The Parallel Life

     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…