Visit to Afghanistan – October 2011
Kabul
I arrive at Kabul airport on a beautiful sunny day in October to be pleasantly surprised by an impressive array of solar panels in the car park outside the international terminal – there must be at least 100 panels. No-one seems to know quite what they are there for, or indeed if they are being used, but it gives one a feeling of silent and efficient ecological planning – something one does not generally feel when faced with the chaos and noise of Kabul life!
Some things are less surprising – in the six months since my last visit to Afghanistan the roads in Kabul seemed to be even more encumbered with cement blocks and traffic barriers. Consequently the drivers all seem to charge down any available road space in a frenzy. The one fairly ample dual carriage road cutting around the outskirts of town from the airport is typical of this – straight stretches where everyone puts their foot down, punctuated by roundabouts where the cars all grind to a halt and there is a lot of hooting and nudging forward. Kabul drivers believe that the larger the car the more respect you have but the smaller cars and taxis are also very determined! I spend a lot of the trip in the back seat wincing and gripping the seat in front and muttering about the number of road accident victims my medical colleagues see in the hospitals. This is completely ignored by the office driver who laughs and says – This is buzkashi time! He is referring to the national game played with a headless goat. It could also describe the war which has lasted for over 30 years.
My colleagues and I are staying with our hosts and partners, Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, in their expatriate compound in the centre of town. On one side is the Belgian Ambassador who is presently building his surrounding walls a few feet higher, and on the other side is the Attorney General’s office which houses around 3,000 staff. They come in every day in a fleet of buses - one of the chief perks of being a civil servant in Kabul. Many, however, slope off work early and frequently there is no-one around in government departments after 2pm.
We walk around the centre of town to local shops and restaurants but see few other expatriates on foot. The multiple threats in Kabul over the years have meant ever more stringent security rules for many Westerners working there. It is sad because one of the great pleasures in visiting Afghanistan are the friendly encounters with Afghans in shops and on the street. They are genuinely inquisitive. “Why are you here, what is your name, where are you from, how old are you, are you married, how many children do you have, why are you not married?” The gamut of questions is the relic of an oral society which ascertains by direct fact-finding and without any concern for individual privacy. Why should one hide anything from such bare-faced interest! The classic question whenever I get into a taxi with an Afghan friend is always: “How much do you earn working for this foreigner?” Of course salaries are a key concern in this poor country where foreigners symbolise the money pouring in from the West, but sadly there has also been a huge rise in corruption. Afghanistan is now judged to be one of the most corrupt countries in the world and everyone you meet can tell you a story. On a basic level this means that every little piece of administrative work, like renewing your vehicle licence, involves paying some sort of bribe, otherwise the work is simply not done.
Jalalabad
We head off to Jalalabad early next day – the road that descends in a series of hairpin bends from the plain of Kabul through the gorge of Maipur is one of the most dramatic in the world. Rocks of crazy colours tower overhead. The driver, Ali, is worried because no one is passing us in the other direction. This means there is a traffic jam somewhere ahead. Sure enough a few miles down we come upon a classic Afghan scene. A landslide has blocked one lane of the road and everyone is fighting to go first in the remaining lane from both sides. No discipline. The Corolla taxis try to push in front of the lorries and larger 4 wheel drives try to push in front of everyone else. The pushing and shoving is carried out on the narrowed route with a huge drop down to the river on one side. After a while some police arrive, waving guns and shouting at cars to reverse – gradually things get sorted out. Meanwhile it would have been a perfect time for a Taliban ambush. This part of the gorge was famous in the mujahideen period for the ambushes on the Soviet convoys driving down the road to Jalalabad. The Taliban do sometimes carry out attacks on this road, mainly oil tankers carrying fuel to Bagram the NATO base, or government vehicles. That is partly why everyone drives so fast - the best thing is not to stop and not to look too official.
Jalalabad looks green and prosperous as we approach. The first landmark we pass is the University campus – just after Darunta Dam. The students often protest on the road and block the traffic when they want to raise important issues, as students do all over the world. Jalalabad has grown enormously in the last 10 years and new houses and businesses proliferate along the main road. In town the Governor has smartened up a couple of the parks and improved the city road which has bolstered his popularity. However electricity from the faltering dam is insufficient for the needs of the inhabitants. Anyone who can afford to has to have a generator for the frequent power cuts. This includes the government hospital where we work. In summer when temperatures reach the high 40s Centigrade this is very difficult for everyone. It is also bad news for economic development and discussions about harnessing the Kunar river with another hydro-electric dam are high on the provincial government agenda.
Over the next few days I quiz the Afghan project staff about their views on the current security situation in Eastern Afghanistan. Many of the men feel the situation is no better and no worse in the last 12 months. They are still able to travel in rural areas to carry out community-based project activities although in some areas they have to keep a low profile and travel as private individuals in local rented taxis. They also do not carry documents which show that they work with an NGO. However the women are more worried about security and are increasingly reluctant to visit rural areas outside Jalalabad. One of the female community workers I meet who works in a neighbouring province has actually been directly threatened by the Taliban for working for a foreign NGO. She says that she still travels around but pretends to be paying social visits rather than doing her official work. It is the threats of being caught between the two sides and having to choose which one to support, Taliban or NATO backed government forces, that has obliged a growing number of Afghans to move from rural areas to the cities. There they can be more anonymous and there the Taliban have less overt control.
RAD
The programme we have come to see, Rehabilitation for Afghans with Disabilities (RAD) in Jalalabad, was originally started by SGAA in 1996. It is now run by our partners Swedish Committee. There is a lot going on and my colleagues, John and Jeanne dive into waiting lists of patients. Nich and I tour the different departments talking to staff and patients. In the orthopaedic workshop the technicians are manufacturing the various stages of prostheses and orthoses from polypropylene. In the component workshop they are training technciains from 3 other RAD workshops in a new model for a 4 wheel wheelchair by preparing the jigs. We have two wheelchair users who work in this department – Faridoon, a bilateral amputee, who works on wheelchairs and Nazifullah, a polio victim, who welds crutches and trains first time wheelchair users. They are both tremendously tough as they have to come several kilometres in their wheelchairs to work every day and back home. All patients have to be registered first and be assessed by the physiotherapy departments, male and female are separate. The female physiotherapy department is in its own courtyard with bougainvillea hanging over the sign which announces it as the Paddie Chanmugam Women and Children’s Physiotherapy Centre. Paddie was one of our longest serving physiotherapist expatriate trainers and set up the two year training programme that produced the current crop of women physiotherapists in Jalalabad.
I met one of our disabled clients in Jalalabad who is benefiting from the RAD vocational training programme and is learning tailoring in the house of a tailoring teacher. She has a high above knee amputation and doesn’t wear her prosthesis much except when she goes out of the house. Inside the walled compound where we meet here, she moves easily around with a crutch for support. The tailoring is done on the floor of the guest room, the machine and materials spread around the room. Rosy (not her real name) is 22 years old and had her leg blown of when she was 3 years old playing in a field. She is learning tailoring because she lives with her uncle and wants to contribute to the family’s income. Her father left her there when he married a second time after Rosy’s mother died. Rosy has two brothers who work in Kabul, the oldest of whom, acts like her guardian and keeps an eye on her from Kabul, frequently ringing to see how she is and what she is doing. I ask her if she plans to get married. She laughs and says no, she wants to stay with her uncle and his family as they are good to her. But then it turns out that several men have come to ask for her hand, older men who want second wives or one boy who is hearing impaired. She says that she isn’t interested in any of them and doesn’t want to be a second wife busy cooking and looking after the children. She wants a young husband like her! I ask about the potential suitor with hearing impairment. She says she rejected him because she likes talking and it would be difficult to chat to him if he can’t understand her. Luckily she says her brother is happy to let her make the decision about who she marries.
Tomorrow we are off to Metherlam to see our activities there and then next day Ghani Khel.