Z to A in the Year XXXX

When I started this consulting life in 1997 my first foray was a one year assignment in Zambia.

Since then, almost ten years ago now, I have progressed through assignments in other countries and seem to have been working my way from the end of the (Western) alphabet to its beginning. Additional spells in Zambia have been enhanced by work spells in Tanzania (several), United Kingdom (home, sometimes), Portugal, South Korea, Uganda, Guatemala, Nicaragua (several) and the United States (too short).

In June/July this year I was able to get to “B”: Bosnia & Herzegovina, where I spent an enjoyable and fascinating month in Sarajevo, marred only by (a) the temporary loss of my luggage for four days, (b) the sad sight of the several and large gleaming white cemeteries (less than 17 years old, like many of the graves’ occupants) and (c) England’s ignominious performance in the soccer World Cup.

In many computer programmes one is often asked to select a country from a drop-down box, eg when asked about one’s current location. I have now reached the first letter of the alphabet and the country is the very first one currently in that drop-down list. Mates in that antipodean penal colony will be relieved that their nation is not number one on the list.

To get to my current location towards the end of last month, I flew from Birmingham (Warwickshire, not Alabama) to Dubai. A few hours kip in a local hotel was followed by a return to the airport and a midday flight with the UNHAS airline. This is the airline of the United Nations Humanitarian Assistance Service and the route I used has been outsourced to a South African aviation company. The UNHAS flights are regarded as the most reliable between Dubai and my current location.

My fellow travellers on the DC9 aircraft were about another 100 or so consultants, contractors and business people, including about a dozen of the fairer sex.

We flew northwest across the Hornuz Straits through which passes a fair bit of the world’s oil tanker traffic. The far shoreline quickly opened up into desert, then a series of rugged mountain ranges until about three hours after take-off we were asked to prepare to land at Kabul Airport, Afghanistan.

Our aircraft let down into the bowl of Kabul which is surrounded by some big hills and mountains (those to the northwest stretch away into the North-West Frontier and eventually develop into the Hindu Kush between Pakistan and China); we then taxied past a few old aircraft wrecks and a couple of Mil 24 “Hind” helicopter gunships, originally under Soviet insignia many years ago, but now pressed into service with the “new” Afghanistan air force. While these machines looked ok, it would take a brave person to fly in one, especially given the maintenance standards of the Cold War Soviet regime.

My old SA mate from university days, Eskom and a few assignments in Africa was there to greet me. Mike has been in Afghanistan for about 18 months leading a German-funded project for the institutional strengthening of the urban water utilities, especially Kabul, the capital.

While waiting in Dubai for the Kabul flight I got talking to a Brit of similar vintage to moi. He’s clearly an ex-forces bloke who has been working on weapons decommissioning and alternative employment for various tribesmen, brigands, riffs etc. He works 6 weeks on and then has a week’s break which is much more generous than the conditions prescribed for expats working on projects teutonic. He told me there are some staggeringly beautiful parts of the country, sadly off-limits to most of us. Asked by me to sum up Afghanistan in very few words, he replied with one, “Mediaeval!”

This was not said in jest. Normally when one flies long distance in an easterly or westerly direction, one has to adjust one’s watch time and possibly the date as well. When you land here you have to adjust not just the day, but the century!

As this is a fiercely Muslim country, the current year is 1385 ie 2006 minus 621. There are other differences in the months and the new year; the latter starts on 21 March, then the first six months each have 30 days and the rest make up the difference to 365. This represents quite a challenge when reviewing translated documents.

Mike has his office and lodging in a secure property about 500m from my hotel, the SAFI Landmark, which is more or less in the centre of this old city that still stands astride the centuries old Silk Road once trodden by Marco Polo in olden days and hippies in the 1960s and 1970s.

The project office has about four young bilingual Afghanis in their mid-20s and who most of the time are paragons of politeness. Thus theirs is the challenge to translate to and from Dari, one of the main languages here and closely related to Farsi spoken in Iran to the west; the other main language here is Pashtu from the east and Pakistan.

Like Sarajevo, Kabul stands at the cross-roads of history and is once more poised at a change in the direction of its collective and individual destiny.

Enough of this, I’ll never be as good as John Simpson or Bill Bryson. I’ve been here three weeks and will try to add updated and shorter postings every couple of days until I leave here on 23 November, inshallah (God willing). Photos will be posted on a web site so that those with the time and the inclination can have a look at their own or someone else’s leisure.

Cheers,

Roger J