Friend Tim in LaPêche wonders about a BBC report of rock and roll in Kabul

- first I've heard of it ..

The locale Babur Gardens is spectacular - an Agha Khan rehabilitation of the park surrounding the burial ground of Babur the great grandson of Tamerlane the biggest butcher in ancient history.

Nonetheless I will see lots of music this fall at the French Cultural Centre - upcoming world percussion show by the Afghanistan National Institute of Music and a "Rock Show" featuring a melange of Afghan and foreign artists.

The "Cultch" is a great venue and once again accessible - the new employer has a more liberal "client centred" security policy ....

I am cognizant of my World Vision training to "always wear one's runners and be prepared to flee the scene."

nostalgies

Well another delightful haze hanging low this AM after another night of goodbye whiskeys at the Golden Key in Wazir. Folks remarked that its a good thing I don't leave regularly - the subtext of course was jealousy and other self esteem issues ...

A little nostalgiz packing up to leave RAMPUP ... will miss the great penthouse view and drinkie perch ... but i am pretty good at striking camp and moving on ... not too many attachments ... hmmm .... certain friends can be called upon to speak up about continuing to reinforce the attachments to home ... mmmmhmmmm ...

Had a dream last night in which my dear friend Kerstin's husband Fritz looked real healthy despite his imminent brain tumour surgery - a bit a of humourous caricature making a face at me thru a car window - she looked pleased ...

Coffee is ready ... chance to draw a few favoured colleagues away from their desks for a last short chat ...

inching forward with open arms

The revolution is inching forward here - big funeral on nearby swimming pool hill today for the assassinated ex President Rabani - it will put a damper on peace talks with the Taliban ... meanwhile their recruiting tactics are moving into the 20th century much faster than the Karzai government ...one of my employees came back from a trip to the family home in Jalalabad (big prosperous town by the Pakistan border) with a new phone which had Taliban promotional material on it.

But to the American’s credit it must be noted that with the repeal of “don’t ask don’t tell” army recruiters are going into gay and lesbian centres – maybe not with open minds but with contracts to sign.

Imagine …

Brain food

Great kimchi recently at the Korean restaurant - low profile family living room type place and good bulgogi and the like and on my way out a large Styrofoam container was slipped into my hand. I generally snack/graze from noon on and this was a delightful addition to the selection in my little bar fridge which is basically full of yogurt, juice and fruit.

Last of the "Chinese miso" today ... my daughter usually blesses me with a large tub of the real thing from Japan but we were too busy on my day of departure from Toronto in late August ... stuff must be good for the brain as mine has been busy with only ten days left on this job and then seven weeks at UNHabitat and then a big break which needs to be anticipated with some good ticking

Have been structuring an "offer" to counter the anticipated one from UNHabitat for fulltime one year starting in feb 2012 - I want to work at most 1/2 time here next year - ... the big guy at USAID likes the project and is looking for something innovative and a concept paper for "the next project" starting 2013 ...

plus the project management needs some regularly adjustments from Dr Gillies ...

thinking seriously about spending winter 2012/13 in LaPêche - fortunately i still have a year to come to my senses.

Code Black

The bad guys certainly traumatized a whack of people earlier this week in Kabul . My first warning came at 1325 on Tuesday in the form of a "Security SMS" which usually means a sentence of unintelligible ACRONYMS - but this one was easily interpreted as "International security forces and insurgents shooting in vicinity of US Embassy." Well Nobody has shot in the vicinity of the US Embassy for a quite while - although I and many others have done some shooters there. Anyway I was just about to start final interviews for a new staff member - it’s energizing to talk to talented outsiders about the company business and how they might help us do it better. It was a pretty absorbing coupla hours with the two shortlisted candidates - until we were interrupted at the end of the second interview and told we were being moved back to the guest house due to a highly elevated security threat.

The definition for "Security Code BLACK" includes "anticipated possibility of evacuation from the country" in the DAI Security Guide. That won't be necessary as long as 100,000 foreign troops are stationed here to keep the peace. But a coupla code blacks probably help spike the risk graph and with it the insurance premiums and therefore the Cost of Doing Business stays ridiculously high ...... as do the profits. Al Quaida has broken the American economy as they intended too - and it only took ten years.

"almost to the top" - a perfect kabul nite poem

Today was better than an ordinary Kabul day - the national staff was pretty chilled after five days EiD off.

But it is REAL nice tonight - and the air is perfect.

The airport tower lights are très cool about 5k north of us

Telecom hill - behind us to the south - sports lots of light action

And Russian swimming pool hill to the south east ... i lived on the other side in 2006 and we would walk up the hill to ... see things ..

It’s probably still safe because there are now houses almost to the top.

"heightened alert" ... but not "up to code."

There is a "heightened alert" - not sure what colour that would be - this weekend in our local neighbourhoods of Wazir and Taimani. Lots of intel about plans for a compound attack. I am the warden at RAMPUP East Guest House #2 for tomorrow AM's “compound attack” drill. Got my pots and pans ready to run through the house rousing people from their rooms and shepherding them onto the roof. Once counted they will be ferried across to Guest House #1 on the newly constructed inter guesthouse bridge.

The bridge is a tasteful thing - artistic bamboo designed to "not draw attention to the compound." It has a colourful history too. RAMPUP’s engineering and security departments battled for months to have their respective designs selected. In the end the low-cost rapid-deploy option from security was the winner. Lots of bad blood over that one - fortunately we have no engineers in Guest House #2 who might try to upset the drill protocol by refusing to cross the bridge.

It is after all not "up to code."