The Landing and the Lock-Down

The Landing and the Lock-down

Someone once said: “if you want to make God laugh, tell her your plans.” Hours before my departure from Paris to Dubai and finally on to Kabul this has become my motto for my arrival to my new post in Afghanistan.

[Lock Down] the term used to describe the state that an organization in a volatile environment enters into whenever it wants to restrict the movement of its (particularly expatriate) staff. This may be due to intelligence of a possible attack, or in most cases a purely precautionary matter as in the case of national holidays due to much higher levels of movement of people and vehicles on the roads, and also football matches with its high levels of celebratory fire. Yes, you guessed it, after more than nine weeks of separation, with Chris and I eagerly counting the days until Saturday, that is exactly what awaits us: a complete lock down on the day of my arrival.

What would normally have been a workday was even arranged not to be so due to some national Afghan holiday. Unfortunately though, we just learned that exactly this little bit of “luck” may not be so after all thanks to above-mentioned lock downs enforced by all NGOs (me) as well as the UN (Chris). Practically-speaking this means that I could very well arrive tomorrow and not be able to see Chris due to a vehicle (read: no movement) ban, only to spend the night in the same city, trapped inside our separate compounds. On top of this, my boss informed me of my first visit to the field this Sunday. Departure: 0500. Furthermore, Chris has an all-day conference Sunday and Monday – so instead of spending the day lounging around and the night in a hotel together tomorrow night, we’re now aiming for dinner sometime on Tuesday. You have to admit, it’s pretty funny.