that covers 99.9% of all indoor space in Afghanistan; it's stuck in between the keys of my lap top; it's attached to cars (both inside and outside); it's permanently settled on my hands (no matter how often a day I wash them); it materializes itself as a brown stream when I wash my hair; it builds up tiny dunes on my balkony; it is on my food; it is on my books; it is happily swimming at the bottom of my tea cup; and... it drives me crazy! There is simply no single tiny space in Afghanistan where there is no dust. My office these days is more like a sauna that hasn't been cleaned in a while, then a cool and fresh place where inspiration for great ideas can florish ... anyhow, didn't mean to complain... just wanted to share a bit of the hassles I am exposed to :)

Road from J'bad to Kabul

Few pictures I wanted to share with you from my last trip to Jalalabad. In case you haven't realized it yet: Afghanistan is a GREAT country. Even though it is, in many ways, as sad as it is fascinating.