At the Mosque and Tomb of Caliph Ali in the centre of Masar-e-Sharif.
MASAR-E-SHARIF — We arrived in Masar after a day’s drive from Dushanbe, across the new bridge at Nijny-Pyange/Shir Khan Bandar and south through Kunduz and Pul e Kumri. The road from Pul-e-Kumri was new to me and afforded some wonderful new scenery. A lot more camels in this part of Afghanistan and, generally, drier and dustier climate.
Just east of Masar, we passed through a spectacular gorge that was marked on our maps as a “spectacular gorge.” Go figure.
As always, our communication with the whoosits in UN security left something to be desired. Our HF Codan radios still don’t have the proper frequencies and channels programmed for Afghanistan (because, after all, we’re part of UNDP Tajikstan, see?) so we had to use our Sat phones and cellular phones to make the required hourly radio checks and location reports.
As always, on arrival, we are required by UN security regulations to have a local security briefing so we can avoid trouble and stay safe. Makes sense. However, we arrived in Masar about 6:00 PM, after the 5:00 PM closing time for UN security, so would have to wait for the next day at 4:30 PM when they would do the next routine “security briefing” for new arrivals.
We spent about an hour finding a place to stay and were finally, graciously, accommodated at two guesthouses. A private one owned by a UNAMA employee for some of us (including moi) and one operated by WFP for the rest of us. The private guest house was, in some ways a microcosm of Afghanistan. Clearly a once beautiful home, surrounded by a private garden full of fruit trees, it was definitely suffering from poor upkeep. Paint peeling, a half-centimeter layer of dust on everything (which, in fairness, is probably only a few days worth) and crawling with dogs.
I bedded down in someone else’s room — fortunately, someone who was away on leave. It reminded me of a time at the British Army Officers’ Mess in Sennelager, Germany. I stayed the weekend there for a mess function and was told to crash in someone’s room because he was away for the weekend. At about 2 AM, I was rudely awakened as the door flew open, the lights flashed on and the room’s owner looked aghast to find a half-naked Canadian between his sheets. I’m not sure which of us was more embarrassed. Suffice to say that I didn’t spend the rest of the night in his room. But, I digress…
Learning from experience, and the fact it was brutally hot, I slept on top of the blankets on the bed and only pulled my trusty US Army “Ranger Blanket” (i.e. poncho liner) over me after it cooled down around 3 AM. This time, I was not rudely awakened by the untimely return of the room’s rightful owner. Although, it would perhaps have been less unpleasant as the room was clearly home to a woman of some description. Digressing, again…. sorry.
Why can’t the world’s microwave oven makers just get along?
The highlight of the stay at the Masar guesthouse was the discovery of a box of microwave popcorn in the dining room that evening. Followed quickly by the discovery of an actual honest-to-God microwave oven in the kitchen. Like any unfamiliar microwave, it took about 5 minutes to figure out how to zap the bag for 2.5 minutes. Why can’t there be a standard operating formula for microwaves? Everyone one the planet seems to be unique. Why isn’t the EU or the ISO on top of this???
On Day 2, we blasted off for Shebergnan, about 120 Km west of Masar to inspect an Afghan Border Police training facility that General Abdul Rahman, commander of the ABP, had suggested we use for training. Unfortunately, we were dead certain we couldn’t use it for our training because (a) the German police instructors are not allowed to go anywhere they are not surrounded by armed German soldiers in a Taj Mahal like camp and (b) we couldn’t afford to fly in the Dubai toilets and 5-star cooks the EU requires for Afghan trainees. Still, we felt it was necessary to have a look at the place before we condemned it.
The camp was very impressive. It’s currently home to a lonely team of Blackwater USA police instructors and a small cohort of ABP trainees about to begin a Quick-Reaction Force training. In fact, it turns out that it is almost certainly safe enough even for the German flyover instructors, so that may not be an obstacle. Unfortunately, it’s not completed yet and there is not enough capacity to hold our instructors as well as the QRF instructors if we were to train (as we must) at the same time. Still, perhaps in future it might be a good location.
The town of Shebergnan is quiet, peaceful and relatively clean. It is pock-marked with petrol stations, each bearing the name of a different warlord who owns a local gas/oil field in the area. Kind of reminded me of Alberta. It’s so quiet there that the local Blackwater guys go shopping in town with only their sidearms. Seriously. (I felt somewhat embarrassed to confess we travel everywhere in northern Afghanistan with little more than our underwear and a good sense of timing.)
Car beats Gun
As safe as it was, we had to head back to Masar in time for our 4:30 security briefing where we would likely be told it was too dangerous to go there. Fortunately, our work was done and we were ready to go the next day. In fact, at the security brief we learned that two UNDP cars which must have been only 15-20 minutes behind us on the road returning from Shebergnan to Masar were shot up along the road just 30 km outside Masar. Fortunately, there were no UN injuries, although one of the cars did manage to run down a shooter on the highway. The driver later found a mangled AK-47 lodged in the brush bar of his LandCruiser. As I have often said… in the hands of a motivated driver, Car beats Gun almost as often as Rock beats Scissors.
The next morning, Day 3, and armed with a thorough briefing on how to stay safe in Masar-e-Sharif… we left.
Two white doves nest on a tiled ledge at the Mosque
But, not before a little shopping and sightseeing. We spent an hour and a half walking around the wonderful blue-tiled mosque in the city centre. And the shops lining the streets surrounding it. The mosque is internationally-known for its beauty. It is also home to tens of thousands of white doves. Local legend has it that the birds do not all arrive white — many common doves and pigeons join the flock, but that the purity of the mosque bleaches them white within days. Not sure if that’s true, but the birds were all, to a feather, brilliant white.
Infidels like us are not allowed inside the mosque, so we admired it from outside. I enjoyed the fact that at each entrance, where the faithful leave their shoes, the footwear is seemingly “guarded” by amputee war veterans and victims of mines and other sundry maiming devices. If you can’t trust a legless man to watch your shoes, who can you trust?