Call of the Wild. Graeme Membrey

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 for about ten days and the one thing that was hard to do in Afghanistan was to exercise. At times I felt as if cobwebs were forming inside me as I yearned to go for a run, or hit a punching bag.

      I remember at this compound, there was a young man of about 30 years of age who was a chowkidar, or watchman, for the demining teams and he was on an ATC contract. He was disabled, with an entire missing leg and he wore a stiff prosthetic. Each day, either late in the afternoon or early in the morning, depending on our schedule, I would run up and down the length of the compound. I measured the distance, and it was only about 55 metres long. But I figured if I ran its length, up and back, only five times, then that would be just over half a kilometre. If I did that seven times, it would be nearly three and half kilometres which would be a good run and I could inter-mingle it with some sprints and some normal running. So, that’s what I did basically each day for that mission. I also found a large rock that I used for chest presses and some local bricks that I had found to use for shoulder and biceps exercises. I worked out a full routine, which is something I would continue to do in several other countries.

      As I was doing my running and strength exercises one morning, this young chowkidar guy with his stiff artificial leg watched me. I thought he was interested in joining me but realised he couldn’t. After three days had past, one evening when I had finished, I went and got one of our Peshawar staff and then returned back out to this young chowkidar. All of our conversation was through translation, as although my Dari was reasonable, it was not good enough for the conversation I thought we might have and besides, he was a Pashtun here in Nangarhar and may not have been too good at Dari.

      We sat on the veranda area of the main building in this partially abandoned compound and called the chowkidar to join us. As we chatted, I eventually asked how he lost his leg. With openness, he said he had been shot high up in the thigh and his complete leg was amputated by a local doctor. I assumed he must have been hit in the femoral artery area, as he said it was amputated then and there, in the field four years ago. He had woken up in a hospital in Peshawar not knowing why he was there or why he was in a bed. His name was Mohamad and he told of the sad and too frequent situation where a deminer or mujahid would be injured, then drugged unconscious and operated on, only to wake and wonder where they were, not knowing of the damage they had received. As he spoke his eyes watered just slightly and I felt for this guy. I asked how he got his artificial leg, as many in this region didn’t have any and were bound to crutches or wheelchairs. He said that an Australian NGO had provided it to him and that he was very happy to have it. But I had seen him walk and noticed he had a bad limp. I asked if the leg was a good fit and why he limped so badly. He said that his leg stump had altered over the years and now it was just a little too small for the prosthesis. It gave him pain when he walked for more than a few minutes. He also said he used to be a very good soccer player as a younger man. This reminds me now of an incident near Kabul in 1995 when the Taliban were gaining significant strength there.

      I had been coming back from a visit to the south-west of the city when we drove past a barren soccer pitch not far from my home in Kabul city. A gathering of men were standing and squatting around someone on the ground and a few were running back and forwards to the road. We were forced to slow right down to avoid hitting them and it was then we realised a young boy had been injured or was ill. A man running back to the gathering saw us looking and yelled at our car that the boy had just been shot by a Taliban militant. He asked whether we would help. So we pulled the car over and ran to the crowd. On the ground was a young lad of only about 16 years of age. He was covered in blood from his waist down to his toes. Nobody really knew first aid, so I used my multi-knife and cut his trouser leg along its length looking for the bullet entry. It was high on