Team Taliban

Sunday 27 December 2009

This has been a fairly atypical Christmas Day, which I suppose is pretty typical for a war zone.

A few weeks back, one of my team members had a syncopal episode, losing consciousness in the hospital and suffering a pretty good head bonk upon floor impact. The end result was an impressive pool of blood on the floor, some of which managed to trickle under a nearby Christmas tree in the small "dining area" of the hospital, followed by a few staples in the scalp laceration. Today, in the spirit of celebration, another friend of mine performed a song during our team meeting that was written and inspired by the event. The song was entitled "Blood under the Christmas tree" and was a smashing success. I'm not sure that it will replace "Silent Night" as a Christmas classic, but it has a pretty catchy tune, great lyrics, and is certainly original.

Here’s another Christmas story, albeit one you won’t likely want to share with the children fireside. During a village medical outreach mission about a month ago, intelligence came in that the Taliban was going to attack the team. As the security team spread out to the perimeter in order to form a hasty defense, the group of female Afghan interpreters, joined by my female team member, barricaded themselves into the place where they were staying and immediately starting dressing up and putting on make-up. I should add that having a female health care provider in that environment is critical, since Afghan women in most villages will only consent to be seen and treated by women. At any rate, when my female team member inquired as to why they were getting dressed up for the attack, they recounted that their survival strategy was to get dolled up so that if they were captured, they could become hookers for the Taliban. They were very pleased as my team member, who has a light complexion, began to get cleaned and dressed up as well, and they would now be able to offer the Taliban a variety of skin tones from which to choose.

A photo was taken of the potential Taliban hooker team, and my friend actually forwarded it to her husband back home. He then sent it to her father, not recounting the story for the inspiration of the photo. The proud father now displays the photo on his fireplace. The perfect gift for my team member this Christmas, of course, was make-up.