Straight from the Herat

While I am in Mazar, we're staying at a hotel that doubles as a garden restaurant (serving all the chicken and lamb kabob with rice you can handle), a wedding hall (yesterday was quite an event, with music, dancing and children running all over the place... they feted the lovely couple all day and well into the evening) and a pool hall (that is usually used by security guards and men from the UN.) Oh yeah, the us who is here are: myself, my co-assessment team member, the interpreter, the security officer, guards and drivers.

Anyway, this morning, I am feeling a little sheepish for a comment I made to one of the drivers. I woke when the music started in the wedding hall around 6 AM, not too happy with the unplanned 'alarm clock.' So I am bleary eyed filling my coffee mug when I ask why they started the music so early, there's no one being married right now anyway. Well, the driver said to me in a very proud voice, "Afghan people LOVE their music and to sing. And Taliban would kill us for singing, so now we do it anytime we can." Puts it in perspective, and another of Ivan's photographs shows it better than I ever could:

Two weeks ago, I was in Herat, in the west, near the Iranian border. The influence of their neighbour is obvious, this is really much more a Farsi culture, with the colors and characteristics much different from what's seen in Kabul. I snapped this picture literally - from the hip as I walked down the main shopping street.


For security and modesty reasons, they'd rather not have tourists taking pictures of street scenes, rather having the tourist train their lenses on the castle and museum (more on these later.) But Herat is a tourist town, with as many as 100,000 people visiting there to see the sights. What you see in this image is the normal mix, commerce old and new, the locksmith, clothes and cloth, cell phone cards on display in the rear... also near there the vendor with traditional bread and the boy carrying his away, in front of him the elderly gentleman in traditional head-gear, then at the other corner the coke cooler as part of the juice vendor, who will squeeze vegetables, fruit and even sugar cane to drink. All of this the normal course of business on any street in Herat on any given day.

What draws the tourists to Herat are the Mujahadeen museum - Herat is really a company town, with The General involved in all business - and the centuries old Herat Castle. Briefly on both (more to come in my next missive) the museum tells different stories of the resistance against the Soviets: it had a diorama of events in Herat from the war, the town was a main battlefront during the war; also with personal pictures of the Mujahadeen leaders and regulars; a lifelike 360 degree sculpture of the first leadership Shura (gathering); is a memorial to the soldiers and commanders form Herat who died and displays weapons captured form the Soviets and used by the Mujahadeen.

The castle also played an important role during all the conflicts occurring in Herat. The Castle was originally constructed to protect the royal family. That persisted for a few centuries, with the walls moving and changing as Herat grew. Then the Soviets used it as high ground to shoot rockets at the Mujahadeen, camped in the hill. Of course what comes around goes around and the Mujahadeen then used the Castle to shoot at the Soviets when they retreated. The site is sponsored by the Aga Khan Trust with some restoration is being done and a German archaeology team is at work there, but there's still a Soviet 50mm gun rotting in place where it was toppled from one of the parapets and shells and bullets are found on the ground there. A darker purpose - believe it or not - for the Castle was employed by the Taliban. They used the ancient rooms as prisons, keeping more than a thousand people locked-up during their rule.

Here you see the guide who showed me around the Castle... I was with the security guards that were always present while I was in Herat. They were equally fascinated by the Castle and the added their own comments about fighting with the Mujahadeen as we walked around. So you can get a feel for Herat, the other image is through a Castle window down into one of the squares nearby; closer to the foot of the Castle is a park that the City is building, along with gardens...

Come visit Herat in a few years and the entire Castle will have a green park with fountains and paved walkways all around it... closer still to the turret you can see a dog in the shade, the dog and a partner patrolled the Castle grounds, and I just noticed some graffiti painted on the castle wall itself... if anyone can read Dari/Pushtun/Farsi, let me know what it says.

Out and About in Afghanistan

With Afghanistan in the news recently, for all the wrong reasons, I wanted to give you all an some insights on regular life here in one of the world oldest cultural cross-roads and ethnic mix pots. I've been here for just over a month, with less than two weeks remaining and been able top travel a little here to Herat in the West and now in Mazar in the North- which is much further than many folks with aid agencies are allowed. Yes security is tight, because the situation warrants, obviously. But the security also puts a barrier between the international donor agencies trying to assist and the people who are receiving the assistance. Which facilitated my current work here - to bridge the gap between the 'money people' the implementing institutions and the assistance recipients. I may have convoluted the situation or simplified, that's the wonder of Afghanistan if you ever figure it out, you're never really sure.

As I am moving around a little, I am taking photos, as I can. Which is tricky since taking pictures of official buildings is not allowed - excluding most of the city from my lens, taking pictures of women in public is not socially acceptable - excluding most street scenes. In fact I heard recently that the authorities (always a vague notion of who that may be here) noticed someone taking pictures from their car, they noted the car's registration and later in the day, when the photographer wasn't even in the car, stopped it then held everyone until the offending photographer arrived to show the authorities that he hadn't taken any 'forbidden images.' So I hope that no one find these images offensive, but that they are a little interesting... I wish I could use my proper camera for street scenes instead of using my pocket-camera, surreptitiously as we drive along.

There are a lot of goods and people and animals moving all over Afghanistan. Here in the North I'm seeing cotton from Uzbekistan; there's also all kinds of produce coming from the south and Pakistan; building materials: rebar, bricks, cement, window panes moving all over and in-between the cities. And people going every where, I saw the Afghanistan - Pakistan Friendship buses recently, (pictures of those are almost as forbidden as of military convoys.) The there are the flocks of sheep and goats, walking and being carted all over... from what I see they are much happier 'on hoof' than when loaded into trucks, tick-tuks or even on the back of motorbikes.


First of all, here is a normal traffic scene in Kabul, a man driving through Kabul's outskirts. He's got an air-conditioner strapped to the back of his motorcycle, which would usually also have a few people coming along for the ride. In the background are the typical Kabul residences... houses that are mostly indistinguishable from the mountain-side into which they are constructed. Also here are some colourfully painted houses, they are newer and built by the more affluent. Higher up the mountain there's fewer and fewer paths to the houses, and most have no access other than by motorbike. There's also few utilities up there, most houses are powered by generators, if they have electricity at all, and water is carried all the way up to the storagetanks by hand. The other picture is of two tuk-tuks in Herat; the motorbikes with seating for four on the back are all over Herat (and Mazar from what I see so far) and are coloufully painted, with crossed hearts, cupid and frequently New Year slogans.


So, even when the differing sides believe the best way to express themselves is with explosive devices at Embassy ga