My 8 year old son Jacob asked me today what is Afghanistan like? I guess it must be hard to picture what it is like in Afghanistan, so a good question from an 8 year old.
The first thing is that despite a war between soldiers of the Afghan government and lots of other armies on one side and insurgents/terrorists/armed opposition groups on the other life seems to carry on. The roads are busy with cars, motorbikes, yellow and white taxis, chinese solid iron bicycle and lots of traffic policemen trying to take charge of the chaos. There are lots of little shops and shacks selling anything from tins of Fanta to decorations.
The main roads are quite good and have tarmac but the side roads are muddy and rutted. There is a lot of construction going on from apartment blocks to ubiquitous 'wedding halls' which are giant glass structured edifices that appear to be 10 stories tall, sometimes with a shopping mall below. They have very large signs and are set back in gardens. As you might guess there is a lot of money in Kabul just now - I guess the symptoms of a war economy, an aid boom and the profits from the opium trade.
In terms of 'the war' the evidence is there: policemen carry machine guns, restaurants have two sets of locked metal doors so that you are locked in an ante-chamber before going in, where a man with an AK47 frisks you before letting you through the second door. There are armed Afghan soldiers as well as policemen in the centre. All important buildings have concrete blocks in front of their large walls to prevent car bombs and suicide attacks.
The people show the diversity of the Afghan heritage, some look like they are from Pakistan, some look like Iranians and some look Chinese. They are 99.9% Muslim whatever their ethnic group. There are lots of Mosques and every so often the call to prayer blasts from loudspeakers in the Minarets, the only sound that competes with the stray dogs barking.
What else? Helicopters flying overhead in pairs, mountains in the distance surrounding the city, every house and property is demarcated by a large (dunno 12') wall with a gate. Stray cats and dogs, dust everywhere except when it rains. With the rain the dust settles into mud and the city brightens up as the grey-palour of constant dust is washed down.
The most striking is the sense of space, buildings and properties have large grounds and the main throughfares are very wide. I'll see if the weekend will allow for some photographs.
Thursday 14 April 2011
Tuesday 12 April 2011
Day 10 Grinding Through
I have been so tired today, I think the weekend working and travelling finally caught up with me. I was shivering with cold and tiredness: Kabul is soooo cold. So after a morning of reading the Job Descriptions of all the admin staff I went to lie down.
I was reading the job descriptions because I was keen to know who is supposed to travel to support provincial offices. One of the main complaints from my trip to Jalalabad was that people in Kabul were not giving them enough support. Obviously the security situation is making this worse, but it seems unfair that Programme staff should have to travel to Kabul but administrators in the capital are not as keen to travel.
I have also began to hammer through the numbers. The actual admin costs are not that high, the problem seems to be that a lot of the activity that is neither program nor administration is soaking up costs. Activities such as Strategy and Policy, Public Information, Monitoring and Evaluation and the efforts of Gender Advisors to tackle the historic problems in Afghanistan for instance the lack of education for girls under the Taliban means that there are far fewer qualified women. I think most development agencies would regard this sort of work as fundamental, but the difficulty is finding someone to pay for it.
I was reading the job descriptions because I was keen to know who is supposed to travel to support provincial offices. One of the main complaints from my trip to Jalalabad was that people in Kabul were not giving them enough support. Obviously the security situation is making this worse, but it seems unfair that Programme staff should have to travel to Kabul but administrators in the capital are not as keen to travel.
I have also began to hammer through the numbers. The actual admin costs are not that high, the problem seems to be that a lot of the activity that is neither program nor administration is soaking up costs. Activities such as Strategy and Policy, Public Information, Monitoring and Evaluation and the efforts of Gender Advisors to tackle the historic problems in Afghanistan for instance the lack of education for girls under the Taliban means that there are far fewer qualified women. I think most development agencies would regard this sort of work as fundamental, but the difficulty is finding someone to pay for it.
Monday 11 April 2011
Day 9 Stirring the Hornet's Nest
Whilst I was away my report had stirred up lots of controversy and debate. But strangely this was not over any of my main recommendations. The main controversy was over the structure of the newly merged programme department: I had added in a control function by moving various functions like reporting to donors and procurement and stock control from the admin departments to the new programme department. In my diagram I showed how this would fit in with the existing programme structure. I thought this was straightforward.
The unintended consequence was that many people thought that I was proposing a final structure to the programmes department, which is in the middle of discussing its plans for the next four years. I wasn't, but obviously I had raised a lot of fears. I spent several hours today listening to everyone's special case and then carefully explaining that I really wasn't trying to impose a structure on them.
Tomorrow will be even more mundane as I pile through lots of job descriptions. If it is that bad I promise not to bore you with it.
The unintended consequence was that many people thought that I was proposing a final structure to the programmes department, which is in the middle of discussing its plans for the next four years. I wasn't, but obviously I had raised a lot of fears. I spent several hours today listening to everyone's special case and then carefully explaining that I really wasn't trying to impose a structure on them.
Tomorrow will be even more mundane as I pile through lots of job descriptions. If it is that bad I promise not to bore you with it.
Sunday 10 April 2011
Day 7 & Day 8 Jalalabad and Back
It is hard to talk about Jalalabad and not let the events of the journey back overshadow it, but I will try.
Jalalabad was lovely - warm, green, lush and very friendly. I met very interesting and experienced people who had been working for the same organisation for 20 years, providing safe water to Afghan refugees returning from Pakistan. I heard in detail all the work they did on drilling bore holes for pumps, using dry sand filtration to give people clean water, building reservoirs and lots of work on hygiene education. They also told me their gripes with the organisation: not paid enough, poor communication, slow to deliver materials; as well as what they liked - the quality of work, integrity and good leaders. This was all very useful for my mission to look at where admin is working and where it is not.
The Jalalabad office was a grand building - very oriental and wooden with my bedroom was on the top floor. I shared eating with the men, which involved sitting cross-legged on cushions with the food placed on mats for sharing round the room. As a guest I was loaded with food - fried fish, vegetable curry, rice, nan, beans, chips, fresh salad of mint and parsley and cucumber and never-ending green tea. Followed by local oranges and apples. This was so much nicer than eating by myself in Kabul.
I slept very heavily due to the food and warm weather. It even rained a bit which added to the fresh air.
I woke up in time for Sunday breakfast at 6.30 (Sunday is a working day) and had some more meetings before an early 'light' lunch of chicken, beans, nan, rice and chips. We then set back to Kabul for the expected 2 hour journey.
The 2-car convoy set off just after 11 and we expected a 2 hr journey. That was not going to happen.
Just after leaving Jalalabad we came across an enormous traffic jam as a very large US Army Convoy was on the road and blocking all traffic. This is the main road from Pakistan to Afghanistan which was already full of lorries and oil tankers. The journey I made down yesterday had been down very steep and winding mountain roads, cutting in and out of tunnels. So the same lorries on the way back were going to struggle up hill. After an hour we got past this convoy and speeded wildly ahead until... the next convoy. This looked serious, the road had simply ground to a halt. I received a text on my phone from the Security Officer
Attack on fuel tanker in the area Sarubi dist. kbl-jalalabad highway, puli astahkam area so staf is adviseded to avoid the area.
As we were already stuck on that highway in that area and had no chance of turning around or pulling over, and there wasn't another road to use we just had to plough on. Suddenly there was an explosion, I thought (hoped) it was thunder but my more experienced companions told me it was a shell. Everyone got out of their cars to have a look, apart from me.
At this point I was glad that I was wearing Afghan clothes, had a litlle woollen Afghan hat, had a 3-day beard and was sitting in the back of an old 4x4 with steamed up windows. I really did not want to be noticed in a crowd that was already pissed off that American convoys were taking over their road. So I sat still, locked the door and just rested. After over an hour the road was re-opened and we passed the remains of the tanker - it had burnt out but looked intact so I guess it was hit by bullets, not a bomb or shells. It was in a very narrow mountain pass so an easy target for any armed group. My more experienced colleague - a former mujahadein who had thought the Soviet soldiers in the 1980s pointed to various tell-tale signs of a gun battle.
After that progress was good and I returned to the more imminent danger of being in a car driven by a man who thinks a blind bend on a mountain pass is an excellent opportunity to overtake. We reached Kabul in the rain at 4.30. in one piece.
Looking back it was one of those days in your life when your chances of dying rose dramatically - whether through gunfire, being on the wrong end of an angry crowd or driving head-on to a similar madman who believes that car crashes happen when Allah wills it, his driving is irrelevant. The odds were much lower than normal, but still very much in my favour and in the favour of the tens of thousands of others making the same journey. Even so a day to forget and an experience to remember.
Jalalabad was lovely - warm, green, lush and very friendly. I met very interesting and experienced people who had been working for the same organisation for 20 years, providing safe water to Afghan refugees returning from Pakistan. I heard in detail all the work they did on drilling bore holes for pumps, using dry sand filtration to give people clean water, building reservoirs and lots of work on hygiene education. They also told me their gripes with the organisation: not paid enough, poor communication, slow to deliver materials; as well as what they liked - the quality of work, integrity and good leaders. This was all very useful for my mission to look at where admin is working and where it is not.
The Jalalabad office was a grand building - very oriental and wooden with my bedroom was on the top floor. I shared eating with the men, which involved sitting cross-legged on cushions with the food placed on mats for sharing round the room. As a guest I was loaded with food - fried fish, vegetable curry, rice, nan, beans, chips, fresh salad of mint and parsley and cucumber and never-ending green tea. Followed by local oranges and apples. This was so much nicer than eating by myself in Kabul.
I slept very heavily due to the food and warm weather. It even rained a bit which added to the fresh air.
I woke up in time for Sunday breakfast at 6.30 (Sunday is a working day) and had some more meetings before an early 'light' lunch of chicken, beans, nan, rice and chips. We then set back to Kabul for the expected 2 hour journey.
The 2-car convoy set off just after 11 and we expected a 2 hr journey. That was not going to happen.
Just after leaving Jalalabad we came across an enormous traffic jam as a very large US Army Convoy was on the road and blocking all traffic. This is the main road from Pakistan to Afghanistan which was already full of lorries and oil tankers. The journey I made down yesterday had been down very steep and winding mountain roads, cutting in and out of tunnels. So the same lorries on the way back were going to struggle up hill. After an hour we got past this convoy and speeded wildly ahead until... the next convoy. This looked serious, the road had simply ground to a halt. I received a text on my phone from the Security Officer
Attack on fuel tanker in the area Sarubi dist. kbl-jalalabad highway, puli astahkam area so staf is adviseded to avoid the area.
As we were already stuck on that highway in that area and had no chance of turning around or pulling over, and there wasn't another road to use we just had to plough on. Suddenly there was an explosion, I thought (hoped) it was thunder but my more experienced companions told me it was a shell. Everyone got out of their cars to have a look, apart from me.
At this point I was glad that I was wearing Afghan clothes, had a litlle woollen Afghan hat, had a 3-day beard and was sitting in the back of an old 4x4 with steamed up windows. I really did not want to be noticed in a crowd that was already pissed off that American convoys were taking over their road. So I sat still, locked the door and just rested. After over an hour the road was re-opened and we passed the remains of the tanker - it had burnt out but looked intact so I guess it was hit by bullets, not a bomb or shells. It was in a very narrow mountain pass so an easy target for any armed group. My more experienced colleague - a former mujahadein who had thought the Soviet soldiers in the 1980s pointed to various tell-tale signs of a gun battle.
After that progress was good and I returned to the more imminent danger of being in a car driven by a man who thinks a blind bend on a mountain pass is an excellent opportunity to overtake. We reached Kabul in the rain at 4.30. in one piece.
Looking back it was one of those days in your life when your chances of dying rose dramatically - whether through gunfire, being on the wrong end of an angry crowd or driving head-on to a similar madman who believes that car crashes happen when Allah wills it, his driving is irrelevant. The odds were much lower than normal, but still very much in my favour and in the favour of the tens of thousands of others making the same journey. Even so a day to forget and an experience to remember.
Friday 8 April 2011
Day 6 Flower Street Cafe
As Friday is the sabbath day in Islamic countries, the office was closed. I wasn't looking forward to an entire day in a guest house with no other guests. However Gerry came to the rescue and took me to the Flower Street Cafe where I had real coffee and some Fajitas. Mexican food in Afghanistan - why not? It was good to get out and Friday afternoon seems to have passed peacefully in Kabul, although there have been reports of more problems in the North and West of the country.
I sent off the final version of my report to the secretariat in Europe as well as to the managers here and I read through various documents I had not caught up with during the week.
Tomorrow I will definitely be going on a two day trip by road to Jalalabad (heading East). I got the all clear from Jalalabad today: there was no trouble after prayers. However I have to take extra precautions, these are: I have to wear traditional Afghan clothing - enormous baggy trousers and long shirt (in pea green nylon) along with a flat woollen hat. I have also stopped shaving today, by Sunday I might look a bit stubbly. But the main precaution is that I have to travel in a two car convoy, with an empty car following behind me. If something happens to my car (anything from a flat tyre to, well, you know...) there needs to be a spare car to make sure that I am not stuck in the countryside. Nice that they are thinking about me (gulp).
The road to Jalalabad is apparently the very busy main highway to Pakistan and so should be safe and busy, I won't be winding through mountain passes and it won't be near where the fighting is,basically it is the opposite direction: but given that we are talking about an insurgency there really isn't a front line. However with my costume and travelling on a busy road in an unremarkable vehicle, I think I will be okay.
I'll let you know on Sunday.
I sent off the final version of my report to the secretariat in Europe as well as to the managers here and I read through various documents I had not caught up with during the week.
Tomorrow I will definitely be going on a two day trip by road to Jalalabad (heading East). I got the all clear from Jalalabad today: there was no trouble after prayers. However I have to take extra precautions, these are: I have to wear traditional Afghan clothing - enormous baggy trousers and long shirt (in pea green nylon) along with a flat woollen hat. I have also stopped shaving today, by Sunday I might look a bit stubbly. But the main precaution is that I have to travel in a two car convoy, with an empty car following behind me. If something happens to my car (anything from a flat tyre to, well, you know...) there needs to be a spare car to make sure that I am not stuck in the countryside. Nice that they are thinking about me (gulp).
The road to Jalalabad is apparently the very busy main highway to Pakistan and so should be safe and busy, I won't be winding through mountain passes and it won't be near where the fighting is,basically it is the opposite direction: but given that we are talking about an insurgency there really isn't a front line. However with my costume and travelling on a busy road in an unremarkable vehicle, I think I will be okay.
I'll let you know on Sunday.
Thursday 7 April 2011
Day 5 Ring of Steel
No post yesterday, I was writing my initial report until half past midnight. I then tried to sleep but my head was buzzing.
This morning I woke very bleary-eyed. Work starts at 7.30 so I attempted to get going to redraft my report in time for a 10am meeting.
In the meantime I got distracted by receiving the results of my Open University assessment. The tutor had sent an email to his group yesterday telling us where we had gone wrong and that some of would be disappointed. So I had decided that I had got the wrong end of the stick I had expected to get 75% but downgraded my expectation to 56% (random number). However I got 85% so I was extremely pleased and simply had to read his comments at least twice.
The management team meeting started at 10am and lasted 3 hours only discussing my report. I was expecting a torrid time as I was challenging ways of working and affecting the power base of the people around the table. The thrust of my proposal was to merge the programme teams into one programme department and also strengthen that department by giving it a budget holder function that would determine which admin costs could be afforded and be able to prioritise them and make decisions in the context of programme delivery. So if the IT department want another person to improve the database they would have to check with the programmes department to see if there was any money. If the programmes department felt that having a good database and reliable email was better for programme delivery than hiring someone to dig a well they could make that decision. It's basic management accounting as some of you will recognise.
I was relieved that the report was received well and treated seriously: I had expected resistance and the very-obvious-challenge that I have only been here for 4 days so what the hell did I know? However instead I received positive feedback about how quickly I had got to the nub of the issue and come up with clear recommendations. I think all my experiences counted here - whether thinking about how the University's finance department organised its managers into an Operations Board and a Management Board (the mistakes as well as the positives); Or looking at how Oxfam ran its programme services so that the International Division had a strong finance function or thinking about last year in Haiti and the controls needed to get field offices to improve their financial management. The problems are not unique, but the context is.
In the afternoon I got out (hooray) to visit another large NGO. This involved a car trip across Kabul, through the ring of steel (which to be frank looks as solid as the central reservation on the Oxford Ring Road). It was an interesting journey: there are lots of Afghan soldiers and armed policemen and not much sign of foreign troops here. There is clearly a lot of money being spent on reconstruction, there are building sites everywhere - high rise flats, shopping plazas and wedding halls(!). The country also seems to be brimming with construction companies, as I passed several compounds of caterpillar diggers, etc. Kabul is very flat and spread out - most businesses are in large compounds with grounds and high walls. The city is encircled by mountains and these are encircled by snow-capped mountains. It is hard to see through the dust, but it is quite an amazing location.
The NGO I visited works in Health and Education, but has a similar structure: basically an Afghan organisation with a small operation in Europe that taps into development assistance from European governments and the EU itself. They have faced the same issues on admin costs and have tackled them well. I wish I had met them before today's meeting. However I can incorporate some of their practices into my final report. I will visit another organisation on Monday.
In the meantime the weekend starts here: as it is a muslim country (you may have gathered) the weekend is Friday and Saturday. I was in fear of being locked in the guest house for two days. However I will have an early lunch tomorrow with the Deputy Director (getting back before the end of prayers, just in case...) If the security situation calms down I will spend Saturday and Sunday out of Kabul visiting a provincial office that I can reach by road.
This morning I woke very bleary-eyed. Work starts at 7.30 so I attempted to get going to redraft my report in time for a 10am meeting.
In the meantime I got distracted by receiving the results of my Open University assessment. The tutor had sent an email to his group yesterday telling us where we had gone wrong and that some of would be disappointed. So I had decided that I had got the wrong end of the stick I had expected to get 75% but downgraded my expectation to 56% (random number). However I got 85% so I was extremely pleased and simply had to read his comments at least twice.
The management team meeting started at 10am and lasted 3 hours only discussing my report. I was expecting a torrid time as I was challenging ways of working and affecting the power base of the people around the table. The thrust of my proposal was to merge the programme teams into one programme department and also strengthen that department by giving it a budget holder function that would determine which admin costs could be afforded and be able to prioritise them and make decisions in the context of programme delivery. So if the IT department want another person to improve the database they would have to check with the programmes department to see if there was any money. If the programmes department felt that having a good database and reliable email was better for programme delivery than hiring someone to dig a well they could make that decision. It's basic management accounting as some of you will recognise.
I was relieved that the report was received well and treated seriously: I had expected resistance and the very-obvious-challenge that I have only been here for 4 days so what the hell did I know? However instead I received positive feedback about how quickly I had got to the nub of the issue and come up with clear recommendations. I think all my experiences counted here - whether thinking about how the University's finance department organised its managers into an Operations Board and a Management Board (the mistakes as well as the positives); Or looking at how Oxfam ran its programme services so that the International Division had a strong finance function or thinking about last year in Haiti and the controls needed to get field offices to improve their financial management. The problems are not unique, but the context is.
In the afternoon I got out (hooray) to visit another large NGO. This involved a car trip across Kabul, through the ring of steel (which to be frank looks as solid as the central reservation on the Oxford Ring Road). It was an interesting journey: there are lots of Afghan soldiers and armed policemen and not much sign of foreign troops here. There is clearly a lot of money being spent on reconstruction, there are building sites everywhere - high rise flats, shopping plazas and wedding halls(!). The country also seems to be brimming with construction companies, as I passed several compounds of caterpillar diggers, etc. Kabul is very flat and spread out - most businesses are in large compounds with grounds and high walls. The city is encircled by mountains and these are encircled by snow-capped mountains. It is hard to see through the dust, but it is quite an amazing location.
The NGO I visited works in Health and Education, but has a similar structure: basically an Afghan organisation with a small operation in Europe that taps into development assistance from European governments and the EU itself. They have faced the same issues on admin costs and have tackled them well. I wish I had met them before today's meeting. However I can incorporate some of their practices into my final report. I will visit another organisation on Monday.
In the meantime the weekend starts here: as it is a muslim country (you may have gathered) the weekend is Friday and Saturday. I was in fear of being locked in the guest house for two days. However I will have an early lunch tomorrow with the Deputy Director (getting back before the end of prayers, just in case...) If the security situation calms down I will spend Saturday and Sunday out of Kabul visiting a provincial office that I can reach by road.
Wednesday 6 April 2011
Day 3 Trees Seen, Wood Glimpsed
I am now beginning to see what is going on. I may laugh at my naivete in two weeks' time but it is beginning to make sense to me.
I think the organisation is pretty well run. They work in rural development in all corners of Afghanistan, most of the work is to provide clean water through digging wells and boreholes, but they also have a national role in monitoring the water table which gives an early warning of imminent drought. As well as all the water projects they undertake wider rural development activities like encouraging farmers to plant saffron instead of poppies. So it all looks like the good stuff that a good NGO should be doing.
Their main concern is that not enough of their money is getting to the final destination and too much is tied up in administration. I think they have a point, but some of the administration is necessary and some really isn't administration at all, e.g. the people who buy and store water pumps and pipes are not administrators. However some of the admin teams do look bigger than they ought to be and there is some duplication and perhaps a lack of accountability from the admin teams to the projects which means that they have been allowed to grow.
On top of that the security situation in Afghanistan increases the costs of working here: security guards need to be employed; cars cannot be left alone in the street due to bombings meaning that if you go to a meeting a driver is needed to stay in the car. Two cars are needed on all field trips, even if only one person is travelling due to the risk of land mines, bombs, attacks from the Taliban and even kidnap if the car breaks down.
I am impressed that they are being vigilant about costs and want to tackle them. On Thursday I will submit my initial findings, at which point some of the people whose status is threatened may become more challenging.
I think the organisation is pretty well run. They work in rural development in all corners of Afghanistan, most of the work is to provide clean water through digging wells and boreholes, but they also have a national role in monitoring the water table which gives an early warning of imminent drought. As well as all the water projects they undertake wider rural development activities like encouraging farmers to plant saffron instead of poppies. So it all looks like the good stuff that a good NGO should be doing.
Their main concern is that not enough of their money is getting to the final destination and too much is tied up in administration. I think they have a point, but some of the administration is necessary and some really isn't administration at all, e.g. the people who buy and store water pumps and pipes are not administrators. However some of the admin teams do look bigger than they ought to be and there is some duplication and perhaps a lack of accountability from the admin teams to the projects which means that they have been allowed to grow.
On top of that the security situation in Afghanistan increases the costs of working here: security guards need to be employed; cars cannot be left alone in the street due to bombings meaning that if you go to a meeting a driver is needed to stay in the car. Two cars are needed on all field trips, even if only one person is travelling due to the risk of land mines, bombs, attacks from the Taliban and even kidnap if the car breaks down.
I am impressed that they are being vigilant about costs and want to tackle them. On Thursday I will submit my initial findings, at which point some of the people whose status is threatened may become more challenging.
Monday 4 April 2011
Day 2 The Laughing Cow
I asked for bread and cheese for breakfast. I got two slices of nan bread and an entire circle of Laughing Cow cheese triangles. I only managed two of the eight cheese triangles, spread as you can imagine across each nan bread. So I reckon I am on bread and cheese for at least the next 4 mornings. Otherwise food is good, although nan with everything is quite a challenge. I think I have eaten 8 nan breads today.
Work is beginning to take shape. The organisation is concerned about its admin costs and I think they have a point. However some of the costs that they think are admin, are not very administrative at all - they are simply managed in an administration department. The people who look after the stocks of water pipes, the people who evaluate the effectiveness of the program are not administrators. Unfortunately all the program people are in one building and all the rest are in another, adjacent, building. So like in so many organisations the rivalry develops and anyone in the admin building is deemed to be an admin cost.
Having said that there does seem to be excessive layers of management and I suspect that a lot of the administration feeds of itself and does not focus outwards. Now where have I seen that before???
I admire their honesty in raising this with their funders and seeking to solve it before the funders make any cut. There seems to be a genuine concern to support the extremely poor people in rural Afghanistan by pushing resources out to the programme. If this willingness can be maintained then the job of making painful changes should be possible.
Day 1 White City
It's all looking rather normal here. The office is in a quiet corner of Kabul, away from the hustle and bustle, away from the markets, away from the embassies and missions, away from the soldiers and police. So I feel more secure than expected.
The United Nations has a 4-tier warning system with regard to security. The tiers are
Green - normal activity
White - essential movement only
Yellow - no movemement whatsoever
Red - evacuate
With the distrubances over the weekend the security assessment moved to White or 'white city' in the parlance. No idea why, probably a self-referential joke. But it took me a while to work out that 'White City' was not a place that the UN retreated to.
As I had planned to spend as much of this visit as possible somewhere in the white and yellow zone, this is not a particular problem. However I had hoped to visit a field office in the far west of the country this week, however that has been postponed in the expectation that the disturbances will settle down after a week. And if they don't settle down the visit will be cancelled. So I leave my trip in the hands of an uneducated US 'pastor'.
The United Nations has a 4-tier warning system with regard to security. The tiers are
Green - normal activity
White - essential movement only
Yellow - no movemement whatsoever
Red - evacuate
With the distrubances over the weekend the security assessment moved to White or 'white city' in the parlance. No idea why, probably a self-referential joke. But it took me a while to work out that 'White City' was not a place that the UN retreated to.
As I had planned to spend as much of this visit as possible somewhere in the white and yellow zone, this is not a particular problem. However I had hoped to visit a field office in the far west of the country this week, however that has been postponed in the expectation that the disturbances will settle down after a week. And if they don't settle down the visit will be cancelled. So I leave my trip in the hands of an uneducated US 'pastor'.
Saturday 2 April 2011
Day 0 in the departure lounge
It is not unusual when visiting dangerous places to hear bad news at some time during preparations. But, but, yesterday's news from Mazar-i-Sharif was horrific. So this is what I tell people:
It is the other side of the country;
I won't be in a UN compound, indeed I will be living and working with an agency that is overwhelmingly Afghan. So I won't be in an obvious target area.
That is true and good as far as that goes. But it is hard to know if this was a random event (probably) or a new turn in the conflict. My main plan is to just keep my head down.
Getting on plane now. To be continued...
It is the other side of the country;
I won't be in a UN compound, indeed I will be living and working with an agency that is overwhelmingly Afghan. So I won't be in an obvious target area.
That is true and good as far as that goes. But it is hard to know if this was a random event (probably) or a new turn in the conflict. My main plan is to just keep my head down.
Getting on plane now. To be continued...
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