Afghans

I spend three hours or more a day in meetings with Afghans discussing security and all sorts of other issues. Sometimes we are just passing the time.  Typically, we sit in easy chairs or sofas arranged around the room walls.  The senior person sits farthest from the door, the most junior closest.  It’s kind of fun to talk with them about about this and that. Though sometimes given to drawn-out speechifying, more often they engage in a lively give-and-take that they seem to enjoy as much for its own sake as for its potential in solving any problems. They lean forward in their seats, with a gleam in their eye and a half-smile on their lips, as they hear each other out and wait for their own turn to speak. The formality of the seating arrangement aside, it’s very democratic. Folks from all stations and ages interject as they can in the conversation. Only at the meeting’s end, does the senior person summarize events and bring things to a close.

On a different note, the Afghans seem to have a different response to death and violence than Westerners do. Either the inshallah attitude or many decades of war seems to make their grieving process both muted and short. I’ve had the misfortune to notice this several times already.

The landscape here is both drab and stark, especially in the winter. Dirt and rock everywhere, with few cultivated fields or anything else to break the monotony of gray, brown, and tan. Afghan dress isn’t very colorful, except for the dresses worn by young girls. 80% of the cars are white Toyota Corrollas. The most extravagant things around are the long-haul trucks. Their drivers love to give them fanciful paint jobs and festoon them with plastic flowers and other adornments. We call them “jingle trucks.”

I’ll get some pictures up when I can.

HLZ

 

HLZ stands for Helicopter Landing Zone. Helicopter arrivals and departures are big events over here, maybe second only to enemy contact. They blend an out-of-the-ordinary range of sensory impressions and intense emotions.  They are a time of hellos and goodbyes to friends and fellow soldiers, and anticipation about the success of impending and probably important missions. We are never sure who might be getting off the birds, and who and what supplies we might be able to load. In fact, we are never 100% sure if the birds will arrive at all, due to last minute changes in mission, weather, or something more unfortunate. When the helicopters do arrive, no one–no matter how experienced– is unimpressed by the  spectacle of their ungainly grace. On the HLZ, those waiting are blasted by hot air, peppered by pebbles, and covered in dust. Over the roar of engines and blades, we communicate with the crews and among ourselves by yells and hand signals so that all tasks are accomplished in an orderly manner. The experience is democratic, all involved–US, Afghans, officers, enlisted, and civilian– help load and unload as quickly as possible. When the birds depart with all the personnel (“pax”) and supplies we hoped to get on, we give each other high-fives and consider the day’s work well done.

Night Letters

Night letters are a tactic used by the Taliban to intimidate Afghans who support the legitimate government here.  Under cover of darkness, Taliban operatives will post threatening messages on the door of a kalat (the big walled compounds in which most Afghans live) in which they suspect government sympathizers live. Sometimes the letters feature generic anti-US and Afghan government messages. Other times they are direct and personal, threatening death if the recipients don’t change their ways.  Night letters scare the beejeezus out of those who get them, because the threats are not idle.

All this occurs to me because I’m typing this post at four in the morning.  I’m an early riser, and it’s about the only time I can roam the Internet here with anything close to the ease and speed that we are used to in the States.  In any case, consider this post and all the others my night letters to you, though of a friendlier, non-threatening sort than those the Taliban sends.

Back on the Net

Hey everybody, look for new posts soon. In the meantime, Happy New Year!