Free Range International

We went across the river into Beshud District to the village of Little Barabad to get some photos of the old caves which line northern shore of the Kabul river. Here is the shot of the day from our expedition – local girls from the village who came to see us as we trekked back to our SUV.

The people of Little Barabad are dirt poor – they are also domesticated Kuchi tribesmen are from a different tribe than the Shinwari’s who live up the river in the village of Big Barabad. Because the elders from these two villages can’t agree on anything Little Barabad suffers and cannot spend their NSP (National Solidarity Program) monies to build a well or make other infrastructure improvements. The NSP money comes from the World Bank and they have $2,000 for each household but that money can only be spent on projects which collectively benefit the village.

The San Diego sister cities project is scheduled to be build a foot bridge over the Kabul River which would allow the kids from Little Barabad to attend school. There is a large school just 300 meters away on the Jalalabad side of the river but it is an hour’s drive by road. The people of little Barabad do not have a vehicle or much of a road for that matter so their kids are not able to attend school.

San Diego and the San Diego Rotary Club have been very active in Jalalabad which is a sister city to San Diego. How that happened remains a mystery but believe it or not they (both the city and its Rotary Club) have dumped a ton of money into Nangarhar University and Jalalabad. Here is the current method of crossing the Kabul River and the reason why a foot bridge will be such a God send. When you look at this float keep in mind the river is swift and none of the people in these parts know how to swim.

One goal of today’s trip was to get a proper picture of my new SOMA FM tee shirt to send into their web site. Inshallah they will post it so getting the pistol in frame was important. From looking at my fellow donors at the Soma FM site I am sure to be the only one who even owns a pistol. I’m betting I get ax’ed off the site – they are in San Francisco so I’m sure they’ll find the pic of an armed American to be innately disturbing. Guns = authority = bad to them. To me guns = keeping authority in check and small = good. Plus there is a war going on here and even though it is easy to avoid drama one must be prepared. Be friendly to everyone you meet but always have a plan to kill them. That’s my motto

One of our friends took the picture of me above and it is pretty good. I took the one below of Bot and the boys with my new Nikon

The color seems better in the first shot but the one of Bot has merits too me thinks. Plus the village boys who always follow us around when we visit Barabad make the picture cool too. The Bot and I are going to print a bunch up and take them to the village when we have the time a patience to sit down for a four hour tea drinking shura. You cannot just dump the photos and leave because that would be unforgivably rude plus all the elders will want their pictures taken too – these things can last an afternoon easy. At least with the eastern Pashtuns we will not have to endure an afternoon drinking bout. I know this is an Islamic country and Islamic people are not supposed to drink alcohol but nobody seems to have told the Tajiks up north about that part of the covenant.

The village kids love to have their pictures taken and always enjoy it when we come by to hike up to the caves. We hook them up with a bottle of water and a dollar bill for being our guides. See how blond the kid in the middle is? You see that a lot of that in Nangarhar Province. The Soviets kept it pretty quiet when they were here and even had an R&R camp in Jalalabad. They also let their troops off the base and into the bazaar where they could support the local economy. I go to the bazaar all the time myself – the locals love it when an international stops in to chat them up and buy junk.

Many of the locals still think our troops are cowards because they only see them in armored trucks racing through the town and pointing weapons at anyone and everyone who gets close. I am a firm believer that our troops and the Afghan people would both benefit if our military adopted the same liberty policy as the Soviets. Getting close to the locals is a good thing and the basic tenant of our counterinsurgency doctrine. Judging from all the blond and red headed kids we see in Jalalabad some of the Russians got a little too close to the locals which is a dangerous game to play in Pashtun lands.

It is about a 400 meter walk from the village to the caves – here is a good shot of the caves taken last winter.

And here is a picture of Little Barabad – it is really just a collection of compounds belonging to one extended family. They have goats and sheep, three cows, plus a little corn and wheat but that is about it.

The last time we were there was in July and the caves were full of bats. We were hoping to get better pictures with our buddies high speed camera of the bats swarming out like the one below

But the bats were “nishta” or all gone. Guess they only stay here during the heat of summer. We will have to wait until next year to get a good shot of the bats. Inshallah we will still be able to move freely then…Inshallah