was ready to start writing. I hopped on board the enormous word processor machine and started to type. But, the ‘delete’ button sometimes didn’t delete, the ‘left and right’ buttons failed often and the ‘cut and paste’ function typically left me with a portion removed but nothing pasted, or every word lost. I was pulling my hair out and redoing large sections of the document sometimes two or three times. I can remember walking back into my house just after 2.30 am that second day too.
Thursday morning was my third and final day to get this report finished, signed and sent to Islamabad. Again I crawled out of bed very early and was in the office at the dreaded machine at about 6.30 am. I swore, belted and cursed, and printed dozens and dozens of draft versions of the document throughout the day. But finally, and to my great relief, late that afternoon it was finished. I had checked and re-checked the spelling, the formatting and the style and was happy to have this version sent to Islamabad and New York. Kefayatullah was ecstatic and hugged me warmly. He looked through the report and a huge smile came to his face and again he hugged me. With his signature and mine, the administrative staff who had been told not to leave the office, made forty copies of the report, bound them and then, on Thursday evening, the completed annual report of 1990 was on its way to Islamabad via an ATC driver. We had done it, well, to be honest, I had done it and I feel quite proud to have done so.
By late on Friday morning, the senior management of Operation Salam at the OCHA headquarters in Islamabad, had read the report and all were very impressed. ATC was given a great response from it.
ooOoo
But this was a short and fleeting episode of the support required for ATC in those days. Another requirement was for me to manage the delivery of presentations to the international community. This was often done by grand presentations when disabled Afghans would be presented, speeches made and demonstrations given. In the first of these presentations, we planned to make it more theatre performance than formal presentation. I had the tents set up so that about 50 visitors were to be seated under cover and we ensured cooling fans were placed appropriately. We also ensured that the stage area was not too high or too low, and that the drinks and snacks were ready to be put out, but would not interfere with any presenters. I planned to use some of our actual deminers as well as noise and equipment on stage to help deliver our underlying message to all: Afghans needed to return home but couldn’t because of the threat of landmines; ATC was the primary force to right this wrong situation. So, we got seven, big, tough-looking deminers and staged their entry into the main tent.
As part of our plan, after all the visitors were seated and the initial speakers had finished, we would announce we were to now have a short speech from one of the deminers. In fact, as he walked through the seated group to the front, a loud bang would be heard, frightening visitors and having our deminer act as if he had trodden on a mine. I would then talk the crowd through the activity as three deminers were to come along the walkway. They had to appear to be demining the ground in an effort to rescue our ‘injured’ deminer. They would find another two buried landmines (we had buried earlier, obviously without explosives) before clearing around the injured deminer, lifting him and taking him to the rear. It was here that our medical team would rush in and simulate treating him, before moving him off. All sounded great and we actually rehearsed this simulation several times until the acting and the timing was just about right.
On the day of the presentation, as the tents started to fill up, I met a number of ambassadors and other senior folk and all seemed to be in good cheer. I was looking forward to the secret act we had prepared and were ready to present. Slowly, the visitors found their seats and many more were standing at the back when the OCHA staff started the presentations. First, an administration lady from the New York headquarters gave great insights into the hard and dedicated work of the ATC deminers and made reference to some of the facts and figures in our previously approved annual report. She also spoke about our sister agencies, namely the Mine Action Planning Agency (MCPA) and the Office of Mine Awareness (OMA), which provided the initial land surveys and the landmine awareness education and training. This woman, who I really did know very well, seemed to enjoy being up in front of such senior people and went on, and on, and on, and on. She was at the microphone for a good 45 minutes or more before handing over to one ambassador, from the Netherlands, who was responding on behalf of the international community. He was an eloquent and concise speaker who soon stepped down and the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) stepped up. On this went for another hour and a half with these multiple speakers. The visitors were now boiling hot and perspiration was everywhere as the late morning turned to early afternoon and the heat of Islamabad steadily rose. Soon several people were squirming and some had stood up and moved to get a drink from our stand outside. Others were actually leaving as it became almost unbearable in the heat by the time Kefayatullah made his speech, even though fans were blowing air around. When it was actually my time to speak, as the last speaker, I saw the anxiety on the visitors and the distinct but mute calls to let them ‘out of here’. I made my speech extremely short and then invited our deminer to the stage. As planned, he walked up to near the stage and an explosion rocked the tents. But this was a huge and deafening thump that almost threw people off their seats. I almost fell over too, as it was far louder than planned or expected. A couple of ladies screamed and several folk jumped up and turned to get out of the area fearing our theatrics to be a real explosion. I tried to steady everyone over the microphone and we got some calm, but it was no longer a ‘steady ship’ and our activities fell somewhat flat, though were still appreciated by some. All clapped at the mimicking demining accident and response, then everyone left in rather a hurry. Not what we had initially planned, but we were really beaten by the heat and the droning speeches made by far too many, for far too long. I found out later that the deminers who were supposed to use a single pyrotechnic on the ground just outside the tent, thought it would be ‘too quiet’ and so put three of them, bound together, in a tin rubbish bin and then covered it with the lid. Unbeknown to the people inside the tent, the rubbish bin was completely destroyed and the lid landed some 50 metres away. A couple of lessons needed to be learned here, I quietly thought.
In the following days, we had a mix of comments about the presentation, ranging from ‘realistic and fantastic’ to ‘too loud and inappropriate’. Still, I think it was a worthwhile program and we did something similar three months later. This time though, the demonstration was made indoors, where the air conditioning eased the stress and specific time limitations were given to each speaker, whilst our simulated explosion was much more controlled. All our following presentations to the international community were very well received and the donations kept piling in. So much so in fact, that ATC was able to increase our demining teams by 60% by the end of that year.
ooOoo
Following the ‘varied reviews’ of our first major presentation described above, Kefayatullah was probably happy to see me go back into Afghanistan … although he never mentioned it. Nangarhar Province was my next chosen site and that’s where I headed to, straight after all this commotion had settled down. The Nangarhar mission was to be a short trip and although my usual tasking was to review the operations of the demining teams, this time I went specifically to make a quick evaluation of the three variant ‘mine detectors’ ATC was using. It was the first step in our overall assessment of metal detectors, on our way to selecting a singular model for issue to all demining teams. More on this is mentioned later in the book.
ooOoo
As I have mentioned earlier and perhaps you may notice through these readings, fitness for me is a way of life and something I’m motivated and proud to do. Almost every day, or at least five times a week, I exercise. To me it’s a part of my life and a passion. When I was a little younger, this passion was bordering on extreme and I became very successful in sports. I’m not a huge, classic build; in fact I’m stocky and muscular and have a ‘low centre of gravity’ that makes me about 170 centimetres tall, or five foot seven inches in my running shoes. Not a tall man by any means, but certainly able to keep up with any persons in my range. But, that’s bye the bye. During this mission into Nangarhar, I was staying at the demining site
