Fire and Kabul University

So things have been INSANE for the last 24-hours

Yesterday, we received a credible report that a suicide bomb attack was planned on a high-profile ex-pat in Kabul, so we were all restricted to movement to and from the office. At about 4:30 our phones and internet stopped working, so initially some of us panicked and thought that this planned attack had something to do with it.

We were later informed that there was a fire at one of our sites and everything would be down for sometime. Apparently, the air condition unit at the site was fixed earlier that day, and it was that unit that started the fire. When our IT guys got to the site, they found that the electrical fire had been put out with water making the damage even worse. The phones were completely down and we had no way to contact each other, let alone our PR agency to get a radio spot on air to tell people that things were down and that service would be available as soon as possible.

Luckily, our phones were up and running in about an hour, but we still have no access to e-mail, any of our work documents, or land phones; and the IT department is still assessing the damage. A lot of my friends who work in IT have been working around the clock to get everything up and running, but most of it is just waiting for the equipment to dry out and hopefully work. A couple of my friends were supposed to go to India this week for the visit, but now will not be able to go. Our customer service centre and all our regional offices are still down and customers aren’t too happy from what it seems. There is literally no work to do at the office, since none of us can access e-mail or any of our files. So things have been pretty boring for the most-part. Trying to find things to do….a lot of our local staff have already left for the day.

This morning I finally got a chance to visit Kabul University. I went with two others from the office, as well as with one of the heads of our security company. There had been an attack a few weeks ago at the university so they wanted to make sure we were safe on the premises. Kabul University has been around since the 1930s and was even open during the time of the Taliban; however, females obviously did not attend classes during those years. At York, in Toronto, the majority of students are female and here it was quite the opposite, not that I expected otherwise, but you really notice it from the moment you step on to the campus.

Roshan is working with the university on a park beautification project and a couple other proposed partnerships. I had to visit the university to see if there were other ways we could collaborate to work with them. We had a tough time actually getting into the university through the gates; the security gave us a pretty tough time. The campus is not very well kept, but is still absolutely beautiful. It’s very green, lots of trees and plants. it sort of reminded me of the UBC campus in that way. The buildings are quite well-built, but we weren’t allowed to actually go into the various faculty buildings. We did manage to sneak into a women’s computer lab to take a look around. The women’s lab is funded by the World Bank who pays for both the equipment and staff. Each of the seven staff members is paid $100 a month, which is virtually nothing. A nice apartment (and they really aren’t so nice. They are in my first set of pictures if you want to see) costs about $700 a month. The women who run this computer centre virtually make no money. The locals in the office make about $500 a month. The World Bank sends its IT people to periodically check, but some of the computers are already out of date and the internet connection is quite poor. The men’s computer lab has superior high-speed connection. Go figure!

At the University once again I stuck out like a sore thumb, as did my colleagues, and no one is scared to keep looking at you. We had a ton of kids following us around, asking for money and then the students (17-22 years old) just kept staring and pointing at us. It really makes me uncomfortable always being pointed out as an outsider. It’s the one thing that I really hate about going out and doing anything here. People can easily tell that we are high-profile ex-pats, especially when you have a security guard putting you in the car, and following your every move. I wish we could just blend in, but it is virtually impossible. A lot of other ex-pats who work with other smaller NGos have a much easier time just being. But, for us, it is virtually impossible.

TGIT….I’m so excited for the weekend. Hopefully everything will be up and running again by Sunday morning.