Day 1 in Kabul – helping to ‘heal the wounds of war’
Why Kabul and what has this project to do with English PD services?
There is a connection, but it is a bit tenuous – and it’s probably better if Bodd explains …
“The plane from Bahrain looked to be fairly empty when I did the online check-in , but when I was the last one to board it (being a bit other-worldly at what should have been 5am) I found it was completely full – and most of the occupants seemed to be lively and inquisitive children. A whole family of them were occupying the seat I had chosen, and I had lesson one in ‘go with the flow’: when I showed the resigned-looking air stewardess the seat number on my boarding card, she gave a big shrug and an even bigger smile. “However, one of the bigger boys in the family, who spoke good English, took the situation in hand – and moved some younger members of his extended family out of their seats and offered me a very good place next to the window just behind the wing – hence some spectacular views of the just-snow-tipped mountains in the last half hour of the flight.
“My phone leapt into life while I was in the immigration queue, and Yousuf (Dr Yousuf Rahimi, a Berkshire psychiatrist) was was telling me that he couldn’t quite believe I had arrived. But I still had to get past the rather sinister-looking passport and visa inspection cabins – almost quaint-looking in dark wood, but with large mirror windows and inscrutable immigration officers. But it took less than 30 seconds for him to wave me through, and the baggage reclaim just like you’d expect anywhere (except for several colourful soft random-looking items ties up with layers of knotted string coming through).
“Walking out of the exit was a little weird, as I was expecting people at a barrier meeting passengers with signs scrawled on pieces of paper – and when I stopped to look around for them, I was very quickly ushered towards the outside door by a polite uniformed official. And just in the other side of that door was Yousuf with the driver and security man. Apparently, they shouldn’t have been allowed out of the car park (some way away) to meet me – and I should have been bundled on the bus to he-didn’t-know-where. But a small offering to the airport staff had ensured that he was able to wait for me by the door…
“A quick phone call home was prevented by the UN vehicle in front, which had a large thick aerial on its roof – this, the security man explained, being a mobile signal jammer, effective up to 50m, to prevent mobile phone activation of roadside bombs. He thought it was probably for somebody for the American Embassy.
“The roads and driving were amazing. And I thought it was exciting when I was last in Rome! This made even the most random and chaotic of Italian driving seem like a quiet Sunday in a genteel English town.
“But we soon arrived at the Kabul Headquarters of the International Medical Corps (IMC). As we drove through Kabul, my hosts pointed out the high walls and razor-wire fences round all the ex-pat buildings, as they would be easy AOF (Afghan Opposition Forces) targets otherwise – for suicide bombs, kidnappings, ordinary theft and burglary, and so on.
“The IMH was similarly in a concrete enclosure, and Yousuf explained that new 3+m high concrete blocks with wide bases have been appearing everywhere recently – and there is probably a concrete trader somewhere who is doing very well out of it all. But as we went past the ones outside the Parliament building, we said it is not that different to Westminster – except the ones there are shiny, a bit smoother, and painted black.”
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