First few days in Kabul Office and a journey to field

It was a warm welcome on airport.. i could not see CHF car or a pla-card ...... failed to see any one in waiting lounge with CHF sighn/t-shirt.... walked out of main building with my friend pradeep.... pradeep immediately found his organisation car... i requested him to wait for a while till i can find CHF car..... i walked around went to parking... an yeah.. Mr. Eric was there in the car.. going to Kunduz..... so i set in.. came to CHF office... a big nice building in kulla-e pusta ..

I was asked to see Mr. Mal ralston [Program director] , a nice gentleman from australia, he welcomed me and discussed some formalities.. including signing my contract etc.. i met Kevin streeter [Dy. program director] from USA.

i came donw to engineering room i met few of CHF collegues .. Slovek, Baseer, Keith, ali, adm and ICT staff..

[CHF office in Kabul]

[Ali and Kevin]

[from right Raghav, keith, ian, me , mal, terry, alex]

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i spend few days understanding program..

it was SCCRP [School and clinic Construction and Refurbishment Program].. we were suppose to build 120 schools and clinics in 4 provinces of afghanistan.. Panjab, Bamyan, Badakshan and Talukan.

i was suppose to go to Panjab and start my work of site selection sooner.

Our chief engineer Mr. Keith is very knowledgeable and experienced engineer from Australia.. a RedR.

Finally the day came when i had to travel to Panjab.. i was suppose to fly but some how the flights were irregular so management decided to send me by Car.

we didnt have our own CHF car because of custom etc prob. so we were running on hired cars..

i was suppose to go by one of the hired car but join one of the srilanka guy who was director of micro finance -CHF.. he was travelling by 2 cars. [in afghanistan all NGO follows 2 car policy..... if one car fails you continue your travel by second car but dont stop at unknown places..]..

so th hired car was parked in my guesthouse compound and the driver went home promising me to pick at 5:30.... I was littel bit more excited so i loaded my luggage in the evening itself to make sure that i dont have to waste time in the morning....

the srilankan guy came sharp at 5:30 am... my driver was unavailable.. srilankan waited for 15 min... lost his patient and left me on my luck.. i was upset and very angry on driver..... he came at 7:00 pm.. we fought.. we cancelled his contract.. and i had to postpone my trip.

finally next day Mr. Kevin and Ms. Colline [logistician] arranged 2 cars for me..

i had to take one of the afghan engineer Naeem with me...