Big Girl's Blouse.

On Wednesday we went to film a Kabul public hospital in action and interview some doctors, nurses, midwives and patients. There was also a meeting of health-care workers from the provinces that Dr K. thought might also be interesting to record. The meeting started at 7.30. Damn those medical folk like early starts! By mid morning we're following Dr Rick (an American) around the hospital, I'm more or less filming constantly as Karen interviews him about the things we encounter - the facilities, the equipment, patients he's checking up on - when without warning I find myself being instructed to take off my Nikes and put on a pair of black plastic sandals, followed by some pale green and largely formless trousers with matching shirt (known as "scrubs" I believe) and a bandanna to complete the look. A glance up at a sign confirms my suspicion - Operating Theatre. We move on into a small hallway/anti chamber that has two of it's walls lined with sinks and taps where Dr Rick, Dr K. and perhaps half a dozen other doctors/nurses commence scrubbing their hands and forearms. I shuffle through after them into the Operating Theatre proper which is full of large and complicated machines (though sadly no machine that goes "Bing!") and a young boy of maybe 7 years of age, laying on the operating table already unconscious. (Actually there was the machine that goes "Bing!", it just did so rather more quietly than they do in the movies.) I'm briefly instructed as to where I can and can't go in the room, Dr Rick is handed a scalpel and proceeds to make a 15cm incision right across the small boys' stomach to remove a huge cyst that had been precipitated by eating contaminated food.

Now when it comes to blood - mine or anyone elses - I'm generally a Big Girl's Blouse and squeamish to the point where I could throw-a-wobbly at the sight of the smallest drop. But there in the Operating Theatre, with litres of the stuff sloshing around everywhere and a surgeon up to his wrists in the gaping gash across this little tykes belly, I was absolutely fine. The thing that made the difference was simple and two-fold. Firstly I had a job of work to do, which gives me a different focus on events around me, and secondly the camera itself acted as a kind of filter between me and the "real" world. You lot may not give a shit, but I was certainly quite proud of myself.

Dr Rick had done the slicing and pulled the cyst - a pussy mass the size of a tennis ball that came out in a few smaller chunks - while Dr K. stood by in readiness. But when it came to sewing the little chap up, Dr K. was right in there with needle and thread, doing an awesome job. She may still have a bit to learn about film making, but I think she's a fine surgeon.




Much more to write about the Cure Hospital - we went back the next day to find the little boy recovering well - but it's late, I'm shattered, fly back to London tomorrow via Dubai (which is totally out of the way!) so will publish this post and sign off to bed now. See if I can't slip in another before I push off tomorrow.

Health Where?

As mentioned, the reason for my visit here was to help shoot a documentary on health care issues in Afghanistan. The "crew" for this project turned out to be somewhat more streamlined than I'd imagined, the full list of personnel being Dr K. (production and interviewer), myself (camera operator/director) and, erm.... Well that's it, actually. We were to be joined by Richard Dunwoody (Champion jockey, TV pundit and former contestant on Strictly Come Dancing) to add celebrity bling and raise the profile of the project - but The Forces Of Nature in the form of Icelandic volcanic ash kept him on the ground in the UK. So sadly a non-runner.

The first couple of days of shooting was documenting dropping off medical supplies which Karen had quite miraculously organized the donation and transport of from the UK. She'd somehow convinced the British Army to fly the stuff out here, and to help us deliver it to the three hospitals she felt could make best use of it. This meant that we were "embedded" with a unit, and drove around in the back of an armoured vehicle, sat next to a couple of "our boys". Whenever regular army are off-base in a war zone they of course have to follow very strict protocols, including wearing full kit and helmet - apparently without a helmet if they were injured they wouldn't be insured. The amount of kit these guys were loaded with was incredible - massive body armour, communication devices, big fuck-off machine gun, a pistol, the helmet, gloves... Even walking with all that shit looked like a Herculean feat, sweat trickling down their faces just sitting there. Nice blokes though, friendly and chatty - the one in charge even had a University degree, which sped up his promotion. We also had to wear body armour - but just the lighter type without metal plates in it. I was told a bullet would pass straight through it, through me, and out the other side. It would keep all my perforated internal organs together, though, and might stop some smaller bits of shrapnel from an explosion, though of course would do nothing to protect my head, arms and legs or the family jewels. Despite the fact it was virtually useless, it was still hot and heavy as fuck. But them's the rules, and the army is all about rules.

We did the drops with two vehicles and a total of eight soldiers, and strangely, surrounded by at least 100 grands worth of armoured vehicle, guns, equipment and personnel trained to kill people, I felt far more nervous than walking down the street alone. But of course travelling with the British Army made me a genuine and legitimate target.

The amount of medical supplies was only one supermarket-sized cardboard box full to each hospital, but essential stuff that meant a very real and important benefit to the patients of these desperately underfunded public hospitals. The gratitude shown by the hospital directors was genuine, heartfelt and very touching. A drop in the ocean, perhaps, but a valuable drop non-the-less.

Armed Vultures in the International In/Security Business.

First impressions of Kabul can only be described as contradictory. For starters, Afghan people are probably the kindest, friendliest and most gracious folk I've had the pleasure to encounter across the five continents and 30 plus countries I've had the privilege to visit in my short but hectic little life. But the contradictions already start right there - because when I say the Afghan people, I mean Afghan men, as the only Afghan woman I've had contact with here was a fashion designer I met at a high class dinner party the other night and who lives in San Francisco. And then there's the infrastructure. Now it certainly ain't Zurich, and many roads and pavements aren't in the best condition, but it's also not ravaged and falling apart in the way that Luanda in Angola was when I visited there last year. The evidence of war here is not in the form of buildings blown to shit and bullet holes everywhere, the stink of open sewage and scores of legless war victims in make-shift wheelchairs - rather a shocking proliferation of guns. It seems like half the population is armed to the teeth, either as one of the half a dozen official government agencies - police, military police, traffic police, local police, national police, army etc. etc... - or as private security. There are literally thousands of these guys. About every 20 meters down every street is a little chap wearing an ill fitting paramilitary uniform and brandishing a beat up and rusting AK47. It's like the whole city is in a constant state of readiness for some shit to go off, but actually it very rarely does. It's down in Helmond province that bullets are actually flying and bombs are blowing shit up. And then there's the ex-pats - Brits, South Africans, Australians, Americans - 90% of who are working as "logistic consultants" for private security firms. They are all former military who at some point realised there's much more money to be made in the private sector. War is big business, and there's rich pickings for these cowboys if they've got big enough balls and small enough scruples. Their clients are mostly the armed forces here who often lack personnel and infrastructure, for anything from transporting goods and equipment to providing personal security for big wigs. And there's some serious money involved. I was talking to one guy who before setting up his own company was employed to offer "discrete" security for important Americans - so would follow the client at a distance of 30 or so meters with concealed weapons and in plain clothes. The cost of this service? $36,000 a month of American tax payers money. And then of course there's the still darker job of "neutralizing strategic targets" without running the risk of accountability should the operation be less covert than intended. These mercenaries will go where ever the action is. One guy told me Afghanistan was great now as it was like Iraq in 2005.

These armed and dangerous vultures really are a law unto themselves and some scary mutha fuckers.

Meanwhile... I am actually out here to help shoot a documentary on healthcare issues in Afghanistan. And there are some serious frickin healthcare issues here. More on that tomorrow.

PEACE.

Deja Who? Where?

What the...? Earlier this year a friend of mine asked if I would like to help shoot a "limited budget" documentary in a country that's been well and truly fucked by 30 years of war and a history of disastrous foreign intervention. Sounds familiar? Only this time the place was not Angola, and the friend was not the excellent Jeremy Xido. Oh no, the cosmic forces of the universe have decided to up the ante and conspire to send me not into a country like Angola that has been ravaged by a war that is thankfully over, but a country that is still being very much ravaged by war. This time it was the equally excellent Dr K. asked me to join her in making a film in Afghanistan, and this time about health care issues.


The day after my arrival was Friday which is kinda a public holiday here (Chistians do Sunday, Muslims Friday) so we met up with some Christian organization for a mountain hike. Out in the country, rocks and snow, stunning rugged terrain, with not a crisp packet or empty coke can to be seen (though the area has not yet been de-mined....) The incline was 50 to 60 degrees and the surface was loose rocks and stones peppered in the wettest snow I've encountered (think about a couple of million cups of white Slush Puppy liberally scattered down the mountain side. The climb was about 1000 meters, and it was fun for about the first 50, after which my entirely inaropriate footware - a pair of Nike Airs - were soaked thru and I was panting like some sick asthmatic dying animal because of the altitude. Meanwhile the eldest guy in the party - well into his 50's sprung up the incline like a mountain goat on crystal meth. The experience gave me the increasing impression I was on a military operation. But then one of the guys in the party who was former military pointed out that in the army I wouldn't be carrying a backpack weighing 5 kilos, but more like 35 kilos, plus a big fuck-off gun, and possibly under fire. Oddly this information offered me scant comfort.                                                                                                        


The payoff was supposed to be the "fun' of sliding back down the mountain on plastic bags. This was very far from fun,as the slush puppy soaked me thru, leaving me cold, misserrable and with the distinct impression I was the subject of some perverted psycological experiment into cold endurance. I ended up jogging most of the way down as that seemed the least painful way get back to the sanctuary of the Landrover. When I finally reached the hallowed vehicle, I stripped off my sodden 501's, wrapped my frozen legs in jacket and promptly fell asleep. Oh bliss!


Early start tomorrow, so more news and views later. It does get better!


Nighty night.

LOVEjim