One day....................................

One day, Darth Vader will be feared throughout the Universe. But for now, its "get on your bike and go and queue for some bread" time. Be afraid, be very afraid!!!!!

Pamir flight 202 ("oh what a flight" as the 4 Seasons sang)

First of all, thanks to both my readers for the flood of comments that have deluged me. It has taken a while but I have managed to get through them all, although I am afraid I will not have time to answer each individual comment personally. It does make writing this drivel worthwhile. Am very interested in the comments about Brucie. Do they allow all male couples!!

I would like to start today's proceedings by replying to Clair and thanking her for her concern vis a vis my bowel movements. The nice German doctor says I have IBS. I have looked this up on the interweb thingy and am in a position now of having just enough knowledge to be dangerous to myself. You see, what I need are pro-biotics. You will have seen those Yakult type adverts showing how you will suddenly become a 25-year Adonis if you drink one of their little capsule things per day. Well we don't have them here BUT (and this is where the little knowledge is dangerous bit comes in), apparently pre-biotics will encourage the growth of your own internal, DNA matched, better than ones poured down your throat, made to measure, self multiplying pro-biotics. Now 3 things steeped in pre-biotics (wake up at the back and pay attention) are honey, ordinary yogurt and bananas. So everyday for breakfast and for my pudding in the evening this is what I eat and hey presto, everything is going quite well, although I still seem to teeter on the brink and, metaphorically, fall in every now and then for brief periods.

Now for the rest of you (Clair, you can stop reading now), I have a story of the antics of Pamir Flight 202 from Dubai to Kabul. Aha, you may be asking, what on Earth was our intrepid traveller doing in Dubai. Well, to cut a long story short and not bore you with the details (that is a change, I hear you sigh), my Afghan visa runs out this week and it is easier to get an Afghan visa in Dubai than Afghanistan, so I made a whistle stop visit to Dubai arriving on Saturday evening, getting a visa on Sunday and flying out first thing Monday morning.

Actually while we are talking about Dubai, let me tell you about my Sunday there. I got up at 7am as I needed to be at the embassy by 8am. After breakfast of yogurt only, yes my tummy felt dodgy, I asked the hotel to sort out a taxi to the embassy and the receptionist told me I could get one outside!!!

So, I went out and waited, and waited. Eventually a taxi did stop, but he did not know where the Afghan Embassy was so I let him go, then another came and the same problem. Eventually a man came up to me and asked me where I wanted to go and I told him. He was the driver for the hotel next door. He had no driving to do for an hour so he was happy to take me there and back - for a price. Anyway, I got there handed in all the info etc and then came back.

I went up to the roof where there was a little pool and no people and spent a very pleasant and relaxing few hours on my own having a swim, reading my book, having a swim, reading my book etc. After that I went back to my room had a shower and headed back to the embassy. At least now I knew where it was so was able to direct the taxi driver. Once that was sorted (in typical Afghan style they had told me to go back between 2 and 4pm, I got there at 2.30pm and they were closed, but apparently would open soon!!) which they did.

After I had my passport back with my shiny, new Afghan visa, I got the driver to take me to the big shopping mall with the indoor ski area. Yes folks, there really is an indoor ski centre in Dubai. It is quite bizarre, 35C outside, -3C inside. With your skis you also get a coat and trousers. Really strange skiing and looking through the glass seeing people dressed in Arab wear or t-shirts and shorts watching me sking. But it was real snow and a hill at least the length of the average ski resort nursery slope.

Anyway, I spent a couple of hours there and had a great time, then after I had dinner in the TGI Fridays overlooking the ski slope.

I wandered round the mall for a while and then headed back to the hotel. I had a drink in the bar and then had an early night (as I had to be up at 4.30 today).

Now here we are, finally at the story of Pamir flight 202.

When they called the flight (1 hour late), the melee that ensued would have made the worst Ryanair scrum look like a tea party (and we had allocated seats). Me and a guy called Steve from Canada, just sat back and watched. Also everyone takes huge bags onto the plane. So, when we eventually got on the plane, our seats were taken, and all these people were sat there with their bags taking up the seat next to them. The plane was full and a quarter of the seats were full of luggage, it was chaos. So we just waited and eventually the cabin crew, who were tearing their hair out by now, managed to get the bags off the seats and pile them up across the emergency exit, and seated Steve in Business Class in the last seat there and I eventually found an aisle seat further back.

The plane took off the obligatory 2 hours late, with people sitting there, tables down, seats tilted back, chatting on their phones etc. They are TOTALLY incapable of following simple instructions or behaving in any form of communal way. They are just like children who need to be constantly supervised!!

The flight was OK, but when we got near Kabul chaos ensued again. As we began to get lower people were trying to use their phones to say we were coming in to land. And as for seat belts, you had the window seat person looking out the window, the middle seat, seat belt off leaning across him to see out, and the aisle seat person STANDING on his seat trying to look over their shoulders. This is absolutely true. The cabin crew had given up by now and belted themselves in and left us to it. As fast as they sat someone down they just got straight back up again!!

The moment we landed (we were still on the runway) they are up getting their bags out!!! and racing for the exit. Of course this really does not get the door opened any quicker or the steps put up, or even the baggage out the hold, but it is Kabul life.

So there you have it, today, two stories in one, I will regret this when I am struggling to think of something to tell you next time.

Till then.

Prancing Porker at the Paris Wedding Hall (Thursday night fever)

Before I begin, I would just like to tell you how underwhelmed I am by your comments. Lets hope this tale of derring-do will lift your spirits and create a response.

Yesterday, all us foreigners (Khoragi), there are only 6 expats and 3000 Afghans in the organisation, were invited to Najibs wedding at the Paris Wedding Hall in downtown Kabul.

Now weddings are big affairs in Afghanistan and wedding halls are big business and HUGE places. Before I went I was told a wedding hall is a bit like being inside a wedding cake, and that was pretty true. A huge warehouse of a building on 3 floors decorated like a wedding cake!!!

A thousand people at a wedding is quite the norm. Now, when I say a thousand people at a wedding you have to understand a not so subtle and fundamental concept at this point. Although there is one wedding, there are two halls, one for the women and one for the men!! I may have explained this before, in the Afghan way, women are the property of their husbands (property as in a kettle or a television is your property) and the men are fearful of their property being stolen by each other so they keep it hidden. Hence an Afghan house has no windows on the ground floor that can be seen by a passer by (remember my recollections of the walls everywhere) and their women are dressed in Burkhas in public. (Of course, some people are more liberal than others, but this is a general rule). Anyway, that is the way, you have two rooms, one full of men and one full of women and the two do not meet during the wedding.

Three of us went to the wedding, one of which is female and although we got her special permission to stay with us in the Mens hall she did take a peek into the womens hall and said they were all dressed in really bright colours and looking great, then when they come out they put their Burkhas over the top and hid it all to enure another man is not driven crazy with desire and runs off with them.

When we got there we were escorted to a table in the corner where other Afghan HALO staff were seated. Some in suits and ties, some in their best Shalwar Kameez and some casually, a really wonderful mix of different styles of tradition and modern. Some also wearing the traditional Afghan flat rolled up hat.

There were about 300 men in the hall and presumably another 300 women in the womens hall. Everyone is sat around at tables chatting and enjoying the spectacle.

There is a traditional Pashtun band playing music with a really heavy beat and a rather high voiced singer. The dancing is called "Attan", I think and is derived from old, warrior dancing from the night before a battle. A group of men (preferably with long hair) are standing in a large circle in the dancing area in front of the very loud, thudding band. One man leads and the others follow his movements. This involves a lot of standard dance type waving of arms, spinning round and even dropping to your knees and shaking your head (and long hair) wildly. It is really quite spectacular and its warrior origins are pretty clear from the power of the dancing. The dance is also a sort of trial as it goes on until the last man is standing and the others have retired from tiredness. During the dancing one of the dancers will pick up a water urn and throw this over himself and the other dancers to cool them and to spur them on. Anyway, this went on for about an hour and there were about 4 of them left.

At this point the food was brought out and we all sat round and ate traditional Afghan fayre. Well, of course that excludes your humble narrator who had the salad and veg and some pudding, but avoided the copious meat dishes, which I am reliably informed were delicious.

Thank you for sticking with me so far, the action is about to begin.

Now maybe it is the middle age spread, the bald head, the Grant Mitchell look or simply my repartee, wit and charm, but everywhere I walked around this wedding hall greeting men I seemed to be a minor celebrity, so when the music started up again after the dinner, I found myself being dragged to the dance floor by a group of men who all seemed intent on dancing with me. Yes, honestly, these guys came over to me and took my arm and dragged me to the dance floor. This is absolutely true, they called out to the band and had a tune they thought appropriate put on and the dance floor cleared to leave me and one selected member of their group standing there on our own in the middle of the floor surrounded by 300 clapping, cheering Afghan men.

I had two choices: run and forever shame the Empire or to take up the challenge and show them what I learnt all those years ago at Broomfield Church Hall disco, (Moonstomper, eat your heart out). At this point I must apologise to John Travolta, thank God these guys have never seen Saturday Night Fever, for this was Thursday Night Fever, it was going to be brief, brutal and barely watcheable!!

As the thumping drum beat pounded out we faced each other just a few feet apart, my adversory raised his arms outstretched to his sides like a matador stalking his prey and looked me straight in the eye. I did likewise. This was to be a dancing duel and for God, Queen, Empire and John Travolta, I was not to be cowed or defeated.

We circled each other, the drum beat loud and urgent, the assembled throng of men expectant, yet nervous, how would the Khoragi react, what new moves would he bring to the dancefloor, could he outdance and cow his adversary. I jumped into the air, crossed my legs, landed and did a full 360 turn, battle had commenced and the crowd loved it, they clapped to the beat and cheered as I turned (and did not fall over, thank goodness there is no alcohol at an Afghan wedding). I had taken the initiative and was determined not to relinquish it, the beat continued to boom out, the high voiced singer pitched to new heights and I launched into a move all the way across the dance floor, crossing my legs and uncrossing them as I went, arms switching in synchronicity with my feet, I closed my eyes and was back there in Broomfield circa 1970's, the beat was Bee Gees, the high voice was Barry Gibb, John Travolta was running through my veins, nothing could could stop me now (if only I had a jacket to throw off). I opened my eyes and there in front of me was my black leather coated adversary stalking me (if you don't believe me, look at the picture carefully, you will see a man in black leather coat facing me across the dance floor, we were the only 2 dancing and everyone was watching us), he twisted, he turned, he waved his arms, but he had nothing new to throw at JT, this was to be my victory, I just had to stay there in the 70s, no fear, no hesitation, no quarter given, I was dancing for the Empire and it was to be a dance to the death. As the time ticked by I began to tire the swift turns and twists across the expanse of the dancefloor were taking there toll. My younger adversary began to sense his comeback was about to begin, he moved in closer to intimidate and to test my resolve and then.............. the beat stopped, the music finished, the Hall went quiet, I had made it to the end, and the Hall erupted into applause and two worthy and sweaty opponents embraced each other, the gaunlet had been picked up, brushed down and firmly worn, the challenge had been met, equalled and then surpassed. Ceroc classes were never like this!!

After that we sat and chatted for a while, then made our apologies and left, walking out, heads held high.

We never saw the bride, or a single woman, but the groom did come to visit us, who he married we shall never know.

During the reign of the Taleban dancing and music were strictly prohibited. This could never have happened under their rule. I am told the man on the left of the photo taking a picture, with the scarf over his shoulder and the little hat on is a Taleb. I wonder what he made of it all!!!

shopping

Hello one and all,

I am assuming you are both still there, although I have had no comments for nearly a month, so maybe I am talking to myself, which, frankly, is not really anything new.

I went carpet shopping on Friday so I thought I would give you a slice of Kabul life. Me and two other housemates went to a carpet seller that is well known to us as a good chap and all round reasonably priced carpet seller.

In the centre of Kabul is a street called Flower Street, which is by a street called Butchers Street, which is by a street called Chicken Street (I think you get the idea). Well, as it would happen, halfway down Chicken Street is an entrance to a courtyard which is surrounded on all sides by a block of flats. In effect, the courtyard (what we called at school, a Quad). The flats on the first floor are all shops, some of which are carpet shops, so we trotted off to see our favoured carpet seller.

The shop was like an Aladdin's cave, carpets on the floor, carpets on the walls and piles all around of neatly folded carpets.

We explained what sort of carpets we are looking for (there are an amazing array of different styles from different places) and he proceeded to go through the piles and would select ones that matched our description and would pull this out and lay on the floor in front of us. Of course, by this time we had also been given our obligatory cup of tea, whilst we sat on a sofa to look at the wares. As the pile in front of us grew, if you particularly liked a carpet it was put to one side. After about 45 minutes we had a pile more than knee deep in front of us of carpets laid one on top of the other. Each carpet you would say, "what type of carpet is this" and the answer would be, "oh this is a Kunduz/Hazara/Persian/Iranian/Herat and so on, carpet. All the carpets are hand made and beautiful, particularly the silk carpets from Iran which shimmer in the light and change colour depending on where you are looking at it from.

Anyway, I did buy a carpet, a rather fine Hazara carpet. The word Hazar is Dari for One Thousand. The word Hazara is the name given to the people who live in Central Afghanistan in an area of Baglan that is pretty difficult to get to. They are the direct descendants of a 1000 man garrison left there by Genghis Khan (so I am told) and I have one of their carpets. Thank goodness I paid!

Till the next time.

Icons of Kabul Life

At last, I have worked out this picture thingy.

After much dithering your blogger has finally found out how to shrink a photo to a size that will fit on the blog. SO here it is a picture of our house in Kabul!

Yes, this really is a "good" neighbourhood of Kabul, we are not badly off compared to most of the residents of the city. More than 60% of the "houses" in Kabul are illegally built. More than 3 million refugees have returned to the city and it is bursting, so people build a mud brick house wherever they can find a piece of land. Now Kabul, s at 1800m high and sits in a plain surrounded by mountains. Most of the illegal houses are literally perched on the hillsides, made of mud brick, have no water, electricity or gas supply. Everything is carried up the mountainside to the "house". Any ruined building will have tatty tarpaulins around a devastated room and people will be living in there, in tents, literally anything.

Ah, I hear you ask, what are the icons of Kabul life, well we have three in this picture which are very common sites here in Kabul and probably unusual where you are.
1) The armoured car. This Nissan Patrol weighs 4 tonnes, has armour plating beneath and the doors etc around the people bit. This makes the doors very heavy and difficult to open and close. It also has bullet/blast proof glass all round.
2) The armed guard outside our house, these are also the guards who travel ith us and, you will remember, went to the zoo with me.
3)The woman wearing the Burkha, covered from head to toe with just a grill to see throgh. Now I hope you may understand my humour at watching these ladies trying to eat a picnic in the zoo.

Oh yes, if you click on the photo it will enlarge. The big window at teh top with the bars on it, thats my bedroom. My view on the world!!

My next treat for you is, I hope, a piccie of demining in action.

Today I am off to buy a carpet, inshallah. Will let you know how it goes.

my little table

No major happening here folks, just a quick story about, well not much really.

Now last week, my little world that is amazingly narrow was brightened up with a moment that will seem trivial and irrelevant to you, but was a heartwarming moment for me.

You see, in my room in the house is a desk and chair, a bed and a cupboard, and really not much else. it is from the desk and chair I sit and pen these missives to you.

So last week, there I was in the Finance Office, doing financy sorts of things and chatting to my assistant (Najib) that it would be really good if I had a little bedside table to put my torch, book and glasses on when I go to bed.

Well that evening when I went to put my bag in the back of the car to go home, there in the back is a little bedside table that had been made in the carpentry workshop that afternoon. I asked the driver what it was doing there and he told me "Mr. Najib, tell carpenter to make table for you"

Aargh, aren't some people just plain decent folks.

There, just a short story to warm the cockles of your heart.

The battle of the Jalalabad Road

Greetings one and all, today a story steeped in Kabul with no meanderings or wanderings involved, just straight Kabul talk!

For those of you who have been following my scribblings for a while you will know that the Jalalabad Road is also called "Suicide Alley" due to the number of suicide bombers we get along here. However, without tempting fate, I would say that nothing untoward has happened for a few weeks now so that is good news.

The battle of Jalalabad Road has nothing to do with suicide bombers or any violence, just a touch of anarchy that I find amusing, irritating and in the end am a little envious of.

A doctor I know recently said " driving is still the preferred pastime of the Afghan who wishes to end his life prematurely". I found this a wonderfully colourful and rather convoluted way of saying there is almost no discipline involved in driving in Kabul.

If the traffic on the dual carriageway is slow, then go over to the other carriageway and simply drive the wrong way down it, if it is too far to go round the roundabout then simply cut straight across the corner, overtaking, undertaking, copious use of the horn and the flashing of lights are mandatory and whatever you do, NEVER wait for a gap in the traffic when pulling out of a side turning. Just pull out.

A short time here makes you realise just how disciplined driving in the Western world is. We can be stopped by a red light, we can be directed by a white line painted on the road, without question and yet the white line has no real power, only our respect for it and what it stands for. Which brings me to the battle of the Jalalabad Road.

You see, as I said earlier the Jalalabad Road is a dual carriageway with a divide in the middle about 6 feet wide and a high kerb on either side to create the divide. All along the road are a number of compounds, offices etc.

So, if this was in, shall we say, Sheffield, any vehicle that wanted to go to a compound on the other side of the road would go to the next junction turn round and come back down the other carriageway to the place they wanted to go and turn in. But not in Kabul, every day more and more kerbstones get knocked over and put across the central gap as paving to make a turning point straight into the compound they want to go to. We had almost reached the point where there was more gap that kerbing, which created complete anarchy as everyone was able to cross everywhere!!

So for the last few weeks the authorities have been re-cementing the kerbs back in place every day and the people have been knocking them back down, and so the battle of the Jalalabad Road has continued. However a new tactic has been employed and the authorities are finally winning. They re-cement the kerbstones in and then fill the gap with soil about 18 inches deep making a small bank in between. So now if the kerbs are much more difficult to knock down and you still have to get the vehicle up over the bank. So once again the authorities are winning.

So, like I say, this anarchy has been really irritating when you try to get down the dual carriageway and there are lorries and cars turning every 50 yards, at the same time is is amusing to see the war of attrition going on between the Ministry of Traffic and the drivers and ultimately, I have a grudging respect for this complete lack of reverence for the authorities and their attempt to improve the traffic chaos that is Kabul. To the Afghan driver it is quite simple: "I want to go there and that is where I shall go, by the quickest, shortest and straightest route regardless of any consequent inconvenience or danger that may be caused to myself or others"

So there you have it, a snippet of life in Kabul.

I still haven't told you about my table, you must be on tenterhooks wondering what it could possibly be.

Pirate for an hour

Good day to you all,

Today, I wish to share with you an experience that is not Kabul based, but happened this week and was important to me. This may be a trip down memory lane for some, I know some of you were more involved than others with the Pirates off our coasts, some of you will simply be wondering what on earth I am going on about!

You see, growing up in Kent in the 60's and then more so as a teenager in the 70's we had the joy of the Pirate radio stations off our shores. I was too young for the early Pirates, the Big L, Radio London and the like and came to it more in the late 60's, early 70's. In those days we listened to stations on Medium Wave (AM as it is now known) and stations had wavelengths instead of frequencies. Laser on 558. Caroline on 259 and so on.

As teenagers, myself and the Macrae brothers were avid listeners. After the UK Marine Offences Act the Pirates moved to be based in Holland and we mainly listened to RNI (Radio Northsea International) and another less well known station Radio Atlantis and of course, Radio Caroline. In 1974, the Dutch too passed a Marine Offences Act and the Pirates were finally silenced. I remember a group of boys sat around a small transistor radio in the South Quad at school, frantically trying to keep tuned to the signal listening to the final broadcast of RNI as it closed down at, I think, 11am. The next class after morning break began at 11am and we all trudged into class late, a tear in our eyes as a piece of our lives were silenced forever. I still remember the last record played was "The Long and Winding Road".

However, one station defied all, both the Dutch and British Governments and continued to broadcast from the Ross Revenge. The Mother of them all, Radio Caroline vowed to continue and throughout this period we listened to the likes of Stevie Merike, Tony Allen and Andy Archer on scratchy transistor radios, records sometimes jumping all over the place as a storm tossed the ship on the ocean (no CDs, just good old vinyl records). Frequently we would send postcards to the Spanish address with requests. In fact, somewhere in a cupboard is a book I kept of the top 40's. Every week, me and the Macrae bros would sit in their playroom and listen to the top 40 and record it in a book for prosterity.

So upset were we on the day the oher stations cloed down, me and John got a boat to Zeebrugge the next day , then got a bus to Schevenigen, slept in a bus shelter overnight and then saw the Radio Atlantis boat brought into harbour for the last time, and watched as Customs officers supervised the welding shut of the doors as the boat was impounded. (Not bad for a couple of 16yr olds). We had no idea what we were doing, but we HAD to be there!!! It was what I would call an event and we had to witness it.

Now where is all this waffle leading you may ask and what has it to do with Kabul 2007. Well, Radio Caroline is still broadcasting, now from studios in Maidstone on the internet and on Sky channel 0199 (so give it a listen!!)

From 9am to 10am every morning they broadcast a Top 15 sent in by a listener. Well, I sent mine in from dusty Kabul a few weeks ago and on Wednesday Oct 31st they broadcast it. So after more than 30 years I got to choose the music on Radio Caroline for a whole hour, I was a "Pirate for an hour".

The wonders of the internet, from postcards that took weeks to go to Spain and then finally arrive on a ship out in the North Sea to instant internet access from Kabul, Afghanistan. A dream come true for me, a true event as far as I am concerned.

What would that teenager in the 70's have thought if you had told him 30 years later he would choose not just a request, but a whole hour and top 15 on Radio Caroline, and send it from Afghanistan!!

I think thats worth a drink.

Next time, the "Battle of the Jalalabad Road" or "Anarchy on the streets"