art for art's sake

A free day in Kabul can be extremely boring, spend pleasantly lounging around a pool at a bar for internationals or discovering the city. The third option can only be done properly though if you're not all too important: the more important you are, the less freedom of movement you have without arranging for a motorcade and security-detail first. Since I'm just a lowly provincial rep. I can traipse around as I please and actually walk through town, for example (although we are regarded as insane for doing that by just about everybody else). I decided to spend my free day going to the National museum, until a bomb exploded at the Ministry of the Interior and a call from my security-manager decided that I wasn't going there, but the much closer by National Gallery.

Some 15 minutes later I pass the ministry of the interior anyway, but I didn't know that and as my driver keeps smiling I won't protest.

Upon arrival at the National Gallery, staff is just leaving for lunch, but the director agrees to return to his office and sell me a ticket. I'm the only visitor and two ladies who apparently aren't invited to lunch are sent off to find the English-speaking guide. The very dusty old mansion is completely dark and, naively, I think that they just turn off the lights to save energy when there are no visitors. Of course no lights are turned on: there's no electricity for them. This obviously does not facilitate my day of culture and neither does the fact that the paintings are just about everywhere, including on the floor, leaning against the wall and so high up somewhere in the dark that you can't actually make out what is supposed to be enjoyed on them. After looking at a number of quite nice paintings, I am reprimanded in the friendliest way by the 20-year old guide/art student: "you have to start upstairs".

upstairs there's more light which makes it abundantly clear that most paintings could do with a spa-treatment and some pampering. They look dirty, tired and are almost all damaged due to looting and creative carving by the Taliban who ripped apart painintgs that represented living beings. Absolutely not allowed according to their strict interpretation of Islam. Nevertheless, the room with the oldest paintings (1800-50) has some really nice Northern-European style mountainscapes in familiar style: the painter was indeed trained in Germany. On the floor some really, really nice small ones could be hung next to the Albert Cuyps in London's National Gallery: the quality isn't the same, but the style, light and atmosphere in which the cattle, little streams and lush grasslands are painted bring me home to Holland.

The love for German-Dutch-Flemish scenery in art is widespread in the Middle East (and here as well then): in Gaza I once found an embroidery 'painting' in someone's livingroom actually depicting Hanzel & Grettel: weird, but in a nice way.

Whilst the guide is doing a nice job telling me about the painters and I keep trying to find the pearls inbetween the..well..uhm..lesser stuff and things that really shouldn't be here, I ask why some really good small paintings aren't hanging, but standing on the floor. The answer is as honest as expected: eventhough some of the big ones are bad, they're still big and big is impressive.

There is a moment though when all slightly sarcastic criticism ebbs away from you: in the upstairs corridor there is a big glass box filled with ripped and ruined paintings; ripped and ruined by the Taliban and these paintings are beyond repair. At that moment I wanted to place floodlights in the museum, add a glorious description to every painting and call in any Afghan child I could find in the streets and say to them: "draw, paint, sing, dance and never ask whether you're allowed to; never ask whether it's good enough; and never apologise, because your art will always be more precious and more important than the thoughts of the man who tries to stop you."

One of the last and biggest paintings in the gallery depicts the Amsterdam flowermarket, it's potentially really good..maybe the Dutch embassy can offer to get it cleaned and repaired? A bunch a flowers and hope for a well-lit and restored gallery.

so what do you do?

After a rather turbulent flight from Farah to Kabul and a change of temperature from a pleasantly scorching 48 to an equally comfortable 35 degrees here, I’m relaxing in the garden of my hotel and will finally try to give a bit of an answer to the most asked blog-question: “yeah, all very interesting and well, but what is it that you actually do all day?”. Hence the self-promotion below...

These first couple of days I have been spending a lot of my time looking at my staff and the ways in which they deal with the programme’s policy and rules, paperwork, the people we try to support and the many obstacles a program in a warzone faces. I’d primarily describe my role as ensuring that the implementation on the ground and the decisions made at HQ don’t frustrate each other, but combine to ensure a strong, relevant program that brings the best result to victims of conflict.

That’s why one of the first things I’ve introduced in Farah is intended to strengthen beneficiaries’ position vis-a-vis ourselves as aid deliverers. Up until last week beneficiaries were just told that they would receive a certain type of kits: an education support kit; a livestock kit; a home kit etc. but the quality and quantity of the contents were unknown to them. This lack of information made it impossible for beneficiaries to check whether they actually received everything they were entitled to: one of the most common and biggest mistakes in humanitarian assistance. So, since last week beneficiaries receive a full list in their own language of the type and quantity of goods they are supposed to receive and are encouraged to discuss the list amongst each other (also because not all can read). The list also clearly states that beneficiaries should check that they receive everything that’s on the list and have the right to complain if something isn’t up to scratch. It’s an incredibly simple, but often forgotten, way to make aid-recipients less dependent; less of ‘just a victim’ actually. It’s also a small first success as it will be introduced in other provinces as well.

It’s equally important that victims of the conflict know where to go and luckily the news that we have a new office at the UN compound has spread like wildfire. One of the first visitors was a very old man, a Sheikh of a village close to the Iranian border. He came to tell that his village had been attacked by international troops, leaving 7 dead and causing a huge amount of damage to houses and agricultural lands. According to him the international troops attacked his village because they thought there was a clash between the Taliban or the village was a Taliban stronghold; the village was under fire for a night. The Sheikh, however, said that it was all a misunderstanding: a tradesman from a neighbouring village had pitched his stall close to their village, much to the dismay of the villagers. After a number of warnings the villagers decided to kidnap / take (!) the tradesman, which then turned into a bigger clash between inhabitants of the two different villages, leading to the international troops to think / be informed that this was a Taliban related riot. It’s now our job to find out which story is true, both by interviewing villagers and checking with the army what their information tells them and us. If it indeed turns out to be a very unfortunate misunderstanding, the village is eligible for support and we will do a needs-assessment to decide on the right assistance.

These kinds of incidents or stories are a sort of daily confrontation for me, but then primarily in the phase of the assessments: the personal stories of victims and the administrative processing of them. We produce documents clearly stating the deceased, wounded, types of wounds etc. supported by photographic evidence. This job is mainly performed by my field staff, translated and then, if it’s all complete and correct, signed by me and transferred into orders for humanitarian assistance. The stories and photos are bad enough, but the strangest thing is encountering the people when they come to a distribution. I see them come in, recognise their faces from the pictures, remember their stories about what or who they lost. They have no idea who I am and that I’m that familiar with their lives and it would be wholly improper to go up to them and say: “I read what happened to you, terrible, how are you?” I do have short conversations with some of them about the usefulness of the goods, how they’re doing, how their kids are. But with some of them you would like to have a real talk. A couple of days ago a 14 year old boy came to the distribution, he had lost his family two months ago and was now living with an ‘uncle’. He was still on crutches from his leg wounds and because he fled after the incident he missed-out when needs assessments were done and we didn’t have assistance for him. This provided me with a good reason to have sort of a talk with him and he was happy to share his story with a stranger from Europe, thankfully I was able to make some extra suggestions for assistance in order to support his education. With a smile on his face the boy then awaited all the formalities and left me smiling with having had the chance, however short and indirect through a translator, to talk to an impressive little guy who would otherwise just have been one of the ‘files’.

a very hot summer

It’s going to be one hot summer here in Farah; a statement that has surprisingly little to do with the weather forecast or barbeques in the park. I’m no betrayer of social postcard conventions though, so here goes: the past 5 days have been insanely hot (loving it), the button for shadow on the remote control does not work anymore and thanks to non-stop sandstorms I now know what it feels like to be a listed building undergoing grime or graffiti removal. (Picture next to blog is a small part of the security measures just off my balcony, by the way)

No, it is going to be a “very hot” summer as in not “the cold war”. We have seen the violence temperature rising the last weeks and the last couple of days have already shown an increase of very violent incidents. The overall verdict is that the province of Farah will increasingly become a battleground these summer-months. As I may have mentioned before, Farah is geographically located between the province of Helmand to the east and Iran to the west. It also serves as a corridor to the “withdraw-province” of the Taliban in the north-west and has its fair share of home-grown enthusiasm for the bearded variant of government.
Fighting in the southern provinces has been fierce for some time now and the British are going to add some major actions against the Taliban in Helmand in a couple of days / weeks, which quite probably means a very steady stream of Taliban withdrawing to, or hiding-out in my province…albeit not in a very quiet fashion. Added to that are the fact that the poppy-harvest has been dismal for many, which means that the coffers will need to be filled by kidnapping and the host of new recruits for ‘holy war’ that enter via the extremely porous border with Iran. A recurring theme in conversations with the different security guys is the amount of non-afghan ‘elements’ out-and-about.

This “very hot” forecast has obvious implications for my team’s ability to move around and be seen accompanied by an international or with materials that bear our organization’s logo: two of my field staff have already been kidnapped in the past year and I have no desire for that to happen again. Another implication, however, lies in the nature of our work. We specifically assist civilians who have found themselves, their loved-ones or property, caught in the fighting between the Taliban (and other Anti Government Entities) and the international forces; a type of incident that will very likely become more prevalent this summer. This means that we are now trying to finalize and close as many old or ongoing cases as possible in order to be ready to take on new ones. It’s not exactly a contingency either; it’s part of ongoing planning.

This summer will also include a significant part of the fasting month of Ramadan during the hottest weeks (temperature-wise) of August, which doesn’t bode well either: most of the people I know tend to get a bit testy when they are tired, parched and hungry.

logical logistics

Every now and then you're lucky enough to have one of those days that remind you of the important things in life, for example why you do a certain job and why some people really should not be allowed to come near this kind of work. The day on which we received the latest shipment of humanitarian goods at my Farah warehouse, was certainly one such day...

I should underline that I will only take-over the province on June 10, so during this day my predecessor was still in charge.

The tone for the day was set when the first trucks arrived from Kabul and my (international) colleague turned bright red and started shouting at people, because the different steel boxes in which the goods are distributed weren't labelled, they only had a mark in Dari. One of the truck-drivers had already started labelling the boxes, but the shouting didn't cease: "we agreed that all boxes would arrive fully labelled from Kabul, including a description of contents!" This lovely little peace of anger-mismanagement by my colleague confirmed my suspicion that he wasn't the sharpest pencil in the box: would you adverstise $250,000 worth of humanitarian goods by plastering it with stickers if you have to drive them on an open truck from Kabul to Farah? Why not just hand it over to the Taliban directly.

He seemed to enjoy the shouting (intensely insulting in a proud culture such as pashtun), so the volume wasn't lowered when our hired labourers were told that they had to first off-load all boxes and place them in the open courtyard in neat lines for counting, before being placed in the warehouse itself. This absurd doubling of workload (you can count things when they come through the warehouse, can't you) seemed such a brilliant plan to him that he wanted to emphasise it by yanking a box out of a labourer's hands and placing it exactly where he thought it looked best. This was not a terribly popular move and the rest of the day the crew creatively showed their disdain behind his back.

Around noon the labourers decided that it was getting too hot and that they wanted more pay. Of course this was done with excellent timing: all the goods were now in the courtyard and could be stolen by interested passers-by. The abovementioned colleague decided to come out in force this time and preached that these were humanitarian goods; they were doing a good deed and their god would certainly appreciate that. I couldn't believe my ears.

The humanitarian goods themselves looked rather well. Especially the education-kits, tailoring-kits and home-kits seemed appropriate and of good quality. It was however slightly disconcerting that there came no end to the quantity and variety of boxes, something must be wrong.

A key rule in humanitarian assistance is that goods should be relevant and useful for the individual recipients of the aid. Sounds logical, and was reflected in the way I used to work in the Middle East. But a different decision was made here: in order to simplify / create more efficiency in the logistical process, every beneficiary was to receive the same sets of goods. What's good for HQ isn't always good for the provinces and beneficiaries though: they are stuck with loads of (expensive) goods for which there is no space or use. If you add to that a supplier that refuses to listen to HQ so he can force products that don't sell very well into the sets, you (I) end up with an extra 47 lawnmowers and 86 snowshovels. Lawnmowers are intended for use on level green fields which is not exactly the norm here. A lawnmower in Farah is as useful as a bicycle at sea. The snowshovels will be useful again in another 6 months, too bad that they look like a self-made fathers day present by a 7-year old. The dents and scratches that cover the yoghurt-churners (one for everyone) and the semi-inflated wheels of the wheelbarrows (2 per family)add extra embarrassment. It all reminds me of a food-parcel I saw in Gaza that contained cans of dogfood: not terribly useful, but quite insulting.

As mentioned, the contents of the home-kit look really good and when your house has been bombarded it is most certainly relevant to receive home- and kitchenware that's not only good, but also looks the part. What makes me a bit more somber is the knowledge that some of the intended beneficiaries have lost a number of their children, but will nevertheless receive a standard 4 education-kits for young children...

Lots of room for further improvement, lots of opportunity for change.

military blingbling

My province of Farah is an amazing place. Especially if you feel the urge to build the world’s biggest sandcastle, Farah is your number one destination for building materials..sand that is. This sandy character does not exactly make it unique in Afghanistan though: favourite building material, sand; demarcation of fields, sand; roads, sand. Add to that the fact that the rivers have run dry and from an airplane Afghanistan looks like one enormous lino-cut.

As my programme is funded by the American government, I actually do have the opportunity to admire that landscape as often as I want from one of the American Embassy airways planes: I fly for free whenever and wherever I want (wel, inside Afghanistan that is). It is said that eyebrows aren't necessarily raised when you use it for a weekend trip to the capital to catch your breath and some beers. The planes take-off from and land on militairy bases, which I enjoy in an almost infantile way. Although I'm no fan of war and couldn't recognise a Chinook helicopter if it landed on top of me, these tarmac fields full of helicopters, jets, drones and other "boy's-toys", surrounded by those same boys (and girls) in uniform awaken a certain primitive draw.

The local Forward Operating Base Farah, home to American Marines, army, airforce and the Italian army, is an important place to visit on a regular basis too. Not because of the free food or cans of cool coke, but because cooperation with the Provincial Reconstruction Team and USAID is quite important and useful in a province that does not excel in safety and security. The fact that the base has a surprisingly good atmosphere and one of my counterpart's first remarks was "if you ever need a lift in a convoi.." does add some charm.

Even more charm is oozed by the mini UN compound a live on, consisting of a whopping 3 houses and no outside space. The guesthouse is amazing though, I could actually host a party for a couple of hundred people here (if there were a hundred to invite here). I also have never in my life felt as safe as I currently do with my 9 Ghurka guards, 9 Afghan police guards and another 5 armed guys, one Ghurka is even stationed on my balcony from 7 pm every night. I do have to go back to that balcony now to work on my tan though: my white-reddish face is a security threat! no great views though: razor-wire, security zone, blast wall,tired guard..and that's just the first 7 meters.

I promise more real "content" next time!!!

off to Farah

In a couple of hours I'll be heading off to Farah, 'my' province in Afghanistan where my team and I support those affected by the war to pick up their lives again with small businesses, a new house, education, food or livestock. Farah is an increasingly dangerous province in the West of Afghanistan where Taliban flee to when it gets too hot on their heels in neighbouring Helmand. Next to that, the very porous border with Iran has made Farah a one-stop-shop for drugs and weapons where the rule of law isn't exactly the rule of 'Parliamentary approved' law.

But that is for (a couple of hours) later. Getting packed is first. Now, although 40 degrees and sunny sounds like a holiday, the packing looksa bit different: when was the last time you packed a pocket-buddy or a grab-bag? In order to keep track of where I am when I am traipsing around on field-visits in the dessert and find me if I am 'disappeared', I am to carry a little device that sends my GPS coordinates to our security-operations room. This little buddy also has a panic button that you can push to alarm security and record a 30 second message in which you detail the where, what, why and how...if the device hasn't already been taken away from you. A grab-bag is probably more familiar: who hasn't gone to a popfestival with an extra sweater, towel, pair of boxer shorts and bottle of water? Mine is a brand new cool sand-coloured back-pack fillend with the abovementioned and then some, which I am suppossed to take with me or place next to the door of my room so I can grab and take it in case of emergency. I've thrown in some fruitella as well.

One of the Western-style supermarkets in kabul was graced with a visit too and emptied of significant amounts of their canned beans,vegetables and meat, pasta, rice, oil, comfortfood, tea and coffee. My new live-and-work compound isn't exactly in the centre of the universe, so stocking up is a necessity. As it is one of the smaller UN compounds it also doesn't have all the staff that seems to come standard at the bigger ones such as cooks, cleaners and maybe a gardener.

Last, but for security certainly not least, I have bought agreat Sharwal Kamiz (traditional men's dress) and some sandals. One has to blend in as muchas possible when going to the provinces. Although anyone with a functioning pair of eyes will notice that I'm not an Afghan, from a distance I will stand out less than when wearing jeans and a polo-shirt. (Obviously a photo of me in full dress will follow soon).

We'll see how it fares, but for now I hear I'm lucky: The Provincial Reconstruction Team in Farah will have a karaoke evening Thursday night.

4X4 slalom

Although I normally don’t suffer from travel sickness and even enjoy off-roading through the dessert, Kabul is starting to have a slightly nauseating effect on my stomach. Between the many UN, army and diplomatic compounds lies a network of roads that are more akin to a horizontal concrete ski-slope surrounded by even more concrete, topped with barbed-wire, than the quickest route from A to B. Every 4 to 5 meters there’s an obstacle, forcing the 4X4’s to slalom wildly and throw their backseat passengers from right to left (slowing down would be boring). I’m used to quite a bit of barbed-wire, sandbags and endless concrete walls, but the necessity of bringing Boots travel calm tablets in bulk is definitely new to me.

Luckily for me my hotel and office compound here in Kabul are directly next to each other which means that I can just walk to and from work. Exceptionally, I am also actually allowed to do this since I’m a consultant and don’t have to worry too much about the draconic security rules and curfews the UN and diplomats live under. Obviously you do need to keep your head screwed on, but last Saturday 2 of my colleagues and I were walking downtown at about 10 PM, while the rest of the international contingent was under lockdown…and I’m still alive (past results, do not form a guarantee for the future).

At the moment Kabul is also locked-down outside the gates: the peace Jirga is taking place with some 1600 delegates, which apparently causes ultra-high security risks. I have to say that it all looks a bit much to me, especially since all Afghan staff at my office have been given 3 days off causing somewhat of as standstill in important work. Thankfully I will be traveling to my own province (Farah) tomorrow where people are working, but where I’ll be locked up in compounds and cars..oh well…