There is a distinct air of uncertainty as the election results are still unknown. No further results will be announced until all of the ballots have been counted. It’s anyone’s guess as to when this will happen. Until then, both Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah are declaring victory, and the number of voting discrepancies continues to rise. One news site reported that “all but one of Afghanistan’s 367 districts received ballot materials.” Unfortunately, that one district was Mandol (in Nuristan), where the doucheman attacked the donkey caravan carrying election material and burned all the ballots. So unfortunately, the people of Mandol were disenfranchised because of the doucheman activity.
A great success story in Nuristan is the voting that took place in Barge Matal. Barge Matal has been in the news a lot lately because it has been the scene of some heavy fighting. Coalition forces have suffered some significant casualties in Barge Matal (three individuals from my unit have received purple hearts from their time there), but despite this tremendous hardship the people were able to vote.
Coupled with the election tension is the strain that Ramadan fasting enacts on every local. No food or water from sun-up to sun-down makes for some pretty grumpy Afghans around the hours of 3pm to 6pm. My local national engineer usually has to take a nap around 2pm because of his hunger and thirst (and he looks to be aging by the week). “Tushna wa gushna hastum” he says (I am hungry and thirsty). To which I reply “meyfaamum ke Allah baa tushna wa gushna too raa komak koneid” (I know God will help you with hunger and thirst). He laughs, saying that Iftar cannot come fast enough (Iftar being the nightly breaking of the fast).
We recently took a trip to a trio of villages by the names of Mamoo, Shokut and Zirat in order to assess an on-going PRT road project. During our road assessment, one of the Mamoo locals began accusing our road contractor of destroying a canal that was providing water to his crops. Myself, Will (civilian engineer), and our USAID rep, Katrine, followed this man to the site where he said the damage had occurred. Katrine took the lead on talking to him (through an interpreter). The abbreviated conversation went something like this.
Katrine: Where was your canal?
Man: Right by the road. Your contractor destroyed it.
K: There is no new road work right here.
M: Build me a new canal or I will blow up the bridge.
K: If you blow up the bridge you will not be able to get out of the valley.
M: Build me a new canal or I will become a suicide bomber.
K: Allah wouldn’t like it if you became a suicide bomber.
M: Build me a new canal, your contractor destroyed the last one.
K: There is no evidence of that- the contractor didn’t do work here.
M: I know. I just want a new canal. Build me a new one.
Just a typical day in Afghanistan.
Here are some pictures from that trip....angry man not included.
so are you going to build the canal or no??
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