Frida's Notebook

For Mr. B

Grave at a shrine in Herat

This morning I got an email from a friend in Ghor. It hit me like a blast of raw emotion.

"Life in Ghor, I had to get DM involved in a female detainee case.... the case stinks!! The girl was engaged and ran away with another engaged policeman and they were caught in Kabul by 2 or 3 other police men... She has been in prison for at least a month. The defense lawyer is having problems getting to see her. The prosecutor went to the Governor for help with keeping "visitors" from entering the prison.... a lot of village elders and religious leaders want her dead, but denying the lawyer access to the prison..... I also have some very sad news: Mr. B was kidnapped by the Talibans on the southern ring road and the rumours are that they killed him... so human rights wise we are not too well of in Ghor at the moment."

The email goes on - describing situations in which I was until recently deeply involved and people with whom I worked for 18 months. Mr. B - in particular - was a very close colleague. We talked, met and worked together most days during my time in Ghor. I am still reeling from the shock of learning that he has been kidnapped and probably killed. I keep catching myself thinking about how scared he must have been and it just causes me so much pain that I know I have to stop.

How can it be possible to reconcile life here in Wellington, with my ukulele playing friends, with life in Ghor?

The challenge of finding a way to live in New Zealand again after being changed in profound ways by my work in Gaza, Timor-Leste and Afghanistan some days seems like an impossible ask. An impossible task.

This week Jose Ramos-Horta was shot (and seriously wounded) and then the rebel leader in Timor-Leste was killed in a clash between rebel fighters and the Prime Minister's security police following the assasination attempt. This happened the day before I met an old friend for dinner. I had helped her get a job working with Ramos-Horta four years ago when I was still involved in Timor-Leste. She went on to work with him for two years and is still in Dili working on human rights and good governance issues.

All through dinner I was aware of the impact the shooting must have had on her, and yet I was unable to stop talking about myself - about the experiences I had in Afghanistan and how I was trying to adjust to life in New Zealand. I was embarrased at how I dominated the conversation but could also see how badly I needed to talk to someone who could understand a little what I was going through.

Every day I go to the yoga studio and take my place on the mat. It is - at the moment - the only place where I really feel at peace. As I practice I am able to quiet the commentary running in my brain and simply be. Most days the teacher invites us to set our intention for the practice or to dedicate our practice. I realise this may seem strange or self-indulgent to some people but today it was comforting to me to dedicate my practice to Mr. B's family.

I'm learning.

I'm trying to learn.

I think that I can live here again, but I haven't quite worked out how yet. I'm pretty sure that if I am patient and gentle and not too demanding the wisdom will come in its own time. I'm also pretty sure that concentrating on yoga, meditation, writing and photography is the right approach for now.

I took on a job this week. It took me onto a film set where Jame's Cameron's new movie Avatar is being filmed. I had a simple role that demanded very little of me intellectually or physically. But it involved long hours on the set. Today after reading the email from Ghor I called the production coordinator and quit.

I felt this morning as though I had betrayed the people I left behind. They respected my decision to leave because they agreed that I should spend time with my family and friends, they agreed that I should take some time to rest and they supported my plans to pursue my own creative dreams and my plan to study psychology. What would they think of me coming home to work on a film set? It was only ever a short job - 8 days. But after I read about Mr. B even 8 days suddenly felt like too much time to be spending doing anything other than what I believe in. So I'm back on track.

Deep down I believe that I can make changes in the world by deepening my own compassion, by learning how to more consistently practice loving kindness in the world and by learning the power of being fully present in every moment. But the feelings come in powerful waves - feelings of guilt, sadness and anger. I'm learning to ride the waves, not to resist them, and I'm trusting in this process.

Some beautiful things are coming together, I plan to share more about that in the coming days. For today, I'm just holding my seat. If you pray will you please pray for Mr. B (in case he is still alive) and his family. Thank you.

What I would pray for, if I prayed

Boy in Wardak village, Ghor

I have left Afghanistan. While it hasn't entirely sunk in that I won't be heading back there after the holidays there is a quiet ache in my heart that tells me I do understand, on some level, the significance of this departure.

I learned to love Afghanistan. Unlike Gaza it was not love at first sight. Afghanistan was a challenge, I had to overcome my fears and doubts and my own desire to be in control before I could really learn what this extraordinary country had to teach me.

As I drove to the Kabul Airport yesterday morning, on the first day of Eid, I saw the large group of men on the corner of Butcher Street hoping to be picked up for day labour. I was struck by a wave of sadness at the incredible struggle that is life for so many ordinary Afghans.

On the first day of Eid these men should be home with their families, thanking God for the blessings of the year which has passed. Instead they were standing out in the cold, misty morning chasing after each truck that pulled up hoping they would be picked to head off for a day of hard labour and the reward of a tiny take home pay, barely enough to cover the expenses of their families most basic needs, if that.

If I really believed there was a God or more accurately, if I really believed in divine intervention in the business of men, I would be down on my knees praying for Afghanistan. Praying for peace and stability, praying for a space from this interminable conflict - enough space for the people I met over the past two years to rebuild their lives and begin to build a future.

Instead I put my faith in those very people, having done my very best to support them over the past two years, having failed in so many ways and yet carrying home with me the satisfaction of those small successes and the knowledge that I did my best.

Leaving Afghanistan feels like the end of a difficult but precious love affair. On several levels that is exactly what it is. Despite all that Afghanistan has taught me, letting go continues to be my challenge.

Here in Dubai I am in transit, sitting for a few days in this strange space between my life in Afghanistan and my life in New Zealand. As I sank into bed last night this space terrified me for an instant. I felt entirely afloat, cutting my ties with one home, unsure of my ties to another. I felt as though I could let go and simply float away.

My instinctive response to that feeling was to want to get a grip on something, to hold on to the place I was leaving or grasp for the place I am going to. I stopped and breathed for a moment and then chose not to hold on, I chose to drift to sleep knowing that wherever I go, there I am. Knowing that there is no solid ground beneath any of us and that in these strange days I have the chance to really feel that truth and embrace it.

I'm going to take a break from writing here, and from visiting all your amazing blogs. I need to take a break from finding a way to put my transition into words and I need to be entirely present in every moment of my "homecoming". I plan to be back because I don't think that my story ends because I leave Afghanistan.

This year my challenge is to find a way to make peace in times of war while living the everyday life of a student in New Zealand. Over the past 18 months many of you who read and comment here have told me how difficult it is for you to see how you can make a difference in your lives. Moving to Afghanistan, or Gaza, is not the only option - obviously - in response to the challenges of our troubled world. I want to bring home the lessons I learned in Afghanistan and share here the journey of learning to live a life which makes sense and contributes to a more peaceful world without packing up and moving into the conflict zone.

I expect to be back in late January or early February so I wish you all happy and peace-filled holidays and many moments of joy and laughter with the people you love in the coming weeks.

16 Days

The wife of my colleague agreed to let me take her photo this week on the condition that her face was obscured. She was shy, but still friendly to a strange woman who turned up outside her house trying to speak Dari to her even though she only speaks Pashtu. Duh

This week I've been emotionally triggered what feels like a thousand times a day. I'm heading into my very last week in Ghor and my emotions are heightened, but the events of the week were fairly intense anyway.

Between last Friday and today the good people of Ghor have experienced tribal conflicts in Shahrak which had in the preceeding week culminated in an ambush on a police convoy killing the District Chief of Police and at least five of his soldiers, plus two tribal elders in the vehicle with him. The police this past week set out to rescue three men abducted in the ambush. Officially this rescue was to recover police officers but according to some local sources they were armed men from one tribe who had been travelling with the police to carry out attacks on the other tribe's villages. In any case the police operation seems almost certainly to have been complemented by reprisal attacks from the other tribe which were either ignored or actively supported by the police.

I don't know what kinds of feelings are generated in you when you read this kind of report. Pema Chodron talks about the reversion to numbness in the face of an overwhelming sense of helplessness. That seems to be a common response in much of the world, and understandably so. As for me I feel angry and sad at the same time about these events, and yes, I feel some hopelessness.

The week went on. This week was the first week of the international campaign "16 Days of Activism to Eliminate Violence against Women" (let's just say "16 days" from here on in, huh?). In my part of the world this week was marked by a grenade attack on the home of the Head of the Department of Women's Affairs, a grenade attack on the home of the female Provincial Prosecutor, renewed death threats against another woman holding a position of public office and rumours about the Head Teacher of the Girls High School.

I struggle to know what to do with the sadness and anger that is generated by these attacks. The morning after the first grenade attack I was at her house, and she was calmly showing me where the windows where smashed, where her car was damanged and where she shot a bullet into the door of her own car as she grabbed a gun and fired wildly in response to the attack. She took calls as we talked and thanked me for coming to see her and she asked me how my trip to America was - she herself having just returned from a trip away. I watched her and tried to learn from her how to behave under these circumstances.

Three days later she called me to her office, asking me to come alone and therefore without a translator. I went and we struggled to understand each other but in the end I got the point. She wanted to know what I was doing to push the police to find the person who attacked her. She was insisting that I should personally do more. My reaction? Not anything I'm proud of. I was overcome with a wave of anger.

It was anger born out of frustration because I have been meeting the responsible security officials, I have been exhorting them to do everything they can to find whoever is doing this, but they look me straight in the eye and tell me whatever they think I want to hear and I know that these meetings are achieving nothing.

So was I really angry at her for asking me to help? Of course not.

I was angry at the people who threw the grenade in the first place, for not having the courage and the decency to come out and publically speak their minds rather than sneaking around at night throwing grenades, putting children at risk and terrorizing those people in this town who are standing up for what they believe in.

I was angry at the Chief of Police for not putting an end to this - in a town of 10,000 people I cannot believe that it is impossible to find and arrest the person who has carried out five such attacks in the past month.

I was angry at myself for being so entirely useless in these circumstances.

I was angry at the journalist who had been visiting for two days, giving the impression that Afghanistan and it's stories of grenades and improvised explosive devices was a great lark, a 'boy's own adventure'.and who seemed disinterested and distracted from the real stories all around him.

For several days I allowed all these triggers to feed the angry, despairing wolf and by Wednesday as I sat in a special ceremony to mark the "16 days" I was on the verge of tears the whole time.

I was aware of the young Lithuanian soldiers patrolling the perimeter on foot specifically because I was here. Because by standing alongside the Head of Women's Affairs to give our speeches at this occassion I was now putting myself at risk of grenade attack. I thought about the risk that this entailed for those young men and I thought about their families at home.

I thought about why I needed to be at the ceremony and about all the other people who had agreed to come and stand up for women's rights. The Deputy Governor, one of the local Mullahs, the Head of the Provincial Council, the Head of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. I thought about the people who, by sneaking about at night and throwing hand grenades, were trying to undermine all that this ceremony stood for.

I watched five young girls sing a song based on the Convention for the Elimination of Discrimination against Women and I wondered which one of them might be killed, maimed, beaten, raped or tortured in the years to come. I watched five beautiful boys stand up along side those girls and participate in a battle of the genders quizz. And I thought about which of those beautiful boys would end up hating his life, beating his wife, consumed by anger and hopelessness.

I know! Great thoughts for feeding the despairing wolf right, right?

Finally when the ceremony was over I came home and let myself have a good cry. I just let the anger and the sadness wash out of me.

When the crying was over I wrote. I wrote for myself, I wrote to the journalist, I wrote to friends who would understand and share with me in the pain. I wrote out the anger. I wrote to the other side. Sometimes, for me, writing is what I can do when I am too filled with emotion to sit in meditation. Sometimes writing is what I need to do first.

Then I sat, and I tried to get in touch with my natural openness, my natural warmth, my natural intelligence. Here are some of the things that came up for me:

Maybe the journalist was not callous and shallow. Maybe he was out of his depth and a bit overwhelmed. Maybe the sarcastic humour was a cover for confusion or even fear. Maybe the distracted twitchiness was not because he found the people around him uninteresting but because he didn't know where to look first, he didn't know who to talk to or what to make of it all. Maybe a little more kindness from me would have made all the difference.

I have to confess I didn't get quite that far with the guy(s) throwing the grenades. But I did find myself much less overwhelmed with emotion everytime I thought about them.

When I think about how hard it is for me to deal with all these emotions I have to stop for a moment and give respect to the people who are more directly affected by all these events. If it takes me a week to figure out how to stop reacting to the triggers and get back in touch with my basic goodness and my belief in the goodness of others then what does it take for the families in Shahrak whose fathers, brothers, sons were killed in the ambush? What does it take for the women whose homes have been attacked by grenades in the night, scattering deadly shards of glass across the room where their children sleep?

In these moments the cycle of violence makes sense to me, and I find myself coming back to the drawing board about how I can make my small contribution to peace in these times of war.

Getting out of the "deep field" Part II

On Sunday I got two pieces of news that made me sit up and pay attention. The first news was that the airstrip in Ghor was closing on Wednesday for repairs and the second news was that my Afghan visa had expired and I would not be let out of the country until it was renewed.

So I jumped on the first flight out of Ghor (a week ahead of plan) and spent a day in Herat transfering money from my Afghan to my NZ bank account and trying to charm the consulate staff at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs into overlooking my lapsed visa and renewing it. An Afghan friend with extraordinary diplomatic skills and a great network helped out and they promised to issue it by next Tuesday.

Then it emerged that I would need a transit visa for India or be forced to sleep overnight in the terminal, but I could only get that visa in Kabul. So I left my UN passport in Herat, jumped on the first plane to Kabul (via Mazar) and took my NZ passport to the Indian embassy on Thursday morning - to be told initially that they require three working days to issue a visa and because of the Eid holidays my passport would not be ready until next Thursday (when I am due to fly). But again something worked in my favour: charm, smiles, the end of Ramadan approaching; I don't know what did it but be 4.30pm I walked away from the Embassy with my passport and new visa in hand.

I think this trip is charmed - every step of the way little unexpected challenges have popped up and against all odds and in direct contradiction to the predictions of seasoned hands - solutions have appeared, in time.

It looks like I won't be needing a donkey this time.

PS: Go visit Laini's blog where she makes me feel like a superstar by posting about my love affair with Magpie, the lead character in Laini's "Faries of Dreamdark" series.

Frida did good!

So - if you've been reading for a while you'll know that I settled into Ghor full-time three months ago, and that one of the first issues I started working on was the camp of Internally Displaced People living on the outskirts of Cheghcharan. At first things moved fast, with indications that these IDP families would be returned to their homes before winter. But that all come to a grinding halt when the Supreme Court decided to refer their case (regarding ownership of the land they were displaced from) back to the provincial level court to be retried.

So this past week I've been encouraging the Government to find the families housing for the winter. It has been getting cold fast in Ghor and the tents were clearly no longer adequate.

Today I visited 19 of the 27 families in the houses they moved into this morning. The baby girl in this photo is three months old, she was born just as I arrived in Ghor and I was so happy to visit her and her mother today and see them settled into a decent house for the winter.

I certainly didn't make this happen by myself, but I have been very persistent in following up the issues affecting these families and they obviously think that it has made a big difference. The smiles I saw on the faces of mothers in every house today made up for my really, truely horrible weekend (we had rockets landing next to our compound through the night on Friday and I was alone, not my idea of a good time at all).

Eid is coming up in just over a week, and this is the time of year for making an extra effort to help those who need a bit more help. I think the spirit of Ramazan helped get the assistance these families needed and all in all it was a day that made me smile.

Now - I'm signing off in order to welcome some Thursday evening visitors! Two of the regular visitors to Ghor are about to arrive for a quiet drink. Lovely.

More reasons why drugs are bad...

gear, diesel, smack, B, boy, skag, Harry, Bobby, black tar, horse, honk, munge, junk, brok, jack, jenny, brown, brown sugar, brownstone, dark, sweaty, dope, pof, sam, waccocco, lovage, dragon, bitch, skurge, ron, ice cube, A-Stock, jim, jim nix, moop, sweet lady H... (thanks Wikipedia for this list, I personally am totally clueless)

Whatever the hell you call it, I'm here to tell you that heroin is baaaad for a whole lot more reasons than the ones you can read here (on the website of the National Institute on Drug Abuse).

I'm guessing you already know about the serious bad that heroin use can do to the actual user, and to his/her family and friends. You are probably also more than familiar with the damage done to families and communities by the crime that goes hand in hand with the business of importing, transporting, buying and selling the drug in the countries of primary consumption.

But this week my life has been dominated by the damage done by the drug business here in Afghanistan, the world's largest producer of opium. I sometimes wonder what would happen if every gram of heroin sold on the streets of New York or London came with a little documentary about the journey that brought it from a field in Afghanistan to the end user. A documentary that told the story of all the lives, dreams and hopes for the future that were destroyed along the way.

What do you think? Would it make any difference?

Would recreational drug users in Manhattan think twice about their hit if they actually saw the entire communities destroyed by the production of opium here in Afghanistan? If they saw women addicts and their already addicted children, using opiates to dull the pain of a life in which they have literally no choice but to work for the druglords.

If they saw the men who are profiting from their consumption. Druglords who not only control the opium production and trafficking but who are also the elected representatives of these same desparate villagers. Druglords who, when their source of income and power is threatened, will not hestitate to kill, to destroy and to once again destabilise a community struggling to find its feet after three decades of war.

Yesterday I sat with the uncle and commanding officer of a young ANP soldier killed last week in an apparently bungled drug seizure. Rumours have been flying all week as to the circumstances of his death Was he killed by the drug traffickers, who should - in theory - have been contained by police at that point? Or was he killed by crooked police officers on the payroll of the drug lords?

When we finished our interview and I finished offering my genuine sympathy at the loss of this young man's life, the police officer (known to be a straight man in an institution not known for its abundance of straight men) looked me in the eye and said "if some Afghans cared as much about the life of one young soldier as you do then maybe this endless killing would be over".

I couldn't help thinking, "if there was no market for this shit then maybe this endless killing would be over."

The relationship between narcotics and the insurgency in Afghanistan is far too complicated for me to make sense of let alone try to write about here. But from where I'm sitting the narcotic trade is one of the biggest challenges facing Afghanistan. I know that there are a lot of things to be done to combat it here. But I can't help wondering whether it will ever be beaten as long as the market exists.

24 hours of peace... and Lessons in Letting Go Part VII

Car ornament, Ghor, 2007

21 September is International Peace Day. The United Nations has focused it's activities this year on Afghanistan. Shit - I just heard an enormous explosion. Perfect. It's the day of peace and I was about to write a post about all about peace and how it is not just a pretty word, how it is the result of a whole lot of hard work and the resolution of conflicts. About how the women who told us on Sunday that they would kill anyone who tried to take their land from them are not blood thirsty warriors but mothers and wives who know that without the land they all die anyway so they might as well fight for it. I had all sorts of thoughts about peace, development, security and human rights today. Instead I hear an enormous explosion.

While on the subject of peace, and my view that it cannot be expected to flower until fundamental human rights are respected and conflicts are resolved. Over at Laila's blog she posted this week about new restrictions placed on civilians in the Gaza Strip. Read it and weep. The PR term for these restrictions is apparently "civilian levers". Civilian levers? How can they say this stuff with a straight face?

For some reason the spin has always been what makes me the maddest. If you are going to cut off the water, fuel, food and electricity supply to men, women and children who are trying to live a life of some minimum quality under unbearable circumstances then at least have the balls to call a spade a spade. These are not "civilian levers" this is a classic, text book example of collective punishment, and there is a reason it is prohibited under the Geneva Conventions. Maybe we should suggest that someone sits down and watchs "The Pianist" to remind themselves of where, when, how and why the Geneva Conventions were developed.

Sigh.

Aside from rants, I'm so full of thoughts and ideas and inspiration today. I can't quite get it all into order in my head to share it here. So this may be a little disjointed.

The lessons in letting go continue. This past two weeks the key theme has been letting go of "unrelenting standards". It's a phrase I picked up on a pop-psychology magazine and I can't get it out of my head. I guess it spoke to me. Little by little and with many relapses I am learning to let go of standards that don't help me, standards that used to hold me back by telling me that everything I did should be done well.

This week I read Keri Smith's post about her dust bunnies and smiled in recognition. It is so good that as well as linking I'm going to go right ahead and quote her here.

my house is never as clean as I would like, but I much prefer to spend time writing reading and making things than cleaning. i keep it at a point which it doesn't depress me, tidy but a bit dusty.

these are truths that a few years ago I would not wanted to have anyone know about. I would try and make people think that everything was pretty and funky and well functioning all the time. I am perfect and you should want my life.

at some point i became extremely wary and suspicious of the notion that people teach in self-help books that we should all aspire to a fully self-actualized high functioning life. this life and all it's messiness is what makes life interesting and intensely creative. i think often that's how creativity arises, in having to deal with things in the moment. the fact that some plans you have don't work out the way you wanted or "planned" forces you into a new way of seeing and operating.

in need of fixing is a perfectly good place to be. at times this is exactly who I am. sometimes life is uncomfortable and I no longer feel the urge to run from that. most importantly i no longer feel the need to live up to someone else's ideal. i can breathe deeper because I am not spending any energy hiding the truth from people.

because everyone else is messy too and has dust bunnies in the corners of their rooms.
some just hide it better than others.

Amen, Keri. My new friend Swirly was full of the same brand of goodness and wisdom this week.

It seems my stranglehold on my own life, demanding only the very best at all times, may have taken a little too long to overcome under normal circumstances so I led myself to Afghanistan. Here, I couldn't pick one day when I measure up to the standards I once thought were inviolable.

I too now miss deadlines, and hand over papers that I once would have never allowed to see the light of day, I drop balls and fail over and over again and - lo and behold - through it all I am still making a positive difference. I am still doing a good job.

I miss yoga sessions and haven't been for a run in three months, I eat what I can get which is sometimes the kind of food I would never have allowed past my lips in a past life. Yet, my health is good, my body has not collapsed or transformed into an unrecognisable blob. I still think that striving for excellence is great, that taking care of my body and meeting my committments to others are important. But in learning to survive here I've learned that nothing is more important than letting go a little bit. Letting go of my unrelenting standards and of my expectations of myself and others.

This week I'm also feeling closer and closer to realising my own power to make my dreams come true. Both Laini and Denise wrote about dreams this week, and I realised that I still have dreams that haven't yet had their day in the sun. I've never really lost my belief that, if I put my mind to something I can make it happen. As a little girl I dreamed of working for the United Nations, travelling to remote and troubled places and fighting for justice. A big dream for a farmer's daughter from small town New Zealand. Yet, here I am. I have more dreams, and now it is time to let some of them out to play. I'm pretty excited about that.

Evening walk in Chaghcharan with my Afghan security guard

Me and my security guard walking in Ghor.JPG, originally uploaded by frida world.

He used to be a police officer here in Chaghcharan before leaving the force during the Taleban regime. He then worked as a security guard for the ICRC, UNOPS and then a French organisation that he doesn't name (but he tells me there were seven French women in the office during those times). Now he is one of our security guards. He is older than most of the other guards, and strikes me as both wise and kind. He generously and tolerantly walks with me some evenings so that I can stretch my legs and get out of the compound.

We chat away in Dari, I understand about a quarter of what he is saying but I understand that he has six children and he understands that my father is a farmer. I also understand that he moved to Chaghcharan from a district in Ghor 20 years ago. I notice that although he is Tajik, when he points out to me the village of Pashtun families who migrated here from Wardak 50 years ago he tells me that they are very good people.

At one point on our walk I hesitate at the sight of a group of young men up ahead and ask him if we should go on. He smiles kindly at me and assures me that he will always tell me if anything I want to do is unsafe. He's dressed in civilian clothing and I'm trying to pass myself off as an Afghan woman (although my tendency to pull out my camera every few minutes blows that cover). He tells me not to every worry about security when I'm with him, because I am his sister. I think to myself that he is more like my big, strong Afghan uncle.

Water levels rising

This job, this place, has a way of creeping up on you. One day you are making your way through the working week - aware that most of the problems that come your way are much bigger than you'll ever be able to handle but still with a sense of general direction. Next day you realise that the waters have risen faster than you anticipated and you are  - once again - in well over your head.

This week has been busy and challenging. I had one staff member hiding in the hills from an allegedly corrupt judiciary pursuing him on murder charges. I learned by accident that a senior staff member in our new office had accepted a job from another organisation at the same time as he took up the new position with us and is due to start work there this week. Another senior staff member has allegedly been telling the drivers that he's only working with us until President Karzai gets him a better job - probably within a month.

As if the challenges of setting up the new office were not enough to keep me up at night - head office seems to have remembered that I'm here and decided to put me to work as well. After nagging at my bosses about the lack of a national strategic project on violence against women and the right to women to access to justice, I was suddenly made the focal point for these issues within the mission and given the task of drawing up the terms of reference for a new national project. Then to top off my week I get a request from New York HQ to put together two paragraphs on the one most important human rights issue in my region and to make a recommendation for what the UN family could do to improve it - oh yes, and if I could do that in 24 hours it would be great.

I also realised that three weeks of isolation had taken their toll. After three weeks in the mountains working and living with Afghan men - most of whom don't speak English - and trying to befriend kittens who misunderstand me the way the people of Far Far Away once misunderstood Shrek (one came into my room the other evening and then saw me on the sofa and made a face like a primal scream before turning tail and running as fast as his little legs could carry him), I realised that I needed a change of scene. So I hopped a ride on a helicopter to Kabul, had dinner out with an old friend at a Tex-Mex restaurant (Kabul is cosmopolitan compared to Ghor) and then caught the first flight to Herat.

In Herat I'm busy completing an ongoing investigation into the functioning of the Family Response Unit - an experimental unit at the Police HQ which is staffed by female police officers and mandated to receive cases from and relating to women. This investigation is my own little pilot project - the outcomes of which should hopefully help inform my efforts to develop the national project on access to justice for women mentioned above. It's not a very encouraging picture, despite the desire of donors to sell a cheery picture of their progress. After interviewing seven different key stakeholders about the unit I was left with more concerns than I had started with - and that was already a decent pile.

I feel the swirl of chaos building around me again and although there is part of me that wants to run and hide under the covers with my newly delivered copies of Harry Potter and Blackbringer (yay and thanks MJ) I also notice how much less stressed I am about all this than I would have been when I first arrived in Afghanistan one and a half years ago.

I am finally learning to see the water level rise above my head and not panic. I am floating rather than frantically paddling, and so far it feels not so bad.

Abductions in Afghanistan

Here in Ghor the risk is not great but in less secure areas of Afghanistan in recent weeks there have been a number of high profile abductions of foreigners by anti-government elements, i.e. the Taleban.  At a very personal level the idea of being abducted by the Taleban is terrifying - that's why I choose not to think about it. I live and work in a relatively secure part of the country, I follow my employer's safety procedures especially when traveling, and then I don't think about it . When, during a conversation with a friend working in Herat this week, I did find myself contemplating the possibility of abduction I found it provoked in me such a terrible sense of dread that I knew why I don't usually let my mind go there.

But these abductions are not simply a means of terrorising foreign humanitarian workers and journalists in Afghanistan. They are highly charged acts of 'political warfare'. The Taleban use the abductees to negotiate for the release of Taleban who have been arrested and detained by the Government or international military forces and/or for the withdrawal of those international military forces from Afghanistan.

This is extremely difficult for the Government of Afghanistan. In order to maintain good relations with and support from their international allies, they find themselves in the position of having to negotiate with the very group that is trying to remove them from their democratically elected position of power in Afghanistan.

It often appears, from where I am sitting, that President Karzai is placed under extreme pressure from the home nations of the abductees to make significant concessions to the Taleban in exchange for their safe release. Different countries take very different approaches, of course, depending on a number of factors, not least of which is the political strength or vulnerability of the government at home - election cycles have a noticeable impact.

In past months we have watched the high profile negotiations concerning abducted Italian and French citizens along with their Afghan companions. This week Germany and South Korea are facing the same nightmare. Here is an interesting editorial from an Afghan newspaper about the impact these negotiations have on Afghanistan's battle to defeat the insurgency and establish a stable and secure environment for future development.

Editorial: Simple steps to avoid abduction and political dilemmas
July 25 - Foreign nationals must avoid road trips to insecure areas and should avoid making their trip details public in order to be safe in the future. (Kabul Weekly)

The recent wave of abductions of Afghan citizens and foreigners in Afghanistan presents a huge challenge for security forces and the Afghan government. Last week, the Taliban abducted two German citizens along with five of their Afghan co-workers, and in a separate incident, 23 South Koreans.

Usually, the Taliban demand that the victims’ native governments withdraw their troops, or an exchange for Taliban prisoners held by the government or international forces. While there have been many abduction cases in the last five years, demands to release Taliban commanders have grown since a prisoner exchange made in April for the Italian journalist Daniel Mastrogiacomo.

Mastrogiacomo was kidnapped in Helmand along with two Afghan reporters who were beheaded. The deal was made to satisfy the government of Romani Prodi, which at the time was near collapse. The deal was a coup for Prodi, but President Karzai emerged looking weak. Thousands of foreign citizens live across the provinces, where they are employed by various Afghan and international organizations.

Many of them conduct work-related travel and abductions have proven an effective tactic in showing that Afghanistan is unstable. Furthermore, the Taliban are able to make demands on the Afghan government and its international allies. If we examine the situation closely, we observe that Taliban prisoners were captured mainly as a result of costly combat and search operations in which Afghan forces and international soldiers are losing their lives.

The Taliban, without spending any money or sacrificing very much, simply abduct several foreign citizens and demand the release of their prisoners. Foreign governments often force Kabul to accept the Taliban’s demands. The Mastrogiacomo case marked a turning point in that Kabul freed high-level Taliban prisoners. Now, with the presence of a Korean delegation in Afghanistan, Seoul could try to force the Afghan government to accept some or all of the Taliban’s demands.

There are reports that South Korea is ready to withdraw its 200 soldiers from Afghanistan earlier than scheduled. But these types of deals encourage the Taliban to carry out more abduction, and at the same time, they create additional obstacles for Afghanistan and the international community in the fight against terrorism. The government should not give in to Taliban demands again.

Otherwise, abducted citizens will be killed and their governments will be forced to cut support to Afghanistan because of domestic pressures. There are solutions, but they require close cooperation by Afghan security forces and civilian organizations. The dangerous areas of the country that are off limits are more or less known. There have been fewer cases of abduction in the relatively secure areas of the country. Foreigners should keep two things in mind:
1- They must avoid road trips to insecure areas. Instead, foreigners should fly to their destinations on private airlines or by military flights. The costs are higher, but the cost of a life is more,
2- If travel to insecure areas is unavoidable, foreign citizens should have a well-planned security detail and should avoid making their trip details public.

Otherwise, the wave of abductions will continue and foreign governments will be pressured to withdraw support to Afghanistan or cut assistance the outcome of this is critical for Afghanistan because once again the country could be dragged into another crisis, the consequences of which will be dangerous not only for the region, but for the world.

On a cheerier note, I was interviewed this week about my life and work in Afghanistan by Radio New Zealand, the national public broadcaster in New Zealand. The interview will be played Friday morning, New Zealand time, but they generally post pod-casts on their website once the interview has aired, so I'll put a link here as soon as I get one. I enjoyed talking to the interviewer, who I admire as a broadcaster, but I was experiencing some nerves and the pressure of the moment, so I don't remember too well what we talked about. So I'm looking forward to hearing it myself!