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.
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Why don't you donate your pension to Afghan children?
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