For Canada, With Love and Squalor

"Make it extremely squalid and moving," she suggested. "Are you at all acquainted with squalor?"

       -- "For Esme, With Love and Squalor," Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger

Most folks want to know how I'm doing over here in Afghanistan, so I thought today's missive would address that.

I'm at the HQ of the International Security Assistance Force. ISAF is NATO Plus, if you will.  It is a conglomerate of about 48 nations who have all committed to assist the government of Afghanistan in developing and maintaining security in the country.  Canada is a big part of this effort, though I'm not actually here on behalf of Canada.  I'm international civilian consultant.

HQ ISAF is in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan.  Kabul's population varies quite a bit depending on if it's getting shelled or not.  It has not been shelled for many years so the population right now is, I think, around 4.5 million.  It's massively overpopulated. 

The US EPA standard for sulphur dioxide (SO2), a moderately toxic gas associated with combustion, is about 300 ppb.  In Kabul, levels reach 37,000 ppb in the winter.  The poor here burn plastic and tires in the winter to stay warm.  The air smells like a burnt match and the smog is so thick you can barely see the mountains that surround the city.  There is very little sewage treatment.  So you have some 4.5 million people discharging raw human waste into ditches and holes, most of which ends up in the Kabul River, which is barely a stream now due to poor irrigation practices and years of drought.  Premature mortality due to waterborne disease is common here.  Life expectancy is not much older than 40, and the infant mortality rate is greater than one in ten--shockingly high even by third-world standards.

The Kabul River:  Lovely Spot for a Dip

I've met a friend who's a veteran of many missions, all the way back to Vietnam.  Fascinating guy.  He warned me about the beggar children in the streets.  But when a tiny little girl of around six--the same age as my little girl in Canada--came running up to me to offer me a scarf I bought it for US$5, a ridiculous sum.  My friend nudged me about twenty feet down the road and when I turned around, the little girl was on the ground crying, and a crowd of older boys was running off shouting.  A couple of days later I heard how some executives had looted the Kabul Bank and made off with millions.  From the very bottom, to the very top, the same pattern, you see.

Driving is fun here.  It doesn't particularly matter what side of the road you drive on, there are as many lanes as you can fit cars, and as a bonus challenge, you've got families darting out into the street in front of you from all angles.  Plus you have to keep in mind that there are a few people out there determined to kill you.  

Life on base is regimented, as you'd expect, and so I find I measure time in weeks, not days.  It's very cosmopolitan, as civilians and soldiers from dozens of nations walk up and down the base "promenade."  Staying in shape is easy.  Soldiers are expected to maintain an elite level of physical fitness, so we have the best physical training instructors. The fact that alcohol is illegal helps stay trim too.   An odd thing for me to get used to is being 6'2" and not standing out.  There's  a lot of big boys here, especially the Germans.  My soccer mates back home will be pleased to know that, during soccer and floor hockey here, I still seem to be able to find the biggest guy out there to mix it up with.

My room is a metal container about the size of a railcar.  I share it with my roomie, a German Master Sergeant--super nice guy.  I'm proud to be Canadian here.  The Canadian soldiers have an excellent reputation as fighters, hard workers and professionals.

Do I believe we are doing any good here?  Definitely.  It might be different in the Helmand and Kandahar provinces near the Pakistan border, but here in Kabul there are buildings going up, businesses thriving, social services reaching out to help the sick and destitute.  We don't know what will happen in the future, and maybe all our efforts will amount to a hill of beans, but right here, right now, it can't be bad that the kids in Kabul aren't getting shelled.  At the very least we can say that, and maybe we can say more.  But just that, my friends, is no small thing.

But I do know when I get back to Canada I am going to kneel down and kiss the ground and hug my family.  Apparently, that is quite a common reaction.  Also, I'm going to have a beer. Quite a common reaction too, apparently.