HEAT in Dubai

In order to demonstrate “Duty of Care” to the insurance company for my deployment, my employer has to provide Hostile Environment Awareness Training (HEAT).  These courses can be quite involved.  Many security companies provide HEAT training, including a firm in Calgary.  My deployment was so sudden that only cursory training was given, enough to demonstrate “Duty of Care”.  I was only to receive classroom training.

And so began my HEAT training at 10AM, on my birthday.  I was sitting on the 20th floor of a skyscraper in Dubai which can only be described as the “Las Vegas of the Middle East”, with a view of such awe-inspiring global landmarks as the Burj Dubai and the Palm Jumeirah. I was one-on-one with a former UK Protective Services soldier, Northern Ireland veteran and 20-year London beat cop who among other things protected BBC journalists in Iraq and Afghanistan.    I was given PowerPoint presentations with seemingly absurd titles (given the plush surroundings) as:

• Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and Vehicle Borne IEDs
• Hostage Survival, Kidnapping & Retrieval
• Ballistic/Weapon awareness

And in calm, measured and what can only be described as corporate tones, we together explored topics such as how long an inexperienced AK-47 ‘operator’ could unload a full clip (2 seconds) and then reload (up to 1 minute).  Point being, there is plenty of time to ‘evade’.

So what does an international development consultant take from such a briefing ?  For me, Afghanistan is not the undifferentiated mass of killing fields, the impression of which can be promoted by the media.  It is much more nuanced than that.  There are thousands of  ’expats’ working and living in Afghanistan.  Personally, I was able to tick off in my mind one by one threats that seemed likely but now are remote.  For example, it is highly unlikely that I will be the target of a kidnapping in Kabul given the number of checkpoints that severely limit mobility and the rapid response of local security organizations, including the private one hired by my employer.  Bottom line, the risks are manageable if measures are taken which are appropriate to the situation.  Yes, I would have a zero chance of being harmed sitting in my home in an Ottawa suburb.  Neither however am I guaranteed harm, working in Kabul.  In fact, I would be very unlucky.  But so would I be, if I got into a car crash in Ottawa.

First Day in the Land of Oz

“Toto, I’ve got a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

I consider myself to have a very high ability to cope.  Even for me,  it is quite a shock to move between the Las Vegas-like culture of Dubai and the harsh realities of Afghanistan.   My first contact with Afghani culture was at the airport.   Even with my self-professed cultural sensitivity, it was hard not to be intimidated by the unsmiling, hardened, mustachioed, craggy-faced security guards at the airport, all carrying various weapons which I can now identify (thanks to my HEAT training) as light submachine guns and the ubiquitous AK47.  That combined with the general shabiness of the airport and my diminished capacity to cope because of fatigue  just left me with the impression of low-level menace.  My respect for diversity betrays me again as I am put off  by the group of 30 bearded men all dressed in the traditional  shalwar kameez.  However, they are in fact quite innocuous even as I cut in line at the x-ray machine (that’s me adopting to the culture!) and find myself completely surrounded by them.  I even manage a weak smile at one or two of them which is similarly, weakly returned.

I finally leave the chaos of the airport and am met by the Head of Security for our project.  This is when I realize I am truly not in Kansas anymore.  My greeting at the airport officially designates the time at which his firm takes full responsibility for my safety.   I am told to put on body armour.  I am escorted by a security detail in a convoy of vehicles.  I am sent to HQ for yet another country briefing where the “Watchkeeper” (the central security coordinator and source for daily security intelligence) recites for me a litany of security ‘events’ occurring throughout the country.  Not sure what the purpose of that country briefing was, but given my fragile condition, it scared the daylights out of me.  Mercifully, he describes Kabul as currently ‘very quiet’.  Rumors do circulate such as the one about the expat being kidnapped while shopping un-escorted (I heard this in Dubai too), but this one is proved false.

Briefing concluded, I am helped back into my body armour and my convoy departs for my accommodations.  This is a heavily fortified UN Security certified villa, “man-guarded” by heavily armed men with AK47s and a blast-confining area from which all cars entering the compound are vetted.  The villa is an interesting place.  The high walls obscure the sights and sounds of the city outside that makes it seem so dangerous.  In the inner garden courtyard of the Villa it is so quiet that you can hear birds singing.

At this point, I meet my direct report.  After briefly squabbling about my short-term payments (for which I am later gently admonished by the Security Manager for doing it in front of the Villa staff), I jump at the chance to go to the Ministry and check out our work environment.  At this point I need to do something that is vaguely familiar.  The ‘new normal’ is that even the most innocuous move now requires the planning of a whole security detail.   My freedom of movement like never before in any deployment is strictly limited.

It is now the next day.  Having had time to reflect on my previous day, I am humbled.   I was not nonchalant about this deployment, neither did I think it was going to test my limits.  I like challenges, looks like this is a big one.

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Project Director: “How do you like Afghanistan so far?”
Me: “I don’t know, I’ve only seen it from the back of an SUV.”

As I was waiting for my flight to Dubai (Business Class on Emirates, need I say more!?) at Pearson Interational Airport, I was listening to an article from the Economist on my iPod about what it’s like being a foreigner.  The article mentions a child psychologist who compares the world of a baby to “Paris as experienced for the first time by an adult American: a pageant of novelty, colour, excitement.”  This is what I’ve always liked about travelling for fun or work: the prickly feeling that you get walking down streets you’ve never been before, unable to situate yourself except within your immediate surroundings.  You are completely in the moment.

My experience to date in Kabul is a bit different.  Currently, I live in a bubble.  I experience the culture outside from the back seat of an SUV, just beyond the heads of our security escorts.  As I am driven to and from the Ministry, I see the lunar-like hills that surround Kabul and the dingy brick houses that seem so precariously perched on them; and beyond are the impressive snowy peaks of the Hindu Kush (I think).  From the windows I see shopkeepers and fruit sellers.  I see women veiled in several ways from the permissive head scarves to the infamous full-length Burquas.  And there is of course the ever-present, under-trained and ill-disciplined Afghan National Police who man checkpoints and the Karazai-affiliated security militia who scare me more than anything.

My universe, however, is expanding albeit slowly as I am brought along by the more experienced Afghanistan hands of my team.  Some residential streets of Kabul are rutted, dusty and unpaved.  All the houses on the street where my villa is located are surrounded by soaring, walls.  Entrances seem deliberately obscured.  And if one is vigilant as taught, gun towers can be spotted with armed guards scanning all activity.

I am surprised when my team members tell me that within 30 yards of my location is a cafe that makes fantastic capuccinos, a really good Japanese restaurant and another really good Chinese restaurant.  There are no signs at all from the outside that these places exist.  In Kabul, as on the Internet, “Security is Obscurity”.

On my 3rd day in-country, I am surprised by our project director leading us on a small expedition just around the corner to the cafe with the terrific capuccino for a team meeting.  It is mid-afternoon so school children crowd the streets chatting, holding hands and doing whatever it is that kids do all over the world.  For a moment, I forget where I am.

I am learning that for a lucky few, there are places like the cafe that are carefully hidden jewels. Once past the steel reinforced doors and metal detectors, you are transported into a completely different place.  The decor is modern and would not be out of place in any North American city.  There is an inner Garden courtyard.  Always security conscious, I note that there is not a critical mass of foreigners that would make the place a tempting target.

So Kabul has a frontstage and a backstage.  There is the Kabul that one sees often on television: ramshackle, dusty, strife-ridden, inhospitable and hostile.  And then there is another Kabul: cosmopolitan and sophisticated.  Or, as  one UN staffer puts it in his Blog “Kabul is a modern city without modern facilities.”

I am learning more about where I am in other, surprising ways.  While working out in my villa’s delapidated gym, I meet Assad, an Afghani now living in Colorado.  While I spot him on the free weights in American-accented English he tells me about his 10 year odyssey to reclaim his family’s property, some of which is in downtown Kabul.  It is the stuff of movies.  Scene 1 should be a shot of him 10 years ago in Kabul City Hall (when it was REALLY dangerous) in a darkened basement room, with only a candle (no kidding!) trying to locate his family’s property deeds.  Then there are other scenes: meeting with local warlords; death threats; pay-offs; corrupt judges and finally triumph.  I get the sense his victory is pyrrhic or at least tinged with regret.  In the last 9 years he has been to Afghanistan 17 times, taking him away from his family and seriously compromising his career. But, in the end he had to, needed to, reclaim his patrimony.

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