Kabul

To come to Kabul, I first had to go back to Delhi. It seems I am always going to Delhi, that dreaded city of smog, sweat, sewage, and sight for sore eyes. I marvel at the freedom I had in Delhi, how I maneuvered my way through the city, even from the airport to unknown neighbourhoods.

I have now been in Kabul for three days but have not seen much of the city.

That's because I'm told not to go outside of the U.N. compound where Douglas is staying. They tell me not to go out by myself. It's not bombing they fear, but crimes committed by locals. Apparently, locals kidnap and rape women, though none of Douglas' colleagues say harm has actually come to women since they have been here, even the man who's lived in Kabul for four years.

There was a kidnapping of a Western woman last month. She was nabbed in a restaurant by a group of men in front of her husband. But the kidnapping was a bungled attempt, done on a whim more than a planned kidnapping. The police knew immediately who was responsible and got the woman back within 24 hours. Maybe the woman's husband even put the men up to it.

Still, the caution is issued from everyone I've met so far. So I stay in the U.N. compound and try to catch up on my blog. I am a kept woman. I am in solitary confinement though I wander the grounds, and order food, make tea in the dining building. I could be bored out of my mind if I didn't have a cold and actually want to rest. And if I weren't so good at doing nothing. I can hardly believe I am here in Kabul with Douglas. When he comes home from work, he squeezes my arm to see if I am really here.

When you enter the gates of the compound, you enter a courtyard. There are administrative and security offices to the side. At the end of the courtyard are the dining building and a gym. There is also a vine-covered walkway that men hose down every morning. The walkway courts a garden, with picnic benches and parakeets in cages. At the end of the walkway is another courtyard. There is a fountain and a swimming pool here. Go through this area and you enter another garden. Off to the right is the building where Douglas lives. He has a room on the second floor.

Open wall spaces in the gardens are stuffed with sandbags. There are sandbags piles beside walls and covered with plastic sheets.

All the doors in this compound are low. They clear my head but I notice Douglas tilts his a bit to make sure he doesn't get banged.

From the car, I've only seen compounds here in Kabul. They are all behind solid iron gates, with uniformed, gun-toting guards manning them. I don't know what private homes look like. Douglas has rented an apartment in a private house in a security approved area and will be moving there soon. He says the house does not have an iron gate in front. It has a heavy wooden gate, with armed guards keeping vigil.

A couple of nights ago, we went to dinner at the Sizzler, an American-style steak house. I ordered a filet mignon. In Canada, an order of filet mignon is usually the smallest cut, maybe 6 oz. What I got was a honking slab of meat. It was easily 18 oz. I barely managed half. The restaurant was about 20 minutes away by car. During the ride to and from the restaurant, I saw no one on the street. Where do people go at night in Kabul?

Yesterday, we ventured out for a stroll in the afternoon. We took a car to an area that has shops, then walked to Chicken Street. That really is its name. There were many shops on Chicken Street, selling clothes, carpets, jewelery, and trinkets. Everything is covered in dust. People stared at us and I wonder if we've now been marked as kidnapping targets. The shopkeepers all wave us into their shops, saying, Come inside and look, looking is free.

That may be so. But suffering the dust and pollution of Kabul will cost me later. We couldn't have been out for more than an hour. I wanted to come back to the compound because I couldn't breath. Kabul has more dust, though less diesel fumes than Delhi. We came back to the compound by taxi and I crashed on the sofa in the dining building with exhaustion. I spent the next half hour trying to revive myself with Jasmine tea.

Yesterday, a suicide bomber outside Kabul killed 35 people, including three government ministers. Today, some of the roads in Kabul are closed for the funeral.

I've made Kabul sound dangerous. It is not. It is because I have nothing to do here. The bombing was targetted at the ministers.

Today, a colleague of Douglas' sent me a file to edit. It is written in English by an Afghani so it needs some smoothing out to make it read better. It is not badly written at all. So today, I am working and I stop making up stories about the dangers of Kabul.