I’ve often
wondered what life was like for the Boy in the Bubble. Now I’ve had a taste. Life for a large percentage of the foreigners
in Afghanistan means living in a world parallel to the Afghans, without our
paths ever meeting. Despite going through a laborious visa
acquisition process before arriving, I’ve never actually been in a place where
someone would have looked at it. I
arrived on military transport, have lived on a base run by foreigners, and
traveled all over the country on military flights to other foreign-operated fortresses. When I’ve gone “into” the cities, I do so in
armored vehicles in which we’re instructed to never open the doors—even if you
get in an accident or hit someone. Only
once you get to the safety of yet another compound run by foreigners are you permitted
to open the doors. No customs checks,
and no meeting of Afghan officials; therefore no actual need for a passport or
visa (though people have them anyway, for legal CYA). Over the past 4 months, I’ve been to Kabul,
Kandahar, and Herat…but would be hard pressed to say I’ve “been” to any of
those places. Having traveled
extensively throughout the developing world, I’m aware that many countries have
social stratas that exist in separation from the rest of society (fancy hotels,
houses, party scenes, and restaurants that 90% of the country won’t ever
experience), but this is different. At least in those places, you could walk
down the street and interact with people if you want—here we’re forbidden to do
so, and many people go 6 months, 1 year, or multiple years without leaving the
string of fortresses. Although there are
exceptions (diplomats, soldiers in the field, development practitioners), with
a foreign presence like we have in Afghanistan, there are tens of thousands of
people supporting those foot soldiers from the relative safety of our fortified alternate universes. Its like living in Afghanistan, without ever actually being in Afghanistan.
Anyone who knows
me understands how badly I crave to walk down the street, grab a kebab from the
corner stand, and smoke a nargileh while watching the world go by (something
I’ve done plenty in locales, from Egypt to Myanmar). If I did that here, not only would I be fired
for violating company policy, but when I mentioned the thought to several
colleagues, they started taking bets on how quickly I’d be kidnapped. I’m not naïve to the fact that everything is
done “for my safety,” yet it raises questions about how much most of the
foreigners ever actually understand about the country that they spend months,
or even years, living in. The spread of
foreigners is diverse—on the military side, there are troops from virtually all
NATO countries, several Middle Eastern nations, and a smattering of South
Koreans. The service side is dominated
by Eastern Europeans, Kyrgyz, Philippinos, and South Asians. That in itself adds even more texture to life
behind the wire. Thankfully we have a watchtower on our compound where we take
a daily opportunity to stare past the walls at snow-capped mountains, lush
fields, and jets roaring off—or at least holographic facsimiles of them, for
all I know…
