Riots & Refugees
Sunday, August 27th, 2006Day 274
A little more fall out from the poor behavior at last week’s meeting. One of the ladies who had opposed the presentation given at the meeting has resigned and is leaving Afghanistan. NOT the rudest one, which is a little bit of a surprise. The rudest one is part of the Norwegian Embassy while the one who is resigning used to be part of an Embassy, but had recently quit there and taken a job with an Afghan ministry.
Though she wasn’t the really rude one in this case, she apparently had some history, (”She’d need a lorry to carry around her baggage,”) according to one British acquaintance. Without the protection of an Embassy, I think she became an easy target, and caught the brunt of her colleague’s actions.
Day 276 14 Aug
Some of our guys got reported as a riot the other day. Funny, but stupid.
We all work on programs that require coordination between U.S., Afghan, NATO (ISAF), or various non Governmental organizations like the UN. A couple of our guys were working on a program that involves us, our Engineer Dept, the Afghan Engineering District (mostly U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) various Afghan ministries, and whatever other Embassies and NGOs want to participate. They had set up a critical meeting, which was to take place in one of our nearby compounds. As people started arriving at the gate for the meeting, it rapidly became obvious that the compound ‘owners’ hadn’t bothered to tell their gate guards (who are local Afghans) that people would be coming. No list of names, no coordination, no entry. And, no one who had the authority to let people in could be found, so…… the Afghan principals were getting upset and decided to leave. A compromise was quickly worked out. Since the primary ministry involved was just down the street, they’d move the meeting down there.
Everyone walked the two hundred yards down to that gate, where the Afghans were quickly admitted. Only now, the Americans couldn’t get in. No weapons allowed! That would be fine if there had been someplace to secure the weapons…
Someone finally contacted a responsible party in the original compound and arranged to get everyone in to the meeting. Since the principals were fed up at this point, they decided to sit it out, but sent their deputies to represent them. Everyone trooped back down the street and finally managed to get the meeting going about an hour late.
Someone, however, had noticed the large crowd wandering back and forth in the street and reported it as an incipient riot, which we didn’t find out until several hours later. They weren’t really observant, of course, or they would have wondered why there were so many American and British uniforms mixed into the crowd…
Day 279 19 Aug
You may recall that I wrote about Afghan Independence Day last month. Well, today is Independence Day again. Last month was independence from the Soviet Union, back in, around 1987. Today is independence day from the British, back in about 1925. I think they have at least two more independence days during the year. It just doesn’t pay to be a crossroads.
Day 287
It’s interesting how some people’s minds work. I went down earlier this week to help the chaplains sort material for a visit to a refugee camp today. Most stuff is used but perfectly serviceable; clothes, shoes, toys, etc. This time, a couple of the boxes contained everything you needed for an Apple IIe computer. Except the ‘brain’. Oh, and no software. Wow.
We got rid of my IIe nearly twenty years ago! It was outmoded then. Crazy people.
So today, we went out to the refugee camp, which wasn’t near as busy as I thought it would be.
On the way out there, I finally saw an actual traffic accident, as opposed to seeing cars at the side of the road with their wheels ripped off due to hitting a pothole wrong.
The accident was directly caused by the local traffic rules, or lack of same.
On a four lane street, we’re used to seeing two lanes of traffic going in each direction. That’s not how it works here. EACH of the four lanes is bidirectional, at the discretion of each individual driver. It’s not unusual to be driving down the street and see opposing traffic go by you … on the sidewalk to your right.
In this case, I was driving the middle vehicle of a three vehicle convoy down the ‘inside’ lane when a small sedan passed us on the left, in the ‘opposing traffic’ inside lane. Unfortunately, this time the opposing traffic was closer than he estimated, so his dodge back into our lane, in front of our lead vehicle, turned into an out of control spin that put him into a ditch, just missing a guy on a bicycle. I’m surprised I haven’t seen more like this, but he was traveling faster than most. Usually the speeds aren’t fast enough to lose control easily. Ah, well.
The refugee camp is a big, mostly empty compound. A couple of four story, former government office buildings that obviously had a pitched battle fought through them serve to house most of the people. Some smaller outbuildings and tents house the rest. No glass in any of the window areas. No FRAMES in most of the window areas. Just walls, roof and tarps to cover whatever openings there were. All the buildings had been hard hit by heavy caliber weapons at some time, probably tank main guns.
Our primary mission was a food drop. Flour, canned pears and boxes of crackers were the staple items. The secondary mission was to keep the kids out from under foot while the parents and a small detail of soldiers unloaded the food.
So, for forty-five minutes, most of us worked on passing out toys and organizing play with the kids. Any soldier who failed to be firm enough was immediately mobbed to get whatever they had in their hands. I ended up spending my time reaching into tangles of soldiers/kids and sorting out hands/kids/toys rather than having one kid make off with whatever he could grab. A few of our soldiers did manage to maintain discipline in their little area, and things went much better for them. Our folks just aren’t used to the aggressiveness of these kids, and hesitate to be aggressive back because we just don’t treat other people’s kids that way. One more skill to learn.
By the time we got everything unloaded and headed back up the road, the car was out of the ditch and gone. The drive back to camp was as uneventful as any normal drive in Kabul could be.
Since Friday is our ‘low operational tempo day’, we went down to our bazaar in the afternoon. A couple of my cohorts have ordered some suits in the last few weeks, and they look really good and are pretty well made. So I ordered a nice, dark blue cashmere, three button suit with a vest. It should be ready next Friday, and will set me back $70. I’ll probably get a lighter color for summer once I’ve made sure this one fits right.
Update: Best suit I’ve ever owned. I ended up buying two more.
Day 289
I got to go over and sit in a UNAMA/NGO meeting today. (United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan/Non Governmental Organizations.) Two hours in a sweltering room while they discussed ’security’ and what they could do about it. Since most of them still refuse to believe that terrorists might target them, there isn’t much they’ll be able to do. They do seem to be slowly coming around to the idea that they could get hurt ‘accidently’, so at least they’re being a little more aware of what’s outside their ivory tower. Mostly, it was two hours of wanting to gouge my own eyes out as various clueless people nattered incessantly, trying to convince themselves they were important.
In my meanderings on this trip, I’ve lived in a variety of places. First was the old WW II barracks at Ft. Bragg. Forty of your closest friends in open bays, with two shower heads and four stalls in the latrine. Kind of crowded for what we’re used to these days.
On arrival in Kabul, I went into the ’sewage’ room of the Tack house, so named for the open sewage ditch that I discovered ran along the back wall of the room. (Outside, thank goodness.) Sort of explained the black mold that we constantly fought. That room was later closed and I moved into another room in the main house. Much cleaner, more windows made it brighter. Fairly pleasant.
Then they closed the Tack house completely. I think it was because the lease was totally in favor of the owner, who completely rogered our contracting officer. For around 130 people who stayed there, the lease hit fifty grand a month. Not counting the private security guards, or fuel or whatever.
So I moved again, into the Aria safe house. The nice thing here is that I can walk in to work and avoid those ratty little Toyota vans. The house itself is VERY nice. Marble floors, nice woodwork inside. Most of the lights work, because they’ve been rewired. The old wiring is shot. I think it might have been a small guest house with dining room, but it’s hard to tell.
The bad part of this place is that the rooms are small. The rooms upstairs that are about the size of a Motel 8 room at home, have four people in them. I’m in a single room, but I don’t get allotted any more space than anyone else. The ‘front parlor’ of the house was divided into five rooms, so I have about 84 square feet to live in. Just enough room for the bed, the locker, one chair and to store my two boxes. As you can see from the picture, it’s a pretty nice looking place. The outside walls are all marble, as are the porch, the steps and the driveway. Balcony along the second floor in the front.
The place has six bathrooms. Two of the four person rooms have their own private baths, and the other four serve the remaining forty of us. You have to plan when you’ll get up in order to avoid the rush. A lot like growing up with twelve kids in the family and only two bathrooms.
If they actually move me over to ISAF, I’ll shift quarters one more time, most likely into a conex that I’d share with one other person. Should be about the same floor space I have now.