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10/16/2003: "Kandahar Chronicles #28 - 15/10/2003"

Oh terrific, time to play “guess who set off that bomb!” This is an old favourite around here. A sudden, massive explosion rocks the office and rattles the windows. This last one about thirty seconds ago was easy, Coalition forces out at Gecko base blasting old munitions. How can I tell? Easy in this case. The direction it came from is north, where the base is located, and has the heavy concussion capable of rippling my tea. When there is an attack on the base by rockets, the blasts are sharper, multiple and happen at night. Bombs set off in buildings are always followed by a reaction from our chowkidors and grenades sound like solid timber cracking. When the Americans are blasting away at some target out in the hills, there is always an accompaniment of whopping helicopters and when a large truck blew out a front tire and shook our gate last week everyone giggled off the adrenaline in relief it wasn’t an attack.

Thursdays are the traditional wedding days and then we get to play “guess that calibre weapon.” This is not quite so dramatic unless you take the laws of gravity into account and wait for a bullet to smack you in the head. Brightly decorated cars beeping horns and swerving around town are always a good indicator that somebody is going to empty a full clip from a Kalashnikov into the heavens. A couple of weeks ago I got a front row seat as some crazed Afghan let loose at the end of our street. “Keep it down you nut!” I’m not overly casual about these things yet but compared to the first blast that showered gravel into our courtyard in May it is becoming a bit routine. In that case, two 107 mm rockets had their engines ignited two doors down and the back blast was pointing in our direction. Luckily, the warheads never exploded or it would have blown our taped windows in. I missed the explosion across the road when I was on holiday in July but the two expats spent an hour in the bunker chilling out . I need a break.