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.