Still here doing the Kabul Karaoke. I’m working on an education project. Someone is burning down girls’ schools, someone is trying to kill the director of education in one of the provinces we work in, and Thursday armed men in central Afghanistan pulled an expat Red Cross worker out of his car and shot him to death. I have to work with corrupt local officials who steal from some of the poorest and most desperate children in the world, and I’m constipated. Just having a rough week, you know?
Anything good goin’ on over there? Are you inspiring the populace yet?
BTW, when do you think they’ll let Peace Corps workers into Afghanistan? I’d love to go there, but would rather wait until the excitement dies down a little, so I’m not pulled out of a car and shot.
I know W. had promised peace corps to Afghanistan, but they promised a lot of things. Maybe something in Kabul next year? Just a guess. The security situation is clearly declining Spring and Summer are the fighting seasons.
They don’t have overpasses, but they do have mines that they put in the road, so six in one, half a dozen in the other.
There are a lot of good things going on. A lot of people have interest in education, and people here aren’t waiting around, they are rebuilding quickly. But without a commitment to stability from the international community it won’t come to much.
I think more NGO workers are going to get killed. They hadn’t really targeted aid workers before, it’s a troubling new trend.
Food for me is fine. In Kabul, if you have money you can get whatever you want, right down to crunchy or smooth peanut butter. It’s more expensive than in the US.
For the people, the diet is not great. I see a lot of kids who are too small for their age. There are desperately poor people here and Kabul is the most prosperous city. There are people doing well for themselves, merchants people who cater to the expat community.
For the most part, I’m working on my specific tasks all day every day with the same set of people at the same locals, so I can’t give any sense of the nation as a whole, just my little project.
It is true that people are living in really bad situations, right here in Kabul. It is certainly worse in the provinces.
As for the war in Iraq, one strong sentiment is that Saddam was a client of the Soviets when they invaded Afghanistan and he never said one word in support of the Afghans, so he can go to the devil.
That sentiment isn’t universal, of course. I’m really just tired.
As one of those dreaded “anti-war” people in America, I am interested in seeing how the US is fullfilling their promise of financial/medical/humanitarian aid now that the war on the Taliban seems to be taking a backburner position.
If someone was so inclined, how would they be able to donate money or goods (books/clothes etc.) so that it would be put to good use, and not used for “administrative” uses?
Maybe we could get together a drive to send MadMonk blankets, trinkets, teaching tools and cigarettes (for bartering). Clothes. MRE’s or other food-ish type things.
Really you can find anything you want here. Drove around town today, first day off in a few weeks and this town is bustling people are really getting to work. The city rings with the hammers of a thousand light industry factories.
As for donated aid, money to a reputable charity is always a better option. Donated aid just ends up in the market.
On the darker side, they have stopped three different fuel tanker trucks with timed explosives heading for Kabul. They say the Taliban is aiming to destabilize the government and kill some international aid workers to motivate them to flee. The murder of the ICRC employee is really the first time aid workers have been targeted here.
