Click here to search commentonline

Postscript To Afghanistan Visit

My trip to Kabul in Afghanistan was nearly two months ago now. And the experience was all of three days, but managed to change my life’s perspective completely. Now, while driving each morning in the quiet of Glen Lyon I remember the chaos of the roads that I witnessed in that war-torn capital.

Each time we ventured out I was blessedly thankful for our armoured vehicle. Witnessing the Afghans on the road was terrifying. Ostensibly, they drive on the right but, having no visible delineation between the right and left side of the road, traffic, like water, took the most straightforward route, often straying to the left if that seemed quicker. Roundabouts operated under a similar strategy – the clockwise was blocked – the left would do! Most of the time my heart was in my mouth in anticipation of carnage.

In addition to cars, there were brightly painted, decorated Jingly Trucks. These mingled with other street occupants: ‘fat-tailed’ sheep, goats and many bicycles, along with heavily-laden wheelbarrows and carts. The cart and barrow owners were seemingly unaware of any danger and pushed their way through the vehicles, narrowly avoiding being squashed.

Often we would find up to seven layers of traffic merging into one, each car trying to get round or ahead of its neighbour. Ironically, the traffic only seemed to come to a complete standstill when a policeman was involved in trying to direct the traffic. In doing so, he only succeeded in stopping it. However, being a genetically lawless nation, most ignored any official direction, and all got moving again.

Despite economic growth of eleven per cent a year, much of which is due to the illegal poppy, Afghanistan is the sixth-poorest country in the world and I have never seen poverty as I witnessed in Kabul. Flat-roofed houses made of mud bricks clung precariously to the steep hillsides which surround the city amid the arid rock. If they crumble, which they eventually do, little seems to be done in way of repair, adding to the general melee.

Plastic bags, bottles and other rubbish was strewn on the pathways and the pungent smell of human excrement made me glad for my headscarf, which I held over my nose.

Amid all this, delightful, small children ran barefooted through the rocks, chattering away in Dari, begging for water or chocolate. A dark mop of hair, a cheeky smile and large, pleading eyes made them irresistible (see picture). The unemployed men squatted on their haunches, watching our progress silently, as I struggled at 6,000 feet, sweat prickling my neck under my headscarf, up the hill in the heat.

When my husband, Angus, gets home from his posting as Defence Attaché in Kabul, we are going to give an illustrated talk in the Molteno Hall in Fortingall on ‘Seven Months in Kabul’ to raise money for the Turquoise Mountain Foundation, a charity involved in Afghan regeneration. Dates and details to follow on his return.

by Rachel Loudon