Men in Black

This has been a bit of a worrying week here in the Demining community in 'Stan. On Monday a convoy of three demining vehicles was stopped by two men on a motorbike who proceeded to strafe the vehicles with machine guns killing seven and putting another five critically injured in hospital. Just as this news was being digested on Tuesday, I was at a meeting in the UN when a call came in with news of another demining vehicle having been attacked (again, in the supposedly quiet North of Afghanistan) with both occupants also being killed. The UN immediately called a halt to all demining operations in the North and various meetings were held to discuss the way forward. In the meantime our friends (the bearded ones, the men in black) issued a statement Tuesday afternoon saying they condemn these killings and that demining should be allowed to continue freely as this is an important and worthy operation for the people of Afghanistan. Hopefully, that has put an end to it and the attacks will cease, but we have ideas about what was going on and almost certainly these attacks were never sanctioned by the Taleban and are probably not Taleban or Al-Qaeda related, anyway.

However, that does not stop us being just a bit nervous and jumpy and I hope today's story will bring a smile to your faces as I tell a tale of derring-do that makes me smile now I am back in the comparitive safety of the house. Today is our Friday holiday day and I had decided it would be a good idea to go to Qagar. This is a dam on the outskirts of Kabul that has created a lake where the people of Kabul go to relax. A chance to see Afghans in their natural habitat and to be part of the Afghan way of life for a brief period. A chance to actually meet real people and to relax with them and enjoy their company. Three of us and an armed guard and driver headed off this lunchtime. We got there and sure enough it did not disappoint. The lake is quite large (a little on the dirty side) and surrounded by the paraphernalia of the seaside (Afghanistan is landlocked so this is quite a unique place). There were families there, some boys swimming in the water (with bare tops, but long trousers) people playing volleyball on the "beach" (the beach being dirt rather than sand), people driving their cars down into the water to wash them, kite flying, some funfair type stalls and some "beach huts". Mothers and daughters dressed in brightly coloured reds, yellows and all the brightest colours of the rainbow were walking round with groups of small children, men, wearing their traditional Shalwar Kameez were standing/squatting in groups, playing volleyball and chatting while groups of small boys played their own games.

We found a young lad on the "beach" who had a quoits game, you know the type, throw the hoops and try to get them to land round the prize. We had half a dozen goes (10Afs per go) and actually won once, a massive 50Afs which we reinvested in more rings and, like all true gamblers, ended up losing it all. We bought a volleyball from the ball seller and played volleyball with the local boys and generally were getting along fine, lots of people coming over to say hello and make us welcome.

After that we wandered over to the back of the area where there was a few stalls and sat on the grass bank to watch the swinging boat which seems to be at every funfair in the world, although this one had some particularly interesting (not) safety features!! (You can see it in the background in front of the "men in black"). While we were sitting there the two gentlemen in the picture above came over and walked past us having a good look as they went. As they turned their backs, they started a conversation which resulted in one of them getting out his phone and starting a call. As he walked off the other stayed put by us. We looked at each other and decided it was time to go, just as our guard agitatedly came over to us and said "Go". We begun to scramble back down the bank and headed towards the car park, I threw the volleyball to a couple of young begging boys whose faces lit up like Christmas had come early, one of our "men in black" followed us down the slope. By the time we got to the car park we were all running for the car and dived in as our guard covered our backs. We headed out of there at a sharp pace. As soon as we got to a clear bit of road we stopped, got out the car, checked the underside and then headed back home.

Maybe something, more likely nothing, but better safe than sorry. Looking back it was almost certainly nothing and just some typically inquisitive people who happened to be wearing black turbans. Whatever, it added a little excitement to our "day out" and at least will give us something to talk about.

This evening we have news that another demining convoy has been attacked in the North, we don't yet know the details. Let's hope they got away with no loss of life or serious injuries.