Mazar-I-Sharif and the sport of Buzkashi

I am now in Mazar-E-Sharif, in the province of Balx (or Balkh), one of the Northernmost provinces.  It borders Uzbekistan (Turkmenistan is a little West and Tajikistan is a little East). A lot of history here. Alexander the Great spent some time here (around 300 BC), as did Genghis Khan in 1209.  Alexander once said "I am not afraid of an army of lions led by a sheep; I am afraid of an army of sheep led by a lion."  Fifteen centuries later, Genghis Khan reportedly said “man’s greatest pleasure is to see his enemies flee before him with their cities in flames, to seize their treasure, and to gather to his bosom their wives and daughters.” I think that was even before sensitivity training became mandatary.

Saturday I boarded a Russian airplane to come here from Kabul. The Rusian airplane was not the strange looking passenger jet that I had seen at the Kabul airport, however. It was a 20 - 30 passenger Russian twin engine turbo prop airplane, the AN-26 – a solid practical aircraft that boards from a ramp in the back. I was met at Mazar by the resident AI, an Australian who has been an AI for over two years and who has been in several other foreign countries on UN missions for many years.

The Security Chief here is a former soldier in the Macedonian Army. CPI has three or four Macedonians as Security Chiefs at various locations here, along with a Croatian, a couple Brits and two Aussies. The guards (including drivers) are all Afghan and vary in number from about seven at places like Mazar, where the living quarters are aboard a military or police installations, to about 17 at places like Jalalabad where we have our own compound. At the military or police compounds, the perimeter guards are provided by the installation host. Here at Mazar we are contained in a police training center called a Regional Training Center (RTC). The trainers are contractors, police, and military from several countries including the US, France, Germany, and Sweden. The facility guards here are Gurkhas.

There is a Regional Reconstruction Team (PRT) (military) down the road, and a military airbase across the runway from the civilian terminal. The air base is run, primarily, by the Germans, though several countries, including the US, are represented there. We also passed a prison training facility on the way here from the airport. There is a lot of military and police facility training construction going on in this area. Huge areas adjacent to the military part of the airport are under construction, and other smaller ones out that direction in addition to the big prison project already mentioned.

This facility where I live is a square about 250 yards on each side. There is a wall of fence about 12 feet high with about 30 yards outside it until another shorter barbed wire fence. I do not know if that space is mined or not. On the other two sides is a space about the size of the compound in which expansion construction is taking place. There is so much military and police construction going on here that it seems likely that someone thinks we (the US) will be her for a while – at least in a training capacity.

The weather was cold at Kabul, and it was even colder at Mazar where it was also windy and hazy from dust. The cold remained through Wednesday (actually began warming Wed. PM), as I became familiar with the Mazar situation. It appears that the city is on a large plane that stretches North from the mountains toward the river that forms the countries boundry. It looks very green and fertile. The flat fields appear to be irrigated. Still, there is dust everywhere – a light film of fine dust is on everything.

The parts of the city that I have seen so far looks a little more prosperous than Jalalabad. There is more concrete (the gas station pump areas, for example) and there is a fair amount of housing construction going on which includes quite a few very large “villa” type homes. A building on the way to the Airport is about 10 stories high and is the tallest structure I have seen except for a row of grain elevators across the road from my compound. The streets are busy and the businesses appear to have customers. Ninety percent of the persons on the streets are men, and ninety percent of the women that are seen are wearing burkas.

I am receiving an email daily intelligence report now that I did not get before. It discloses that there is some insurgent activity in virtually every province but, by far, the most activity is in Kandahar and Hilmand. The Afghan New Year (also known as the Solar New Year and the Persian New year) began last Sunday, and many people from outside the province came here to visit the “Blue Mosque” in the city. Mazur is generally one of the most secure provinces, though there are thought to be bad quys in the mountains to the West who come to this area and do hostile things from time to time. The security forces are extra vigilant for the New Year. By security procedure, most of my vehicular movements require two vehicles. Our second one here is an old F-250 which blew a tire Thurs. We will have to now get it fixed. Since the Mazar city area is relatively secure, though, I’ll still be able to take care of most business with only the “hard car” Land Cruiser.

I met the CNAT team on Tuesday with the resident IA who then departed for R&R. He will be back in mid April – I’m on my own until then. On Thursday, Farmer’s day, the CNAT team went to a celebration that included some instruction to the local farmers about artificial insemination. The Dept. Of Agriculture is trying to use it as means of upgrading the local animal quality. They plan to furnish high quality semen to the local Vets and encourage the farmers to avail their animals. CNAT will take posters and hand outs to get their message out, but they wish they had been given enough notice to try to get funding for a TV set or a Washer which have proven to be a big hit for a “lucky farmer” drawing at these events.

About a quarter of a mile down the road from my compound is a Buzkashi stadium – a big dirt field with bleacher seats along one side. This is where they play the equestrian sport of Buskashi. It is rough. Some say that a good Buzkashi match makes Ultimate Fighting seem like a playground event. The game is composed of a bunch of guys on horses (a big big bunch – maybe a hundred) trying to grab the gutted carcass of a goat or calf (calves are preferred because they resist being torn to pieces better) and carrying it on some predetermined course( that I don’t quite understand) so as to deposit it at a kind of goal. The game goes on and on and on – in some places for days. There are dozens of randomly moving riders just seemingly having no purpose around the edges while the intense action is occurring out in the middle in a cloud of dust and a wild flurry of ongoing equestrian activity. Sometimes the calf carcass will fly up into the air – I don’t know if one guy is throwing it to another or if it is just a part of freeing it up. Once in a while the center of activity will move close enough to see the riders whipping and shoving and punching and grabbing at the carcass while their horses (a good one is extremely valuable) lunge and shove among each other to move to the carcass or to move powerfully away if their rider has a good grip. At one point an excited and partisan fan lunged into the fray and began lashing at one of the horses. He was promptly knocked on his ass and trampled – no one batted an eye – he escaped with only a slight limp. No prissy riding suites, shinny boots, or well brushed helmets here – though I’m told that the riders dress in sturdy cloths and heavy turbines to help absorb some of the punishment. It looks like a free for all bar fight on horseback, but they say that it actually involves a great deal of skill that takes years to learn (come to think of it, that might be true of free for all bar fighting too). Most of the super stars of the sport are guys in their late thirties or in their forties. It is probably a little late for me to become world-class at either Buzkashi or bar fighting. Oh, well, nothing can take away my dream of becoming a ballet dancer or a hip hop star.  (the picture is from: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/29/afghanistans_ultimate_sport)  If you click on the picture, it should enlarge. You can see the carcass hanging down between the second and third horse from the left. I think the guy on the third horse presently has it, and the rider on the second is trying to take it away.  The fifth rider is holding the one with the carcass from escaping to the left and the forthe guy is coming in to help one side or the other.

Jalalabad -- lessons learned

The picture in the heading is of a couple kids helping with the opium harvest. They score the poppy pods with a sharp implement and the poppy begins oozing opium – you can see it as a dark streak on the pod parallel to the stem. They come back later (as in the picture) and scrape it off with another tool – as the older child is doing. The dark stuff on the pods is opium as is the glob on the scraping tool.


Saturday and Sunday were uneventful. We went to Jalalabad Air Force Base (“JAF”)to work out at their Gym and eat at their cafeteria.

JAF is a huge installation that provides aviation services for this part of Afghanistan. Army helicopter of all descriptions are the aircraft most evident, but one also sees C-130s, King Air 200s, and Predator drones fairly frequently. I have seen no fighter aircraft. Down the road a mile or so is the Provincial Redevelopment Team (PRT). It, too, is a US military installation, but it is focused primarily on projects that advance the development of the province e.g., bridges, roads, irrigation, etc. The PRT also does counter narcotics public affairs ( PA) projects and provides PA materials, such as posters, balloons, tee shirts, etc., to CNAT for distribution. We use them in conjunction with the volleyball tournaments, football (soccer to us) matches, etc. The procedure is to stop all traffic while vehicles enter and leave these bases. This creates a large traffic problem. There is plenty of room to build a kind of ramp system to take vehicles off the road and feed them into the base gates, but this has not happened. The traffic just piles up day after day. Maybe someone should propose it as a AID project. I would certainly help facilitate commerce.

From the inside of a Land Cruiser, the town of Jalalabad is a great deal like Kabul in appearance, but there is much less traffic. Where there are spaces for sidewalks, there is mostly dirt. There are many pedestrians in the street along with the push carts, donkey carts, etc. Both Kabul and Jalalabad have far fewer motorcycles than I expected. While they are very plentiful in Thailand and even more so in Viet Nam, they are somewhat rare here. It seems to me that there are more bicycles in the streets than motorcycles. Only the main roads are paved. There is dust everywhere. Even where there is concrete or asphalt (rare except for road surface), it is covered with dust. The filling stations have gas pumps sticking up from dirt surfaces. When patrons show up for tea, the shopkeeper sweeps a spot on the concrete, or sweeps the dust from the hard packed dirt, for the customers to sit on.

This Jalalabad CNAT team is regarded as one of the most effective in the system. In addition to the training I am recieving from the resident IA I am, therefore, interviewing the CNAT team members, where possible, to try to ascertain what they think makes their team successful and how the IA’s can best contribute to the effort. These are some of the things I think they are trying to educate me about:

1. CULTURE Taylor your messages and project composition to the local situation. Be aware that Afghan culture is not Western culture. Here the beliefs and attitudes may differ markedly from valley to valley, even village to village, but they will all differ from those of a Westerner. Where education is highest, is where attitudes will be most flexible, but everywhere there will be some deep-rooted attitudes that must be taken into account. For example, Democracy in Afghanistan is often regarded as a system that encourages promiscuity – for better or worse that fact is very important. Further, it is seen as a system that gives as much weight to the opinion (and vote) of a degenerate, imbecile, or criminal as it does to a respected elder. The more educated the local people are, the more they will be willing to examine other characteristics, but they will also have a bit of that attitude. Maybe Democracy can not function properly until education is quite high. Meanwhile, plan your messages and projects within what is possible.

By the way, in the national election last fall, there were about 1.2 million persons who had voting cards – only 200,000 votes were cast. (I have not checked these figures)

2. LOCAL LEADERS The two most important persons in a community are the Mahlech (headman) and the Olemar/Moulah (religious leader). Try to make them a part of your efforts. The Mahleck position is usually familial – belongs to a prominent family. It would be very unusually for the Mahleck to be replace by a person from another family.

3. SURVEYS Periodically survey the communities and the districts for the purpose of determining what project and needed (and feasible). These surveys should be the basis for the formation of future plans – the development of project possibilities. Share the findings with other organizations (both governmental and NGO) so as to steer their efforts into productive channels and so as to get funding for deserving projects. Areas to look at are irrigation, electricity, access to media (esp. radio), drinking water, education, agriculture (better methods, crops, etc), PI possibilities (sporting events, Moulah (religious leader) counter narcotic training, developing good relationships with the media (explain our mission and request their support).

4. PLANNING. Based on the information above, have a plan for each CNAT division. Insist that the plan be reviewed regularly (probably weekly) as to A. work status and B. future goals. Here, at the weekly staff meeting, each division briefs what occurred during the past week and what they want/expect to do the following week – all within the context of an overall plan.

5. OPERATIONS Make sure each division has a plan (anual and weekly, more or less), that they know what the plan (and the plan’s purpose is), that they know what to do to implement the plan and, as security permits, THAT THEY SHOW UP, GET OUT OF THE OFFICE, AND DO THE WORK. This last was emphasized several times.

6. IA PROJECT VISITATIONS The IA’s benefit by having an understanding of what is happening in the field. As part of, #1, however, before going assess the effect on the project. IA’s are required to travel in body armor and with armed guards. In some situations this could seem to send the messages: A. we do not trust you; B. we are looking for a fight; and C. we feel immensely self important.

7. LIAISON AND FEEDBACK The IA’s provide a very useful function to the CNAT team by being a communications and advocacy link to the foreign entities that provide funding and other assistance. The are also the best source of feedback from these entities. IA’s need to remember to ask for this feedback and to pass it on to the team. If the team identifies a project which is handed off to one of the assistance agencies, the team needs to know if it becomes abandoned and why.

I returned to Kabul Thursday. Will fly to Mazar I Sharif (in the North) early Saturday morning in a funny looking Rusian fixed wing airplane. After a few day of familiarization, I will fill in there for the resident IA who is going on leave.

Jalalabad and Micro Hydro

I went to the airport early Saturday afternoon to fly to Jalalabad. Eleven of us were weighed, together with our baggage, and boarded a Russian MI-8/MI-17 helicopter along with a crew of five and at least 2,000 pounds of luggage. The engines screamed, the rotor blades whirled and the aircraft lumbered into a ten foot hover. We climbed to the base of the clouds and proceeded Southeast at about the level of the mountain peaks in that area. After about 20 minutes, we came upon a mountain pass. The clouds were just above us, the mountains of the pass poked solidly into them, and the pass itself was obscured by fog, mist and scattered clouds. The pilot took a good look at the situation and returned to Kabul. He could have attempted to "scud run" through the pass but he did not. My formative opinion of the professionalism of the aviation service went up. Time will tell, but I am now prepared to be happier with this air transport operation than I had expected to be.

On Sunday the young lady that is the Embassy’s project manager for our operation came for lunch. I’d guess that she is a couple years short of 30, but she has had two previous foreign postings. I met her boss, who I think is close to 40, last week. I feel like a dinosaur. It is interesting, though, that I see a fair number of "grey-beards" among the contractors as I go from place to place around Kabul. The group I was with on the MI-8, however, contained only one person over 45 (besides me). They all looked to be in their early 30s and almost all of them carried at least two weapons. Another new IA arrived today, and he too is a Vietnam vet a few years younger than me.

Monday I went again to the airport and boarded the MI-8 at 0830. This time we had 19 persons aboard and about 2.500 pounds of baggage. No problem for the MI-8, as the ugly beast has a useful load capability of over 8,000 pounds – a pretty impressive machine. The Thai military recently announced that they are purchasing some MI-8s because they can get three of them for the price of one H-60 Blackhawk. The weather was clear and we proceeded to Jalalabad. The countryside en route looks much like central Nevada – mostly desert mountains with isolated patches of green. The green areas are usually well-defined small fields that appear to have dikes around them. Some are terraced. As we came closer to Jalalabad the green areas became more frequent and larger. The terrain became rolling and the valley quite broad. Near the city, it is mostly farmland. Tora Bora is in the mountain range just to the South and the Pakistan boarder is quite near. The resident IA, a dynamic young Italian, together with the security supervisor, a former Sergeant Major from Masadonia, met me. We filled the rest of the day with familiarization and orientation, including a lunch visit to the Jalalabad Air Force Base, which is a large American installation.

Tuesday I continueded familiarization with the site and the job, and Wednesday we visited two Micro Hydro projects. Let me tell you about Micro Hydro.

Basically, you can instal a water turbine, connected to a generator, anywhere you have rapidly flowing water e.g., an irrigation canal. If it is a place where the water flow exists anyway, there is virtually no downside. The water continues downstream to whoever will ultimately use it without any loss. To be efficient, you need to channel the water out from the source, but you put it back in within 50 or 60 yards. No loss and, depending on the volume and the speed, you can turn a generator that will service a village of 200 - 500 families. This province has become the poster child for Micro Hydro over the past few years and CNAT has been involved in most of them so far because of it’s application to helping find alternative likelihoods for farm villages that would otherwise be growing poppies. The electricity goes to schools, sewing machines, carpet weaving machines, etc. Jalalabad CNAT has a couple engineers in the group and is involved in nearly fifty of these projects with over half of them now completed. At least one neighboring village has decided to pool their money and build one on their own. The turbine is a waterwheel-like design inside a casing that looks like a barrel. The water flows perpendicular to the shaft which extends from the casing to a belt pulley that connects to the generator. The villagers know that the project funding is from the American Embassy so at the first site we visited (as a grey haired American) I was mistaken for the person that provides the money. They made a fuss and insisted that I be thanked profussly. It is intersting that the older men were very friendly with smiles and waves -- the young men, though, were expressionless and did not at all project a sense of welcoming.

Thursday is the staff meeting. (Gender Affairs, Public Information, Alternative Livelihoods, Moitoring/Verification. All the CNAT members told what they had done during the past week and what their plans are for the next week. All had planning and tracking documents to project on the screen showing the activity, location, purpose and beneficiaries, status, cost and percentage spent, and next milestone with target date. There was lively discussion of each project. This CNAT team has the reputation of being very well organized and effective.

Friday is the Afghan holy day and everyone but the guards are off. The senior IA will work on the weekly report (that's not me). I'll see if I can get rid of some of the glitches that have invaded this blog. There has been an 18 inch blank gap between the heading at the top and the first posting. I figured that one out in a mere two hours. Next I hope to discover why the posts are each in one big paragraph. When I type them and publish them they are each in several smaller paragraphs. Oh well, I have no idea why any of this works in the first place - every time something comes out right, it kind of startles me.

That's it for now. Tomorrow I expect to go to a volly ball match in the country. CNAT has provided uniforms with counter narcotics messages on them and helped organize a tournament.

Learning the Job -- Around Kabul

On Tuesday we received the proper licensing for the hard cars. I was, therefor, able to go the the Ministry of Counter Narcotics and observe a meeting there (on the left, you see me ready to go to the meeting). I first put on my body armor (the battle helmet was not required) and proceeded to the hard car. I received a briefing from the head of our security element, a former soldier in the British Army, about what to do if we came under attack or encountered an improvised explosive device (IED). The basic instructions are to remain low in the armoured vehicle while the guards repel the attack, wait for the other armoured car to extract me if mine is disabled, and move within the phalanx of the guards if it becomes necessary to go to cover away from the vehicles. The Chief IA and I were then driven to the meeting spot in a two car convoy with four armed guards headed by the Brit. I felt like a Sultan, though it escapes me as to why I am not issued a weapon.

The meeting was like all government meetings. Some useful information and a lot of bogging down about things that would seem fairly easy to deal with. This meeting flailed around for fifty minutes about who, and under what criteria, would pay for tractors that are destroyed or damaged while engaging in poppy eradication (they sort of plow up the poppy fields with a cultivator on the back of a tractor). Anyway, the people with tractors want compensation if they get torn up or blown up, and the funding folks don't want a lot of junky tractors declared total losses in the poppy fields and compensated at new tractor prices.

The next day, I attended the closing ceremony for a week of counter narcotic public information training that had been provided by the Colombo Plan folks from Siri Lanka. There were some speeches and they presented graduation certificates to about 150 student, including ten or twelve mullahs who can now go back to their provinces and make convincing arguments against the use and manufacture of drugs.

Thursday I visited the local variety store and found a pleasant surprise. There was a very good stock of western snacks, toiletries, and other convenience items. I saw several things, including the 2 in 1 shampoo I prefer, like a decent non-anti perspirant deodorant, Planters peanuts, and Grape Nuts cereal, that I can not even find in Thailand. It seems incongruous, somehow, to put on body armour, drive in an armoured car with body guards through crowded potholed muddy streets replete with cars, guards, soldiers, humvees, pedestrians, push carts, donkey carts, wheelbarrows, beggars, etc. to a large store that has more Western convenience items than can be found in on of the best developed of the emerging countries. By the way, the low fat Coffemate was from Thailand and had to Thai writing on it just like in Bangkok.

I have finished my familiarization here in Kabul. Tomorrow (Saturday) I'm off to Jalalbad on a strange looking Russian helicopter.