Camp Holland, 5th August 2011

Today was seriously hot, hitting 50 degrees celcius, extremely difficult to work in, This week is also the start of Ramadan, where those of the Muslim faith observe fasting from sunrise to sunset, I have got to know some local Afghan's here who supply us here, one in partricular in a fascinating gentleman, he explains to me "Mr. Noel, the problem in this country is Education, 95% of the population of no education, this is why we have so many problems"- he himself was educated in Moscow back in the day when the Russians were here, he goes on to tell me that he has 10 children, 7 daughters and 3 sons, and he proclaims very proudly that 5 of his daughters are in University In Kabul, he himself is a Civil Engineer, and he runs a very good business here in Camp Holland, if you want something, he can get it !, and as you can imagine, we need a lot of stuff, everything from plumbing fittings, to renting a car, we can hardly survive without him up here, he also takes care of our supply lines from Kandahar which is a tricky matter !

I met him today in this heat and he was really physically struggling, as the combination of fasting and heat was taking his toll, he had cut back his beard and was covering his head even more to protect himself, I enquired about a delivery we are expecting and he beckoned, "This is no problem, I bring tomorrow for you material, inshalla"- inshalla being "with the help of Allah" - so we wait until tomorrow !

I have attached an image above which shows you a view of Camp Holland, which was established here by the Dutch until they handed it over last year to the joint command of the US & Australia, Its a very raggle-taggle set-up and appears very temporary by nature though I imagine it will be here for many years, we have a deck here in our compound which allows me to take some great images of the breathtaking landscape around Tarin Kowt, I will post images from time to time-