*** From June 2006 – Size: 118K – no pictures – 10 pages – in French
Surreal live direct discussions on Skype between 3 people, respectively a graphic designer in Kabul, an aid worker in Mansehra and a military man also based in Kabul, right when it is all happening! Not quite like watching BBC news…
kaboul
June 4, 2006
Chronicle 95: a small incident in Kabul
June 25, 2002
Chronicle 38: Bitter-sweet end of mission in Afghanistan
*** From June 25, 2002 – Size: 56K – no pictures – 5 pages – in French
While flying on the Red Cross plane: after over one year of a very hectic mission in Afghanistan, it is eventually coming to an end. Encounter on the tarmack with an American soldier. Time to look back and think. Afghanistan will remain a very strong experience in my heart and mind. I witnessed many things change, but unfortunately, not necessarily in the right direction. I am tired and happy to leave, and in the same time very sad for the country and the people. What could I do next?
afghani c est fini
Hazara kids playing just down the cliff in Bamyan, where the giant Buddhas once stood…
May 14, 2002
Chronicle 36: Displaced, Refugees and Returnees
*** From May 14, 2002 – Size: 60K – no pictures – 4 pages – in French
Direct contact with our beneficiaries and learning in real life the subtleties of the humanitarian idioma. While on vacation in Hazaradjat, I accompany an internal journalist from MSF whom I met on the way to Bamyan. We go out on the field and interview randomly several Afghan families who were in exile in Iran or Pakistan and just came back in the home they had deserted maybe only 2 or sometimes up to 20 years earlier… Always a very emotional encounter!
Returnees
April 18, 2002
Chronicle 34: Expat profiles, the example of Kabul 2002
*** From April 2002- Size: 348K – including pictures- 4 pages – in French
Portarits of the 13 different species of expatriates that you can meet on the field. The example here is Kabul in 2002, but in fact, it could be any capital of a country incurring a big disaster… A lot of people in the relief/humanitarian world should be able to recognize themselves in one or the other…
Expat profiles
March 28, 2002
Chronicle 33: Discovery of Northern Afghanistan countryside magic…
*** From March 28, 2002 – Size: 56K – no pictures – 5 pages – in French
Long field-trip in the North, to our regional base in the mythical ancient city of Mazar-e-Sharif. This is the beginning of spring, and it feels very much like a new beginning. It’s also an opportunity to go really on the field, driving through the incredibly beautiful countryside, and live together with the medical team what we are here for: treating the people in need of assistance, in this case malnurished children. Dozens of young and old afghan women in traditional clothes flock to us, carrying their sick babies and small children, while hundreds of older children try to get in, touch us and see what’s going on: what a unique way to meet the community!
Northern Afghanistan
White burqas at the blue mosk in Mazar-e-Sharif, on the weekly women’s day…
January 18, 2002
Chronicle 28: Kabul, new start at year zero
*** From January 18, 2002 – Size: 44K – no pictures – 3 pages – in French
Eventually back in Kabul after our forced exile, although barely 4 months have passed, we find the city quite changed. Northern alliance moudjahids in the streets, portraits of Commander Massoud, international soldiers, armies of brand new UN vehicles, shaved men and burqas walking alone without a maram, and thousand of new humanitarian actors… We barely recognize the place!
Kaboul annee zero
January 4, 2002
Chronicle 27: Bouzkachi, an Afghan game
*** From January 4, 2002 – Size: 36K – no pictures – 2 pages – in French
An old and typical Afghan tradition from the North, that was prohibited under the Taliban but is now eventually back in Kabul. Bouzkachi is kind of a strange local version of polo, but the ball being replaced by a dead beheaded goat body… A wild wild game for sure!
Bouzkachi
December 30, 2001
Chronicle 26: Back to Kabul
*** From December 30, 2001 – Size: 40K – no pictures – 3 pages – in French
After over 3 months of evacuation in Pakistan, desperately trying to keep busy and avoid turning crazy watching Afghanistan being bombed on CNN and the BBC, eventually eventually I am able to get back in -just to celebrate our new year under the stars of Kabul! But things have changed: this time it’s in a UN plane, and an opportunity to meet some strange new species of expatriates: politicians, journalists, soldiers from the Northern Alliance…
Back to Kabul
Tadjik mudjahiddin from late Commander Masood’s Northern Alliance at Bagram military airport end of December 2001, all too happy to pose for a picture with a woman (wearing no veil for the first -and only- time!)
December 27, 2001
Chronicle 25: a strange Christmas in exile…
*** From December 27, 2001 – Size: 44K – no pictures – 3 pages – in French
Many expats are still stuck in Peshawar, Pakistan, frustrated and powerless, waiting to be able to go back inside Afghanistan, following the journalists and politicians who keep indecently rushing in. A strange Christmas indeed, we keep busy as we can, we hear a lot, collect info and attend meetings. Some democratic initiatives and a re-building process start to unfold here, while we learn about mines: everybody gets ready to go back and build a new country…
Strange christmas 2001
December 3, 2001
Chronicle 24: Ramadan in Pakistan
*** From December 2001 – Size: 48K – no pictures – 2 pages – in French
At the end of a tense ramadan in Pakistan, still in exile in Islamanbad & Peshawar while Afghanistan was still being bombed accross the border, journalists and politicians rush inland to be first… as the aid workers still remain behind.
PeshRamdan
November 13, 2001
Chronicle 23: Peshawar, border town
*** From November 13, 2001 – Size: 56K – no pictures – 5 pages – in French
Written on the very day the taliban fled Kabul… Peshawar was then pictured worldwide in the media as the most dangerous place on Earth… Well, that wasn’t my point of view! For me, it was still a border town, something like a Pakistani version of the Far West…
Peshawar
November 4, 2001
Chronicle 21: Afghan mirage…
*** From November 4, 2001 – Size: 40K – no pictures – 3 pages – in French
Certainly my most emotional chronicle so far: while their country is being bombed by the US forces across the border, some of our afghan staff working with us in Pakistan express their feelings of frustration and desire to leave, sometimes asking for help or advice to escape. We feel just as angry and powerless as they are, but how to answer to such questions and requests? What would do in their position? What is our moral duty? How to sleep at night with such dilemmas?…
Mirage afghan
October 15, 2001
Chronicle 20: is that what humanitarian is?
*** From October 15, 2001- Size: 30K – no picture- 2 pages – in French
A couple weeks after September 11 and the panic / hectic evacuation that followed, first from Afghanistan and then even from Peshawar, and after 10 days back home in France which were not at all the rest I expected, flying back to Islamabad, Pakistan where we stand in exile… Bitter thoughts…
new humanitarian face
October 10, 2001
Chronicle 17: September 11, 2001: History of an evacuation
*** From October 10, 2001 – Size: 56K – no pictures – 4 pages – in French
A chronicle written for AMI, the NGO I was working for, and partly published in their newsletter: how we learned about the attacks (I was then in Peshawar, Pakistan and about to go back to Kabul), how we first reacted, and then organized the evacuation of all the expatriates still on the field inside Afghanistan. One week of controlled panick, trying to keep cool blood despite the fear…
Evacuation
July 29, 2001
Chronicle 15: Spring/Summer fashion trends in Kabul
(Guess where I am?…)
*** From July 2001 – Size: 40K – no pictures – 3 pages only – in French
The first chronicle published on Afghanistan, still under Taliban rule. In fact, I had written 2 others before (one on my weird visa interview and first encounter with a chief taliban in Peshawar, the other about the car business in Kabul) but unfortunately I lost them both with my laptop, after the 9/11 evacuation (snif). Anyway, that one shows Kabul & the awful burqa from a different point of viewÖ
Kabuli fashion
