Last day of the Kabul Trip

Today was the last day of a four day trip to Kabul. I arrived three days ago with five other officers, all logisticians like me, all working with our Afghan National Army partners to ensure they have the supplies they need. My fellow logisticians consist of two Austrailian officers, two Canadian officers, and another American. The first three days of our visit were extremely productive. We met multiple American Air Force and Army mentors who are working with the Afghan Army and received great information on how the Afghan logistics system works. This was important because the Afghan logistics system is complicated and messy.


This afternoon, on our way back to the Canadian base where we have been staying, we were stuck in a huge traffic jam in downtown Kabul. It was quite an expereince to see the Afghans walking right next to the windows of our vehicle, the women wearing their blue burkas, other women with their children sitting in the middle of a huge pothole in the road, begging. On the other side of the road, a coalition convoy had blocked off the road sending all of that traffic over into our lane.  This being one of the last days of Ramadan, I imagined many of the people surrounding us were hungry.  It was also hot, and here were these coalition dudes clogging up the highway.  It seemed like people were short tempered.  One Afghan guy walked right in front of our vehicle as we crossed the intersection and flipped us the bird.  We all joked about it in the car, but we also all knew we were not in a good place, hemmed in on both sides by afghan cars as far as the eye could see, not moving, on a road that has seen multiple IED attacks during 2010.  Someone in the other vehicle - we had two vehicles in our convoy - saw an Afghan throw a rock.  Dusk was falling and I thought the sooner it got dark, the better, as then we would just look like another SUV among thousands of others.  When finally we began to move, after about 90 minutes, we were all relieved, and when we finally returned to our base, after taking two hours to cover 8 miles, we were relieved again.

Tomorrow we all return to Kandahar.  I return with the fruits of our trip...lots of great information on how to get supplies for our Afghan partners, and the memories of a shared adventure with my Australian, Canadian and American friends.