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