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Being short of copy this month I thought you may like to read the following
from a past member who over the last few years has travelled the world. Ed.

SAM FENSTERHEIM 11.01.2016

It is so weird being locked up, unable to go anywhere because of the security
restrictions of the ICRC and the being in Afghanistan part. I regularly
frequent prisons and if I am really in luck get to do an inventory, but most
of the time I live a hamster like existence, circulating between my office, the
canteen, my office again, the gym and then my house.

It is quite peculiar being in such an environment, an artificial bubble with
foreignish food - Western recipes with an Afghan twist, like pasta with soy
sauce; and other things that you would expect to find in any country in the
world.

All the houses have cleaners, who probably think we are nuts having analysed
our strange consumption habits and the goofy garments that we wear. I still
haven't got used to the fact that I don't actually have to do anything outside
of my job itself. I don't even walk to the office, which is only a couple of hundred
metres away, but instead have to board the shuttle.

There is no banking or taking out money as we just go to the cash desk and
tick a few times on some paper and whenever my computer breaks down which
seems to be an awful lot, I just call up a guy and he liberates me from my
suffering, taking remote control of the heap of the crap.

Life, apart from the increasingly frequent bomb blasts, dreadfully slow
Internet and the complete lack of movement is pleasant. There are even some
women here whose hair I can see and I have met a couple of ridiculously
open-minded guards with whom I go and hang out. I think if I could just move
around a little and I didn't have the residential prison visits where I have to
stay there and eat rice with fat three times a day. Life could be pretty chill.

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