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02/06/2004: "Kandahar Chronicles #67 - 05/02/2004"

What a day, what a day, what a day. I’m shorthanded in logistics. My purchaser, log assistant and storekeeper have all decided, without informing me, that they needed a couple extra days off after Eid. With Safi from administration gone to Pakistan to see his family, it only leaves me and Jaweed to run the whole show. On top of this, a Certain Someone (CS) is under my skin all the time and Hamil is pissed off for his own reasons. In nine days my replacement, Michael, arrives and he can inherit all this. I’m going to be very sad to leave the guys but mornings like this make it easier. I’ll spend the weekend sticking blast film on to the land cruiser windows in preparation for an Explo mission to Zhare Dasht. I’ll drive up with the PC, Jan Peter, to assess whether it will be possible to resume operations at the Basic Health Post. I’ll be able to get the hell out of here for a few hours and get back into the camp environment that makes this job so worthwhile. Eighteen days to go (but who’s counting?) and the compound walls are giving me one final squeeze.

Here are the problems for the day…

The chowkidors want overtime pay for working Christmas. I didn’t realize Afghan Muslims celebrated it, especially when I had to explain to them what it was.

Latif, our cook, has had to go to Iran to rescue a couple of orphaned relatives from the rubble of Bam. Obviously, this is a leave I granted him immediately, many of the thousands of victims of that terrible earthquake are Afghan refugees and only the fortunate few will have relatives like Latif to help them. He won’t be back at work for another week and our poor, overworked cleaner, Abbas, has had to fill the position. He does a good job but it he believes there’s no such thing as too much salt or oil.

Blast film the land cruisers?!

Write a handover report for the new log. How the hell do I write a handover report? No one seems to know. There’s water in the diesel drums. Whenever a hot water tank is plugged in, a horrible smell of burning electrics permeates the building. A new, large crack has appeared in the upstairs hallway. If a quake even half the size of the one in Iran hits us, we are in the shit. Water is leaking into the light fixtures in the hospital. Nobody seems to know where it is coming from as the building plans were destroyed during the fight with the Soviets.

Six work related emails concerning things I don’t care about await my urgent attention. I’ve lost a couple of receipts and forgot to get a signature for an advance. The Taliban are acting up again, adding a host of security meetings to my schedule. The pipes in the kitchen are plugged. The rental minivan drivers are pissing around town with their friends using up MSF fuel.

I step in cat puke.

That brings me to lunch, foul tempered. A couple of the team exchange words. CS asks, in a voice like worn brakes, why I haven’t sorted out the hospital pipes yet. I don’t dignify it with an answer. After a nice lunch things start to turn around.

The chowkidors think it’s funny that they tried to get Christmas off. I find a handover report outline in my computer. Only two of eleven drums have water in them. We find the faulty wiring by the water tank. I ignore the emails, but get a couple of funny ones from friends. The receipts are in my back pocket. The extra meetings are cancelled for security reasons. Jaweed unplugs the kitchen pipes. Tomorrow the minivan drivers are an Intersos (NGO) problem. The cat seems better. The Taliban don’t blow anything up.