Postscript

I am back safe and sound at home in Denmark... It is nice to be here and to breathe in fresh air, to bike around with my hair blowing freely in the wind and to be able to drink the water out of the tap is a bit of a bonus! I think living in Afghanistan long term would be very tough... not sure if i could hack it.

I have organised my photos and uploaded them so please do take a look:

http://photos.yahoo.com/kiwioutthere_2006

Last words...

on Saturday after my final dari lesson i went to a teacher training course run by an Afghan NGO. They are running a programme training female teachers in a province in the middle of the country. The teachers I met in Kabul were the ones teaching the course in the province. They were here for a couple of weeks of training themselves in extra subjects like peace-, mine- , health education, rights of a child, and monitoring and evaluating. They gave me a bit of a presentation about the situation of education in Afghanistan and what was happening with their project. They asked me questions about the teaching profession in Denmark and in NZ. It was really cool to talk to them and especially the translator about what this NGO is doing. There is a huge need for teacher training here.

Today I went to the Education University and met with the English teachers there. I actually ended up speaking Russian with one of them as he studied English and Russian in Russia once upon a time. I'm finding my knowledge of Russian really handy. Yesterday I was at a women's jail- well a shorter term detention centre- and the head lady there didn't speak English and I didn't have a translator.. so when she asked in Russian if i wanted some tea i was pretty relieved...a common language! It was interesting to meet the women there and talk to them. There were quite a few Chinese prostitutes and a few Thai girls and an African who were caught smuggling heroin (thru consuming capsules of it). There were a few Afghans as well.. mostly in trouble for sexual promiscuity or accusation of it. They are allowed their small children with them and the ones i met were really cute but malnourished. I was there with Zakia (one of my English students) from the HIV team. She goes there and does courses about Hiv/Aids... something these women have never heard of. But yesterday she just gave out medicine and sanitary pads. I feel very priveleged to have been able to see so many things here... including this place.

I'm writing this on my last day here.. pretty sad really. I will miss this country. Hopefully I'll be back though.

Things I will miss:
- the friendly chaokidars (security guards) & drivers at our house and at the office, plus the ORA team
- my English students: i had fun teaching them even though it was for such a short time
- the adrenalin rush that driving anywhere in this city gives you
- the friendly offers of tea wherever you go
- the mountains
- the 'interestingness' of everything... the cityscape, the people, their clothes, the buildings
- speaking and hearing Dari
- the smoothies from Chaila
- times on the roof

Things I will not miss:
- the carcasses hanging outside the butcher shops
- the dust
- the rubbish everywhere
- the heat
- the unreliability of the electricity
- the smells
- the scorpions (ok i only saw one, but to know that they live in your neighbourhood is no fun)

So i think this is it, probably the last blog from Kiwi in Kabul. I'm hoping and praying that my Ariana flight will actually leave tomorow as scheduled, but they have been known to cancel at the last minute. All going well I should be back in Odense about 1 am tomorrow night. Thanks for listening... reading... whatever... stay tuned for photo info, i have some great ones i would love to share with people.

Khoda Hafez!

too busy to blog!

Well my last few days have been very busy... doing lots of great stuff.
I want to fill you in on it all but haven't had much time to sit and write....

My English classes have been going well. The head of the hiv/AIDS team, Dr. Farid, has his family here for the summer (they usually live in Pakistan) and his teenage kids have been coming to my classes. They are great and I have really been enjoying teaching them all. The other day after class I stayed on for tea with Dr. Farid's family and it was really interesting hearing about their lives and talking about different things with them.

I have had 6 dari classes in total and am learning a little bit which is good. The guards and drivers that work at the office and our house are so nice and i try my little bit of dari (mixed with sign language) to communicate with them. The other night i went to an engagement party of one of the guys that work at the office. He is engaged to his cousin who lives in Australia... so the hope is that he will go there. Neither of them really like each other so it was wierd to be there to 'celebrate' their engagement. Fun to see Afghan dancing and to eat Afghan food though.

Have spotted some more cool bus slogans...
'forceful'
'speed my aotion'
'we trast in God'
'comfortable bus'
'royalfriend city'
and all on one bus: 'i want to you', 'enjoy the love', and 'good your journey'

I went on an outing to a bazaar with Bron and the kids.. it was amazing to just observe everything going on. It was quite funny... people stopped and just stared at us curiously.. and smiled... and i did the same thing back. When i pulled out my camera there were so many people staring and keen to have their picture taken.. fine with me! We didn't see many women and they are usually a bit shy with the camera too, so i have lots of pictures of men- young and old, dirty and clean, dignified and not so.. I look forward to sorting out the best of my photos and putting them on my photos site when i get back to Denmark (next week).

After the bazaar we went to the Kabul Museum. This was great to see even though they don't have many artefacts anymore. Most everything was stolen or destroyed during either the civil war or the Taliban times. There were some interesting old buddhist statues etc that have been restored and a small collection of coins, some of them dating back to around the 5th century. I really liked the exhibition of wooden figures that come from a part of the country called Nuristan. They are pre-islamic figures representing warriors and deities etc. They have done a good job of documenting the destruction of the musuem under the Taliban and also the way the artefacts have been restored. We got a peek in the restoration department there.. must be such painstaking work... i'd never have the patience!

I went back to Pulechaki.. where the medical clinic is... and attended the womens health education class. It was in an outdoor classroom and the Afghan lady teaching was really great. Cool to see the women so attentive and captivated, learning about very basic health care. I have spent an afternoon with a Kiwi lady seeing her teach English to some employees of Roshan (the mobile phone/ internet company here) and also got out to a village where an Iranian woman was teaching some preschool kids about brushing their teeth! It was fun to play games with the kids and for me just to see some different things someone with a teaching background could do here.

I spent some time exploring the shops on chicken street yesterday with Jonathan- the man i sat beside on the plane on the way over here. I bought some jewellery and a few gifts for people. Some of the stores were like museums... so many amazing interesting things. This country really has a rich culture. I especially liked the jewellery and the headdresses, decorative bags etc of the Kuchis, the nomadic people (see the photo of me trying one of the headdresses on.. it has coins and shells sewn on it).

Me with the museum guard in front of the destroyed Daruluman Palace 

5am hike

I went to the top of the mountain near our house yesterday... we left at 5 am!! Our goal was to avoid any muggings by addicts (we figured they'd still be sleeping then) and also to avoid the heat of the sun.. i still worked up a sweat tho! We were back by 7.30... safe and sound. It was amazing.

First we (3 guys and me) walked through alleys/streets to the bottom of the hill. Then we climbed up to the fort, following the sewage line in the middle of the street/ alley through houses and basically past and through peoples front and back yards. There were a few people around collecting water or whatever but it was pretty quiet. There are a couple of canons up at the fort that used to be fired everyday at 12pm as a way of people knowing the time. Now instead there are explosions about the same time as they are clearing mines on another hill. As we got higher up we could see a few people sleeping on their rooves... flat mud style... and as the houses aren't very big it's probably the most cool and private spot around.

It amazes me how people have built into the hills here- there were no roads for vehicles where we were walking so to build all the buildings we saw, people must have used donkeys or human labour... tough going. Above the town we followed a bit of a track up the mountain to the wall and eventually to the top. (Wise to follow the track as there is a risk of mines up there). I am trying to find out the story of the wall and getting varying versions.. but one is that it was built at the time of Alexander the great (i.e. more than 2000 years ago) and it was a way of protecting the city at that time. It goes from the bottom of the hill all the way to the top and then around the corner and down the other side. Anyway we walked on it, took pictures and enjoyed the 360degree views of the mountains and the sprawling city below. A bit scary to be so high and look down at the air we breathe... all smoggy and polluted... like a fog over the city.

We saw lots of empty shell cases from machine guns up at the top... strange to imagine guys up there fighting... although it shouldn't be that hard to imagine when all over the city there are delapidated buildings and holes in everything from guns/ grenades whatever. This place has really been destroyed and it is amazing to see how new buildings are going up right next to bombed out ones... there are also people living in the ruins with the help of some tents or materials... i think it is the mix of destruction and rebuilding that makes driving around so fascinating here. At the end of our walk we walked through a big area which apparently used to house American clubs etc and it is totally destroyed... kind of airy walking through there.

Right i better go... today has been busy and tonight i am going to an engagement party. The afghan guy who is assistant manager with ORA is getting married. Should be fun!

'modren wet rust'

I am teaching English each day.. the beginner class is slightly out of control... last time it was all women and they were LOUD! It is a bit of a laugh teaching them actually. Look forward to this afternoon to see how they are. The photo is of them making questions with words on bits of paper. There is one woman who just talks nonstop.. not in English.. she complains that she doesn't understand but of course she is never quiet to actually listen to the instructions!! Last time she was joking about having one husband but several boyfriends!

Speaking of people who talk a lot... would you believe I have actually been asked by more than one person here if i am an introvert!?

One of my favourite things to do here is to drive to and from English class. We drive past more modern shops, bazaars, lots of men selling things, woodwork kind of shops, containers converted into mechanic parts shops and some squatter dwellings/ tents etc... I love it. Just looking at everything which is so different and interesting, also from the safety of the car I can look at the men without it being taken the wrong way. They are often just as curious looking back at me!

On these and other trips I have seen numerous statements printed on the sides of buses which make me smile...
'world peace'
'wel your trip'
'wel your juorney'
'time is gold'
'roadstarbus deluxe'
and my favourite.... 'modren wet rust'

Moon-rise 

cooler days

After some temperatures in the high 30s/ low 40s, the last couple of days have been much cooler (30 degrees max during the day). This has been great for sleeping. Waking up cold instead of sweaty and sticking to the bed is a wonderful and rare experience :-) On Thursday night the coffee shop Chaila where we sometimes hang out was showing a movie outside on a big screen. So i was watching that, but it got just too cold to sit there so we came home ... amazing to feel cold here!! Mia and I went up on our roof when we got home, with sweaters to keep us warm, it was maybe 15 degrees at a guess.. the temperature drops off a lot at night. Mia had her guitar and played and sang quietly. It was so beautiful and quiet... under the stars and overlooking all the lights on the foothills of the mountains. The moon was hiding behind one of the mountains, creating a black silhoutte on this beautiful yellow light. We watched as the moon rose up from behind the mountain, it was pretty cool (see above photo).

back in action

Feeling much better ... yay:) Am eating and out and about again. In fact, I just got back from the pool.. a regular Thursday feature here (this is the first day of our weekend)

The organisation I am with here (ora) do a few different things. One is that they have an HIV/Aids team that have a Health & Counselling Centre and educate people in prisons, schools, sex workers, truck drivers etc about Aids. I am teaching English to the team (all Afghans). There are two groups, a beginner class and an advanced class. I teach an hour a day, alternating the 2 groups. They are really nice. Because I was sick I have only had two classes, but they are all so enthusiastic and willing to learn so that is awesome. I will try and make the most of the next week or so of teaching them.

I am meant to be studying Dari here, but it took a while to get a teacher sorted and now she is busy with exams and then i was sick.. and anyway i am not doing as much language as i had anticipated but that is totally ok. i am learning some...

I have been doing a bit of thinking about various things recently... as you do... wondering what i am doing here, where i am heading in the future. Am loving living in Denmark and really enjoying teachers college. In many ways I love to teach and think that being a teacher in the future would be cool. But I am also interested in this part of the world and wondering how training to be a teacher really fits in with a heart for aid and development work. So it was cool to meet for lunch today with a girl from Australia who is working for an NGO involved in the education sector here. There is a huge lack of teachers in this country... so they are working with training up (female) teachers in a couple of provinces, first giving them high school level education and then teacher training in the curriculum plus some extra subjects (Peace education, health education, human rights...). Was interesting to hear about it and to hear of the dedication of some of those who want to learn.. walking b/w 1 and 3 hours to get to the class each day. I am realising that in lots of situations, like this one, and in other NGOS there are Afghans who can teach or do whatever, but the jobs that need doing are planning, coordinating, and evaluating projects... Not sure how to train for that kind of thing, but could be a good idea...

kiwi out of action

I have been sick the last 3 days.. not fun.. and hence the lack of updates on my blog.
Saturday night it started.. i think it was the longest and worst night i have ever had! The vomitting stopped by the morning but the diarrhea still hadn't gone away today (tuesday) so I have started taking some drugs.. that seems to be working. Yesterday I also had the worst stomach pains i have ever experienced. We had a nurse staying at our house until early this morning so she was taking care of me and keeping me company.
I am now on the mend... just need to try and eat and regain my strength.

It has been so frustrating to finally have things on my schedule (dari lessons, teaching English classes, a visit to a womens prison etc) and then being unable to do any of it. I kind of expected to get sick at some stage here but didn't expect it to be so debilitating.

Am not writing this so people will feel sorry for me.. I just write about the good and the bad!
Thanks to those who have sent kind emails. Hopefully I'll be back in action soon.

Randomness

Some random experiences...

*at night on the 4th of july (U.S. independence day) I sat up on the roof with my American flatmates. Mia wanted to see fireworks, so she had her laptop up there and had found something on the internet that had a fireworks display and played 'God Bless America'. So here i was a kiwi on a roof in kabul feeling the whole patriotic american thing... definitely a first!!

* I met up withWarrick, a friend from Dunedin, for muffins and a smoothie at 'Chaila' a great little cafe opened up by an American guy. Warrick was on security duty at our friday meeting yesterday-- had to walk around the building in 37 degree heat ready to sound an air horn if a grenade or something got thrown onto the property... one job not too many fellowships have a roster for!!

*I've had my first MRE... Meal Ready to Eat, US military ration. Mine was a veggie burger with bbq sauce- not bad. It was all pretty exciting, lots of brown packages to open- kind of like Christmas. I don't know how it works, but I just added water to this one package and it acted as a heater and cooked my burger... quite cool really. Aside from the flameless heater, and burger, there were 2 pieces of wheat snack bread, a bag of cranberries, a brownie with chocolate chips, some candy, 2 pieces of gum, a tiny bottle of tabasco sauce, matches, salt, tissue and a spoon. Everything was individually wrapped, most of it in quite heavy brown plastic- a nightmare for the environment but hey i guess that's not their #1 priority. People sell them in the bazaar- altho how they get a hold of them leads to speculation...

Transport

I'm not sure if it's because the doors don't work or if it's to provide a breeze to the passengers, but buses here seem to drive with their doors open and often with a few people kind of hanging out of them. Vans do the same thing.

Yesterday I saw a small motorbike with a man and a burqa clad woman plus 2 kids all piled on.

There are donkeys and horses pulling carts down the same streets as all the other traffic.

There are lots of white vehicles with the standard blue 'UN' painted on the sides.

The trucks here are elaborately painted (apparently a pakistani thing) with so many colours and pictures, and at night i have seen them with flashing coloured lights around them, a real sight to behold!

There are bikes too... lots of them... and they are usually used for doubling. Along the quieter streets this is a good means of transport, altho rather bumpy (not many streets are paved, and those that are still have holes and bumps and rocks on them). I am at a total loss as to how people manage to bike on the main streets where the traffic is SO crazy. I am not sure what rules apply, but there is constant honking of horns and very close shaves!

sunny day by the pool

After skyping a friend and my parents using the computer (the wonders of technology!) I headed out to the pool with some friends. Today is the first day of the weekend for me here and considering it is 37 degrees today (the forecast is for even hotter weather coming...), the pool is THE place you want to be. There are a couple of pools here for foreigners to enjoy, but the one we went to is at a French restaurant and it’s free. It was kind of weird to go there.. we walk in the gate and there are tables all set for dining, couches under trees were there to relax on and then behind a kind of bamboo fence there was a pool. The water was really cold, but after your face stopped being numb it was great.

Considering there is a major 'cover up' policy in this country for men and women, it felt strange to strip down to a bikini! There was a power point by the pool and wireless internet access so a few people were using their laptops, drinking bacardi breezers and enjoying the sun (- alcohol is only sold to foreigners, they had a sign saying they won’t serve it to Afghan nationals). I had a few swims, hung out in the shade at first and also braved some sun action... got a bit of a red face to show for it.

When we left we were all covered up again and it felt like stepping back into another world as goats and sheep were being herded past the entrance to the restaurant/ pool. On the way home we drove past the place where a bomb went off yesterday. It was on a cart and was intended to blow up a bus carrying government or military people I am not sure… Anyway the bus had swerved and crashed into some shops which sold engines or something so there was some fire and damage done to the buildings. No one was killed, a few people were injured. (I have had several ppl asking me about this as the stories of bombings here seem to have made the news in the West… must have been a quiet news day…) Life goes on as normal here…

From the roof

To any Americans reading this: happy fourth of july! I stood and sang the star spangled banner, ate brownie, and blessed America today:) Also witnessed lots of US choppers circling really low above the area where I am living.

Our house is on a corner so from up on the roof I can look up and down two streets. One street ends at our place and then there is Habibia High School. There are a bunch of people playing soccer on its grassy playing field. Looking down the street towards the nearby mountains, a woman in the traditional blue burqa is coming toward me with 3 small children all dressed in bright colours. A man in a bright white hat, clean shiny shoes and a well kept 'peran tombon' is heading away from me, looking slightly out of place. Although Afghans like to be presentable and tidy, in this very dirty, dusty city it is almost impossible. Men with more familiar looking dusty outfits bike or walk past.

Looking now in the other direction the light of the setting sun is bursting through the clouds flooding the distant mountains with yellow light- beautiful! On the street below an older man with a beard and well worn outfit is herding his goats toward me then they disappear round the corner. There are boys in jeans riding bikes, doubling each other, and a woman walking, readjusting her head covering.

On the street that the goats were heading down and just opposite my house, two older men are sitting on the grass having a yarn, they notice me and look up. I avoid eye contact and look away. I love the old men here with their different hats and beards and outfits. Considering the life expectancy here is only 46 years old (!!) they probably aren't all as old as they look.

I have the fortunate position of being able to nose on my neighbours. In my next door neighbours yard I watch as a woman pulls buckets of water up and down from their well and then pours them over the pots and cooking utensils that a young girl is holding out and washing. Next to them chickens roam free. In the yard next to theirs there is a lot of activity. A man seems to be showing his wife how to hoe the ground. Later I notice a small group of women and children there all staring up at me. I stand up and place my hand on my heart (a way of greeting). They smile and keep staring, I don't know what to do. I wave and a girl waves back. Later on an older woman motions for me to come over and visit. I couldn't then but will take up the invite another day. It is normal apparently in Afghan culture to be invited about 3 times to something before actually taking up the invite. I'm dying to go visit though so don't think i will wait for the 3rd invite before making my way over there. I wish i knew more language though.. i had my first lesson today which was excellent. There is so much to learn and i am not sure how i will remember it all!

The street scenes here change every 2 minutes. Just now a taxi stopped as an oncoming car pulled up. The men got out of their vehicles and each man gave a really long lasting hug to the driver of the taxi- noone seemed perterbed by the presence of another taxi that was honking its horn, wanting past. I could stay up on the roof forever just watching the ever changing scenes and all the fascinating people...

Outside the clinic 

H2O

The water at our house has giardia and other nasties so we have to filter it. Can't even brush my teeth or wash the fruit with it. Have to drink and use filtered water. I have just spent ages cleaning the ceramic filters for our water filter so hopefully now the water will actually go thru - it's been a bit slow. To wash the fruit and vegetables (which really need to be washed well considering all the dust here) we put them in a bucket with tap water and a bit of potasssium which turns the water purple (see photo). They have to soak for about 20 minutes then be rinsed in filtered water and then dry.
I'm going to be really grateful for clean water when I get back to Denmark!

First visit to the clinic

Today I headed out to the basic health clinic that ORA runs just outside of Kabul. Was amazing to see. I took photos and tried conversing with the patients who were waiting. With almost no language, it was mostly smiles and sign language. The kids were super cute and loved having their picture taken. Lots of mums wanted me to take photos of their babies, but kept themselves well hidden under their burqas. At the 'old clinic' there was a room for immunising babies, a little laboratory for testing blood, a room for all the medicines and a couple of rooms for the doctors to see patients (emphasis on 'see' as they rarely touch them). The old men in the photo above had problems with their eyes.

At the new clinic there was a garden which they are setting up as a model for coming training on kitchen gardens. There was an outdoor classroom where they are running a course for some selected village women- today it was on family planning. Inside were LOTS of mums with malnourished babies and lots of young girls. I watched Dr. Bronwyn in action weighing babies, listening to their chests and prescribing them superflour and medicines.

Across from the new clinic was a tent camp for internally displaced people. They are from an area in Eastern Afghanistan that has been completely destroyed. There is no possibility for them to return and start a life there, with their houses completely obliterated and their irrigation systems ruined etc.

I found the drive out there so interesting, also walking from the old to the new clinic, thru the village. There are so many sights and smells and sounds to take in. Tomorrow I'm going to meet my language teacher and hopefully start some Dari lessons, will be great. It looks like I will be teaching English too, to some staff from the HIV/Aids education centre. More on that when it happens!

Weekend in Kabul

Thursday and Friday here equate to the weekend or our Saturday and Sunday so i've had a relaxing start to my time here. A friend of mine from Korea days has been living here for about 2 years and it was his birthday this week, so on Thursday night I went with some other NGO workers to his surprise party. It was nice to meet some other like minded people about my age and to catch up with Garry.

Yesterday I went to a 'Friday meeting' with people of all different nationalities and backgrounds, really special. A guy from Ireland spoke and it was excellent! After that I went to a Lebanese restaurant for lunch- the gate to which was guarded by a couple of guys with machine guns! After lunch we headed for the famous chicken street, where beggars in burqas cried for money and where there were heaps of great things to buy (not cheaply unfortunately)- beautiful jewellery, hats, carpets, scarves, bags etc. I just checked out the options, will go back just before I leave when I know how much money I have left. The cost of living here in Kabul is really high, surprisingly.

Yesterday in the early evening I discovered the wonders of sitting up on our roof (photo is of me posing up there!). Apart from swirling up all the dust, the breeze was wonderful. I enjoyed looking out at the mountains in front of me and the people going about their lives in the street below, listening to the call to prayer 'God is great' from a distant mosque... just absorbing it all. There is so much rebuilding to be done in this place that it can be a bit overwhelming. I'm wondering what it is exactly I am doing here and what I could possibly do in the future.

Friday night an American guy came over bearing a Tv and some salmon. I had seaweed with me from Denmark so we made sushi.. sat and ate it while watching the soccer Germany vs Argentina, with pashtu commentary.