Straightened out

February 10, 2005 • Blog

World » Afghanistan » Kabul » DACAAR office

Today was already a much less hectic day at work. I actually had the time to read most of the documents I need as background information on where DACAAR is at the moment.

Also, ‘the Dane next door’ straightened me out. Not only is the percentage of expats in DACAAR as low as advertised, it also shouldn’t be that difficult to mingle with the local population. First of all, there’s the cold, second there are the many security restrictions many of the NGOs enforce upon their employees.
Both are fair arguments. I can’t change the security restrictions. As far as the weather is concerned, I will just have to wait.

Not that DACAAR has many security restrictions. In fact, they have none. They do give a number of warnings, mention things to be aware of, and then leave it to the individual employee to decide what’s wise or not.
I think that’s a very good approach.

An immaculate collection

We got home from work today, and I noticed my slippers disappeared. Then, in my room, everything had disappeared.
Turns out we have a cleaner, a very thorough one, who shows up a couple of times per week. Great, except for the fact that he’s VERY thorough. The desk in my room, which was already quite full after two days, was now completely empty. Everything had been stored, in one of the several cupboards in my room.
Unfortunately, I also seem to have lost one of the sim-cards I had on my desk. Annoying.

Room

The evening was spent at the Elbowroom. Apparently, the UN has a very limited list of bars and restaurants UN personnel can go to. The Elbowroom is one of them. ‘Regular’ people, on this night, were only allowed in after 9:30pm. There was some high profile dinner until that time, which tonight had the pleasant consequence that all drinks were free. Whisky is expensive in this country, up to 7 dollars per glass. I drank many glasses.

First day at work

February 09, 2005 • Blog

World » Afghanistan » Kabul » DACAAR office

So many departments, so many doors, so many faces. Some 200 people work at the DACAAR main office and I think I saw them all today. Also, although most if not all of the people who work in the field are Afghan, I noticed that quite a significant number of the office workers were actually expat.
DACAAR being a Danish organization, it isn’t a surprise that most of them are Danish, but I’m now the third Dutchee in the compound.

The morning started rather cold. Although I was quite awake, the cold made it difficult for me to get up. Then, I had to boil water to get a warm bucket bath, which wasn’t all that bad, besides the stone floor being icy cold.

Also, although my two housemates seem to agree that Afghans are not the hardest working people in the world, I did get a PC to work on within minutes of me finally sitting down at my workplace.
Lunch is free, and not too bad. Or maybe I was just very hungry. A bit on the cold side, we got something that resembled a pasta Napolitano, with extra bread and a spicy minty sauce on the side. Deserts were loads and loads of oranges and bananas.

One of the things I already found quite intriguing about DACAAR is that everything seems to have its own little department. There’s a department for entering data into a database, there’s a department for reviewing the information in the database and there’s a department to collect information for the database. And so on…

Although my headache’s gone, I still get out of breath running up stairs. I already considered working out yesterday, apparently there are loads of fitness places in Kabul, but it’s a good thing I didn’t go. I could have dropped dead.

A question of money

Consider this: there’s a really posh area in Kabul where all the rich people live. Rich expats, that is. Diplomats UN people, you get the idea. It’s not uncommon, I was told over Peking duck today, for the rent of these places to be upwards of 10000 dollars per month. I am told that this district has ‘several hundred’ houses.
DACAAR’s budget for 2004 was close to 7 million dollars. Not that DACAAR rents houses in this district, but the 7 million would cover the yearly rent of some 70 of these houses. Where does all the money go, that goes into renting these houses? I doubt the Afghanis keep it in the country. It makes you wonder what the use of all this development aid is…

Labour

There seems to be a sizable expat population in Kabul. It’s a good thing that most of these really stand out (and I don’t), so that I can blend in more easily. What’s intriguing is that all the expats in DACAAR whom I , so far, have asked, have not ‘served’ in a development organization before. For these people, Afghanistan is their first ‘experience’. Strange, considering the current situation in Afghanistan. I expected more seasoned development workers.

Sheltered life

Meanwhile, although this is only my second day here, I can see how easy it is to live a very sheltered life here. In the morning, you drive to work, in the evening, you drive from work, go home, maybe drive to a restaurant and then drive home again. I’m not really enchanted by this.

The road to Kabul

February 08, 2005 • Blog

World » Afghanistan » Kabul » DACAAR expat house

I considered staying at the hotel, as I did yesterday, calling regularly to the airport to check if my plane would leave today. A good thing I didn’t. I arrived at the airport shortly after nine to be told the plane would leave at ten.
That didn’t happen of course. In fact we didn’t leave until 1:30pm. First, loads of people gathered in the departure lounge, for both my Kabul flight and a Baghdad flight which only seated Americans. When the Americans had departed, a relatively small group remained and when we finally got on the plane, for some reason, after not having flown for four days, the plane was not even three quarters full.

At Kabul airport I was the last person to be picked up. DACAAR had phoned the airport several times but had been told that no Ariana flights were arriving today. I managed to borrow someone’s phone and after some two hours I was finally picked up.
The airport was clearly built by the Soviets and driving around town in the dark, I was reminded of some of the smaller Russian towns, deep in Siberia. The snow, the potholed roads, some apartment buildings, the small shops.

In the house I’m staying in, it’s cold as hell. Only the bedrooms have stoves which we have to keep burning ourselves. The boiler isn’t working properly so we have no hot water and I’ve got a terrible headache, not unlikely due to the altitude. Kabul is at 1800 meters.

Together with my roommates Jesper and Giovanni and Jesper’s girlfriend, we had dinner at the expensive French restaurant l’atomosphere, where we could only pay in US dollars.

At dinner, my spirit was lifted by the tales of my fellow expats. Apparently, rocket attacks from the hills still occasionally happen, late last year there was a suicide bomber right in the downtown area and a bit earlier, three expats were kidnapped on the road I will daily have to travel to work.
So it seems that the Kalashnikovs the guards at the airport were carrying actually do serve a reason.

Architecture

February 07, 2005 • Blog

World » United Arab Emirates » Dubai » Road to Palm Island

The Lonely Planet suggests that when you only stay in Dubai for one day, you shouldn’t try to see the city’s architecture, and rightly so. The architectural wonders are spaced so far apart; it’s more than a day’s task to get to see them all.

I first waited at my hotel, calling the airport every 45 minutes to check on the status of my flight. At 9:30 I was told that, for sure, the plane would leave today. Not so. Five minutes after I arrived at the airport, I was told my plane was canceled.
Leaving my hotel, I asked, just in case, if they had a room left for the coming night. I was told that I had to be quick in deciding and tell the receptionist before 12. When I called him, 11:30 or so, the hotel was fully booked. I had to call about ten other hotels before finding a free room at an abysmal 75 euros. Cockroaches thrown in for free.

By the time I left my new hotel it was already 2:15 and I wanted to hurry to get to see some of the buildings. First stop was the Burj Al Arab, the hotel on the sea shore shaped like a catamaran sale. It’s huge but doesn’t allow visitors on its premises anymore so I could only admire it from afar. It’s possible to get a guided tour through the tourist, at steep prices, but I didn’t think that a very good idea.

My second stop was Palm Island, the artificial island shaped like, yes, a palm three. Hordes of Indians still beaver away at it and I wasn’t allowed within what seemed like miles from the entrance. Even looking at it in the distance, whipping out my camera, I was immediately whistled back by some of the guards.
At first i had gotten off the bus at the wrong stop, way too far, and thought I had stumbled into some Arab’s dream of playing SimCity. Everywhere i looked, Indians where building 20, 30, 40 story buildings.

Another day over, I headed back to the Dubai creek and sat alongside it, sucking a sheesha and drinking tea, wondering if my plane will be flying tomorrow.

The waiting game

February 06, 2005 • Blog

1 / 1
World » United Arab Emirates » Dubai » Bur Dubai abra station

What I was already afraid of last Thursday, happened: my flight to Kabul was cancelled.
Due to the snowstorm and plane crash in Afghanistan. It made sense if the Afghans eased up a little on their flight schedule. They did. But only at the last minute.
When I arrived at the transfer desk, I was told my plane was to have a delay of 5 hours. However, the flight didn't show up on any of the boards because it was leaving from the-terminal-for-losers meaning that different information desks also supplied contradictory information. It meant I wanted to try to check in at the originally set time, just to make sure it was flying or not.

Finding a place among what seemed like hundreds of people already sleeping at the airport was already a challenge on its own. And then, i didn't really want to fall asleep and not be able to keep track of my bags.
Dozing off a couple of times I 'got up' around 6 to check on my flight's scheduled departure time of 6:30. It took these people until 11:30 to tell me the plane was cancelled for the day.

In something of a lucid moment, I had taken the Lonely Planet for Dubai with me in my hand luggage. A good thing, since the Dubai shopping festival now happening, it meant i had to call and visit some 10 hotels before I found one that managed to spare a room at a steal: 50 euros. Stealing from my wallet that is.

Already dead tired, I obliged myself to check out the city. Since Dubai is pretty spread out, I stuck to the older part of town, where all the souqs are but not much of the architecture for which Dubai is so very famous.

I found the town nice, but also not very special. A few things I did notice: the streets are so very clean; tourists are not nearly as much harassed as in other Arab countries and the Arabs clearly form only a minority.
Besides the tourists, there are truckloads of Indians, Pilipinos and a multitude of small minorities, including a significant black Muslim community. On multiple occasions, I heard people speak Farsi. My hotel is being run by Indians, most TV channels are Hindi and the elevator music comes straight out of Bollywood.
Then there's Amitah Bidjan advertising your chance of winning 120 kgs of gold and the porters on every street corner.

After finally checking in, I took a tour of the city, taking in the sites. I ended up at an internet cafe, almost falling asleep after thirty minutes.
I decided to go to bed. It was only 8:30pm.

Flight entertainment

February 05, 2005 • Blog

1 / 1
World » United Arab Emirates » Dubai » Dubai airport terminal 1

Dubai airport is very busy. Even at two at night all the shops are open, people are everywhere while almost all the seats and recliners are occupied.

The truly multicultural airport reminds me of several scenes from star wars. You know the ones, space ports bursting with activities and different races from all over the galaxy.
Here, the shopkeepers and staff are south-east Asian, Indian and sometimes local. Travelers are European but mostly Indian, Arab and Asian. And people are sleeping everywhere. It is an alien scene which also is strangely recognizable.

I expected the electronics to be cheaper. They sell A LOT. A LOT. But at prices similar to Holland. The Bluetooth keyboard I did manage to get for my MDA III, at Schiphol was even more expensive here. In an OEM version!
At the same time, cigarettes and perfumes are dirt cheap but alcohol is only slightly cheaper, as are Dunking donuts and McDonalds, while Costa coffee sells cappuccinos for five dollars.

Meanwhile, my onward flight already has a delay of 5.5 hours. And I’m not very comfortable about my luggage. My claim ticket says it is going to Dubai, but three reps at the airport I asked about this all claimed it would automatically be transferred to Kabul. I’m not so sure…

At the beginning of the flight, the captain claimed we would be flying through Iranian airspace and over Tehran. I felt thrilled at hearing this pleasant surprise which meant I would be able to actually see my birthplace for the first time in nearly three decades.
It was not meant to be. From Tabriz, the plane traveled in a straight line to Dubai, meaning we flew more or less over the border between Iran and Iraq. Staring out into the night sky, I pretended that the glow in the distance, on the left side of the plane was Tehran and that the glow on the other side came from Bagdad.

Only hours left

February 04, 2005 • Blog

World » Netherlands » Delft » Home

Only hours left before departure, I could have known time wouldn’t be on my side. Although I did decide to leave one week later as planned, I STILL have too much to do, most notably during these last two days.
(I’m writing this quickly, so please excuse my spelling mistakes.)

The long saga that is…

Yes, indeed, I also spent time getting my Iranian passport, again. This time, however, it was very fruitful. I managed to hand over all the required documents, for a meagre 200 euros and three hours of my very precious time.
Now, these documents will travel to Iran and somehow, magically transform into my passport. By the time I get back, my Iranian passport -might- be waiting in my post office box.

Last minute thingies

Only today did I finally hand over Chaletplaza.nl. It has become quite a decent site. Now let’s hope it’ll make some money.
Also, as if these people somehow know, I got a call from a client I haven’t done business with for years, asking me questions about the services I delivered a long time ago. And then my uncle (from Germany) called, with some new business he’s been working on for several years. He thinks it’s now time for me to step in.

Food

Yesterday, Betsy and I had dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant. I LOVE Ethiopian and this time, too, it was gooood. More food today, when, tonight, I had a roti and, during the afternoon, a ‘broodje speciaal’. Can you believe it: Google image search doesn’t show ANY useful results for that query!?

Also, I raced around town today to get a 1GB SD card for my newly acquired and very cool Qtek9090 (MDA III). It rocks. During my race around town, I stopped for a minute at the Beestenmarkt, and checked the BBC news through the built-in WiFi card.
But the one main reason I got it, to be able to make notes and write reports anywhere, anytime, still is a problem. I need a compatible (wireless) keyboard for that, but NOONE has one to sell me. Yesterday, I drove down to PDAshop.nl, but all the compatible keyboards they had were sold out. Today, calling around, and checking several stores in person, I had no luck at all. Now, I hope to find the right keyboard at Schiphol airport or in London.

Flight

Which brings me to my upcoming trip. I checked Ariana’s website today. Turns out, they now fly straight from Frankfurt to Kabul! I could have saved a LOT of trouble, using that route. Then, I wouldn’t have to pull an overnighter in Dubai. Then again, I also wouldn’t have a nice stopover on my way back.

And, of course, to make the folks back home a bit worried, as you might have noticed, a Boeing (probably) crashed, just outside of Kabul (link). Don’t worry, it (most probably) was due to a snowstorm and it was KAM air, not Ariana.

Swing it!

February 01, 2005 • Blog

World » Netherlands » Delft » Home

Only 4 nights left and I’ll be heading for Kabul. My ticket arrived last Friday: Amsterdam-London-Dubai-Kabul. Australians would pay dearly for a trip like this but I get it for free.
I was hoping to manage a stopover in Dubai, but arrival/departure times in Dubai suck. I arrive late at night, around 23:30 and leave again, early in the morning, around 7am. Moving the flights to an earlier or later date didn’t change these times so now I plan to get a stopover on my way back, when arrival/departure times will be much more reasonable. And if Betsy manages to get a decently priced ticket to Dubai, she’ll join me for a holiday.
Meanwhile, I received a warning from DACAAR’s director in Kabul. At night, temperature has gone down to -18, over the past few days. Great.

Betsy herself started her new job yesterday, at T-Mobile and it appears to be tiring, but she also appears to have a good time.
My personal T-Mobile connection started today, when I tried to get my current mobile phone subscription moved over to T-Mobile. It took me several weeks to decide, but I want to get an MDAIII, the coolest phone currently on the market WITH wi-fi. I shopped around today, getting the best deal for the phone, with a contract.
T-Mobile offered me the phone for some 270 euros. On the same contract, The Phone Company wanted to sell it for about 440 euros. But I ended up signing a contract at GSM-Shop.nl, where they’re giving me the phone for free. All, indeed, when getting the exact same contract.
At first, I considered waiting a while because now that Betsy works at T-Mobile, she can earn a bonus through bring-in-a-company. However, although this would earn her some money, it would, most likely, also result in more expenses for me.

During the weekend, for the first time in years, literally, I spent some dosh on new clothes. Four new pairs of paints (an increase in my stock of pants of 200%), two shirts, one pair of shoes, two sweaters and a jacket. I already feel like reborn.
But seriously, going to Afghanistan, I expect I have to look ‘good’. Hey, and I want to impress the girls. They’re wearing fancy dresses too!

Last Friday night was spent at Sukhbir and Anne’s. Sukhbir runs ITpreneurs and (although this is still something of a secret) they’ll be getting married early next year, in Goa. Read all about it here. I created the website, pro deo, so as payment, they invited us over for dinner and I received a very nice bottle of whisky, a Johnnie Walker swing. I believe it to be a Johnnie Walker black label (in a fancy bottle).

Small things

January 25, 2005 • Blog

World » Netherlands » Delft » Home

Slowly, I’m starting to begin to slowly commence with preparing for my trip to Afghanistan. Slowly, my projects are wrapping up.

I’m now more than halfway with my Farsi lessons and Vahid presented me with a small exam today. I did reasonably well, but not too great.

Meanwhile, I finished up a quick redesign on North of France, the last travelogue that needed retouching. Also the very first real travelogue I ever created.

Extensions

Also, you might have noticed the Flickr ‘thing’, down on the right. It’s something I’m experimenting with at the moment. Another way of including pictures in this blog. And possibly a more convenient method when traveling around the globe. We, as they say, shall see.
If anything, including pictures through Flickr also gives my blog more coverage through the tags Technorati supports.
If this is gibberish to you, forget it.

Police state

Meanwhile, the Dutch minister of Justice, Piet Hein Donner, is trying to change Holland into an authoritarian state. Now, police can search anyone, anytime, for whatever reason. Currently, this, luckily, only applies to Schiphol airport and, soon, other international airports in the Netherlands.

What’s even worse is that, if the minister gets his way, and most likely he will, persons who MIGHT have contact with people with fundamentalist views can be blocked from having access to Schiphol airport, parliament or ‘certain’ people.
What’s more, a person can get bugged if there’s a slight notion he might be planning a (terrorist) attack.

It’s been said often, and has been proven time and again. Holland, indeed, is the most American country in Europe.

Goodbye personal freedoms, hello police state. According to Wikipedia, the term authoritarianism is used to describe an organization or a state which enforces strong and sometimes oppressive measures against the population. Having to report, weekly, to the police, only when you KNOW someone who’s a ‘fundamentalist’ easily falls under authoritarianism in my dictionary. It might even be totalitarian.
And what’s one step up from that? Yes, fascism.

You might see I’m probably better off in Afghanistan. At least there won’t be many fascists there.

Books?

Oh, not to forget: the interesting sage that is the (not) receiving of books from Amazon.

In the comments section of one of my recent blog updates, this morning, I found a message from an employee at the library of the Technical University Delft (my alma mater). They had received a shipment from Amazon with my name on it. Well, that is, my first name, not my last.
The library’s post office box is number 92. Mine is 1082. A bit remarkable, but not impossible that a mix-up somehow resulted in 92 changing into 1082. And since I recently ordered several books from Amazon, the shipment could actually indeed be mine.

Not so. The shipment contained two books, worth some 70 USD, on Java servlets. I don’t ‘do’ Java servlets. I was puzzled, but let it be.
Then, later in the afternoon, I talked this over with Vahid, a friend and my Farsi teacher. Turns out, he actually knows another Babak, studying at the University and working with Java servlets. He’s also working at the library.
These people…

Statues matter

January 23, 2005 • Blog

World » Belgium » Gent » Vooruit

This weekend was spent in Gent. For fun and profit, although in the end it only ended up being for profit, and we didn’t make much.

We tried selling statues at Africa Matters at the Vooruit, a nice little festival on, yes, Africa. In previous years, as much as 2500 visitors came along for the ride, but this year, after having moved the venue twice in the last two years, only half of that number showed up.
We had planned to stay only for the Saturday, only agreeing to come over last Thursday, but ended up staying for the Sunday too, when our Saturday went relatively well, selling one quite large statue.
Overall, the number of objects sold wasn’t that bad, but we had lowered our prices significantly and mostly only sold small pieces (keyrings, bookmarks and so forth). In the end, we only barely managed to cover our expenses.
What I did enjoy was that all the visitors, and the other people trying to promote their wares were very much Africa minded, in the right mindset, a very welcome change from the previous market we had tried. Two of the other sellers included an African book store, Black Label and a guy selling handiwork from South Africa, Isandla Creations.

Back in November, the organizer of the event had contacted me to ask if I was interested to take up a stand at the event. I asked a couple of questions but never heard back from him. As something of an apology, he offered a heavily reduced fare for a table. Last Thursday. We had already decided to go, just to take a look and combine it with a weekend of relaxation, Gent being one of the cuter towns in Belgium.
But indeed, after the show was over on Saturday, we only zombied around in two cafes, the ZOO and the Maron, in an area lovingly called ‘Patershol’. For some reason, we found the new ‘Shrimp look’ advertised on the local menu very funny.
We were just too tired. And on top of that, we had no choice but to stay in the Formule 1 hotel, just out of town. Cheap, decent, but not very close to the action.

Bookish

January 20, 2005 • Blog

World » Netherlands » Rotterdam » Ahoy

After a day of hard work (slowly finishing Chaletplaza.nl) I figured I was entitled to a little spending spree on booooooks.

Every once in a while, those lovely people from Boekenfestijn.com organize a huge four-day sellout. For the coming weekend, they had rented out one of the huge halls at the Ahoy complex in Rotterdam.
When Betsy arrived home, we had to hurry. We arrived at 7, the place closed at 9. I ran and I ran and I ran. And ended up with some 20 books for the very reasonable sum of 60 euros.

Afghanistan

I made reservations! I haven’t had a confirmation yet, but my flight is scheduled to leave Amsterdam on the 5th of February.

Entering Afghan territory

January 18, 2005 • Blog

World » Netherlands » Amsterdam » Afghanistan embassy

Yesterday, I visited the Afghan consulate in Amsterdam, together with Betsy. I hoped I would walk out quickly, carrying a coveted Afghan visa. A steal, at only 180 euros.
No such thing. I had to come back today, to pick up my passport.

Today, we left at 12:30 or so. Slightly late, considering the embassy closes at two, and indeed, it was a bad choice. Due to the many traffic jams, we only arrived at 14:15, but my reasonable charms convinced the lovely girls at the consulate to pass me my passport.
The visa is of the annoyingly simple kind. It’s a big stamp, which covers one full page of my passport. I was hoping for a beautiful sticker (they sure should be able to afford one, given the price I had to pay), but no such luck.

More babies

Well, that is, only one. On Sunday, Jim and I went over to de Kler, an old friend of mine. This fine-boy-turned-total-civilian recently fathered a child and it was time to visit ‘Lisa’. The best part was that de Kler knows his whiskies.

A baby is a comin’

January 13, 2005 • Blog

World » Netherlands » The Hague » Rukun

Yes. It’s been a while. So what’s the story, morning glory? Well… my good friend Nico Post‘s girlfriend Julia is PREGNANT! And she’s getting twins!
Post broke the news tonight, while we were having dinner at Rukun, a Chinese/Surinamese restaurant in The Hague. To celebrate, we played some Dancing Stage, on our return to Delft. Post was cool, not letting go of his glass ‘o’ port, while dancing.

Farsi

This week, I really started with my next wave of Farsi lessons. It turns out lots of my knowledge is now passive knowledge. I have to activate it. It’s a slow process, but it’s happening.

Afghanistan is still not finalized. It’ll surely happen, but I don’t have a visa, nor do I have a ticket.
I’ll leave for Amsterdam next week, where I’ll try to obtain a Afghan visa. Three month visa: 180 euros. After I get my visa, I’ll finalize my flight booking.
Tomorrow, I’ll have a (seemingly unnecessary) intake meeting at PSO, where most of the talks, most likely, will revolve around moneymoneymoney.

Happy New Year!

January 01, 2005 • Blog

World » Netherlands » Delft » Home

Yes, a happy new year to you.

Yesterday evening, new year’s eve, was spent with Benno, Joost, Neha and Wong. As usual, Wong phoned me only a few days before, to ask what I was doing come new year’s eve. Originally, I had wanted to be abroad, but Betsy didn’t like my offer of going to Paris, so we stayed at home, inviting some friends. Wong was very welcome.

We didn’t do much, playing ‘Dancing Stage’ and eating and drinking a lot. After 12, we started watching Lemony Snicket’s… but within minutes, Joost, Neha and Wong had fallen asleep.
To keep the spirits alive, we decided to play a bit of Mafia, without a doctor and sheriff, but Neha and Wong were too inactive to really make for a good game. Joost, however, when mafia, couldn’t stop talking.

Wong, Joost and Neha stayed for the night and in the morning, or rather, afternoon, we basically continued eating and drinking, playing ‘Het drankenkabinet’, a game similar to Trivial Pursuit, but only with booze related questions.

Back in Budapest, at the very beginning of this year, Joost spilled Champagne all over himself and we decided that meant that 2004 was going to be HIS year. Considering he picked up Neha (or maybe this was the other way around, but who’s counting), this prediction turned out to be true.
Now, one year on, I predict that if Neha and Joost are still together by the end of the year, which I suspect they will be, they will have set a date for marriage, most likely in 2006.

Gut feeling

December 31, 2004 • Blog

World » Netherlands » Delft » Home

I have a gut feeling this post will be the very last one this year. I wonder how come…

So what have I been up to? Well, I suppose it’s cucumber time, so nothing much has happened. Spent Christmas day with Betsy at her parents and Boxing day with my parents, nothing special.

Did I mention I’ve now got a Gmail account? I’ve got some invites, and everyone already seems to have their own Gmail account. If you’re one of the unlucky few, I might be able to help you out.

Visited Amsterdam on Wednesday to get a small training of the offerings of eZ publish, the CMS I’m trying to understand and run eyeondevelopment.org with (not currently online at this URL). It’s a very decent package, with some very nice features. Still, there are also numerous ‘features’ I would have liked to be different.

On Afghanistan, getting there is still a slow process. With a little bit of luck, I will leave Holland late January, maybe early February. A round trip ticket will cost no less then some 2000 euros.
However, I did manage to obtain a tiny budget to get some Farsi speech training.

And then there’s the disaster in south east Asia. Terrible. But what’s quite annoying is that no-one seems to realise that last year’s earthquake, also on Boxing day, in Bam, Iran, where 30-40.000 people died and some 75.000 were rendered homeless was a disaster in similar size. Considering this happened in just one town, the 120.000 people who are now said to have died in south east Asia, in an area the size of, literally, a quarter of the world, seems like a relatively small amount.
You can still make donations for ‘the cause’ in Iran.

The long saga that is the process of obtaining an Iranian passport

December 22, 2004 • Blog

World » Netherlands » Den Haag » Iranian embassy

Yes, today I added a new chapter to the long saga that is the process of obtaining an Iranian passport.

Last year, I started the process by updating my Iranian birth certificate. Shortly before leaving for Zimbabwe, this year, I finally received the document, which was needed for my work permit in Zimbabwe.
I had planned to obtain an Iranian passport, but time didn’t let me, with my trip to Zimbabwe around the corner.

After our return, I had left it for a bit too long, until I visited family in Hamburg some weeks ago, where an aunt of mine, visiting from Iran, helped me in filling in the forms.
I was going to ask for a passport and an ID. Better have two, than none.

Today, together with Vahid, an Iranian I met the first time I went to the embassy, I went over to the embassy to hand over the papers.
Turns out, they have been waiting for the last two months to receive a new shipment of empty passports. Passports are handed over, normally, in two to three days. Now, it seems I shall have to wait a while before I get one.
We did hand over the papers for collecting an ID. But an ID is manufactured in Iran. Meaning that process will take 3 to 4 months. At best.

Man.

But don’t think this is typical for a ‘banana republic’. Vahid told me of his problems with the IND, the Dutch governmental body issuing residence and work permits to foreigners. He’s been waiting for nine months for the IND to perform a simple formality.
And then there’s the process of my going to Afghanistan. The organization who should arrange my stay, PSO, yesterday claimed they weren’t clear on some technicalities of my placement. It meant that if I hadn’t called them myself, no one would have done anything to solve the issues they had with it.

Banana repuplics everywhere, unite.

Henzo

On a side note… I visited my local COMBI photo store, for shooting some passport pictures I *though* I would need for my passport and discovered that a service by photo equipment producer HENZO has finally gone live.

You can download an ’empty’ photo album and fill it with your own picutres any way you like. Then, you upload the finished product and, within ten days, pick up the album at your local COMBI store.
Prices are on the high side of reasonable: A full album will set you back 55 euros. But a 12 page A3 calendar temporarily only costs 12.50 euros. That’s a steal.

I checked out the software, and it looks good, very good in fact. The flexibility is decent.

Still, I looked through the example photo albums they had sitting around when I was waiting for my pictures to dry and the quality of the prints left a bit to be desired. I was told this was caused by the relatively low quality pictures HENZO used as examples, but I wasn’t so sure.

African food and patented dance

December 17, 2004 • Blog

World » Netherlands » Amsterdam » Cafe restaurant ‘Rendez Vous en Afrique’

While I was off to Amsterdam, having dinner with some of the people working on ‘Eye on Development’, Betsy went to the EPO, the European Patent Office, to party the night away at this year’s christmas party.

At my end, the plan was to have dinner with all six of us, working on the portal, but only four showed up. A bit of a bummer, considering that the two who didn’t show up were also two people I’ve never seen.

We enjoyed African food at ‘Rendez Vous en Afrique’. I was quite reluctant to get in, having some experience with the African kitchen. The fact that the menu mostly had west-African dishes didn’t make me feel any better.
However, the food was surprisingly good. And affordable. And the Czech waitress was cute too.

Heading back to Rijswijk, where Betsy was partying, I arrived just in time to experience the last 30 minutes of the festivities. Interestingly, we still stayed for some 2 hours, hanging around at the office where Betsy her friends, the ones who had invited us, worked.

Needless to say, almost, Betsy woke up with a stiffling headache.

Death of a prince

December 12, 2004 • Blog

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World » Netherlands » Delft » Market square

Yesterday, Bernard, royal prince of the Netherlands, was buried in Delft As with the two most recent royal burials in Delft, one of which I attended, the casket was driven from The Hague to Delft, where Bernard was going to get his final resting place in the royal catacombs of the Nieuwe Kerk (new church) in Delft.
Earlier this year, his wife princess Juliana (formerly the queen of the Netherlands) was also buried here. It is the same place William of Orange (Willem van Oranje) was buried.

Betsy her father had come down for the occasion, all the way from Friesland, and although we arrived on the town square around 10 in the morning, some two and a half hours before Bernhard's procession would arrive there, we already had no choice but to look at people's backs, six rows deep.
Later, we learned that the first of the 50.000 spectators had arrived around 6am.

It was a good thing Betsy had brought a small plastic crate to stand on. It also allowed me to take loads of pictures of the many important national and international figures attending the funeral. Unfortunately, many of the pictures didn't work out well since I had to work with a large shutter time because of the gloomy weather and since I was trying to balance myself with one foot on Betsy's crate and another on the side of another crate of the girl standing next to us.
Just before Bernard was carried into the church, three fighter jets and one spitfire flew over the market square in the 'missing man' formation.

It was a good thing it wasn't that cold. Today, we went back to the town square, hoping we could enter the church and watch all the flowers on display for the funeral. Already mid-morning, 13.500 people had visited the church and such a large queue of people was waiting to get in, waiting times were two to three hours. In the cold, this was way too hellish to enjoy.
Instead, we drove to The Hague to visit the Souterrain.

Food and drinks

Friday night I spent with friends, first drinking at Loos, then eating at Zinc and finishing off with some vodka at the Westelijk Handelsterrein.
The drinks were on Stevie, for him buying a new home, the food was on Zwan, for him clinching the business deal of his life so far.

Back to Holland

December 09, 2004 • Blog

World » Netherlands » The Hague » Eurolines bus station

Today, I spent most of the day on the Eurolines bus from Hamburg to The Hague. Luckily, the bus was both nearly empty and fast, arriving over an hour before schedule.

Interestingly, near the border, immigration officers entered the bus to check everyone’s passport and I expected to be questioned extensively. However, for a change, they weren’t picking on me, but on a well-dressed black guy who only spoke Portuguese. According to the officers, the guy’s ears didn’t resemble the ears of the guy in the picture and he was taken off the bus.

Sweets

December 08, 2004 • Blog

World » Germany » Quickborn » The Unterlauft residence

After visiting Mongolia last year, I figured that Mongolian script was based on Arabic script, but written from top to bottom, not right to left.
Parwaneh, the Iranian aunt visiting Germany, is a linguist, specializing in middle Persian. Middle Persian is the language spoken and written in Persia before the Arabian conquest and she was actually visiting Germany to find a professor, in either Hamburg or Cologne, to take her on for a doctorate.
Seeing written middle Persian, which is very similar to the written Armenian language, I realised that Mongolian script doesn’t resemble Arabic, it resembles middle Persian.

As Parwaneh and I spent time talking about language, I couldn’t help but decadently eat many of the sweets Mehri (the other aunt) always has laying around in the living room. A small price to pay (that is, the extra time I will have to spend in the gym) for the help Parwaneh gave me on my application forms for my Iranian ID.

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