You’ve probably heard – the swine flu (or as they call it in Pashto – Haych yaww enn yaw) has hit Afghanistan. People are wearing masks, reluctant to shake hands, schools have been called off for a few weeks until this ‘flu’ somehow disappears. The toll – 400 cases of swine flu.
But let’s face it! How good is Afghanistan’s health system? Not very good at all. They’re not very good at diagnosing so as far as we’re concerned, it could be anything. An Afghan-German doctor in Germany conducted his research and he found that the symptoms are very closely linked to cholera – that’s more like it since under developed countries are usually suffering from this vicious disease. Ministry of Health has declared this wave of H1N1 in Afghanistan. How true is it? That, we don’t know. Besides, how can the swine flu spread in Afghanistan at all?
On a positive note, the Kabul river has been cleaned. That’s right, CLEANED! It looks really nice now. USAID have this project where they pay $6 (300 Afghanis) a day for any volunteers to clean the river. It’s working so far. I haven’t seen the river this clean in yonks, of course it’s not filled with water, but still… it’s an empty river.
Things in Kabul are unusually calm – I guess we’re all waiting for a big BOOM. Most of the roads have been cordoned off- so I guess that’s a deterrence.
In Kandahar, the police together with US army have seized ammonium nitrate (one of the ingredients for a bomb). They use it as ‘fertilizer’ but it is illegal in Afghanistan – there are other fertilizers they can use. Andddd…. Ammonium nitrate is imported from Pakistan – surprise surprise!
One more month and I’ll stop working, or should I? Shouldn’t I?! I can’t really decide. I’ve submitted my resignation; they wouldn’t accept it at first, so they’re counting it as I’m taking a long time off from work. I will see how things are. I really want to start packing- and this time pack for good. Will I ever return? God knows. I’m not ruling out the option, just not making plans yet.

I’ve kind of finished applying for my Masters, still have a bit more to do. I always feel like I am missing some part of my application form out, butttt i’m sure it’s just paranoia. I’ll be fine.

This is Atash Parcha, and you’ve been briefed!

Afghans didn’t want the run off elections. They were satisfied with karzai’s win in the first round because they were wise enough to know that an election without fraud is impossible in Afghanistan – at least for the next 10 years or so. How long did it take the Americans and they still don’t have fair elections!
It was Abdullah and the westerners pushing for a run off election. On one hand Abdullah voices his concerns and how he is so very passionate about the civilian casualties in Afghanistan, on the other hand, he was pushing for second round to satisfy his greed.
Nevertheless, the winner is Karzai.

Kabul is getting cold. And guess what? The bukhari is out. I will post a pic soon. We have a big one in our office. Abnormally huge. Double the usual size – I can’t wait til we start using it. Excitingggggg!!!
Tickets are booked, we are flying out of Kabul in December inshallah for a long, long time.
I’ve applied for my Masters in lots of areas, one particular interesting area is ‘counter terrorism, intelligence and policing defence’ . Can’t wait to start and finish that.

Nearly hometime. ba omideh deedaar…

BTW, my new love is ‘The big bang theory’ – a bunch of super geeks! Sheldon and Wolowitz being my favourite!

Yesterday was clearly a bad day. It was a black day for Kabul but it wasn’t THE blackest of Kabul days. There have been days where hundreds of Afghans have been killed in rocket attacks in Kabul alone.
Nevertheless, it was still a dark day. And it’s haunting.
Next door, in Peshawar 107 people killed in a bomb blast. It was in a shopping area where it’s mainly women and children. Most of the killed were women and children. I can only imagine the grief and pain their families are going through.
A few countries away, in Palestine. On the news, images of a father and his heartbroken 6 year old son in tears. The little boy’s toys buried under the rubble of their home. The father promising his son that they (the Israelis) will leave their country one day and they will have a home again. The anger and hurt in the boys eyes has the potential to channel him towards anti-Israeli sentiments.
It didn’t hit me until last night. Talking about it with my hubby just as I was about to fall asleep.
The images of the young boy kept flashing in my head. The tears in his eyes. I wish I could reach out to him.
I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking of where we would run out to in case the attacks happened in our house and planning. Will we have time to put on the armoured vests? I came to a conclusion that we will sleep fully dressed (I would even sleep in the armoured vest) and have a grab bag ready. Do we hide or do we run?!

It’s 9.02 am.
6am. Neighbouring suburb, a UN guest house in Sheerpur has come under attack. 6 militants stormed the house and began shooting, killing three UN workers and injuring around five. Numbers to be confirmed. Of course, the Afghans killed haven’t been mentioned yet.
I heard more explosions, sounded like an RPG and then gun firing.
It was the Kabul Serena Hotel.
Kabul Serena has also come under attack. RPG and other weaponry have also been involved.
Reports coming in that that there were 7 militants – 3 of them were suicide bombers who detonated themselves and the rest of them were snipers.
I hear sirens wailing…
I woke up at 4am this morning and had a gut feeling something was wrong or that something bad will happen. I never wake up in the middle of the night.
My condolences to the family of the killed.

It’s 10.18am. Kabul time.

Yesterday around this time I could hear shouting outside “Death to America” “Death to Democracy”.

Protestors protesting against NATO troops burning the Quraan. En route to Parliament.

20,000 young men. Mostly university students.

A few moments ago approximately 20-30 police cars. Police armed in riot gear speeding towards the parliament. There are reports that another demonstration is taking place.

Eight more police cars (and counting) have just sped in the opposite direction.

Hope no one gets hurt or killed.

As I type, there are protest and gunshots outside over 10,000 people.

more to come…

heading to safety for now

The run off is a big, big mistake.

Karzai – 54% of the votes (more than necessary to win the elections)

Abdullah Abdullah – around 30%

Okay so some of Karzai’s ballots were ‘fraudulent votes’ (let me point out some of Dr Abdullah’s were too!). ECC found out and decided to throw Karzai’s votes out which dropped his count to 47%. Still a majority but not enough to secure presidency.

So, after 2 months of squabbling, they finally agreed to have a run off election! Second round elections! Ha! Silly or what?! So what does this mean?

More fraud, more lives lost, more money wasted. Yes, wasted!

Afghanistan is a young republic. It’s the second elections in history – What you saw in the August 20 elections is as good as it gets for Afghanistan. 47% was still  majority even after the ‘fraud votes’ were discarded so Karzai should have secured presidency. Why burden the Afghans and make them vote again, risk their lives?

don’t even get me started on fraud in western ‘developed’ elections. It’s all about the degree of fraud you are willing to accept and quite frankly, Afghanistan did extremely well.

I was watching Karzai’s press conference wtih Senator Kerry by his side which he blatantly claimed ‘the Afghan elections have been defamed’ – I disagree. Afghans did as good as they could.

It’s going to be VERY cold in the North (mainly Abdullah supporters) people will not come out and vote. It’s obvious that Karzai will win.

He should have been granted victory. 47% is more than enough. After all, Karzai is more for the cause of Afghanistan than Abdullah. While Abdullah was foreign minister, he’d visit other countries and shop $4,000 suits from Afghansitan’s budget. Where was he all this time? Never once did he voice his opinion for the sake of Afghan people, now all of a sudden he cares. Suspicious.

Second round elections, in my view is a waste.

So I’m back in Kabul.

It’s Friday 16th October and I’m typing this in Word because the internet is down. How convenient! Second day back and I’m already on lockdown!!!! The reason being – election results may be announced any day soon so they’re taking precautionary measures not to have any of us retards blown to pieces. I finished reading my book. Nothing interesting on TV. So I decided to blog except the internet is down so here I am on word. Spent 3 weeks in Australia a few days in Dubai, the weather was nice and warm and pleasant calm beaches. Australia was cold though. But I loved it. I had a great time seeing everyone, can’t wait to do it all over again.

And now it’s Kabul all over again.

But we’re planning on moving out of here soon. And boy am I glad. I can’t wait to hand in my resignation. The satisfying feeling… ahhhh! I’m still waiting for confirmation before handing in my resignation. Inshallah. Elections, elections, elections… so unofficial recount shows that Karzai has 47% of the votes, which isn’t enough for a win and means there will be a run off! CHAOS! I seriously think voting in Afghanistan is a JOKE and there is no way in the world they can expect elections without fraud.

The two go hand in hand. And I’m DEAD SERIOUS! So if the above results are official-ised then there will be a run off election within the next month. Yeowww…. It will be messy. And to be honest, I said there will be a run off and boy was I right *dances in her chair*. Seriously, I did predict that. Any dumbass would know. I mean, they said they’ll recount the votes, they threw most of the ballots out (they were Karzai’s votes) so you do the math. That leaves Karzai with less than 50%. God help Afghanistan! They can’t afford to have run off elections – spend billions of dollars AGAIN, lose so many civilian lives (as if enough hasn’t been lost already!!) I’m definitely not looking forward to it at all… ERRMMM… apart from that nothing interesting.

Oh yeahhh… one of our housemates who is an adviser to MoA (Ministry of Agriculture) told us that Afghanistan has State of the Art technology in processing Afghan fruit juices and marketing to the rest of the world. The demand looks pretty promising. Go Afghanistan!!! Kabul is the same as it was when I left. Only difference is there are heaps more annoying Afghan singers (the number of singers should have stopped growing 5 years ago!)

BUT

- The way guys/girls in Kabul talk – EUGH! The guys talk so FEMININE and POOK… and the girls talk like they’re either 70 years old or 4 years old.

- Or when Afghan girls talk with naaz. *slap*

-Afghan channel TV reporters with their Iranian wannabe accents… and the call back shows.. they ALLL ask ‘ismeh taan wa az kuja ba tamaas shuddeen?’ anddddd ‘yak khatereh jaaleb ya yak fakayee dareen ke bogoyeen?’ ORRR ‘mesha yak ahang zam zama koneen?’ soooooooooooooo typicalll and gayyyyyyy!

- When Afghans forcefeed you… I could just reach out across the destarkhaan and strangle them. What I HATE is when you say ‘i ate a lot’ and they look at you and with this annoying tone of voice “nehh nakhordiiiiiiiiii”. MARG!!!

- When you go shopping here.. they try to rip you off… EVERYTHING is cheap and tacky and Chinese but they say ‘maaleh amreekayee ast. jenseh awal….’ pffft… or they say ‘ee maaleh Turkey nest ke arzaan basha, Korea-yee ast!’ pffft. Turkish is better than Korean!

I can go on forever…

- Oh yeah and when you REALLY REALLY need to go to the bathroom at someones house in Kabul and they turn out to have a KENARAAB with no toilet paper!

- Guys use TOO much gel, it looks greasy! Or it’s probably oil!

- When you go to people’s houses, they FORCE you to hold their child/baby… even though they’re dirty and haven’t been washed in weeks and sometimes the bottom of their pants are still wet from the dirty water while playing in the street.

- When they have so many kids and then complain that they’re poor (not to mention they don’t know their names). Stop breeding!!!

- When they BEG me to bring kids coz it’s been more than a year since the wedding.

- Guys who overuse their cheap perfume

- Girls who overuse their cheap makeup and then claim that their make up is light and ‘natural’.

- Shiny suits, shiny satin shirt AND shiny tie. Greasy shiny hair, and shiney EXTREMELY pointy shoes worn by the guys here. What the…??

- Nazia Iqbal

- Kids who stand up in the passenger seat while the car is in motion and the window is down and the parents don’t even care!

To be continued… DEFINITELY!

Shot through the heart and you’re to blame… you give love a bad name

Blasted loud on my iPod, singing on top of my lungs and jumping around all over my Kabul home. I wonder if Bon Jovi would have ever thought he would have a psycho fan in AFGHANISTAN! Hmmm….

Kabul has been quiet lately. The votes are being counted. so far 40% has been counted and Karzai has won 47% of those votes, I hope that increases to at least 51% so there’s no run off elections.

My trip to Australia is coming up soon, can’t wait! *joy dance* I’ve been in Afghanistan FOUR MONTHS STRAIGHT!!! I should get some sort of award for that. I don’t know what kept me going!

Ramadan is slipping away… literally! It’s going so fast – it’s the 13th day today. Yeawwwwwww…..

Ba omideh deedaar…