Nad-e Ali Blog 5: "You can Go to Heaven. Me, I'll take indoor plumbing"

Time flies by. I can hardly believe I've been back 4 weeks. I'm already thinking about my next break out.....

Many thanks for all the kind comments about the blog. Especially from a good friend who, slap, took me to task for the appalling grammatical error, slap, in the last episode where I wrote "my dad and I" when I should have said, slap, "my dad and me".  Grovelled apologies. And I now have a new editor: yes, the same good friend..... DO let me know if you spot errors in this episode! Now I just have to be wary of the occasional sentence that I didn’t write (like this one, for example), subtly inserted by my editor just to keep me on my toes. :-)

So, meanwhile here in Helmand, free of the grammar police, life moves on. 3 Para "cleared" insurgents from a community to the north of our area a few weeks ago and I was able to make my first visit to see how we could best assist the Afghan Government deliver basic services. In this village there is no Afghan government. No basic services. No police, no schools, no health care - well you get the picture. Zero.

Helicoptering to the Para patrol base which has been set up about 500m north of the village, we were briefed by the Company on the situation on the ground. The briefing had an "interesting" audio backdrop: prolonged bursts of automatic weapons’ fire. It was going to be One Of Those Days. Jumping into our body armour (actually this is more a practised shimmy) we headed out "On Patrol". 

In a long, stretched out line, about 15 soldiers along with me, my bodyguard and my interpreter, we snaked our way into the village looking for locals to talk to. The first part of the village we entered was pretty empty. We stopped at a well near a mosque and a few children came over and, as usual, were asking for "kalem"  (a pen) - a national obsession here. I sometimes think we could solve most issues in Afghanistan by handing out a few billion kalems. It'd be cheaper in the long run. And at least the kids would be happy.

The locals were not keen to talk to us (the Taliban were close by - as the early gunfire had hinted) but one or two lingered having been press-ganged into listening by the Afghan National Army colonel who accompanied us. He gave them a good lecturing on the evils of the Taliban - and how the Government and ISAF were coming to help them. They seemed impressed if a little non-plussed.

Moving on further into the village we visited another mosque where people were friendly and chatty. A small corner shop keeper asked if we could help repair the mosque which was used as a school and which needed its roof fixing. As my bodyguard, my interpreter and I wandered around looking at the mud structure and the rooms used for teaching, we were joined by a gaggle of village children. They went through the "kalem" routine but were more fascinated by my bodyguard's automatic weapon - and clearly wanted him to fire it. Kids these days eh, tsk.  Just like Manchester. Stick with kalems, kids. It's safer.

The mosque looked to be a bit of a centre for the community and getting the government to help them seemed a good thing to do. We'll pursue roof repairs and then some equipment: text books, exercise books, "kalems" (of course) and other bits and pieces. The aim would be to pull all this together and then get the District Governor up to hand everything over and explain that the Afghan government is there to help the people. Well that's the theory. Of course it's never that simple and, doubtless, we will hit all sorts of roadblocks en route to delivering something relatively straight-forward.

Cash: To do my job I need access to cash. A fair bit of it in Afghan terms. Millions. I have been promised a safe to store it but, for the moment, use an old ammunition box which I keep locked and cable-tied to my desk leg..... (Royal Bank of Scotland you should try this). I was running pretty short so had to travel to the headquarters of the UK-driven Provincial Reconstruction Team in Lash Gar, Helmand's provincial capital, to fill up my box. I only get notes of 500 (roughly $7 or $10) and 1000 "Afghanis”. This usually mounts up to an impressive 12"-14" of bank notes stacked up.

But the best part of going to Lashkar Gah is the food and plumbing. Real food. Fresh food. Joined up food. Food that those of us who work in Patrol Bases can only dream of: cheese (Brie!), proper toast, things that go crunch rather than squish when you bite them. And then there are indoor loos, indoor showers, indoor pipes that aren't frozen in the morning..... woohoohoohoohoo!  Mark Twain wrote, "You can go to heaven. Me, I'd rather go to Bermuda". Mark was a guy who knew a thing or too. Me, I've lived in Bermuda and would also prefer there to heaven. But for indoor plumbing I'd sell my soul and Bermuda. How about those Onions, Mark?