Bamiyan – Hiding?

Early in the morning Hadi told me that suddenly his wife from Kabul had called and that he had to go back to Kabul to do ‘something’ at his house. He used that gesture that he meant his wife did really need him for the nights, as he had not been home for 25 days. I asked for how long he would be there in Kabul, he said for a week or 10 days.

Yesterday there was someone from an NGO in Bamiyan offering me to go to the villages of the province after a week. I asked Hadi whether it was OK to stay in his office during the waiting time, he was trying to convince me that the activities of the NGO had nothing to do with my work (how he knew?), but then he said that it was no problem at all. But suddenly early this morning he said that he had to go to Kabul for 10 days, leaving completely his office and locked the news room, which is for me was just an excuse to ask me to leave.

Luckily I successfully arranged a stay in Khyber Restaurant. The deal was that I could stay for free on their mattress as long as I take my meal from the restaurant. A lunch per day is enough to guarantee the rest (in Farsi it is called as ‘esterahat’, close to Indonesian word of ‘istirahat’).

Hadi said he was leaving about 10 in the morning. I believed that I wouldn’t have chance to see him again.

I met Akbar Danesh, the regional manager of an NGO Spring of Construction Rehabilitation Cultural & Social Organization (a very long name indeed, that I hardly understood the mission from the name). The organization had partnership with JICA from Japan and the MoWA (Ministry of Woman Affairs). The NGO was dealing with women welfare, even I didnt really know what their projects were, as Akbar was very busy making a proposal for his project of two weeks around the province. The survey work will include some surveyors, each to be paid 15 dollars per day, and the budget of transport for the whole project is 650 dollars. The bosses in Kabul didnt want to approve it, they wanted to push the cost down to 10 dollars salary per person per day and 350 dollars for the transport. Akbar had to work hard to re-consider his project (later on I know he tried to remark the cost, the actual cost for transport was indeed 350 dollars but he tried to make it double for personal income).

Akbar is a young man of 24, has spent some years in Iran as a refugee and just recently came back to Bamiyan in 2003. He had tried for a scholarship in Bishkek, Kyrygzstan, but suddenly his application miraculously transfered to Jalal Abad, so he decided to come back to Kabul. In the capital he had the experience working to a Middle Eastern Canadian, a very rich man who possessed a Malaysian company Syed Badshah Sdn Bhd. At first he earnt 500 dollars per month as the first secretary of the man, but suddenly his boss, who was trying to invest 2.5 billion dollars to Afghanistan, agreed to increase his salary to 2000 dollars. He worked until 6 months until an incident happened. American troops suspected that the organization was a terrorist organization. The boss and all of the staff was arrested, put in jail and then transfered to Bagram. Akbar said, “I was afraid that they would transfer us to Guantanamo!” But after some days they were released. The boss was angry as well as feared. “It was a great mistake to invest in a country like Afghanistan, I woulnd never ever come back here!” He gave up his investment idea, lost tens thousands of dollars, and left the country, for good.

Akbar was left there with the 11,000 dollars he earnt during his working period.

Akbar was busy negotiating his proposal and needed the internet badly. The only Internet Cafe in town was closed that day due to the problem of the generator. Bamiyan is a town powered merely by generators. So we ended up again in Radio Bamiyan to seek possibility of using the Internet despite the fact that Hadi was in way to Kabul.

When I arrived there, Irfan, a broadcaster of the radio, tried to push me to the yard to prevent me to get in to the Pajhwok office. He kept greeting me, which I thought was so strange. I supposed that Pajhwok office to be locked during Hadi’s absence, as that what he told me about.

In the radio room, I heard they were broadcasting news, and I was sure it was Hadi’s voice who read the news. In my imagination, Hadi should be on his way to Kabul, how can he still read the news? Irfan explained to me that it was recording from yesterday. “If it was from yesterday, it wouldnt be called as news, it sould be history,” I complained.

I end up sleeping in communal room in the teahouse. For free!

Zaffar, another boy working in the radio room, also complained that it was so difficult the life as Hadi left. The Pajhwok office, which is under the same roof as the Pajhwok office, was not locked as what Hadi said. But the computer was protected by passwords.

When Akbar came, he successfully made his way to the Pajhwok office, but suddenly disappeared in the small room behind the office. I heard people were talking from this small room. Suddenly, to my surprise, Hadi jumped out from that room, saying that he didnt go to Kabul due to activities of the Wali of Bamiyan (governor of Bamiyan, a woman elected by Karzai to lead the province) the day after. The computer and Internet was working properly, and there was no so-called ‘password’. It was not as Zaffar said that the life was difficult as he could not use the Internet because the computer was protected by passwords. And it was obvious also that Irfan was trying to hide the fact that Hadi was in the office, by preventing me of going inside before there was enough preparation for Hadi to hide in the room.

This office is full of intrigues and dramas.

If they dont want to accomodate me, they just can say it directly. There is no need to play so much games like this. Akbar said that he never trusted this people, and he was there only for his business. Once he tried to give proposals to improve the programs of the radio, and he was ready to work for them free of charge. Instead of thanking him, the guys from the radio said that he should pay the fee instead if he wanted his plans to be implemented. The radio program is not quite well organzied, playing any songs they liked from the playlist in their Windows Media Player.

Too many tactics, these people of Bamiyan are as not as simple as I thought.