Enfejar = the farsi word for explosion
VBIED: an acronym standing for Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device
Five days ago, I woke up in the morning, headed into my bathroom and turned on the shower to let the water warm up. It was wash-my-hair day, which with minimal water pressure and kinda thick curly hair, is not the easiest task. As I got out of the shower, went through my rituals of getting dressed I looked at the time, 0845. Hmmm, kinda running late, I thought to my self, but I was in the office till 1830 last night, trying to finalizing our project quarterly report for submission to Head Quarters, I can take a bit of time this morning.
I mowzied (sp?) on down the stairs, and went into the guest house kitchen. "Can I have two eggs, please?" I asked our chef, Ali. "Sure, fried with butter?" he replied. "Yes! Thanks, you know how I like them."
A few minutes later as he brought out two sunny side up eggs, my phone rang. I looked at caller ID, oh, it was the big boss. "Hey are you coming in? there are two media people here with M, they are waiting for you.” Sh*t! I totally forgot about the 0900 meeting my colleague M had set up with this Afghan media NGO. "yeah, i'm on my way now." Gotta jet!
So I grabbed some yummy fried bread, made a fried egg sandwich, and ran in to one of the parked B6 vehicles, as in a armored Toyota Land Cruiser, and told the driver step on it. Just then, the head of our security, Mr. R, told my driver to get out. Some guy I’d never seen before got in the driver’s seat. Mr. R was testing him for a new position as driver, which was not what I needed, because even though the office is only 3 minute drive from the house, the guy was so nervous, he was going slow, and I was already ten minutes late for my meeting.
When I got there I ran upstairs to my office on the third floor threw my bags on the ground, spoke for a minute with the big boss, and ran back down to the meeting room. Our office is really an old house from the 70s, so the meeting room is really the dining room. I walked into the room, and there was M sitting with an Afghan guy and a beautiful Afghan woman, who was speaking English with a French accent. The meeting went on, we were discussing a potential partnership with them, to work with rural youth in the eastern provinces of Afghanistan, training them in radio journalism and citizenship. It was a good meeting and we were making progress developing out strategy, and then all of a sudden BOOOOOM! Or maybe it was more like KaaaBOOOOM!
For a split second there was literally darkness, and we all came to terms with the massive jolt and shock waves that penetrated our entire surroundings. My instinct was to dive under the table, where I was for a couple seconds, and then I crawled up to the other side and ran into our hall way.
Immediately, after that I opened my mobile phone and called AS. I knew I only had a few minutes to call him, or even seconds, before everyone else in Kabul did the same things and the lines went down. I got through, and told him "There was just a big explosion, really close the office, but I’m okay." He started asking me questions, "what happened? where was it? what exactly was it?" "I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING, just I wanted to tell you I’m okay before the lines go down." and we hung up cuz he had to check on his staff who were working out in town.
Within that 10 second conversation, all the other colleagues had come down to the hall way, guards were running in with AK47s. There was tons of commotion, screaming and yelling going on outside and inside too. I peered into the meeting room where I had just been sitting and saw that the 7 x 5 foot glass pain had shattered and come straight toward M and I like an arrow pointing into the back of our heads. We would have been killed, I thought. If not for the blast film, or mylar, we’d be badly injured if not dead. Mylar is basically a big sticker of some kind of material that prevents the glass, when it shatters, from flying all over the place, which is what kills / injures people.
Then the oldest Afghan in our office, got in front of me and closed the door. "Stay away from there, you know there could be a double explosion." That’s when I realized my heart was still beating pretty fast. "Take a breath," I told myself. So I did, but then I started coughing cuz there was so much dust. After it settled and (this is a total of 2 minutes maximum after the explosion) we took a head count, I felt okay.
I turned to our guests with M, and we finished our conversation about our media training. Talked about the budget. Talked about what we were going to do, talked about visiting their office. It was like we needed it to be normal in that moment of madness. The next few hours consisted of everyone asking each other if they were all okay, calling loved ones, checking out all the broken glass windows. We were a quarter mile from the explosion so there was tons of commotion outside. We were told not to go on the balcony, and it was only the next day I realized how close we were. You can see the building from our 3rd floor balcony.
Since we had no windows in our office, you could just hear clink-clink-clink from all around as people began to pick up the pieces of their shops and homes, and essentially their lives. The amazing thing was that about 3 hours later, there were all these sellers of glass on the street. I don’t know if they had all been called in or they were they just there on the hustle, but I do believe it was the latter. Not only did you have glass sellers, but carpenters and cleaners! It was kinda amazing.
And that is pretty much how it went. Our “facility crew” very diligently and quickly started cleaning up. Shattered pieces of the glass windows were everywhere, DUST EVERYWHERE. You have to imagine, when you beat a carpet, or say hit a car seat (non-leather) or a coach and all this dust comes flying up, that’s what it’s like when these explosions happen, like a big slap across the earth. The shock waves rock everything, so there was dust and debris everywhere. We even found some shrapnel in our front yard. That’s the ish that really kills you good.
We had lunch as usual and after lunch our big boss called us all into the meeting room, where M and I had been sitting earlier and gave a little talk about the day’s events. "By the grace of God, we were all okay." he said. He told us that a district office of another project under our company was attacked in Gardez District too.
As we had no windows in our office, it was starting to get a bit chilly towards the afternoon. Most of the staff went home. I finalized my quarterly report and went home at four, I hit the gym hard in the afternoon and then took a long shower in the evening. I used my Iranian kiseh (a fiber mitt, like a loofah) and sephid aab (a special soap) and scrubbed the hell out of my skin to rinse all the dust and the day away, and I slept well, although not without some deep reflection on my good fortune,الحمد لله, and the people who had died and those who lost loved ones, and weren't going to sleep well that night.
VBIED: an acronym standing for Vehicle Borne Improvised Explosive Device
Five days ago, I woke up in the morning, headed into my bathroom and turned on the shower to let the water warm up. It was wash-my-hair day, which with minimal water pressure and kinda thick curly hair, is not the easiest task. As I got out of the shower, went through my rituals of getting dressed I looked at the time, 0845. Hmmm, kinda running late, I thought to my self, but I was in the office till 1830 last night, trying to finalizing our project quarterly report for submission to Head Quarters, I can take a bit of time this morning.
I mowzied (sp?) on down the stairs, and went into the guest house kitchen. "Can I have two eggs, please?" I asked our chef, Ali. "Sure, fried with butter?" he replied. "Yes! Thanks, you know how I like them."
A few minutes later as he brought out two sunny side up eggs, my phone rang. I looked at caller ID, oh, it was the big boss. "Hey are you coming in? there are two media people here with M, they are waiting for you.” Sh*t! I totally forgot about the 0900 meeting my colleague M had set up with this Afghan media NGO. "yeah, i'm on my way now." Gotta jet!
So I grabbed some yummy fried bread, made a fried egg sandwich, and ran in to one of the parked B6 vehicles, as in a armored Toyota Land Cruiser, and told the driver step on it. Just then, the head of our security, Mr. R, told my driver to get out. Some guy I’d never seen before got in the driver’s seat. Mr. R was testing him for a new position as driver, which was not what I needed, because even though the office is only 3 minute drive from the house, the guy was so nervous, he was going slow, and I was already ten minutes late for my meeting.
When I got there I ran upstairs to my office on the third floor threw my bags on the ground, spoke for a minute with the big boss, and ran back down to the meeting room. Our office is really an old house from the 70s, so the meeting room is really the dining room. I walked into the room, and there was M sitting with an Afghan guy and a beautiful Afghan woman, who was speaking English with a French accent. The meeting went on, we were discussing a potential partnership with them, to work with rural youth in the eastern provinces of Afghanistan, training them in radio journalism and citizenship. It was a good meeting and we were making progress developing out strategy, and then all of a sudden BOOOOOM! Or maybe it was more like KaaaBOOOOM!
For a split second there was literally darkness, and we all came to terms with the massive jolt and shock waves that penetrated our entire surroundings. My instinct was to dive under the table, where I was for a couple seconds, and then I crawled up to the other side and ran into our hall way.
Immediately, after that I opened my mobile phone and called AS. I knew I only had a few minutes to call him, or even seconds, before everyone else in Kabul did the same things and the lines went down. I got through, and told him "There was just a big explosion, really close the office, but I’m okay." He started asking me questions, "what happened? where was it? what exactly was it?" "I DON’T KNOW ANYTHING, just I wanted to tell you I’m okay before the lines go down." and we hung up cuz he had to check on his staff who were working out in town.
Within that 10 second conversation, all the other colleagues had come down to the hall way, guards were running in with AK47s. There was tons of commotion, screaming and yelling going on outside and inside too. I peered into the meeting room where I had just been sitting and saw that the 7 x 5 foot glass pain had shattered and come straight toward M and I like an arrow pointing into the back of our heads. We would have been killed, I thought. If not for the blast film, or mylar, we’d be badly injured if not dead. Mylar is basically a big sticker of some kind of material that prevents the glass, when it shatters, from flying all over the place, which is what kills / injures people.
Then the oldest Afghan in our office, got in front of me and closed the door. "Stay away from there, you know there could be a double explosion." That’s when I realized my heart was still beating pretty fast. "Take a breath," I told myself. So I did, but then I started coughing cuz there was so much dust. After it settled and (this is a total of 2 minutes maximum after the explosion) we took a head count, I felt okay.
I turned to our guests with M, and we finished our conversation about our media training. Talked about the budget. Talked about what we were going to do, talked about visiting their office. It was like we needed it to be normal in that moment of madness. The next few hours consisted of everyone asking each other if they were all okay, calling loved ones, checking out all the broken glass windows. We were a quarter mile from the explosion so there was tons of commotion outside. We were told not to go on the balcony, and it was only the next day I realized how close we were. You can see the building from our 3rd floor balcony.
Since we had no windows in our office, you could just hear clink-clink-clink from all around as people began to pick up the pieces of their shops and homes, and essentially their lives. The amazing thing was that about 3 hours later, there were all these sellers of glass on the street. I don’t know if they had all been called in or they were they just there on the hustle, but I do believe it was the latter. Not only did you have glass sellers, but carpenters and cleaners! It was kinda amazing.
And that is pretty much how it went. Our “facility crew” very diligently and quickly started cleaning up. Shattered pieces of the glass windows were everywhere, DUST EVERYWHERE. You have to imagine, when you beat a carpet, or say hit a car seat (non-leather) or a coach and all this dust comes flying up, that’s what it’s like when these explosions happen, like a big slap across the earth. The shock waves rock everything, so there was dust and debris everywhere. We even found some shrapnel in our front yard. That’s the ish that really kills you good.
We had lunch as usual and after lunch our big boss called us all into the meeting room, where M and I had been sitting earlier and gave a little talk about the day’s events. "By the grace of God, we were all okay." he said. He told us that a district office of another project under our company was attacked in Gardez District too.
As we had no windows in our office, it was starting to get a bit chilly towards the afternoon. Most of the staff went home. I finalized my quarterly report and went home at four, I hit the gym hard in the afternoon and then took a long shower in the evening. I used my Iranian kiseh (a fiber mitt, like a loofah) and sephid aab (a special soap) and scrubbed the hell out of my skin to rinse all the dust and the day away, and I slept well, although not without some deep reflection on my good fortune,الحمد لله, and the people who had died and those who lost loved ones, and weren't going to sleep well that night.
Some flicks...
I was sitting with my back to this window. at this point in the day, they had kicked it flat to clean it up and moved the chairs/table outta the way, but it was in a pyramid shape right after the explosion, pointed right at our heads
he hung around for a bit like this till they moved him to the roof
explosion or not, had to finish the quarterly report!
picture of the site from Reuters, i believe
view of the site the next day, taken from our office balconyHere is a video from local TV, it's in Dari with no subtitles, but with these images, you get the picture:
Basically, it was this experience that has pushed me to get it together and start writing again and taking pictures again. If you live in place long enough, even like Afghanistan, you begin to forget how unique it is, how your life is an adventure, and how it wont always be like this, so it's important to capture to be able to remember it vividly later...
Basically, it was this experience that has pushed me to get it together and start writing again and taking pictures again. If you live in place long enough, even like Afghanistan, you begin to forget how unique it is, how your life is an adventure, and how it wont always be like this, so it's important to capture to be able to remember it vividly later...
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