Snap and Scribble

From the PRT base, we were taken to the AECI staff house, which was just round the corner. There we met Doctor Rabani, who lived there and who worked at the hospital across the road. He took us to the RTA radio station, which was next door to the PRT base, on the other side from the house.

“RTA” stands for “Radio Television Afghanistan” and it’s the government broadcaster here. The RTA station is the only radio station in Badghis province and it’s the one we’re going to be upgrading. They used to broadcast on AM, using an ancient Russian transmitter with an inefficient antenna, but that broke down finally in the middle of 2006. After that, the PRT gave them an FM transmitter and rigged up an antenna for it at the station – again, it wasn’t a particularly efficient setup. It was interesting to see the old Russian transmitter, which was still in place in the station. It probably dates from about 1950 and it really looked like something that should have been in a museum!

From the station, we went to a hill just outside town, near the airport, where the RTA had built a transmission tower for the television station they were supposed to be going to start up in the town. To get there, we had to drive across the airport runway, but as we approached it we were stopped by a couple of guys in military uniforms. There are three flights a week in and out of this town, and we wanted to cross the runway just as one was due to land!

Before long, the little plane came into view and was soon taxiing along the runway to the small terminal building. We drove across the runway and up the hill. There was a great view of the town and the surrounding hills from up there, and the first thing i did was take loads of photos.

The tower itself was mindbogglingly badly built. The mounting bolts in the concrete footings had obviously been put in with the wrong spacing, and the builders had chiselled away chunks of concrete so they could bend the bolts enough so they would fit into the holes on the feet of the tower. It was probably reasonably solid – for now, at least – but it didn’t look good.

As well as that, though, there were bolts missing all over the tower, and bodged-up plates holding different bits together. There was no ladder for climbing it and no cable tray, to run the cable down from the antenna. The heavy cable was just dangling down from the top of the mast, no doubt well stretched by now, and incapable of carrying a signal properly.

But that’s obviously how the RTA do things – specially in remote provinces like this one…

Well, that was it really. That was pretty much everything done that we came here to do. Under other circumstances, it would now be time to go back to Kabul. But the next flight out of here’s not until Tuesday – so all we can do now is wait…

Lunch at the AECI house was good. We met the other occupants of the house – as well as Rabani, there was Ahmadi and another guy whose name i never managed to catch. They were a very friendly bunch and interesting to talk to. Ahmadi came from Kabul originally. He lived through the Russians, the civil war, and some of the Taliban era. But he went to live in Tajikistan in the late 90s. He was working as a project manager on construction work at the hospital.

That afternoon, we didn’t do anything really, just sat in the house and tried to catch up with a bit of work. There wasn’t really much to do here – apart, perhaps, from a walk around the town. And it seemed worth saving that bit of excitement for a little later in the stay.

The evening meal was really good again. The food here was better than most of what i’d eaten in Kabul. As far as i remember, there was a spaghetti dish with beans, a sheep meat dish, some raw cabbage, whole raw chillis, and, of course, the compulsory big plate of rice each and some bread. The rice was the best rice i’ve been served in Afghanistan, i think – it was Pakistani Basmati, and it was cooked well. There were also bananas and oranges for desert.

They sorted out a room for us to stay in, with a couple of shortish beds with a single blanket on them. This was obviously not going to be enough, as it was a bit chilly. before we wend to bed, we managed to get a couple more blankets each.

It rained all night and was cloudy, cold and rainy the next day. We didn’t have anything to do in the morning and the weather wasn’t really conducive to going for a walk around the town. So there was nothing to do except sit indoors and catch up with a bit of work. The good thing about computers is that you can basically carry your whole office around with you and work anywhere.

In the afternoon, Sadar, one of the guys from the house, took us to see the province governor. The governor’s office was a big place, on the edge of the main part of town, with lots of people coming and going. We were met in the entrance hall by a turbaned man called Zia, who took us upstairs to his office.

He spoke good English and we sat in his office for a while and talked. We explained to him what we were doing there and he told us a bit about the province. In particular, he told us that the hills around the town had been covered in pistachio forests until a few decades ago, but lack of proper management had meant that the forests were all completely destroyed and the trees used as fuel. I’m sure this is the same story in a lot of parts of this country. Most of it is now treeless hills, that were obviously forested at one time. It’s the same story in many other parts of the world too, of course.

After a while, Zia went to tell the governor we were there and what we were doing. When he came back, he showed us into a large, luxurious office, with a big desk in one corner. There was a big, slightly blurry, portrait of Hamid Karzai, the president, hanging above it. The governor stood near his desk and shook our hands as we came in. He was well dressed and wearing an Afghan fur hat, of the type that Karzai was wearing in the photo above the desk.

We all sat in armchairs on the other side of the room from the desk, including the governor, and Zia interpreted for us. At first it looked like we weren’t going to get tea – which would have been a snub and a mild insult in this country – but eventually, i guess, the governor decided we were worthy of some and cups of the light yellowy green liquid were duly brought to our tables. The mayor of Qali Now was also summoned and sat in on our meeting.

In the end, the governor seemed pleased with what we’d said and said that he and the mayor would do what they could to help us with our project.

Tags: Afghanistan, Travel and Places // Add Comment »