Captain Cat's Diaries

Interview with a former Taliban commander

I thought you might be interested to read the notes from a meeting I had a couple of weeks ago when I was in Khost province (bordering Pakistan), with a reconciled former Taliban commander (and cousin of one of the most important Taliban commanders operating just across the border in Pakistan today, in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, FATA). He is a Mullah (a religious leader) in Khost province, and belongs to one of the most fearsome, fiesty tribes in Southeastern Afghanistan.

I conducted this interview in the context of a paper I am writing, to obtain perspectives on the topic in question from as many different groups as possible including members from the Soviet-Backed Afghan regime in the 1980s, and former jihadis, many of whom joined ranks with the Taliban in the 1990s.

I was slightly nervous about meeting this very impressive looking man (who I will call Malauwi Faizullah, although that isn’t his real name). I’d seen him the day before at another gathering, and had requested (through a colleague) to meet him at our office. I was captivated by him. Maybe because of who he was and who he knew, maybe because he was so dashing! He’d thrown a cursory glance my way but I hadn’t thought someone of his stature or importance would turn up, particularly given his background. But he did.

 

Malauwi Faizullah swept into our compound the following morning wearing a large white turban and a long flowing white shalwar kameez and beige waistcoat (traditional wear for men across the country). He had a neatly trimmed large black beard, dark skin and beautiful dark brown eyes.

 

We sat in one of the rooms in our little field office, steaming cups of green tea on a glass coffee table before us; the room was quiet except for the chirping of birds outside the office window. April is a beautiful month in Khost, the land is alive and fresh and full of the promise of peace.

 

What follow are some disjointed excerpts from our meeting (and forgive me, but I will blank out certain names / issues), in which Malauwi Faizullah spoke to me very openly. This will give you a small glimpse of how fragmented Afghan society is. Nothing is black and white. Yet neither does this interview give a full or objective account either, and it is not necessarily representative of what the Taliban or insurgents want. They are comments from one man, struggling to understand where his future lies at a particular time in his country's struggle to break free of this mess.

 

In parts, his comments are deeply sad, and reveal how vulnerable he is, despite his connections; yet this is the story of so many Afghans.

 

--

 

“The government is like a tree. It wields fruits. The people are like its fruits. But any government that has no roots in the community is going to dry.

 

The government has no roots in the community because 95% of the population has a jihadi background. They were fighting for 15-20 years, yet there is no share for the ex-jihadis in this government, even though most of the people in this society are ex-jihadis.

 

During the Taliban regime, people from the more remote rural areas favoured the Taliban. They had strong Islamic views. The Taliban brought ex-jihadis into their regime. But this government is only made up of Leftists.

 

There were many mistakes during the Taliban time but there were no uprisings against the Mullahs. What I mean by this is that in Afghan culture, people do not oppose these elements of society, such as Islam, Sharia or Mullahs.

 

Unfortunately the Afghan Government and the International Community don’t understand Afghan culture or society. If a Mullah says a few verses of the Koran and recites some Hadiths, people respect him. But no one is going to respect an engineer or a doctor who is reciting Hadiths. The government is using these engineers and doctors to lead our society, but they should use Mullahs.

 

These are the 3 elements fundamental to a functioning Government: military power, political power and the ability to use propaganda effectively.

 

The government has the first two, but not the third. Only the Ulema (religious scholars) can effectively use propaganda. The government needs to realise this and use them. They need to reach out to the people in Mosques, and students in madrassas. These are the people who can motivate our society.

 

The International Community doesn’t pay attention to these elements. They don’t understand.

 

After the intervention of the Coalition Forces in 2001, and the subsequent re-emergence of former Khalqis (faction of the former Communist regime) in positions throughout the security forces, did security improve at all? Was there a general perception among former jihadis that they were being targeted in search / military operations?

 

MF: 95 % of the population is former jihadi.  During the Taliban regime, the jihadis had a lot of power. However when Karzai came to power, the former Leftists re-emerged and were appointed in many government posts. Yes, they target former jihadis, they provide a lot of incorrect information to the Coalition Forces.

 

[…]

 

In over 100 government gatherings or inauguration ceremonies that I have attended since I was reconciled and allowed back into the country, I have received threats from the insurgents that I will be kidnapped or killed.

 

I am under a lot of pressure. This morning, a person came to my house and informed me that there are 2 people on motorbikes who follow me everywhere I go. If I leave the city, they will kill me. I have security guards in my house. Sometimes I feel I should leave this country.

 

Recently, two of my security guards were killed. They had received so many threats and one day they were killed.

 

I think there is a common misperception among the International Community and the military that people have a choice about whether to support the insurgents or whether to support the government; and that providing development or other forms of assistance will sway them in favour of the government – but I’m not sure people actually have that choice, certainly not anymore.

 

MF: Absolutely. Absolutely. I totally agree with you. [...]

 

The reconciliation process is very important. The Taliban contacted us about this. They are keen to get this process underway, as they are starting to feel the pressure in Pakistan. If this process started, that would be a good thing.

We don’t trust this government though, they haven’t fulfilled their promises. So what do we say to the Taliban when they ask about reconciliation? We don’t have an answer for them.

 

I believe that people from the Southeast region can play a very important role in this reconciliation process. If we look at the insurgents, most of them are from this region.

 

I have requested a committee, which would be composed of Ulema and ex-jihadis. [...]

 

The brother of […]. was apprehended by the […] and sent to […]. When he was released, he went back to Pakistan.  I sent people to him to ask about reconciliation, and what he thought about it. He said he was in favour. But he was arrested [….] and is scared to come back. He asked me, “if you are convinced by this present government, if you think we will not be arrested if we come back, then yes this reconciliation is a good idea.”  We can easily do this reconciliation.

The Ulema need to be brought into government posts. […]

A number of elders and Ulema have contacts with the Taliban. What the insurgents want to be assured of is that they will not be arrested if they come in for reconciliation. They will keep their distance until they can be sure they will be guaranteed immunity.

  

In the meantime, the Taliban will continue to demonstrate that this government is illegitimate.”

 

[The meeting continues for a while, then I tell him to take care, in light of the threats against him.]

 

“Our lives and deaths are not in our own hands”.

 

We say goodbye. He extends his hand to shake mine (which is in fact extremely uncharacteristic of a Mullah to do this to a woman), and gives me the warmest smile when I tell him in Pashtu that he is welcome anytime.

Tangled tales of sharks, webs and stormy skies

Beirut skyline, March 2009

 

I don’t know how to settle down to my writing, still apparently afraid to completely let go. Perhaps such inhibitions are a useful reminder to those of us wanting to write, to remind ourselves that we simply have to learn to accept who we are in order to be able to write freely and unashamedly.

 

This past week I have been struck yet again by some parasitic infection and have spent several an unpleasant moment in various bathrooms in Southeastern Afghanistan. Yesterday for example, I became very familiar with the Governor of Ghazni’s gaudy black-tiled facilities, and learned to be mercifully grateful for the reviled, ubiquitous imported Chinese cheap pink sandpaper-like loo paper. Oh woe is my poor liver, my healthy bacteria, slowly being killed off by industrial strength Metronidazole! Illegal in several countries, yes. But a blessing sent by God as far as I’m concerned.

Spring is battling hard to make an appearance here in Gardez. The cherry blossom is out, it’s almost gone now in fact; but days are heavy with cold fat rain and slate-coloured skies. Our flights to and from Kabul have been cancelled repeatedly in the last couple of weeks, due to the weather. A feeling of isolation and of being trapped is silently creeping over this barren plain that lies encircled by the Hindu Kush.

My R&R seems a long way off now; it was wonderful, although imbued with a heaviness of heart, thinking about S. and his warmth and love and the way he strives for goodness. The simple way he lives his life, the pleasure he derives from small things, and the enormous love he shows to everyone, without exception. S. always makes everyone feel special.

 

I passed my advanced scuba diving certificate in the Maldives, and swam with sharks, turtles, manta rays (see below - and that's me in the top left, just above her!) and all sorts bizarre and beautiful aquatic wildlife (except for sea slugs, not beautiful by any stretch of the imagination, just unsightly blobs dotted along the sea floor).

 

Diving in the Maldives, March 2009 

 

Then I went to Lebanon and spent a week walking through Beirut’s colourful, noisy, oriental yet also very Mediterranean streets, looking for that redeeming formula or crystallising thought. 

 

March is a cold month in Beirut apparently, and I hadn’t packed properly for the trip. But I savoured the freedom to walk and walked until my muscles ached, through backstreets peppered with bullet holes, along the corniche, Beirut’s famous sea facing promenade. I watched young Lebanese couples strolling arm in arm with March’s bracing sea breeze in their faces, old men on benches, toddlers on scooters being sheparded along by smiling parents.

I heard Church bells chime followed by the beautifully haunting call to prayers from the Mosques, which I have come to love so much. I loved the juxtaposition of the two.

 

I smelled the sweet smell of apple tobacco from shisha pipes and fresh coffee wafting out from little cafes. I was loved, momentarily, by the flower seller on the corner of the street near my hotel. “I like you so much!” he would cry when I walked past each morning, and rushed out brandishing a rose. One day he couldn’t contain himself and grabbed my face in his hands and gave me a big fat kiss on the cheek.

 

I sat one evening in the coolness of a chapel and drank in the sweet smell of old wood pews and sacred books, listening to the most beautiful piano and cello recital.  The cellist (who was Andrew Lloyd Weber’s brother) played one of my very favourite pieces of music as an encore. It made me ache it was so lovely. It’s as if he’d heard me asking.

 

I met up with a couple of friends and taught a Lebanese barman to do a flaming Sambuca. Such a good party trick, and I guarantee you instant awe and admiration from your onlookers. I also guarantee you the mother of all hangovers the next morning, which is where Krispy Kreme doughnuts come in handy.

 

Back in Afghanistan, and I’m trying hard to find the strength to let go of S and move on, wondering if indeed I truly want to move on. Maybe I don't want to. In any case this won’t happen whilst I am still caught in the fine silvery web both he and this country have spun around me. 

Telling our stories

 

Walking in Switzerland last June

 

I believe the act of telling our stories here is a way of clearing up some of the mess in our untidy lives. By telling them, we can make sense of why we’re here and if we aren’t wholly honest (as some of us aren’t always entirely), we can re-write our lives in a way that pleases us more.

 

I’d like to think there is a point to everything – the choices we make, why we do what we do. But isn’t all this just a sequence of chance events?

 

I’m here in Afghanistan because my Russian visa ran out five years ago whilst I was trying to find work as a journalist on the Moscow Times, or any other news agency in Russia’s capital city, which would have me. For fear of ending up in a gulag on the outskirts of Ulyianovsk, I left.

As I languished back home yearning for Moscow and a new visa, my friend Stephanie sent me a link for an internship in Afghanistan (initially just for three months), which I applied for and got, partly because I don’t think many people were lining up for jobs in Kabul back in early 2004. The day I flew out to Kabul, I met S, who had also got a job working for the same non-governmental organisation, and the rest is my own history.

Of course, you can’t plan the way your history pans out. You can give life a gentle nudge in the direction you think you ought to be going in, but a lot of the time it’s about whatever is thrown at you, you catch what you want, miss some things, end up with others.

 

Writing about our lives is like drawing together the seams of a misshapen garment, avoiding calling too much attention to the stitches. But the stitches are what make our lives real. They’re not always pretty, they can be clumsy and stand out.

 

I don’t have a neatly woven tale with seamlessly flowing words. My life’s cloth is colourful and I am grateful for all my experiences; but it is peppered with imperfect stitches.

 

An attempt at a poem:

 

That day I wore red, he told me I was a flower in full bloom.

 

Yet what seemed like love fell in doleful shades

Like scattered petals. Baffled and vanquished by the midday sun.

 

What seemed like love ensnared me

And led me, blind yet hopeful

through a dark desert without dimension or end

Where distance and time were lost

 

As an errant soul stumbled towards dawn’s half-light

The ugliness of what had appeared so beautiful

Revealed itself

And in dust-filled faded sunbeams

Its shapeless face was unmasked, uncovering a churlish black grin.

 

Thursday evening

It's 8.00 pm on a Thursday evening (my equivalent of a Friday evening in the non-Muslim world) and I'm still in the office. Every muscle aches from sitting in this wretched chair all day, and once again this week I've neglected to go to our little gym (which consists of a treadmill and that's about it - still, it's all I need).

I think it's going to be a one-day-at-a-time sort of time. I'm too emotionally exhausted to think about anything too much. This week-end I'm going to Kabul for a conference (that was the excuse) but mostly to go to the clinic and to catch up with the friends that I have left there. If I'm being honest, I don't really care about the social scene in Kabul anymore (apart from one or two people) - the parties and restaurants, they've become a haze now and that feels healthy. I like that I don't yearn for the place or miss people there (I don't think I have since I got here last summer in fact).

The other day Masood (who I have mentioned here and here) came to Gardez. I showed him my world here, including our little bar / bunker, and he said it was the coolest thing he'd seen in Paktia. Seeing him lifted me off the ground and I was so proud to show him off to everyone. He and Henry had a good chat, as they are both working on similar projects - bringing the formal and traditional Afghan justice systems closer together. You know that feeling when two people that you like so much, from two of your different worlds, collide? I sat there listening to them, a huge smile on my face, wanting to hug them both.

I'm going on R&R soon, thank god (not soon enough, another 2 weeks to go) - I haven't decided where I'll go for the first week or so, but week 2 will be spent in Lebanon. I've been told Beirut is lovely and I want to test the waters for somewhere to go after Afghanistan, maybe. Although the thought of home and London as places to go after here seems good to me now.

Southeastern blues and greys (mainly greys)

 

Sunset over Paktia

Roses are red
Violets are blue
I got all of zero Valentine's Day cards last Saturday
How about you?

I like to think it's because I'm holed up in the Southeast of Afghanistan that I was not flooded with greetings or flowers from secret admirers; it may be due to the fact that I changed my Facebook profile picture to Jabba the Hut a few weeks ago and scared off potential suitors. (admittedly my skin has seen brighter days, I'll be honest, but it's not that bad, and neither do I have several green scaley double chins, just yet. Maybe I should change my profile picture though).

Do they not celebrate Valentine's Day here in deep tribal Pashtunistan? Do those Talibs not have a wee romantic streak amongst them? I wonder what a Valentine's card from one of these chaps would look like. I imagine it would go something like this:

Roses are red
Violets are blue
I've got a bushy beard
Where is your burqa, woman!?!

Not funny.

I wasn't expecting any cards. I got a text message from the only person who mattered, and felt the weight of a thousand broken hearts.

I need to come clean about a few things, although I am still wary of going too deeply into personal stuff here. That rough patch I mentioned the other day, so apparently casually between sentences - that was me alluding to the end of a long journey with someone who I love dearly and who taught me more than anyone else ever could. There is no valid or justifiable reason for why, I'm aching and have no answers.

More on a better day.

Dancing with eyes closed

Sunrise at FOB Salerno, Khost province, January 2009

 

All quiet on the southeastern front.

 

All not so quiet on the intestinal front, where currently an unstoppable rebel force (last seen sometime last year) is waging a turf war within the folds of my poor tummy, arguing over who owns what and carving up my stomach like a shameless band of 18^th century colonialists discovering gold mines in Africa.

 

This is very much a one-way relationship, and I’m not enjoying their visit. I hope to have the last laugh though, as I’ve just started a course of parasite killers. I hope to start laughing tomorrow at the latest, as right now this industrial-strength killer is causing me quite a bit of pain.

 

I was supposed to be taking a Blackhawk (courtesy of the US military) to a remote district in Paktia province today, a little place hemmed in by mountains and completely cut off from the rest of the province, bordering Pakistan on one side and a very unstable district in a neighbouring province (Khost) on the other.

 

Frozen jagged faces between my two southeastern provinces

 

The purpose of our trip was to meet with the uluswal (district governor) and elders from the Mangal tribe.

 

I think I’ve mentioned before, I would really rather not be associated with the US military for a number of reasons, but sadly they are the only ones with the capacity to access these places (due to the deteriorating security situation, we are no longer able to drive there).

 

 US soldiers offloading from theirChinook helicopter at FOB Gardez, Jan 09

 

I am compiling some district profiles as part of a wider analysis of the conflict in this part of Afghanistan, in order to be able to identify possible ways to engage with and support tribes who themselves are supportive of the government, so that they don't fall to the insurgency (many places are wavering and on the edge - sometimes I don't blame them, but that's my own personal opinion, not my official UN line obviously). This particular district is one I am focusing on. But traveling with or being part of a military mission severely limits my ability to talk to people - the sort of talks that are only possible on the fringes of meetings, to try to get more of a real sense of a place. But there we are, that's the situation.

However the trip was cancelled because about three hours ago, a heavy dark grey blanket of a cloud fell on Gardez and as is the wont of stubborn clouds, it won’t be budging for a while. Therefore our trip has been postponed until Friday, which also happens to be my day off. Apparently our boys in green don’t do days off. They do, however, stay up until 5.00 am, watching the American phenomenon that is the Super Bowl, so it’s not all doom and gloom over at the barracks. I went over there today to collect my parasite / amoeba medicine from the clinic there – the place was a ghost town, save for the odd bleary-eyed soldier shuffling slowly from one unit to another, clutching a mug of coffee.

 

On my way to the military base, I had a lovely chat with one of our drivers, Kaher, who showed me a video on his mobile phone of his beautiful children and of women dancing Atan at a wedding party he attended recently.

 

Atan is a traditional Afghan dance, usually performed during wedding ceremonies. I have seen Kaher dance, he is exquisite in every sense. Atan is such a perfect, complex dance. The rhythm of the tablas, harmonium and rabab lulls you into a hypnotic trance, as you watch people like Kaher dancing with their eyes closed and moving with such grace.

 

 

Afghan musicians tuning their instruments (rabab to the left, tabla to the right)

 

I want to dance with my eyes shut like Kaher.

 

I made a lovely new friend recently, someone who has been here in Gardez for a while but who I never took the time to get to know until now. Sometimes I think these key people in our lives are found when they want to be found. Or we find them when we need them most, without realizing it. I think we’re going to help each other through some rough patches.

 

A rough patch happened last week shortly after my last post, which I’ll write about at some point. Anyway, back to this special person, who I’ll call Henry for now.

 

Henry mentioned the other evening as we were chatting in my room over a glass of wine that one of his all time favourite poets was Walt Whitman, with whom, he said, he had a love-hate relationship owing to the fact that he simply couldn't believe that someone as vile as WW could have written so beautifully.

 

Henry has a wonderfully dry sense of humour – he can seem aloof and offhand and surly. He can appear outrageous and rude and mean. I didn’t even like him when I first met him last summer. But then I caught a glimpse of who he was and noticed how his soul radiates goodness and that he has a heart of gold. Henry’s face turns into pure, unadulterated sunshine when he smiles.

 

I don't know a thing about Walt Whitman (1819-1892), so I looked him up. Here's an extract from one of his poems, Faces, in Leaves of Grass (Book xxxii):

 

Sauntering the pavement or riding the country by-road, faces!
Faces of friendship, precision, caution, suavity, ideality,
The spiritual-prescient face, the always welcome common benevolent face,
The face of the singing of music, the grand faces of natural lawyers
    and judges broad at the back-top,
The faces of hunters and fishers bulged at the brows, the shaved
    blanch'd faces of orthodox citizens,
The pure, extravagant, yearning, questioning artist's face,
The ugly face of some beautiful soul, the handsome detested or
    despised face,
The sacred faces of infants, the illuminated face of the mother of
    many children,
The face of an amour, the face of veneration,
The face as of a dream, the face of an immobile rock,
The face withdrawn of its good and bad, a castrated face,
A wild hawk, his wings clipp'd by the clipper,
A stallion that yielded at last to the thongs and knife of the gelder.

Sauntering the pavement thus, or crossing the ceaseless ferry, faces
    and faces and faces,
I see them and complain not, and am content with all.

 

What's the Frequency, Kenneth?

District governors from Paktia province at a training last week

It's been an eventful couple of weeks in the 'stan. There are currently talks of arming people to fight local Taliban commanders in provinces around Kabul (duh, hello? Can we make the situation here any worse? Oh yes, I have an idea, let's get more guns out there into the communities and ask people nicely to go and fight the Taliban - do you think they'll use them to fight their own turf wars? Noooo, of course not. They will be legitimate, law abiding Taliban-fighting militias, brilliant); there have been talks of bringing in thousands more troops here (which will just fly with people who are so sick of night raids and other special forces operations - in fact people who were neither pro-government or against it, are seriously contemplating joining the insurgency - and why not? Their own government isn't doing a very good job of protecting them, and the international military forces aren't really helping either). 

It's worse than that. Military operations are actually doing more harm than good here - we've had tribal elders coming to our UN office by the dozen, from a number of the districts here, desperate and helpless, not knowing where to turn. You see, these night raids (which happen all over the southeast) often result in the arrest or death of innocent civilians; either that or they are grossly mishandled by young special forces soldiers who are not only terrified themselves, but they have no clue about the culture or how fragile and tense the situation already is.

 

Coalition humvee in Zurmat district centre, Paktia province (southeast)

I can't tell you how frustrating and sad it is to watch people who were so hopeful four years ago becoming disillusioned and bitter. And I have to ask myself, what am I actually doing here to add value? I've become a cog in an increasingly dirty, misshapen wheel, which rolled off the right path some time ago. I was in Zurmat the other day, one of the districts in Paktia province which we largely consider to be 'lost' to the Taliban now. I listened to the Zurmati elders plead with their local government representatives (and the provincial governor, who we are trying to help get out to the districts more to actually talk to his people and hear their plights) for help. All they want are some hospitals and trained teachers, the odd decent road or two linking them to the provincial centre so they can have better access to markets - and these people know how many billions of dollars have poured into this country since 2002. So they justifiably ask the question 'where has the money gone and why aren't we seeing any signs of this progress that the government's been promising for years?'

Local Zurmatis, during a gathering on Wednesday

Amidst feelings of guilt and general helplessness, I am also pondering my own safety. Whilst staying on the military base the other day in Khost province for a conference, we were attacked. Three rockets were fired from the mountains close by and landed next to the base in a series of loud explosions which made my heart almost stop. The whole place erupted into a frenzy of sirens - we were ordered to take shelter in our spartan military dormitories, donning our flak jackets and helmets and ordered to wait for further instructions from the base's loudpseaker. This is a vast US base, home to approximately 3,000 soldiers and thousands of metric tonnes of military equipment. I sat on my little narrow bunk, everyone was quiet and the place was eerily silent except for the sound of humvees and tanks rolling past outside (they each weigh 35 tonnes, so the whole ground shook) and blackhawks and fighter planes overhead. As we waited diligently for the all-clear, I read People magazine and caught up on Jennifer Aniston's latest news. Apparently she's really excited about turning 40 next month. 

I should probably start thinking about the years going by. Where does life happen, here or elsewhere? Probably both. I find that my life has become a bit of a balancing act, where on the one hand I'm excited and raring to go, filled with motivation, love and hope and wanting to help; on the other hand I just want to get on the next plane and leave. Leave all this craziness behind and find a normal way of life somewhere safe where family and friends are close by. I try to balance these two opposing emotions.

And just when I think I'm about to snap, I get a pep talk from S, my rock, my friend, my love - the man who has been by my side these past 5 years (almost) and walked me through the tough times holding my hand. He tells me that life is a gift, that every breath we take is precious. Take pleasure from the simple things, he says. Don't complicate life, it's too short. And I take a deep breath, and play some Beethoven (go and listen to the Moonlight Sonata this minute) and somehow the world is right again.

Making time

 

Standing on a disused tower of a qalat (traditional Afghan compound) in Shomali, just outside Kabul in early December

It's been a while since I last wrote. My job as political affairs officer for the UN mission here has been keeping me extremely busy. So busy that I have completely ignored the very things which instill me with calm in an otherwise frantic work environment, the things I love doing most outside of work. One such passtime is writing. My diary is bare, unwritten empty pages glare at me with contemptuous blankness, as only empty pages know how. Raised eyebrows. "These pages aren't going to write themselves you know". I know.

In this spirit of new year motivation and resolve, I hope to be 'here' a lot more these coming months and write about some of the extraordinary events and people I come across.

I returned to my beautiful snow covered Hindu Kush mountains this morning after a month's break. Just before I left, I'd almost decided I couldn't deal with the intensity anymore. How much can a girl take? I have never worked anywhere so intense as here, my adrenaline levels have sky rocketed and I feel as though I am on some kind of perpetual drug-induced high every single day. I've learnt alot, it's been fantastic, I've laughed, cried and aged. Alot. And worried friends and relatives with weight loss, which has been unintentional but undoubtedly a result of the nature of the work here and unprecedented levels of stress. But what I thought I knew about this country from the three years or so I spent working in Kabul was nothing compared to what I have learnt in the past six months based here in Afghanistan's tribal southeast. And my fingers are itching to tell you all about it...

I want a blog facelift! Can anyone help me? I would love a new banner, but am clueless as to how to do this. Any advice/offers of help would be very much appreciated.

Will try to post more photos as well, to offer you more of a glimpse of this beautiful place.

If God Wills it

God has a lot on his plate as he is apparently in charge of everyone’s fate. If God wills it, we’ll get to our destination safely. If God wills it, we’ll see each other next week. If he wills it, the fighting will end, roadside IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices) will become a thing of the past, people will forget their differences and maybe this country will finally get a chance to mend. I guess it depends on what kind of mood God's in. Or maybe he’s sitting up there somewhere, shaking his head sadly as we stumble from one mistake to another, apparently never really learning from past blunders.

Two Germans were shot dead in Kabul this morning. This is the third fatal shooting this week in the capital. People are going to stop walking in the streets with this horribly effective and sinister new form of intimidation.

I instinctively force myself to remain detached from these gruesome incidents and try to think about normal things. If he has a moment, maybe God can will a plumber to come and fix my new bathroom. A qualified plumber if possible God, as Haji, bless him, is useless. I noted this on several occasions when wrestling with the frantic, uncontrollable writhing cheap Pakistani piping as it comes loose from my water boiler for the third time in 48 hours, like some sort of angry sea snake rudely awoken from a deep aquatic slumber.

The other day, out of the blue, I was overcome by a profound sense of happiness. It was that kind of aching love that I just wanted to lavish on everyone for no particular reason, during a very humdrum routine journey.

I was on my way back to the UN compound from a meeting at the military base. It’s a 20-minute drive along uneven dusty roads through the barren suburbs outside of Gardez, held in by the towering Hindu Kush. This gradually gives way to the bustling streets of the city.

I watched people intently through the thick glass windows of the UN armoured vehicle, resenting this very unnatural barrier between myself and the Gardezis. I watched a giant of a man walking along with henna in his beard and hair, wearing a shalwar kameez and skullcap. In his giant hand, he held that of a toddler who was struggling to keep up, five or six little steps to each of his father or uncle’s. I spied three old bearded men wearing turbans chatting by a shop entrance; one of them was wearing a pair of rather trendy sunglasses.

I watched some young thin dark skinned men, probably labourers working on the new Gardez to Khost road, earning a few dollars a day, wearing checked scarves sitting on the back of a truck watching my vehicle as it drove past. I drank in market scenes, watching as stall owners threw water over thick clusters of radishes (it is very much radish season at the moment), making them glisten red and white in the late morning sun.

(I didn't quite catch the radishes as I took this photo from the car driving past. But note the one woman out and about in town! A rare sighting).

Finally as we approached the office, I had to hold back tears which came from goodness knows where, as I watched some young boys and girls in school uniform making their way home for lunch, playing with each other so naturally and laughing, as boys and girls do the world over.

This is a normal, beautiful country filled with beautiful people who are simply making their way in life. If God wills it.

A day in the life

Hmm, I haven't had many phone conversations which have ended with me calmly saying "hang on I'll call you back, a gun fight's just broken out nearby and I need to get behind the car". This happened as I was waiting near the helipad earlier this morning waiting for the UN helicopter (aka flimsy about-to-fall-out-of-the-sky left-over 1980s Soviet relic, should probably be in a museum). It was all ok in the end you'll be pleased to know, I didn't get shot. Limbs intact, we took off and wobbled our way over the Hindu Kush to the lush green plains of Khost.

A word about the UN office in Khost. We have the most devastatingly attractive admin and finance officer here, who hates foreigners. And believe me when I say he is attractive. Green eyes, olive skin, lovely roman nose, jet black hair. I will try to take a photo of him sometime this week (probably as he's plotting to murder me). Obviously I shouldn't even be writing this, not only because I have a boyfriend (also devastatingly attractive), but because it is culturally inappropriate. Oh sod that, the man is gorgeous. I don't fancy him (as I said, he is probably thinking up ways to have me kidnapped and beheaded as I write), but I can appreciate male beauty when I see it. Enough said.

Another word about our Khost office. There's nobody here to manage the guesthouse, which means Pot Noodles for me for the next few days. I tried to have a conversation in Pashtu (the other main Afghan language) with our toothless turbanned housekeeper, regarding procuring something (anything) fresh from the market. I am now the proud owner of several bunches of garlic.

On that note, I'm off to the kitchen to rustle up a garlic-based dish.