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I resigned, left my apartment,
sold my car, cancelled my insurances, and stayed at a friend’s
place in order to look for something more appealing to me. I was still in Sydney on September 11. The events of that
day deeply affected me. Six months later, the news channels
were still broadcasting, nonstop, the fall of the Taliban
and the influx of humanitarian aid workers to Afghanistan.
I was increasingly more interested in experiencing firsthand
what was occurring over there and I felt that I could be
of assistance. At that stage it was still only a dream. One day, however,
a friend of mine told me she was leaving for Indonesia to
work for a non-governmental organisation (NGO) named “Act-aid”.
The next day, I searched the internet for details of this
organisation, typing “ACTED” instead of “Actaid”.
By pure coincidence, it happened that this organisation existed
and was a NGO as well. I emailed them explaining that one
of my best friends was working for ACTED in Jakarta and that
I was interested in an interview. This bold attempt ended in failure, when I received the
following email from ACTED’s HR manager the next day: “We
have no mission in Indonesia”. When I figured out my
mistake, I thought my future in the humanitarian aid sector
was over as it is very hard to enter in that field if you
have no experience or no person to recommend you. But fate
is amazing sometimes; one week later, I went to an alumni
meeting of my French political school and learnt that one
of my old schoolmates was now in Kabul working as administrator
in an NGO called … ACTED. I knew my fortune had changed
as I couldn’t fail twice, and I went directly to ask
for some information at the ACTED Paris office.My requests
turned into an interview, and after two hours they offered
me a position in 5 days time (they were so desperate to find
candidates), and (crazily) I said yes, without thinking of
consequences.
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I was initially hired as a logistician
to be based in Narhin, an area where a massive earthquake
took place in March 2002. Yet at the time of my arrival in
Kabul, the Country Logistician had been moved to Narhin,
after a conflict with the hierarchy. Consequently, I was
suddenly and unexpectedly moved from simple Field Logistician
to Country Logistician, with no experience whatsoever in
that field. During seven months, I struggled to purchase
and deliver all equipment from the capital to ACTED program
sites. I also had to put together logistic procedures, and
implement them, in all ACTED field bases. Due to the level
of education of the Afghan staff and because our budget grew
from 2 million to 18 million in a matter of months, it is
fair to say that this experience has been a tough one. Yet I have no regrets; it was amazing! I travelled all
over the country training our staff - Taloqan in the Northeast,
Mazar e Sharif in the north, Maymana in the north west and
Bamian in the centre
(Bamian was the site of the famous statues of Buddha destroyed by the Taliban
in 1999). In 7 months I had the time to appreciate the changes taking
place in Afghanistan. It is true that 95 percent of women
are still wearing the burka, but people no longer have the
fear of war spreading over the country again. Afghanistan
is still very conservative, and seeing women in burka is
commonplace. Somehow, it’s the best way for them to
walk “freely” in the street instead of being
locked at home. The war is over, but not totally. There are
still warlords controlling entire regions, a bit like the
feudal system in Europe in the 12th and 13th Centuries. The
Americans are still present, very visible and heavily armed.
In Kabul I see them almost every day going to the computer
store next to our guesthouse to buy equipment, with 3 jeeps
and 15 men in arms. The feeling of Afghans about the Americans
is mixed. They are certainly happy their intervention brought a new
regime and a brighter future, yet, they won’t accept
their presence for many years. Bin Laden is not as common
a topic as foreigners would expect, as he is not Afghan.
However, there are pictures of Massoud everywhere. All drivers
have his picture on the front shield of their car and nobody
contests his actions as it would be considered treason. The
overall political state of the economy is still very unstable,
yet Afghans are the kings of commerce and it seems sometimes
they could manage to grow their economy without humanitarian
aid. Yet NGOs and the UN still operate in Afghanistan and I came
back for a second mission in January this year. It was winter
and ACTED asked me to coordinate a program for extraction
and distribution of 25,000 tonnes of coal in the colder regions
of Afghanistan. This was a great exercise in logistics and
a real challenge as I had to ensure that 2,000 trucks were
able to cross snowy mountains and icy roads all over the
country, and that 100,000 families received their 4 bags
of coal each. The truth was that the political aspects of
the exercise were more difficult than the technical aspects.
For instance in February, trucks delivering coal from mines
in the Hindu Kush to Kabul were stopped by the government
because they were thought to be stolen when the Taliban was
in power. Then in March, a local commander unloaded 53 of
our trucks and seized 800 tonnes of coal in his compound
just before he went to Mecca for the annual pilgrimage. It
took us a month to retrieve 70% of the coal after raising
the issue with the highest authorities. Eventually the winter
was over and I was relocated at the end of March to another
project in Salang. The Salang project is a program that ACTED has run for the
past two winters. The goal is to keep open a pass and a tunnel
at an altitude of 3,400 metres for vehicles to cross the
Hindu Kush, the mountain that cuts Afghanistan in two from
east to west. This access road was built by the Russians
in the 60’s to ensure an easy invasion of Afghanistan.
It is a strategic pass that had been a battlefield during
the war with the Russians and the Taliban, and was reopened
by ACTED in late 2001 for humanitarian and economical purposes.
This area is still very unsafe to drive through. ACTED’s
day to day work is to ensure one way traffic management and
safe passage for people crossing Salang. This is not easy,
as Afghan drivers have no driver education. They overtake
each other creating traffic jams, or don’t put snow
chains when there is snow and ice everywhere. For that reason
a schedule has been put in place allowing vehicles to cross
Salang from only one direction each day, and ACTED staff
are responsible for enforcing these rules with a system of
gates. When the traffic is over, road maintenance is undertaken
at night in order to remove the ice with jack-hammers and
loaders, ploughing the road with a grader, and removing snow
accumulated in the galleries. From time to time, avalanches
threaten the pass and even hit vehicles. Our team attempts
to reduce the threat posed by avalanches by triggering them
ourselves with a helicopter and home made bombs (after blocking
the road!). Unfortunately, despite our efforts, 15 people
have been uried and 2 have died this winter. The above is what
should happen if everything goes to plan. The reality is
that the local
commanders of Salang get involved in traffic
management and do not appreciate foreigners
operating in their territory. They open the gates on
the wrong day and let cars come from both
directions creating chaos in the Salang pass. And
they physically beat ACTED staff if they don’t provide them
with material such as fuel. In fact, their latest action has been
to kick ACTED staff out of Salang completely, threatening to put
expatriates and senior local staff in gaol if they refuse to leave
the place and reporting to the government that ACTED was doing
nothing up there.
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