April 15, 2012

“Just Another Normal Day in Afghanistan”
Location: Bunker in the office, Kabul, Afghanistan



We were locked down in the bunker of our office for the whole afternoon.


I don’t know anymore at what time I heard of first shooting sounds. But I was sitting at my desk after lunch, nagging about my cursed life which has been going absolutely wrong since when I turned 21 to my national colleague who is now a good friend of mine in this office. 

Both of us continued to talk even after we heard of explosion and gunfire sounds one after another. Suicide attack or sounds of small gunfire becomes part of your daily life once you spend a couple of months in Afghanistan. So, we were not even bothered at all and kept on talking. It was when another colleague of ours called him (the colleague who was listening to my blah blah) that we realized they were complex suicide attacks near UNDP Country Office and Camp Eggars where I always pass by. It sounded so close to my office.


Some minutes later, I happened to know that two of my national colleagues were at Kabul Star Hotel which was reported at the beginning that the insurgents broke into the hotel and were shooting from its roof. I was so scared. I called them but they were not picking up their phones. As I am a super negative thinker, I thought of the worst scenario…


Soon we managed to get them and found out that the attackers actually took control over an open construction site behind Kabul Star and they were safe in the Kabul Star’s bunker. I got so relieved.

I tasted our pouch food in the bunker. Guess what. Our genius national security officer bought so many boxes of pouch food just enough 48 hours, which require BOILDED WATER to make it ready! And of course, there is NO stove or fireplace as such in the bunker…. Our pouch food = reasonably tasty BUT very useless for emergency.