Kabul – A flight you shouldn’t miss

Kabul – A flight you shouldn’t miss

“Kabul…!”, “the closest I have been to Kabul is seeing the Kabul Express (a recent Bollywood film) and I wouldn’t want to go any closer”.

That’s what my friend said when I told him about my Kabul visit.

…and as if going to Kabul is not enough when the day of departure arrived I had no VISA. Friends in Kabul said come and we will get you the visa here. All I had before walking inside the Delhi Airport was a letter that was in Arabic script (Darri as I found out later).

The immigration officer at Delhi was perplexed, “sir if you are sent back then I will loose my job”. Thankfully he found a colleague who knew the script and let me go.

First hour in Kabul

…there was no one at the airport to receive us and I came out of the immigration with a slip of paper in exchange of my passport. I looked at faces and decided in favor of one, ‘can I use your mobile?’…and the host arrived, blaming the traffic for her late arrival. She was being very honest (we discovered that truth in its wholeness on the last day of our visit)

As if all that chaos was not enough, I remembered I had a bag, and I looked for it only to see it nowhere in site. Enquiry with the airport made us feel more lost. Anyway I went to get my visa with the host and Michael was shown a porter by lost baggage dept. The porter walked him for half a kilometer to the parking and opened the hood of a car and BINGO! The bag was there.

So all the assurance by different people at the airport saying don’t worry you will find your bag was true. People don’t lie there I guess…

…so the journey begins

As you are about to land in Kabul you see housing which merges in the ground color of mud, some dumps of wreckages, planes of USA/NATO and UN and beautiful mountains, some covered with snow.

As soon as you are on the road, you experience the traffic jams. The cars are big and high suspension. Toyota seems to be the occupying force on the road. For first two days I did not see a motorbike. But a lot of bicycles, and like India puncture shops by the road side.

The invariable part of Afghan hospitality is Tea, light, without milk and accompanied by what in India we call toffee. A white something with a liquid fruit core. Melts well in mouth with tea.

Life is normal with cars buzzing past, people walking along, children carrying nan from the next door bakery if it is lunch time. Of course there are high walls surrounding all the buildings, there is always security at entrance. I guess security is the biggest employment source right now (so much for job security). But I never felt unsafe. Well there are those moments when you go to Standard and Chartered bank or US consulate. The sheer size of concrete blocks, the dead end roads, and the security layers makes you feel, ‘I am safe… or am I?’

Our host, Bureau of Reconstruction and Development, had the office in a bungalow on the outskirts of Kabul. Being in the city can be very costly, especially since all the rates are in dollars. From the office window I could see the mountains covered with snow. The sun was bright but as soon as you get inside you feel cold. So we spent some quality time boding with our friends outside in the sun.

We had working lunches most of the days. Well! What I mean as we were planning someone in the office was working on the lunch. A treat every day, the Afghan nan, which is almost 2 feet long, flavored Basmati rice, vegetables in tomato gravy garnished with sour cream. And there was meet also which was offered to me since I was vegetarian. I am vegetarian I said, and they said yes we know, but this is not beef we cooked it for you especially!

And then there was Pepsi, water is too simple to be offered to guests. I have come to believe that Pepsi/Coke is the equivalent of water in many cultures.

While at food let me talk about the breakfast also. That happened in the guest house we were staying. It was a mix of western flavors with Afghan bread. Peanut butter, marmalades, cheese, juices and eggs. I was surprised how everything went so well with the Afghan Nan. No wonder we ended up having no dinner on many days.

The guest house was UN cleared, that means the UN has checked it for security and found it safe enough for their people to stay. The 3 security guards lived in the 6 square feet cabin, sleeping by turn. It was a square building with a big lawn in the center, beautiful trees that were white with flowers, and yellow by butterflies. Telling loudly if anyone cared to listen “ALL IS NEVER LOST”

I had a room to myself with a TV where I could connect to India through the continuous breaking news of news channels, and the tears of saans-bahu. The India you can get anywhere in the world!

And there is more the care taker at the guest house, while watching a Kareena song proudly asked me, ‘do you know how many pictures of her I have on my cell…60!’

If your Hindi has enough Urdu and English then you can talk to anyone in Kabul. Darri which every one seems to know, Darri is very close to Persian and thus has many words that are also in Urdu. People are conscious about there privacy. We never met the families of our hosts as that is not done here. We met some young people in the guest house who have grown/lived abroad while the country was in war. They are now back and want to contribute in rebuilding a society. There values are a bridge between Afghan and the western/other culture. Almost 70 percent of the population in Afghan is young. I hope that their energy will move to rebuild what has been lost in last 30 years.

There are times when you would think this could be India. The crowded streets, the cloth shops, the dust, beggars, street side eateries, juice shops around corners with carrot being the most prominent.

What is different? …the children and teenagers selling prepaid mobile cards like newspapers, dry fruits on hand carts like vegetables(almost same cost as India), and people with a handful of currencies ready to exchange any currency to local one on roadsides. … And no dogs on the roads. In 8 days the only dog I saw was a pet in the guest house.

All play and no work, you will think! Wait I am coming to it. In 3 days our mornings and afternoons turned into a proposal. Time to sell! We had a couple of meeting in CRS and USAID. The reaction was positive, the advice was ‘think about Kandhar’ that’s where people want to focus, and the subtle hints were to get government on your side. It is surprising how accessible the government is (beside the fact that our host has been working for last 22 years and knows his way around). We had a meeting with a minister and he said why you don’t start on your own like an international agency, since local NGO’s are not experienced.

Play for Peace doesn’t work like that, so it meant we need to have more meetings.

…the last couple of hours in Kabul

Flight time – 11.40 am

Meeting with cultural minister – 10 am

Minister’s itinerary – in parliament till 9.30 am

The road truth – if you are on a busy road half an hour is minimum time to get to the other end

Where we were – till 10.15 in the ministry, the minister couldn’t make it, so we left.

We reached the outside of airport at 10.45, the first thing someone told us at the gate, “Check in closed”

We could see out Indian Airlines plane from outside, so we shouted, ‘but we can see our plane’

So we were inside the airport at 10.55. “Check in closed” was the most used word for next 30 minutes. We ran from one officer to another, shouted “help” to anyone who looked official. We gave up… well almost! Michael decided that it is time for alternate plan, since we had our flight for Tel Aviv from India the next day. The plan was to go via Dubai, credit cards not acceptable. So we called our host from Airline office and ask them to turn back.

The Resin diplomacy came to our rescue. Michael had this resins that our host have gifted us, he took that out and started offering it to everyone in the office. The Afghan airline officer started talking, they said we have no problem but the Indian Airlines is refusing. They made another try… ‘No they are not agreeing’.

Final refusal.

After 2 minutes some one appeared with boarding card for some passengers who were lost, and after another 10 minutes we were running (no jokes!) towards the plane.

Moral of the story – always be on the good side of Kabul traffic

Epilogue

If you think that was an eventful visit wait till you hear this…

On arrival when I went to get my Visa Gratis, the officer in charge walked us to his office and very kindly stamped my visa.

Later I opened my passport to see the visa and located it next to…, guess what?

…next to my Israel visa where I was suppose to go the next day after leaving Afghanistan.

After 2 hours of questioning while entering and laving Israel, I wondered for whom it was challenging, me or the immigration boys and girls of Israel. I guess for them…

They asked me so show us what kind of games you play; I had to play Gotcha with him.

So now I know two people can also Play for Peace…