I was back in Afghanistan for a second time, this time volunteering with a charity called Children in Crisis set up in 1993 and whose patron at the time was Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York.
I had volunteered for slightly selfish reasons; as a way of returning to Afghanistan after my previous visit working with the Halo Trust clearing land mines (a couple of years earlier) – to see the country again and hopefully some of the people I had got to know. As a result I had not done much due diligence on the organisation and what we would be doing!
A group of five of us travelled from London to Kabul via Pakistan – the charity project manager – Matthew, two plastic surgeons, an anaesthetist and myself. The trip was short, about 6 weeks and the plan was for the anaesthetist and plastic surgeons to focus on training medical staff at the main hospital in Kabul on plastic surgery techniques, particularly on re-constructive surgery after injuries sustained during the war and violence! And I would focus on the need for immunisation services.
At this time the Taliban were largely in control of Afghanistan and there were a lot of NGOs present in Kabul. The Taliban were certainly not pleased about the presence of NGOs and foreigners. On one occasion we were walking along a pavement in Kabul, still largely in ruins, when a black Toyota land cruiser approached along the road towards us. There were 3 Taliban sitting in the front and it was ‘decorated’ with 3 rocket propelled grenade launchers tied behind the cruiser cab. As they approached the Toyota accelerated and swerved, mounting the pavement and driving straight at us! We just had time to leap out of the way into a drainage ditch as a car sped past, and back onto the road. Slightly shaken we continued on our way!!
My role was difficult, there were a lot of NGOs and no apparent co-ordination and quite a lot of competition! I met with a couple of organisations and attended 1 ‘co-ordination’ meeting which did not appear to fulfil the remit!! So all in all I did not feel I was able to contribute particularly helpfully. The plastic surgeons and anaesthetist did do some training and they did some surgery on children with congenital abnormalities such as cleft lip and palate. These children often need multi-stage operations and they are only able to do stage 1, leaving ‘instructions’ on how to do the subsequent stages – this raised some ethical concerns for me.
In the meantime Matthew, the charity manager was not doing a great deal, socialising and taking it easy, he has just finished an NGO role in West Africa where it seemed he spent most of the time at the beach drinking beer!!
Two nights before we were due to leave, we were all at our accommodation, a comfortable home with a small garden in which we had enjoyed sitting in the crisp, blue sunshine, Matthew announced there was a problem! He had neglected to organise our ‘exit’ permits to allow us to leave Afghanistan! In retrospect this should not have been a surprise given how lazy and disorganised he seemed. He did not appear distressed by this and casually said it might mean a delay to our departure – this may have been ok for him but the rest of us had to be back at work on Monday morning!! We insisted he pull out the stops and get it sorted!!
Early the next morning, the day before our departure, Matthews and I set off for the Ministry of Right and Wrong where exit permits were issued. The others went to do a final day’s work at the hospital. Walking into the Ministry of Right and Wrong was intimidating. Up two flights of stairs and along a crowded corridor filled with stern and imposing Taliban men with beards and head scarfs, all taller and bigger than me (I am 6 foot 2). We arrived at an office, our interpreter explained our situation and the Mullah behind the desk said there were no exit permits available – they had run out and did not know when more would arrive! Matthew was happy to accept this but I asked if there might be any exit visa any where else, thinking another ministry in Kabul. However the answer came that there may be some in Mazari Sharif in northern Afghanistan, near the border with Tajikistan – great! This was a distance of 427km, and a 7 hour drive one-way nowadays – a lot more with the road conditions back then. No way we could do a return trip in time for our early departure the next day. The road crosses the Hindu Kush mountains via the Salang Tunnel.
So at my prompting, Matthew rang the airport to see if there might be a flight going – sure enough a UN flight was departing shortly! We rushed to the airport by taxi and managed to negotiate a place on board. The flight took us over the stunning Hindu Kush mountains on a beautiful clear blue day – and as the plane flew at a lower altitude we had great views all the way.
As we got off the plane at Mazari Sharif airport we were told that the flight would be heading back in 2 hours! This did not give us long – a taxi took us into town to the house/office of the Taliban commander, who we had been told was the one who might have exit permits. When we entered the commander’s body guard said that he was a lunch and could not be disturbed! Time was ticking, again Matthews accepted this and thought we should go back to the airport!
I decided rather rashly to knock on the Taliban commander’s door and went in, the commander was indeed sitting having his lunch as we had been told and did not look pleased to be disturbed! Matthew was standing behind me as I explained our situation. The Taliban commander agreed to issue exit permits – result! He asked Matthew for everyone’s passports! He got them out and realised he had left one of them, the anaesthetist’s, in Kabul! Another example of his disorganisation. The commander said he would only issue permits for the passports available! Yet again Matthew was ready to accept this!! For some reason I wasn’t and ‘promised’ I would send a copy of the 5th passport to him if he would issue the extra permit – he agreed amazingly!
The paperwork was processed and 4 passports and 5 exit permits given to us. Time was really tight, we got a taxi and rushed back to the airport!! As we drew up we could see our plane on the tarmac, propellers turning ready to depart. We ran through the ‘airport’ (a small building) and handed Matthew and I’s passports through the counter window to be checked – the man wanted to hold onto our passports, I was really beginning to lose it and pleaded with the security guy to give us our passports back! Finally he did and we sprinted across the tarmac and up the steps, onto the plane collapsing into our seats! The plane started to taxi straight away and we were in the air within a couple of minutes – phew, a close call!
As I started to relax thinking our mission was all but accomplished, the pilot announced the flight was being diverted to Jalalabad in the east of Afghanistan, near the border with Pakistan – we could not believe it. The saga continued, Jalalabad was closer to Kabul but still 153 km away! By the this time it was late afternoon and getting dark. There was a night time curfew across most of Afghanistan and driving at night forbidden, we were stuck! So we headed into town to a guest house, and Matthew was ready to have a meal, stay the night and accept we would miss our early morning flight home from Kabul. I was not ready to give up at this final hurdle.
I persuaded a taxi driver to take us to Kabul overnight for a price which I told Matthew to pay! We set off around midnight driving slowly out of town with our lights off and out into the hills through the hills the highway runs through. The combination of reckless high speed driving, big overladen trucks, hairpin bends and narrow road (just wide enough for 2 cars) and steep gorges now make this road considered one of the most dangerous in the world terms of number and severity of road accident. There was no-one on the road with us!!
We drove continuously for about 4 hours, apart from one stop to stretch our legs in the fresh night air in the hills. Just as light was beginning to appear on the horizon, we came into the outskirts of Kabul, as quietly as we could, lights off again, through the streets, and we made our way home. We finally let ourselves into the house about 5.30am waking the others up who were extremely relieved to see us and that we could leave as planned – mission accomplished!!
After a quick breakfast and final packing we headed back out to the airport, negotiated check in and security with our valid exit permits and set off on our journey home – relief all round, including Matthew who was a bit sheepish given how willing he had been to give up at every obsticle and ‘sacrifice’ the anaesthetist. For my part I had ‘enjoyed’ the extreme challenge presented and recognised I loved finding ways round ‘nos’ and the ‘impossible’ – a memorable and action packed 24 hours!!
