Blast Film
Saturday, December 9th 2006 - 3:00 PM
Sitting here looking out of my bedroom window, it occurs to me that it is a bit weird living and working in places that have blast film on the windows. It's there to stop glass flying everywhere if a bomb goes off outside, and you normally can't see it. But in my bedroom there's a bit that hasn't been very well put on and you can see a seam down it and a couple of air bubbles.
It's funny i've been living here for three months and i've never thought about how unusual blast film is before.
There's various other things that are just part of day to day life here, that you don't ever come across in most places. You become familiar with acronyms like "IED" (improvised explosive device - or home made bomb) and the various categories of IEDs. There's "VBIED" (vehicle borne IED - car bomb, usually used in suicide bombing), "RCIED" (remote controlled IED - often detonated by mobile phone), "BBIED" (body borne IED - suicide bomber's strap-on explosives). There was even a bicycle-borne IED used in an attack in Kabul a couple of months back - it killed several people - but there's no acronym for that as far as i know.
You know there's something not quite right when you hear about several people being killed in a suicide bombing in Kandahar and you just think "oh, more dead in Kandahar, what's new?"
A couple of months ago, around the fifth anniversary of the US invasion here, there were suicide bombings every couple of days in Kabul - and that just became routine too, really. In a way it seemed stranger when it stopped.
No doubt it will start again sometime - i'm sure Kabul hasn't seen the last of it. But it's unlikely to happen till spring. I'm still not very happy, though, if a car i'm travelling in gets caught up in traffic and there are military vehicles nearby!
Yesterday i had a look at the British government's travel advice for Afghanistan. Of course, it says don't go if you can avoid it. But among the list of provinces it says not to go to at all is Laghman. That's a bit of a worry, innit - seeing as i've already been there a couple of times and i'm going to have to spend a bit of time there after i come back here in January too. Just as well i've got me shalwar kameez and pakool, ey?!
But the most bizarre thing about all of this is that it doesn't feel weird at all. I wonder how it will all seem when i get back to the "real" world next week...
You can see some of my photos of Afganistan at
WillKemp-Photos.com/afghanistan