(from the BBC)
US targets Ethiopia for sanctions
Correspondents say Ethiopia has come in for increased criticism over its human rights record since the violent crackdown on post poll protests in 2005; opposition leaders imprisoned as a consequence have subsequently been released.
And since Ethiopia's went into Somalia last December to help the transitional government- a rebellion in its eastern Ogaden region which borders Somalia has escalated.
'Correct wrongdoings'
The US representatives approved the Ethiopian Democracy and Accountability Act on Tuesday, which puts Ethiopian government officials at risk of being denied entry visas over human rights violations.
It also threatens to withhold military aid of at least $1.5m
Mr Payne said the bill was bipartisan and secured unanimous approval.
"It's something that's been discussed ever since the killing of civilians, gunned down in the streets of Addis [Ababa] almost two years ago," the Democratic Congressman told the BBC's Network Africa.
"There was a feeling that Ethiopia, being an ally of the United States, should have an opportunity to correct some of the wrongdoings, and that has not happened.
"Two years later people are still being imprisoned. There's still problems in the Ogaden region. People are having food kept away from them. That's why we finally said we need to move forward with it."
Samuel Assefa, Ethiopia's ambassador to the US, called the bill "irresponsible" and said it would hamper efforts to improve things.
"The legislation also would undermine regional stability in the Horn of Africa by jeopardising vital security cooperation between the United States and Ethiopia," he said in a statement, Reuters news agency reports.
The BBC's Elizabeth Blunt in Addis Ababa says as Ethiopia is such a strong ally of the US in the Horn of Africa, it is unlikely that President George Bush's administratation will be sympathetic to the bill.
Ethiopia has the lowest number of cell phone subscribers in Africa.
The country where my husband is has the lowest number of internet subscribers. While what is wrong with Liberia might be easily explained by years of war that decimated the infrastructure, Ethiopia (besides a few skirmishes with Eritrea) has not seen the conflict on the scale of say, Sierra Leone. No, the situation in Abyssinia comes down to three letters: ETC. Ethiopia Telecom will not allow competition--all of the telecommunications systems go through the government. This is why it took four months for my employer to take pity on me and give me the "consultant" SIM card (the whole time I was in country there were none available and ETC refused to issue new ones) and why, as I write now, I am on a slow dial-up.
The government shut down Skype, blogspot.com, and streaming video seems at least three decades away.
Last week the internet, cell phones and land lines shut down for the whole day. My Ethiopian colleagues thought Somalia had invaded. After living in Afghanistan, I believed them.
So, as you all know, Somalia did not invade. However, after this post I this blog might be shut down.
Today is the one-year anniversary of when it all happened.
At 8:30 pm on Monday, May 16, 2005 I got the call. Mark, a guy who works for me, phoned crying and said, “there’s been a kidnapping. It was C”. C was the manager of a program for vulnerable women and widows at my organization. I didn’t know what to do. I felt helpless and distraught and phoned a friend I’ve had for years who is also living in Kabul. I was screaming and shouting and my friend, and having heard that someone from my organization had been abducted, she thought it was me. I calmed down enough to let her know what was really going on and to let her know the details: C was traveling back from yoga class. Mark and another woman had been dropped off when two white Corollas blocked the road, men with Kalashnikovs broke the passenger side window and dragged her out. They went in the direction of the British Cemetery—that’s all we knew.
Although there had been warnings and at least three prior attempts, we were not sure who had taken her or what they wanted. Was it the Taliban? Was it a gang? I sat on the patio in the Qalala Pushta house and drank wine and smoked cigarettes all night, waiting for the phone to ring. My husband came out and put his arms around me. “It’s going to get worse, so prepare yourself”, he said.
I thought back to the staff meeting we had had that morning. I remember seeing her there, all of us crowded around the table in my cramped office. She looked great; wearing a new black blouse that she got from my favorite shop, Crystal Light. I wondered what would happen to her. Would they rape her or kill her? What did they want? I kept saying to myself that she was such a nice person, how could this happen? The ironic thing was, she was supposed to leave Afghanistan three weeks earlier but had decided to extend her contract. The morning that it happened I went to Chicken Street to buy her a silver bracelet for her birthday party on Wednesday night. We were going to have a cookout for her 33rd birthday.
The next day at work was useless. All of the international staff walked in, zombie-like and feigned being busy. I went out on the back stoop to sit with the guys while they chain smoked. The Director called a staff meeting at 9 to tell everyone what he knew. He had been up all night—in contact with the Embassy, with ISAF (International Security Assistance Force), with C’s family and with our headquarters in the states. No one had any idea what was happening. We filed into the conference room and the Director explained the situation: no demands have been made; we do not know where she is or who has her; two groups are claiming responsibility. While the Afghans in the room were threatening to find the people responsible and do all kinds of nasty things to them the Director’s phone rang. It was the kidnappers. The negotiations began.
I felt like I was in an action movie or a documentary: sitting around the table in the dining room at the office talking about what had happened and what we were going to do. The head of security for our organization came out from the states and took over my office; two people from International Risk arrived to develop a strategy; there were reporters. Different groups started making demands: remove international troops from Afghanistan, shut down Arman Radio (a progressive radio station that plays heathen music such as Britney Spears); but soon we were able to determine that Timur Shah had her. He was calling from her cell phone.
Timur Shah was a murderer. He had killed and been found guilty, but since the police could not find him and put him away they had incarcerated his mother instead, hoping that this measure would force him to turn himself in. However, he did not turn himself in, but decided to kidnap a foreigner instead to secure his mother’s release.
The next few weeks were a nightmare. Timur Shah had said that he had strangled her at one point (which all the media in Afghanistan reported), then took it back. The guys at my work bought time with the local cell phone company to send instant messages to all subscribers asking for information. Stickers and posters were made and distributed. The widows from C’s program rallied. (One funny point was when the widows carried a sign at one of the demonstrations that read, in English, “C made us widows!”) We were on the international news. Consultants came and went. Negotiations dragged on. Two times in the first two weeks we were close to a release and then nothing.
The only reprieve for me was a trip to Bangkok for a conference. I thought that I had gotten away from all of the stress and anxiety until I picked up a Wall Street Journal during a coffee break. There, on the front page, was a short paragraph stating that a video had been released. It was on the news that night, but I refused to watch it. I just couldn’t take it because I knew what the inevitable next step would be. In the video, which I saw later, she was rolled in a carpet with a scarf on her head (which she never wore) and an AK-47 pointed at her. They asked her to state her father’s name and then her brother’s. When she said her brother’s name Timur Shah replied, “I am your brother now”.
After 25 days, she was finally released on June 9. No one called; I saw it on CNN. She was immediately whisked out of the country. We watched Euronews as her plane landed and she was greeted by her Prime Minister. Surrounded by her family as she walked off the plane, she was wearing the black blouse that I had envied at our staff meeting nearly a month before.
Two weeks after her release, we got an email from her telling us what had happened. After being abducted she was taken to a house not far from the spot where the kidnapping took place, in the same neighborhood where many of our staff live. The kidnappers did not hurt her in any way; she had only lost weight and gotten a lot of mosquito bites. There were children in the house who would come and peek at her from time to time and she could hear women’s voices. She tried to time her bathroom visits (the toilet was a latrine across the courtyard) to the sound of passing helicopters, but soon they caught on. Timur Shah would ride his bike far away to use her cell phone so that he could not be tracked. And, most amazingly, she saw on television the rallies the widows were having for her release.
All of us at work signed big banners to be sent to her in Europe wishing her well. Although the worst was over, some of us will always remember what happened on May 16. Mark still feels guilty that he was dropped off first that night (a consultant in Kabul when it happened placed the blame squarely on Mark) and many people from my work feel terrible that it happened and they could not do anything about it. C says she wants to come back to Afghanistan, but her government will not let her, at least in the near term.
Now whenever I go out after dark, I am wary. Kidnappings still happen; one Nepali died in captivity not long ago after being abducted with a colleague at dawn in Kabul, and there have been several kidnappings and murders linked to the Taliban throughout the South since the beginning of the year. There is a fine line between living your life and playing it safe. While you won’t see me at the Coca Cabana [sic], the local “club”, anytime soon, I still have my share of nights getting drunk and playing pool at the Uzbek place or going out for dinner with friends. It’s a risk I have to take.
The Culprit
Here I was, Saturday morning, minding my own business, when I spotted something gray in my front yard. Thinking it was another cat trying to pop a squat in my marigolds, I ran outside. It was a monkey. I saw the first couple of monkeys two weeks ago. They were walking along the front wall of my yard, not bothering anything.
I live in the capital of Ethiopia. I live in the city. I am truly puzzled as to how these primates are making their way into my yard. Moreover, I am pissed off that the little motherfuckers are eating my flowers.
I used to like monkeys--buy pyjamas with monkeys on them, subscribe to Monkey Wire news alerts, enjoy looking at them in zoos--but when they start destroying my property by pulling up plants whose seeds my husband brought from China, well, a monkey ass is going to get a hammer thrown at it.
It's on.
The excerpt below is from CNN. In Ethiopia we have had thousands of people stranded on high ground surrounded by water with crocodiles and poisoned snakes over the past two weeks. The US is only pledging 100K to help the people affected by the disaster, which is bullshit. I give money to MSF whenever there is a similar crisis--I suggest you do too.
AMURIA DISTRICT, Uganda (AP) -- Aid agencies were appealing for millions of dollars Friday to help more than 1 million Africans affected by deadly floods that have swept across the continent.
The United States planned to send $100,000 for Uganda -- one of the hardest hit countries -- and Europe announced more than $15 million in aid for flood victims across 17 countries. The floods have killed at least 200 people and displaced hundreds of thousands since the summer in central and eastern Africa.
"If we don't get food people will die in this place," Francis Aruo, 28, told The Associated Press in eastern Uganda, one of the hardest-hit regions of Africa. "All our crops are rotten."
The United Nations asked for $43 million for Uganda, where 50 people have died. Theophane Nikyema, U.N. Humanitarian coordinator for Uganda, said the money will help address the "devastation left behind by the rising tide of water."
The European Commission is planning to send $15.45 million in humanitarian aid to help flood victims, said Louis Michel, the European Commissioner for Development and Humanitarian Aid. The United States was sending $100,000 for Uganda, said Steven Browning, the country's U.S. ambassador.
In Uganda's Amuria District, which was put under a state of emergency this week, more than 500 people were taking shelter in a seven-room schoolhouse, which was meant to open for a new term last week.
"It's a struggle for accommodations," said Gilbert Omeke, the school's head teacher. "Some people are fighting for space. I have designated one classroom for expectant mothers and the elderly but so many more don't find space."
UNICEF was distributing basic disease-prevention kits, including plastic sheeting and water purification tablets, but medical officials said illnesses were spreading.
Florence Asega, a nurse at the closest health clinic to the school, some three miles away, said children were increasingly suffering from malaria and diarrhea.
"In the cramped, wet conditions coughs and infections spread quickly," she added.
In nearby Katakwi District, latrines were overflowing and hundreds of mud huts had collapsed. The nearest World Food Program distribution site was nearly four miles away, through waist-high floodwater.
Aruo has made the journey twice so far, returning with 65 pounds of maize, groundnuts and cooking oil for his wife and three children.
"It's a very tedious journey because it is water the whole way, the food is very heavy and some people have to leave some behind because they can't carry it," he said.
Whenever I read a story like this, I feel like I have been kicked in the chest.
I have been out of Afghanistan now for over four months. Still, I can't tear myself away from the stories--stories so fucking bewildering they make me want to cry. Why would anyone gun down schoolgirls?
I think about the time I went to a school opening in the same province where these two little girls were killed. My organization had built a primary school for boys and one for girls and a few colleagues and I were invited for the ceremony. Dozens of little girls lined the walk as we approached the school--handing us flowers, singing and shaking our hands. They were all wearing the traditional green headscarves and maroon dresses with gold trim. After we toured the new school, one of the girls read a poem she had written and the teachers provided us with sugar coated almonds, raisins and green tea even though it was Ramadan and all of the Muslims were fasting--not eating or drinking until sundown.
Two months later, a rocket hit the school at night. No one was hurt and there was minimal damage, but it was a warning.
I guess things are getting worse.
Stories like this also remind me of the Afghans who really meant a lot to me--the civil engineer I worked with who broke down crying when he heard I was leaving for Ethiopia and told me, "I have three daughters. The youngest, she is like you. I always encourage her to be like you." The Afghans who called when the riots happened to make sure I was OK, the friends who offered to take us into hiding. I also think about Sharif, a driver at my work. Sharif did not speak English, but taking me and my husband home one day my husband noticed a Zemfira tape in his car.
"Ti gavareesh pa-ruskii?" ("you speak Russian?"), my husband asked, using the informal "you" which always pisses me off. "Da", he replied--a friendship was born.
Sharif went to university in Leningrad and finished his degree in history in 1987--two years before the Soviets were run out of Afghanistan by the Mujahadeen. He had five daughters, a real misfortune for an Afghan father. Since I was the only expatriate Sharif could communicate with (the only one who spoke Russian), he often asked me what was going on within the organization--the hirings, firings and other gossip and he told me what was going on in Afghanistan--the corrupt police, the bombings, the rumors.
Before my husband and I left Afghanistan for good Sharif invited us over to his house for dinner. He lived in the "unplanned" area of the city where people squatted on public land in mud houses. He lived on the side of TV hill, on the third floor of a lopsided building with no running water and no sewer (wastewater ran down a trench in the center of the dirt road). We met all of his beautiful daughters, including the smallest, Arazu, who was five. Sitting there drinking tea with Sharif and his family, I could tell how much he loved his daughters.
They brought out dozens of dishes from their small kitchen in a genuine display of hospitality. After dinner, Sharif's daughters presented me with some jewlery they had made for me and Sharif brought out his photos.
The pictures broke my heart. Here was Sharif--twenty years ago with more hair--in Sochi, with his college friends (big Soviet women lounging in bikinis in the background, obviously scandalous for an Afghan). Here was Sharif in Red Square, in front of Lenin's tomb, in his obshezhetye (dorm) with his friends from Pakistan, China and Kenya. Here was Sharif, so full of hope, thinking that the world was ahead of him with no idea what was going to happen a few years down the road.
Now he is a driver earning $125 a month and supporting his wife and five girls.
When I hear terrible things about Afghanistan, I think about people like Sharif. I think about people who just want to raise their children and celebrate their weddings, to play with their grandchildren and sit around with friends and drink tea. I think about how the bombings have killed the family members of friends. I think about the little girls who sang songs for the foreigners when they got their new school. I think about Sharif sitting in the window of his small, two-room house, holding his little Arazu.
This is a big deal.
Like the UN getting blown up in Baghdad, this incident portends much worse for Afghanistan. Thank Allah (most merciful) I am not living there anymore.
The only question remaining is: how can someone who works for Save the Children afford gym membership at a 5-star hotel?
After being carried from the Midwest to South Central (Asia), I nearly lost my order when Schwig's housekeeper threw it in the trash. Luckily it was salvaged before garbage pick-up.
But it made it. I ordered large bottles of Queen of Sheba, Lady MacBeth, Persephone, Lolita and Embalming Fluid. There were also about 7 imps thrown in for free. I got Embalming Fluid smell unsniffed, but it turned out well: a little piney-limey on first application, but then it dried down to Body Shoppe's grapeseed soap. Not bad.
However, the imps I am not to sure about: it seems that many of them seem like 1980's Coty imposters (Emeraude, anyone?). Perhaps the new scents are retro, but they do not seem as innovative as the ones rolled out two years ago when there seemed not to be such a frenzy to put out new scents.
Not to offend, but this is my opinion. That's why I keep ordering the old standbys over and over.
No one ever wants to hear a doctor say the word "larva" when making a diagnosis.
It seems I brought a little something back from my two-week trip to Africa.
The CDC describes hookworm (ONE of the MANY possible parasites I MIGHT have):
These barely visible larvae penetrate the skin (often through bare feet), are carried to the lungs, go through the respiratory tract to the mouth, are swallowed, and eventually reach the small intestine. This journey takes about a week. In the small intestine, the larvae develop into half-inch-long worms, attach themselves to the intestinal wall, and suck blood. The adult worms produce thousands of eggs. These eggs are passed in the feces (stool). If the eggs contaminate soil and conditions are right, they will hatch, molt, and develop into infective larvae again after 5 to 10 days.
Fantastic. But one must also consider that the doctor "never sees these things in Afghanistan" and might be wrong about the diagnosis.
If I spend only two weeks in the Horn and come back with worms what will happen when I live there for two years?
There is a reason why you never hear the words “dentist” and “Africa” in the same sentence. There are few places in the world where you would be better off letting that rotten root fester than actually seeking professional help and pretty much the whole continent (except for South Africa and one hospital in Nairobi) qualifies.
Let me start from the beginning: about a month and a half ago, I was lying on the couch one Sunday night, watching Dr. Phil, drinking a St. Georges and eating popcorn when I broke the back off one of my lower front teeth (which was cracked during a raspberry verenyi incident in 2004) by biting down on a kernel. Since I had been medevaced back to my cute little Tennessean dentist, Dr. Gregory, less than a month before for an abscessed tooth, I had little choice but to suck it up and visit a dentist in town.
During the said abscessed tooth episode, which involved a lot of swelling, pain and visits to the dickhead South Asian dentist Dr. Raina (yeah, that’s right, I used your real name) who withheld information about treatment options, I was advised by an American working for a Christian aid agency about a Chinese dentist on Bole Road who did good work. Crumpled in my chair during the food security workshop from the pain, I decided I had nothing to lose by visiting Dr. Ling. Although she could do nothing to help me with my abscessed tooth except pull it (since a root canal had already been done) or “make a little window” to clean the roots by drilling into my jaw, she decided it was in everyone’s best interest to send me back to Dr. Gregory and promptly filled out my insurance paperwork (which Dr. Dickhead Raina refused to do).
This episode solidified the bond between me and Dr. Ling. Inside I swore that if any other dental problem arose I would go to her.
Back to the broken tooth—in August I went to see Dr. Ling who drilled down my two front teeth to little nubs before I knew what was happening or was able to ask for anesthesia. She then made impressions of my teeth, put in temporary (but nice looking) caps, and informed me that my new ceramic teeth would be back from China in a month. Those teeth came in last week and were installed. They looked good, but were a little too big. Dr. Ling told me to wait a week and see if I still thought they were too big and she would sand them down. That visit took place today.
This morning I got up, threw on some jeans and got in the car to Bole. By 9:00 Dr. Ling had ground down the teeth and I was on my way. Looking in the rearview mirror, I realized a mistake had been made—there was a considerable gap between where my top and bottom teeth met in front. I thought about it for a while, got ready and went into the office. By 11:00 I was distraught. Here I had fucked up the only front teeth I would ever have-- I went back to Dr. Ling. She was reassuring, we would fix it, she told me. The next hour was the worst, and nearly the most painful, of my life.
I have a high pain threshold: I have suffered peptic ulcers, burst ovarian cysts, and dry sockets and taken them all like a Pionerka. Something about this visit today made me squeal like a five year old. It took Dr. Ling about 35 minutes to drill the teeth, crack the ceramic, reassure me, shoot me up with anesthesia, and do some more drilling. I screamed, I cried, I squirmed, I bled. I was ashamed of myself for acting like such a big baby. I was mad because I was having this done in East Africa instead of East Tennessee. After what seemed like an eternity, Dr. Ling took impressions and put in temporary caps. I decided there was no way I could work for the rest of the day and packed it up to come home. Here at my dining room table, four hours later, my jaw and teeth are still aching. The pain and the humiliation of the whole day ranks only behind the riots in 2006 and losing my job three years ago. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Never see a dentist in Africa, NEVER.
Nothing left to do but light up a sheesha and have some wine.
I now have an answer as to why I have been unable to eat since my husband went to West Africa: a peptic ulcer.
I awoke Monday with chest pains. Nonetheless, I got ready and (being the Pionerka that I am) went into the office at 8:30. By 10:00, I was doubled over in pain and thought it was a panic attack. My boss instructed one of my Ethiopian counterparts to take me to St. Gabriel’s hospital, less than 2 kilometers from the office and a block from my house. We entered the hospital and explained to the people behind the registration desk that I was having chest pains; they regarded these symptoms with the same urgency they would give an ingrown toenail.
I paid my 60 birr registration fee and was instructed to go and wait in the “waiting area” which consists of a narrow hallway leading to the cafeteria with several worn leather seats and which smells of fried fish and bleach. I sat down and turned my attention to one of the overhead TVs, inexplicably tuned to CNN rather than ETV. After 15 minutes Tamrat (my Ethiopian coworker) told me to go to the nurses’ station where they took my blood pressure and weight and again treated my chest pains nonchalantly. I was given a card with the number 22 on it and instructed to return to the waiting area/hallway.
For two hours I waited among 50 coughing, sneezing Ethiopians to see the doctor. Finally, when it was my turn, the doctor asked me about my symptoms and listened to my chest. When Tamrat left to ask the office about payment, the doctor decided to ask me a series of personal, probing questions Ethiopians can’t help but ask when confronted with a captive ferangi (white person): Are you a worker or a volunteer? How long have you been married? Do you have children? Why have you been married seven years and do not have children? Where is your husband? What is he doing there?
I felt like standing up on his desk and screaming: THIS IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. FOR YOUR INFORMATION AND FOR THE INFORMATION OF EVERYONE IN THE COUNTRY, I DO NOT HAVE CHILDREN BECAUSE I CANNOT STAND THEM. I WOULD RATHER LOSE A LIMB THAN LACTATE. I AM ONLY ENDURING THIS ON THE OFF CHANCE YOU ARE GOING TO PRESCRIBE ME SOME VALIUM.
After what seemed like an eternity, Tamrat returned and explained to the doctor in Amharic that my employer would pay because I didn’t have any cash. The doctor took out a photocopied sheet of paper and wrote, “lab”, “EKG” and “observation”. I told him there was no way in HELL I was going to stay overnight, that I would rather die of a heart attack. He scratched out the last word and sent me on my way.
The first thing they wanted to do was the “labs”. I walked into the laboratory which smelled like urine and the technician grabbed two vials. I stood up and walked out. There is not a chance in hell that I would let a public hospital in East Africa stick me with a needle.
The next day, I slept in and went to work about 11:00 thinking that the symptoms would pass. By 3:00 I was about to die: pains were coming every five minutes. I rallied my strength and drove myself to a private clinic near my office. The Israeli doctors gave me an exam, diagnosis, prescription and completed insurance forms and sent me on my way in less than an hour.
A few days after beginning treatment and I am still hardly able to eat and experience excessive pain when I do. An American co-worker had the dickheaded comment, “well, if you wanted to lose weight this would be the way to do it”. It has been the week for dickheaded comments.
So if you, by chance, find yourself in Addis Ababa with a health problem DO NOT go to St. Gabriel’s hospital, especially if you have a potentially life-threatening and time sensitive health problem. Ethiopians are the slowest people in the world and never treat anything as urgent. Consider yourself warned.
The Culprit
Here I was, Saturday morning, minding my own business, when I spotted something gray in my front yard. Thinking it was another cat trying to pop a squat in my marigolds, I ran outside. It was a monkey. I saw the first couple of monkeys two weeks ago. They were walking along the front wall of my yard, not bothering anything.
I live in the capital of Ethiopia. I live in the city. I am truly puzzled as to how these primates are making their way into my yard. Moreover, I am pissed off that the little motherfuckers are eating my flowers.
I used to like monkeys--buy pyjamas with monkeys on them, subscribe to Monkey Wire news alerts, enjoying looking at them in zoos--but when they start destroying my property by pulling up plants whose seeds my husband brought from China, well, a monkey ass is going to get a hammer thrown at it.
It's on.
I just heard that there were two bombings this morning. Rather than being concerned, here I am still working on a project design. I was thinking the other day how I have totally become desensitized to what is happening around me. I rationalize that the bombings are only targeting the military or the government, not me. It is a strange strategy of acceptance and I wonder if it will change once I leave. I really hope so.
(I totally work with those two guys in the last panel!)
To the Diners at the Mac Restaurant, White Sands Beach, Koh Chang, Trat Province, Thailand:
I am writing to apologize for the involuntary act I perpetrated at 8:30pm, Thursday, June 22, 2006. If I had been given a choice, I would not have projectile vomited without notice in front of at least twenty individuals who were enjoying their dinners, facing the sea, when I walked across their field of vision, yakked, and then kept on going without pause. Yes, it was rude; but I maintain that I had no control at that point and I thought that I was safe to walk the few hundred meters back to my bungalow as I had vomited less than 90 seconds earlier behind a palm tree at the Lagoon restaurant (adjacent to the Mac).
No, I was not drunk. I had consumed less than half of a (small) Singha that evening. Also, I had not overeaten, as I had only taken two bites of my red curry vegetables before the obscene event took place (which was done just to appease my husband who was offended that I ordered food which I had no intention of eating). I blame the amount of sun I had been exposed to that day; while living in Afghanistan I rarely have the chance to run around bare-assed naked all the time, everywhere, so my body was not able to process the copious amounts of Vitamin D in my system.
In sum, I am sorry for ruining your meals. I hope this incident was not the worst of your vacation.
Sincerely,
Confection
P.S. Confidential to the lady who said “revolting” as I shuffled past: fuck off.
At 3 am exactly: boom. It sounded like a thunderclap above my house but without the crackling sounds.
“Did you hear that?”, I asked my husband. Before he could answer, boom, boom, again in quick succession. The house shook. “Should we go downstairs?”
I grabbed my laptop (important work information) and we ran down the stairs, afraid to turn on the lights and possibly make our house a target (although strange that the one night we have electricity all night there are rocket attacks). At the bottom, I missed a stair and went flying on to my face and my laptop landed with a smack. We decided to turn on the lights and go back up to bed.
This was the second rocket attack in so many weeks, but this was close. It sounded like it hit district 10, over near Butcher Street. Last week the target was the district 5 police station.
It’s only been about five hours so no news yet on what happened or where the rockets hit.
There are only two fucking hills in Kabul. It looks like the ANA/ANP (Afghan National Police/Army) could get a few guys together for each hill to apprehend the motherfuckers when they shoot these off. You’ve let me down again, GoA!
There is a place for proselytizing (arguably). Kabul, Afghanistan is not it.
That whistling sound you will hear will be rockets heading for the Kabul Olympic Stadium:
Potential For Riots/Demonstrations - Kabul. Institute of Asian Culture and Development (IACD) intend to despatch up to 2,000 South Korean nationals who have already been granted visas to enter Afghanistan. At least 60+ are already in country and the remainder are expected over the next week.
Their aim is to hold Christian religious gatherings, the first at the Kabul Olympic stadium followed by a 5 km 'peace march' through Kabul on or around 5 Aug 06. They then plan to extend their religious activities to Mazar, Herat, Kandahar and Bamyan 7 Aug onwards. The IACD will initially be 'camping out' at the Kabul Olympic stadium.
• Most security and NGO actors are taking the threat from these marches as potentially extremely serious as they could easily trigger a violent backlash from elements of the local community.
Here are the rules that were in effect in Afghanistan until November 2001:
General Presidency of Amr Bil Maruf. Kabul, December 1996.
1. To prevent sedition and female uncovers (Be Hejabi). No drivers are allowed to pick up women who are using Iranian burqa. In case of violation the driver will be imprisoned. If such kind of female are observed in the street their house will be found and their husband punished. If the women use stimulating and attractive cloth and there is no accompany of close male relative with them, the drivers should not pick them up.
2. To prevent music. To be broadcasted by the public information resources. In shops, hotels, vehicles and rickshaws cassettes and music are prohibited. This matter should be monitored within five days. If any music cassette found in a shop, the shopkeeper should be imprisoned and the shop locked. If five people guarantee the shop should be opened the criminal released later. If cassette found in the vehicle, the vehicle and the driver will be imprisoned. If five people guarantee the vehicle will be released and the criminal released later.
3. To prevent beard shaving and its cutting. After one and a half months if anyone
observed who has shaved and/or cut his beard, they should be arrested and imprisoned until their beard gets bushy.
4. To prevent keeping pigeons and playing with birds. Within ten days this habit/
hobby should stop. After ten days this should be monitored and the pigeons and any other playing birds should be killed.
5. To prevent kite-flying. The kite shops in the city should be abolished.
6. To prevent idolatory. In vehicles, shops, hotels, room and any other place pictures/portraits should be abolished. The monitors should tear up all pictures in the above places.
7. To prevent gambling. In collaboration with the security police the main centres
should be found and the gamblers imprisoned for one month.
8. To eradicate the use or addiction. Addicts should be imprisoned and investigation made to find the supplier and the shop. The shop should be locked and the owner and user should be imprisoned and punished.
9. To prevent the British and American hairstyle. People with long hair should be arrested and taken to the Religious Police department to shave their hair. The criminal has to pay the barber.
10. To prevent interest on loans, charge on changing small denomination notes and
charge on money orders. All money exchangers should be informed that the above three types of exchanging the money should be prohibited. In case of violation criminals will be imprisoned for a long time.
11. To prevent washing cloth by young ladies along the water streams in the city. Violator ladies should ‘be picked up with respectful Islamic manner, taken to their houses and their husbands severely punished.
12. To prevent music and dances in wedding parties. In the case of violation the head of the family will be arrested and punished.
13. To prevent the playing of music drum. The prohibition of this should be an-
nounced. If anybody does this then the religious elders can decide about it.
14. To prevent sewing ladies clothes and taking female body measures by tailor. If women or fashion magazines are seen in the shop the tailor should be imprisoned.
15. To prevent sorcery. All the related books should be burnt and the magician should be imprisoned until his repentance.
16. To prevent not praying and order gathering pray at the bazaar. Prayer should be done on their due times in all districts. Transportation should be strictly prohibited and all people are obliged to go to the mosque. If young people are seen in the shops they will be immediately imprisoned.
The last three days of the month are always my least favorite. I am not sure how this happened, but in my previous office (in the building that was torched during the riots) and in my new office on the third floor of another building, I am right next to the fucking cashier. This means that on the last three working days of every month nearly all of the 700 Afghans working for my organization come in to get paid.
So for three solid days, there are at least fifty Afghan men (and sometimes two or three women) crammed into the narrow 3-foot wide hallway in front of my door. They like to stand in front of my office door (which opens outward), essentially blocking anyone from entering or exiting. Often, I try to open the door, only to hit someone, who will then refuse to move. If I have to walk down the hallway to anyone else’s office in the building, the bearded men in their turbans and patus stare at me as if I were naked. Added to this is the smell and the noise. The smell—well, it defies definition. I can best describe it as a mix of sausage pizza, wet dog and used maxi pad. The heat of the summer amplifies the odor.
These people like to talk while they are waiting on their monthly pay. They talk loudly and ceaselessly, forcing Schwig, my Cheesehead officemate, to go out at least three times a day to announce, “Bubakshah (excuse me) shutthefuckup. Tashakour (thank you)”. Telling the crowd to quiet down usually works for only a few minutes as there are soon more people cycling in, getting their cash, and leaving.
This is another aspect of my life in Afghanistan I don’t want to forget about. The bureaucracy, the virtually non-existent banking system, the lack of faith in the existing banking system, the dearth of running water or perceived importance of bathing; the way the men stare at women who are not in burqas, the way this stare makes me feel. I have mixed feelings about Afghanistan. I hate it, especially on days like today when I cannot fly out to Kazakhstan because of snow, but then there is the guilt of having to leave good people behind. Good people who only want to earn a little money, own a house and watch their children grow up. The guilt of being a person who just can’t relate to their situations and their needs because I have never and will never experience such circumstances.
More on that later—got to finish washing clothes.
From the NYT--I knew that the Ethiopian Government was restrictive and authoritarian, but sanctioned rape and torture?
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June 18, 2007
In Ethiopian Desert, Fear and Cries of Army Brutality
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
IN THE OGADEN DESERT, Ethiopia — The rebels march 300 strong across the crunchy earth, young men with dreadlocks and AK-47s slung over their shoulders.
This is the Ogaden, a spindle-legged corner of Ethiopia that the urbane officials in Addis Ababa, the capital, would rather outsiders never see. It is the epicenter of a separatist war pitting impoverished nomads against one of the biggest armies in Africa.
What goes on here seems to be starkly different from the carefully constructed up-and-coming image that Ethiopia — a country that the United States increasingly relies on to fight militant Islam in the Horn of Africa — tries to project.
In village after village, people said they had been brutalized by government troops. They described a widespread and longstanding reign of terror, with Ethiopian soldiers gang-raping women, burning down huts and killing civilians at will.
It is the same military that the American government helps train and equip — and provides with prized intelligence. The two nations have been allies for years, but recently they have grown especially close, teaming up last winter to oust an Islamic movement that controlled much of Somalia and rid the region of a potential terrorist threat.
The Bush administration, particularly the military, considers Ethiopia its best bet in the volatile Horn — which, with Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea, is fast becoming intensely violent, virulently anti-American and an incubator for terrorism.
But an emerging concern for American officials is the way that the Ethiopian military operates inside its own borders, especially in war zones like the Ogaden.
Anab, a 40-year-old camel herder who was too frightened, like many others, to give her last name, said soldiers took her to a police station, put her in a cell and twisted her nipples with pliers. She said government security forces routinely rounded up young women under the pretext that they were rebel supporters so they could bring them to jail and rape them.
“Me, I am old,” she said, “but they raped me, too.”
According to Georgette Gagnon, deputy director for the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, Ethiopia is one of the most repressive countries in Africa.
“What the Ethiopian security forces are doing,” she said, “may amount to crimes against humanity.”
Human Rights Watch issued a report in 2005 that documented a rampage by government troops against members of the Anuak, a minority tribe in western Ethiopia, in which soldiers ransacked homes, beat villagers to death with iron bars and in one case, according to a witness, tied up a prisoner and ran over him with a military truck.
After the report came out, the researcher who wrote it was banned by the Ethiopian government from returning to the country. Similarly, three New York Times journalists who visited the Ogaden to cover this story were imprisoned for five days and had all their equipment confiscated before being released without charges.
The violence has been particularly acute against women, villagers said, and many have recently fled.
Asma, 19, who now lives in neighboring Somaliland, said she was stuck in an underground cell for more than six months last year, raped and tortured. “They beat me on the feet and breasts,” she said. She was freed only after her father paid the soldiers ransom, she said, though she did not know how much.
I want to start out by saying I know cold. I have lived in Siberia for two years and have seen my share of -53 degrees days. However, not even a stint in a Soviet gulag could prepare me for the cold I now have to endure in Kabul, without the warmth of a coal-burning electrical plant to fire my radiators in the depth of the Central Asian night.
A lot of people assume that Afghanistan is a warm place, that it is mostly desert and that it rarely dips below 80 degrees. For those people I have two words: Altitude, baby. Kabul sets in the Hindu Kush mountain range and the capital is about 4800 feet above sea level. Its location between hell and the devil’s anus means that summers are long, dry and hot and winters are snowy, cold, and also long.
Now, I know that everyone bitches and complains about cold weather. Even in Atlanta, I have known people to work themselves up over 50 degrees during the winter. However, these people have access to central heating and constant electricity. Here in Afghanistan, there is no electricity. Sure, during the summer there is central power almost 12 hours a day, but in the winter, you are lucky to get six hours every two days. Central heating is unheard of. That heat pump you’ve got out back or that sputtering radiator in the kitchen--Afghanistan has not seen technology like that since General Najibullah was around.
In order to keep warm, Afghans (and white folk like me) use bukhari. These are little stoves with chimneys that feed into the wall. Generally, these are diesel or wood burning and need to be refueled every few hours. They heat only one small area, so running to the bathroom at night results in a severe and immediate drop in body temperature.
Bukhari. My carbon footprint is bigger than yours!
But there is another, more sinister effect of the cold: frozen pipes. Here there is no central water system, no sewage system: wells are the name of the game. White folk (like me) generally have a well in the yard and an electric pump that forces water into a tank on top of the house. Most Afghans in the capital have this system too, but outside of Kabul most people carry water in buckets to their houses—all year. When you have a tank, the miracle of gravity brings this water to your sink, shower and toilet. Frozen pipes prevent this water from reaching your sink, shower and toilet, resulting in dirty (frozen) dishes, unwashed bodies and solid streams of urine to greet you in the morning.
This past weekend, my husband and I had the trifecta of cold-related problems: no electricity, frozen generator and frozen pipes. On Friday, we were surprised when our generator was frozen solid, so we spent the evening baking brownies by candlelight and drinking copious amounts of contraband alcohol. Saturday was even more surprising because when the generator finally started, we discovered our pipes were frozen. Forced to shower at my husband’s office on Sunday before work because we had NO water (Muslim workweek is Sunday-Thursday), I had no idea I was in for the greatest surprise of all: frozen pipes at work. Now, it is one thing to have to face your own frozen pee in the morning, but it is a whole ‘nother issue to have to stare down the excreta of your fellow employees. Plus, I had my period.
Why am I telling you this? Because I don’t want to forget how shitty (no pun intended) living in this country can be. I don’t want to think for a minute that things were OK here and not really that bad and that I could do it again. You might read articles about Afghanistan that are romantic and poetic about the country, but when it gets cold, all bets are off. The beauty is gone and all you are left with is exhaust from a diesel heater and yellow snow. I have no idea how people live here in mud brick buildings with one room and no toilet or running water. I have no idea how they sleep at night with one thin blanket and go to work wearing a patu and no coat. No idea. White folk (like me) just can’t.
I know what you are thinking: Yes, you live in a shit hole, but what do you smell like? So, since this is a forum about BPAL after all, my top ten:
1. June Gloom
2. Persephone
3. Grog
4. Lady MacBeth
5. Queen of Sheba (which I named--look it up)
6. Bordello
7. Black Pearl
8. Jailbait
9. Trick or Treat
10. Maiden
I also wanted to share something cute I saw yesterday. Strangely enough, it rained for about 20 minutes in Kabul yesterday which never happens in July. While I was driving home, I saw a little girl about eight years old standing on a balcony with her pink and blue child's umbrella. She was out in the rain singing to the people on the street. It is refreshing to see a kid act like a kid for once in a country where most children are working and not going to school.
Caliente!
The husband and I were reluctantly stuck in Dubai for Christmas Eve and Christmas on our way back to Afghanistan because the Kabul airport was closed due to snow. My husband was recuperating from a nasty bout of food poisoning brought on by some questionable pork fried rice consumed in Thailand, but we decided to venture out to the Diera City Center mall anyway. (Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I fucking HATE Dubai. There is nothing to do but troll the malls while trying to suppress the DTs brought on by the lack of alcohol, save for the $8 cans of Heineken at the overpriced hotels).
Bored, with nothing but a spirit-free hotel room or more mall, we decided to go see a movie. I chose Babel, not because the hottest man in the world is in it, but because I supposed it would be a thought-provoking drama about bridging cultural differences between the “developed” North and “underdeveloped” South. Boy, was I wrong.
Now, I saw the toned-down “Arab version” which left out a lot of nudity, but kept in the scene where the 12-year-old Moroccan boy beats off to his 10-year-old sister and where the estranged couple reunites over a bed pan, and what was the relevance of the deaf Japanese girl trying to have her dentist molest her? It just seemed way too long, too sexualized and too—vapid. The movie just reinforced streotypes. There was no real look at issues, no examination of why the North African police beat suspects or why Americans automatically assume that any act of violence in a Muslim country is assumed to be terrorism, it was just three hours of filler with no point.
(However, I do have a point.)
As we left the theater, I asked my husband, “what did we learn from this?” He replied, “never to let you pick a movie again?” No. The lesson is: brown people get fucked, while white people with the right passports will get their stupid asses saved in any situation.
And being in the Dubai airport brought this all home. While my husband and I could hop in a cab and head to the Sheraton for the night, the Afghans waiting on the same flight had to sleep on the concrete floor of the airport. They had no visas, no money, no food, no family in UAE to help them. The airline (Kam Air, you fucking bitches!) only gave these 150-plus Afghans food coupons on the THIRD DAY after the flight was cancelled. Most of them were being deported for being in the Emirates illegally.
When will the media really look at how the rest of the world lives? When will films examine all the things that we white, privileged folk take for granted? Probably not soon, and Hollywood has just shown us that. While critics rave about the “serious drama” about “real issues” in movies like Babel, I just roll my eyes.
Last week at a staff meeting, one of the Program Managers was talking about how one of the districts where we work is “full of Talibs”.
Well, apparently, the provinces outside of Kabul are not the only place. Consider this warning from the National Defense Service:
NDS sources report that HiG (Hizb-I Islami Gulbuddin)are becoming the dominant group within Kabul district. The source reported that the grouping had been conducting a
successful recruiting campaign in the districts surrounding Kabul. As a result
an increase in attacks is expected with HiG expected to operate in
Police Districts 12, 7 and 6 of the capital. TB are traditionally strong in the Dih Sabz
area (PD9) which accounts for the concentration of attacks on Jalalabad road. (Recall the Jalalabad Road is the road one has to travel to get liquor, as well as being the road the Coalition uses in and out of Kabul.)
For those of you who are unfamiliar with HiG:
"Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin (HIG) has long established ties with Osama Bin Ladin. (HIG) founder Gulbuddin Hikmatyar offered to shelter Bin Ladin after the latter fled Sudan in 1996. HIG has staged small attacks in its attempt to force U.S. troops to withdraw from Afghanistan, overthrow the Afghan Transitional Administration (ATA) and establish a fundamentalist state."
Gulbuddin Hikmatyar is the one who castrated Najibullah (the President of Afghanistan under the Soviets), shot him and hanged his body in Ariana square.
So the Taliban is in Kabul and ready to fight.
Not really news, but now people are talking about negiotiating with the Taliban.
My organization has been in Afghanistan for a while, so we negotiated with the Taliban to have access to provincial areas pre-2001. Last year, while implementing a shelter program in the East, we also met with Taliban leaders in one district so that supplies could be carried in. I am not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, talking to the Taliban is a necessary evil; we are non-partisan and are working in the interests of the people. On the other hand, I feel like it lends them some legitimacy and reinforces the notion that they are the decision makers. Moreover, this could possibly undermine the fragile Afghan government in areas where their power is waning; having to ask the Talibs for permission to do our work might tip the balance.
Anyway, after one month this is NOT MY PROBLEM.
Yes, the restrictions on liquids are relaxed, but how does this affect my Duty Free purchases?!?!?
Ugh, I hate flying to America. I hope they shake me the fuck down like they did in Frankfurt a year ago. Trying to prove that you work in Afghanistan and are not a terrorist is not as easy as it sounds. I was forced to bust out my employer-issued ID with the photo of me looking angelic (and Iranian) in my chador. The old American ladies working the counter finally let me through, but the Azeri American who worked for the State Department (!!!) was not so lucky. Ah, profiling. It really doesn't matter what passport you hold or where you work, they can keep you from your flight if you are not the right color.
So this will be my 22nd time crossing the Atlantic. Crying babies, farting Indians, Xanax and red wine are par for course. I hope this will all be reflected on my frequent flyer miles.
