A full description of the mountain ranges of Afghanistan - Bob McKerrow

Climbing with Bruce Watson from Hokitika, in the Kohi Anjuman Range in August 1996. We were at about 5000 metres when I took the photo. Photo Bob McKerrow

It is a warm sunny day in Christchurch, New Zealand, the 15th of November 2008. I have been back in New Zealand for four days which has given me a chance to put together and publish a few articles I wrote when I lived, worked, trekked and climbed in Afghanistan in 1976, again from 1993-96 and visited in 2003-04 and 05. I also spent two years working in neighbouring Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan and was able to visit the Afghan borders and look into Afghanistan and study the complexities of the mountain systems. See map of Afghanistan below.



I was fortunate to be able to do some climbs in Afghanistan, as well as some mountain skiing between 1994 and 1996 and the article Various Short Walks in the Hindu Kush can be read on my blog: http://ladenladenfam.blogspot.com/2008/02/various-short-walks-in-hindu-kush.html


Bob McKerrow on skiis in the western Hindu Kush an hour or so from the Salang Pass. January 1996. Photo: Bob McKerrow

I hope this article adds something to the knowledge of the Mountains of Afghanistan.

Writers and geographers have wrestled with descriptions and the location of the high Hindu Kush. It has been called the solar plexus of Asia, the Pamir Knot and in the second century was thought to be the source of the Nile by the Greek geographer, Ptolemy. Afghanistan is roughly quadrilateral in shape, with the long finger called the Wakhan stretching east wards.


A satellite image of the Hindu Kush taken in 2006

Afghanistan is a land-locked country lying between 29o 35' and 38o 40' northern latitude and between 60o 31' and 75o 00' eastern longitude on the mountainous and desert areas where the Iranian plateau borders with the mountainous systems of Central Asia.

The country is bounded on the north by the countries of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan (9238km), on the north-east by China (96km) and India ? (102)km, on the south and east by Pakistan (2310), and on the west by Iran (925 km)



The cover of the book I wrote on Afghanistan. Photo: Bob McKerrow

The system of folded mountains is quite complex and erratic, but generally run north-east to south-west. The north-east and central parts of Afghanistan make up a huge highland area covering over half the country with an average altitude of 2000 metres. The dominant mourn-tain system in Afghanistan is the Hindu Kush which commences in the extreme north-eastern corner of the Wakhan corridor and stretches in a south-westerly direction for more than 700 km finishing at the Shibar Pass. On the western side of the Shibar Pass the Kohi Baba curves south-westwards and can almost be called an extension of the Hindu Kush. This huge mountainous region descends on all sides quite abruptly to flatter regions, except to the north-east where it becomes the Pamirs.


To the north the Hindu Kush falls into the plains of Bactria which stretches as far as the Amu Darya (The Oxus River). East it drops to the Indus basin, to the south is the dry deserts of Seistan and Garmsers and to the west, about 140km from the border of Iran the mountains de-scend into the steppes and Namaksars (salty deserts) of Herat province. The huge tract of land north of the Hindu Kush

The boundaries of Afghanistan have changed dramatically in the last 200 years. At the start of the 19th century, Afghanistan stretched from Meshad to Kashmir, from the Oxus to the Satlej River and to the Arabian Sea. This greater Afghanistan was built by Ahmad Shah Durrani (1747-1773) and was known as the Durrani Empire.

Unfortunately, the British colonialists in playing the great game and wanting to feed their politician's paranoia of the Russians, placed a buffer between Lahore and the Afghan border. The north-west frontier province was carved out of eastern Afghanistan and was incorporated it into the Indian Empire. In placing this formidable barrier between themselves and Russia, they left the highest peak of the Hindu Kush, Tirich Mir in India, now Pakistan. As most Afghans still regard everything in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province across to the Indus as rightly belonging to them and knowing that the 100 year agreement (forced upon Abdur Rahman Khan in 1893) over the artificial border known as the Durrand Line has expired, they believe one day they will get back all their lands illegally seized by the British.

Early writers refer to the the area where the Hindu Kush abuts the Pamirs as the Pamir Knot. or the solar plexus of the mountain system of Asia. Lowell Thomas saw it thus:

The system of folded mountain ranges that spans Asia from east to west radiates out from the Pamir knot, " a region of wilderness, of rock and wind and dizzy peaks." Westward it extends from the Hindu Kush to the Elburz Mountains, south of the Caspian Sea, and to the Zagros Mountains that form Iran's southern frontier. Branching out from the Hindu Kush to the south and east are the four major ranges-the Karakorams, Himalayas, Altyn Tagh, and Kunluns, which continue into China as the Tsinling Mountains. To the north range the Tien Shan and the Atlai mountains, the latter extending from the Gobi Desert to the southern edge of Siberia



This photo shows what early explorers called the Pamir Knot. The coming together of the Pamirs, Hindu Kush and Karakoram Ranges

The English explorer Colonel Schomberg describes the meeting point of the world's great ranges.

"As the traveller climbs up to the passes on the frontier, he gazes over an expanse of snow and rock. To the east are the Karakorams, the Kun Lun, and the Himalayas: to the west and north are the Hindu Kush and the down-like windswept Pamirs. To the south are the great snow ranges of gilgit and Kashmir. He has reached the solar plexus of the mountain system of Asia, baffling and most repelleFor the purpose of defining the Hindu Kush, I use Moham-med Ali's definitions, the the Oriental Hindu Kush and the Occidental Hindu Kush. Mohammed Ali was a former Professor of History, Kabul, and a prolific writer of books on Afghani-stan.

In deciding where the two divisions occur I amalgamate both Mohammed Ali's and Ludmig Adamec's dividing lines, the Khawak Pass. However Adamec goes further and divides it into three sections, the eastern from the Pamirs to the Dorah Pass, the central from the Dorah to the Khawak; and the western from the Khawak pass to the termination of the range near the Shibar Pass.


Hindu Kush ( Oriental)


The start of the Hindu Kush oriental. A view of peaks near Noshaq taken from the border of Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Starting on the north-eastern extremity of the Wakhan corridor where the Pamirs abut from the north and the Karakorams from the south east, this is the meeting place of four countries: Remote, mysterious and seldom visited the countries of Tajikistan, China, Pakistan and of course Afghanistan meet. With its starting point in the Wakhan, the Oriental Hindu Kush con-tinues through Badakshan to the Khawak Pass in the Panjcher Valley, the graveyards of thousands of young Greek soldiers, who were led by Alexander the Great in the spring of 327 BC over the Khawak Pass. The soldiers died, frozen to rocks as they dropped from cold, exhaustion and frostbite.

It contains the highest mountains in Afghanistan. Noshaq, 7485 metres is the highest point, of the Afghan Hindu Kush.

In an area surrounding Noshaq are many peaks over 7000 metres. The highest peak in the south eastern limit of this Oriental Hindu Kush is Mir Samir, 5,800m, made famous by Eric Newby in his book "A Short Walk in The Hindu Kush," based on his eccentric journey in 1956 with Hugh Carless. Mir Samir is a magnificent peak, close to the Chamar Pass, and a two to three day walk from the Khawak Pass. I attempted to climb this peak in 1995 and climbed an unclimbed 5000 metre peak nearby.This is the upper part of the scenic Panjcher valley and contains the Anjoman Pass, 4200 metres which conects the Panjcher valley to Badakshan. This pass I have crosed four times and affords one of the most spectuacular views of the Hindu Kush, and the Tirch Mir can be seen in the distance in Pakistan.



A Lake in northern Badakshan near the Tajik border


A subsidiary range runs south off the Hindu Kush into Nuristan and another to the north the Khuajeh Mohammad Range with peaks up to 5,800 metres.


Hindu Kush (Occidental)


The road leading to the Salang Pass, which has the highest road tunnel in the world. It conects Kabul and the Shomali plains to the plains of Bactria. Photo: Bob McKerrow

The western section of the Hindu Kush starts at the Khawak pass and continues another 200 km to the Shibar Pass in a south westerly direction. Halfway between the Khawak and Shibar passes is the Salang Pass and the Salang tunnel, supposedly the highest road tunnel in the world. There is no peak over 5200 metres in this section, but what it lacks in height, it makes up with spectacular scenery and hospitable mountain people, particularly in the lower Panjcher valley.

The Hindu Kush occidental, was first named by Persians in their language of the Avesta, well before the coming of Alexander of Macedonia. They called it Paropanisadae, and means, a mountain loftier than the ceiling of even an eagle's flight. Alexander's men graecised it to Paropanisus. However it seems the Persian and the Greeks, were referring to the part of the Hindu Kush seen from Koh Daman, the plains north of Kabul, and is what we call, the Hindu Kush Occidental. The sheer size of the Hindu Kush is hard to gauge from a map. From 1993 to 1996 I criss-crossed the Hindu Kush countless times in the course of my work and the best viewpoint always was flying south to north over the Salang Pass at over 20,000 feet early in the morning. From the air, the Salang Pass appears in the middle of the mountain massif. To the north-east the Panjcher valley, narrow at the start and broadening later, dominates the low foreground. Thousands of peaks, increasing in height towards the eastern horizon dominate the jagged landscape. Two peaks are easily recognisable, Mir Samir on the southern side of the Panjcher and to the north, Kohi Bandak. As your viewing perspective nears the eastern horizon a jumble of indistinquisable high peaks merge into a mysterious white world. The width of the range is astounding, over 190 km including the subsidiary ranges.

To the west the Hindu Kush diminishes in height and later merges imperceptibly into the Kohi Baba which in turns spreads in all directions into the wild and desolate tablelands known as Hazarajat. From the air the snowcovered tablelands look as though the concave mountain faces have been shaped by an ice-cream scoop. Standing alone to the west-north-west is the Turand-i-Turkestan, isolated. impressive and clearly separate from any other range, except for a spur running south-east, named the Hesar Range.


The author wearing a turban at a wedding ceremony in the mountainous Panjcher valley. Photo: Bob McKerrow


Kohi Baba

Starting 25km south-west of Bamian, it extends in an westerly direction for 120 kilometres miles, curving like a boomerang. From the air its looks like an extension of the Hindu Kush with its highest peak Falodi 5135 metres prominent in the centre of the range. South and south west of the Kohi Baba is a very mountainous plateau area from which various tributaries of the Helmand river starts. To the north-west of the Kohi Baba is a mountain range from which the fist trickles of the Balkh River start. The peaks reach 4555 metres in height and appear from the air as a continumn of the Kohi Baba.

Hazarajat

The Kohi Baba is in the centre of a region that early Afghan geographers described as the Central Block of Hazarajat. A number of explorers and geographers have likened it to Tibet. Mohammad Ali's description cannot be bettered. "This is a vast table land extending from Herat to Kabul and from Ghazni to Bamian. It is a high, bleak, and intensely inhospitable country, where snow lies for a greater part of the year, and where little or no fruit is grown, and the cultivation is confined to the narrow banks of rivers and streams. This irregular table-land has been scored and eroded for centuries by river action. From here emerge some of the greatest rivers of Afghanistan. To the north the river Khulm (Tashqurghan) and the Balkh take a hurried start for the plains of Bactria; westward the Hari Rud streams off to Herat; south-ward extend the long curving lines of the Helmand, Harut, Khash Rud and Arghandab, and eastward flows the Kabul with its various branches. A rugged mountain mass, called the Koh-i-Baba and Firoz Koh, the lineal continuation of the Hindu Kush."


Camel trains carrying loads in the Central Hindu Kush, near Hazarjat. Photo: Bob McKerrow

The southern extremity of Hazarajat are Shah Massoud and Kafar Jar Gah ranges which run along the southern border of Oruzgan provinces.

Firoz Koh

To the west of the Kohi Baba is a twin range named the Firoz Koh. It runs parallel to the Tir-band-i-Turkestan, which lies to the north. The northern branch of the Firoz Koh is called the Safid Koh (the white mountain) and the southern branch is called the Siah Koh (the black mountain) It lies within the Hazarajat region.

Parapomisus

The name Parapomisus is a confusing name and it pops up in history books going back as far as Alexander the Great. One writer says " Continuing meanwhile his own advance, Alexander arrived at the foot of the colossal mountain-barrier, the chain of the Paropanisos, which separates Kabul from Bactria.

The natives designation was Parapamisos, or, as Ptolemy more correctly transliterates it, Paropanisos. "(J.W. M'Crindle) In the course of time this range gets shifted to the west. Ali describes it as " a small range lying to the the extreme west, between the districts of Herat and Badghis. Its local name is Siah Babuk.".

Ludwig Adamec in his Historical Dictionary seems to agree with modern maps: He spells it Paropamisus and says" the name given by Western writers to the Safid Kuh and Band-i-Baba, the range bounding on the Hari Rud (q.v.) valley on the north." A number of cartographers, particualrly the Polish during the Soviet occupation, leave the name off the map altogether and stick to the more specific ranges, the Safid Koh and Band-i-Baba.

The Paropamisus is specatcular when driving from Qala-i-Nau to Herat. It takes on the appearance of the Italian Dolomites with it sheer-sided pinnacles. The Sabzak Pass is the main pass and is usually cut off in the winter.

Turband-i-Turkestan

This impressive range forms a mountain border between southern Fariab and Sar-e pol and the northern border for Badghis and Ghor provinces with peaks reaching up to 4161 metres. Approached from the north, the Turband -i-Turkestan breaks the lunar-like landscape of Fariab province by providing a stately-white mountain range that dominates the high south-ern horizon. A number of villages at altitudes of 2000 metres are inhabited by mountain Tajiks who plough and plant the treeless mountainsides with a hardy variety of wheat. Pockets of Hazara and Uzbeks families also live in the villages at slightly lesser altitudes. The Tur-band-i-Turkestan is frequently racked by earthquakes, and is situated on an active faultline. At its eastern extermity an outlying range, the Hesar mountains run south easterly where the bor-ders of Ghor, Sar-e-pol meet Bamian province. The highest point of this range is 4539 m.

Lowell Thomas writes about the early history of the geography. "The source of the Nile and the location of the Mountains of the Moon were two of the earliest geographical enigmas. Both puzzles lasted into the nineteenth century, for not until central Africa had been penetrated and mapped did it become possible to solve them. ..... In the second century AD., Ptolemy, with the accumulated wisdom of the astronomer, mathematician and geographer, was more positive.In the fourth century BC., Alexander the Great had consulted the oracle of Jupiter (Amen-Ra) in the Siwa oasis of Egypt about the success of his expedition into the East-and about the sources of the Nile (which he thought he had found in the Hindu Kush mountains of Asia, near the headwaters of the Indus River.

It's a wonder Alexander knew where he was at the time, because he referred to the Hindu Kush as the Caucasus. On later maps they were referred to as the Indicus Caucasus. Probably, "Caucasus" was bandied about in the same way the name "Alps" is to-day, Aristotle further confused the issue by calling the Hindu Kush the Asiatic Parnassus. According to Babur, founder of the Mogul Empire, Hindu Kush means "Dead Hindu." Today we render it "Hindu Death."


Kohi Paghman

Possibly the most photographed mountain range in Afghanistan for from most parts of Kabul the north-west skyline is dominated by Kohi Paghman, a jagged range with summits reaching almost 5000 metres. Kohi Paghman forms part of Kohi Daman, Daman meaning skirt, a skirt of mountains that circle the north of Kabul. On a winter's day there is cannot be a more impressive capital city view in the world than standing in the mountain Lion capital Kabul, looking at the ring of mountains in all directions, the most prominent being Kohi Paghman.


Bushkashi, the mountain metaphor. It is a wild game played on horseback where a goat is used as a ball. Photo: Bob McKerrow

From the village of Paghman a main river valley leads up and forks, one valley leads into Parwan and thence, Bamian, (a well known packing route) the other into Wardak province.

This was the favourite region of the first Mogul Emporer, Babur. Here he wrote his poems, held wine parties, visited friends and soaked in the beauty.


Speen Gar and Safed Koh

This is an off shoot of the Sulaiman range. Sikkaram, its highest peak, is 15,600 feet.A magnificent range when cloaked with winter snow and from the air and ground it dominates the landscape of Nangahar provinces and acts as a divide between Nangahar, Lowgar and Paktia provinces. There is a discernable pass between the eastern Speengar and the connecting range, the Safed Koh, (not to be confused with the Safed Koh in the Parapomisus, which divides Nangahar province from Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province. The Safed Koh curves from its predominent west-east direction to the north east as it descends down to and finishes at at the lengendary Khyber Pass.


Kashmund Range

When flying from Jalalabad to Kabul's Bagram airport it is possible to see the Speengar and the Safed Koh to the south and to the north a craggy range running from Assadabad in Kunar province to near the town of Metarlam in Laghman province. The south-western end of the Kashmund range drops into the southern end of the Alingar valley which leads to the high peaks of Nuristan. Further westwards is the fertile Tagrab valley which has an impressive un-named twin peak with a spot height of 4420 , trees cling to its steep sides up to 3,500 m. In winter the twin summits look similar to New Zealand's magnificent ice peak, Mt Tasman and its lesser peak of Silberhorn.


Sulaiman Range

This range is the barrier between the Indus basin and the Helmand River. It starts in Paktia Province at the Shutur Gardan pass 11,200 feet and runs in a south-south-easterly direction where it takes on additional names, the Mangal and Jadran hills. The highest points reach up to 12,000 feet. It is likely the mountain range got its name from the Sulaiman Khel Ghilzais, the name of the tribe whose land it passes through. There is another range of this name which runs along the Baluchstan-Punjab border.

The bones of thousands of over-ambitous conquerors and their followers lie strewn across the heights of the Hindu Kush as they tried to take Afghanistan, but few were able to hold the mountain lands for long as the Soviets found out in the 1980's. This current war, like so many earlier ones against Persian, British and Russian armies, will be decided in the mountain valleys and passes where fanatical warriors momentarily put aside tribal feuds and joined together, displaying a unique brand of mountain guerrilla warfare which is based on hawk-like instincts, circle, swoop and loot. The spoils of war provide important resources. Of all the mountain passes in Afghanistan, the Khyber pass has a long history of conquests and death.


MOUNTAIN PASSES

There are thousands of significant mountain passes dotted throughout the country and it is not possible to name them all. However, the important ones have been mentioned in this article already.


The road winds up to the Khyber Pass, Landi Khotal and Torkham.

The most famous of them all is the Khyber Pass as it is weakest chink in the great chain of mountains stretching across India, Pakistan and Afghanistan is the most famous of all passes in Asia, the Khyber Pass. Lowell Thomas describes the Khyber's strategic importance:

"The fabled Khyber cuts through the mountains south of the Hindu Kush, west of the Pamir Knot, connects the northern frontier of West Pakistan with Afghanistan, and links Turkestan in Central Asia with the subcontinent of Hindustan."

Afghanistan and the Khyber Pass became the nineteenth century's legendary Northwest Frontier, patrolled by British military units like the Bengal Lancers. Campaigning through the "hills," their deeds of glory provided colorful material for Rudyard Kipling. In his "Arithmetic on the Frontier," Kipling paid tribute to the price paid by those early "few" with slightly racist overtones, not uncommon of that ear.: "

With home-bred hordes the hillsides teem,
The troopships bring us one by one
At vast expense of time and steam
To slay Afridis where they run.
The "captives of our bow and spear"
Are cheap, alas! as we are dear


Landi Kotal Cemetery

A reminder of the huge loss of life can be seen today, when you head towards the Khyber Pass you pass the Landi Kotal Cemetery where soldiers of the British Army, mainly from 1879-80 (Second Afghan War) and 1898 and 1919 (Third Afghan War), are buried. Many regiments and battalions are represented here. Two stone obelisks stand in the middle each bearing a plaque. The inscription on one is almost faded and the other records: "Sacred to the memory of the British soldiers of all ranks who lie buried near this spot 187 of whom died at Landi Kotal from the result of wounds received in action and from disease during the Afghan Campaign of 1879-80 and the remainder since the reoccupation of the Khyber in 1898"

Wherever you are in Afghanistan it is impossible to escape the influence of the mountains. The success of crops depends on adequate winter snows, millions of sheep, goat and cattle rely on the lush summer alpine grazing for their survival, the country's economy depends on the gemstones lodged in deep mountain recesses, transportation is reliant on the condition of the alpine passes, avalanches, spring snow melt and the resultant floods can wipe out a village and its total crops with a flick of its icy tail.

And, with the heavy deforestation and overgrazing up to the snowline all year round, local eco-systems and the biodiversity have been so impacted that the mountain habitat is degrading so quickly that landslides, flooding from bursting natural dams caused by blocked rivers, have wreaked havoc in mountain regions. Local mountain inhabitants complain that changing weather patterns are affecting their lifestyle. The result is a major ecological disaster occuring in the Hindu Kush.

Only a great president could cope with all this

There was the euphoria of Barack Obama's stunning victory twelve days ago, and the depressing result of our elections last Saturday with a frightening bunch of right-wing politicians set to govern the country. If you look at their individual track records of racist slurs, anti resource management act comments and lack of understanding of climate change just to quote a few,it concerns me greatly. I have been reading Robb's and Pete's blogs and comments and feel we have to look beyond our shores for the hope, moral and bold leadership that Obama is likely to bring. A man, who as a boy walked the streets of Jakarta amongst the poor, will not forget the damage money hungry people people like Keys, Dunne and Douglas have done. His roots are from Africa and he will not turn his back on the damage wrought be centuries of colonial exploitaion, such as slavery and genocide. I have been searching for the complete story on the challenges Obama faces. This was published in The Times overnight and is the best I have read to date. Thanks to Gerard Baker for his astute analysis.

Only a great president could cope with all this

From the financial crisis to Camp David sleepovers, Barack Obama's early decisions are bound to break some heartsGerard Baker
What do we do now?” asks Robert Redford, at the end of The Candidate, after his morally corrosive election campaign has left him successful but devoid of principles or agenda.

There's no chance Barack Obama will find himself asking his advisers this question in the next few weeks. Seldom in the past 50 years can there have been a presidential transition freighted with the sort of policy challenges this one carries.



Candidates generally run for office on one list of issues and then quickly find once in power that there's a whole lot more urgent stuff they have to deal with. Mr Obama began his campaign two years ago thinking that Iraq and healthcare would be his two main priorities as president.

Now, even before he takes office, Iraq has - mercifully - lost most of its immediate sting, and healthcare is in danger of being overwhelmed in the storm of crises that awaits. A brief to-do list includes a succession of pressing tasks, any one of which would be heroic in scale: economic stimulus; financial stabilisation; averting the collapse of the American motor industry; saving global trade; reversing the tide in Afghanistan.

Background
Obama planning rapid end to Guantanamo Bay
Bush unveils details of transition to Obama
Codename Renegade enters the White House
Changeover can make all the difference
If you add to that the likelihood that, within his first term, he will have to make a pivotal decision about Iran's nuclear capability and will continue waging a global war on Islamist terrorism, you get a sense of the scale.

Bill Clinton used to worry to his advisers that he couldn't ever achieve true greatness because there were no big challenges any more. He should have been so lucky. Much - way too much - has already been written about Senator Obama's capabilities. The one thing we can say with certainty is this: if he can somehow navigate the US safely and prosperously through the swirling currents of the next four years he will really have a claim to greatness.

So Washington is agog with anticipation about the arrival of the new president. But Washington being what it is, the immediate focus of frenzied concern doesn't involve tax cuts or bailouts or sit-downs with foreign leaders. It is the critical decision that will bring euphoria to some and break the hearts of others: where the Obama daughters will go to school.

I've long thought that there's a certain type of parent in Washington that rears children solely for the same reason they do everything else: to move upward in society. They would literally kill to get Nelson Jr into a particular school in the hope that it might be an entrée to some important contact. True happiness for many in this city is the possibility that little Meredith will play on the same soccer team as the daughter of the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Administrative Affairs, or if fortune is really smiling, some glamorous White House correspondent for one of the networks.

Now suddenly the prospect that their daughter might find herself in the same class as Sasha or Malia Obama - the White House Birthday Party! The Camp David Sleepover! - is, quite simply, going to drive a lot of people insane. This weekend there are thousands of wealthy Washingtonians clinging to the Audacity of Hope that their school will be selected. Many more will flood the lucky academy next year with admission applications. The city's proudest lawyers will plead with administrative assistants for reconsideration. There will be attempts at bribery. There will be blood.

When he and Michelle have finished disappointing a sizeable number of the capital city's parents, President-elect Obama will have to turn to the business at hand.

The times and circumstances of his election call not for a sharp ideological turn but for pragmatism. We trust you to do what works, was the message from the voters. The early evidence is encouraging. The selection of Rahm Emanuel as White House chief of staff is intriguing. Mr Emanuel is as sharp an operator - in every sense of the term - as anyone in this city of flick-knife-wielding political assassins.

His managerial style is famous. He is to the courtesies of polite society what Sweeney Todd was to the short back and sides. He is known for using a familiar Anglo-Saxon expletive in conversation as a convenient all-purpose verbal utility vehicle: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, participle, gerund, whatever.

But he is a cold-eyed pragmatist who masterminded the triumph of the Democrats in the 2006 midterm elections - a victory built on the selection of candidates who were notably centrist in their outlook. Whatever egalitarian sensibilities he may have had about economics and financial markets were presumably softened by his period as an investment banker, when he is alleged to have made $16 million in less than two years.

On economics, that suggests that President Obama intends to do what works. That will probably involve a mix of the middle-class tax cuts he promised and some targeted spending increases. But it could well go farther. His economic advisers are understood to be urging him to be bold, as the current crisis demands. A trillion-dollar budget deficit is not beyond the bounds of possibility. He will, if he is as wise as he seems, drop the quasi-protectionist rhetoric that might have sounded good in a campaign but will surely turn recession into global depression if implemented as policy.

Abroad, the new president will surely seek to make good on his promise to repair America's standing in the world. But he and his advisers know too that much of the damage was done in the first four years of the Bush Administration. The next four years of Obama foreign policy are not likely to be all that much of a breach with the more cautious and co-operative past four years. One early decision will have to be made on the future of Guantanamo Bay. The President-elect is already being advised on the legal and security complications of making good on his pledge to close it. But he knows its symbolism as a blight on America's reputation. Closing it might well prove to be not only the ideologically pure thing to do but also the pragmatic way to rebuild America's reputation.

The biggest political challenge is going to be how to alternately please and restrain a Democratic-controlled Congress. There's a danger and an opportunity in this. The danger is he gets pushed by them towards policies that might be unpopular. The opportunity is that he can, on occasions, stand up to their demands and win credit for his toughness - something President Bush never seemed able to do.

The Obama era will open with high expectations and high hurdles for success. The first task for the new president will be to bring both down to scalable levels.

Kuchi or Kachchi nomads: India, Afghanistan and beyond.

Kuchi nomads in Afghanistan

When I was a boy I used to have similar dreams at least twice a week for years, probably for eight or more years. I was with a group of nomads with camels, horses, sheep, goats and some cows. It was on quite a dryish area and there were stunning snow capped mountains as a backdrop. Later when I went to Central Asia I saw the backdrop to my dreams, the steppes and the mighty Tienshan mountains of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. I married a Kazakh woman who was born on those very steppes of my dream, on the border of China and Kazakhstan. Grand Mum still lives in that village, and at 90 still tends her sheep, grows a great garden, and bakes her nan in an oven outside, a tandori. So my friends, childhood dreams can come true. I have always been fascinated by nomads.

In late 1993 when I moved to Afghanistan for 3 years, I started taking a deep interest in Kuchi nomads and over the years traced their roots and routes to Central Asia, Kachchh district in Gujarat, India, and places beyond.


A map of Gujarat showing the Rann of Kachchh where the Kachchhi nomads live and graze and nmove to the fringes when fodder is scarce.

I quote from my diary in June 1995. One of the memorable aspects of this trip was our contact with Kuchi (nomads). On our way up the Panjsher valley on 3 June 1995, our way on the narrow dirt road was constantly blocked by up to 50 Kuchi extended families moving their livestock - camels, goats, sheep, donkeys and horses - to higher pastures for grazing. Most of the Kuchi we saw were in the area from Rokhah to the road pass of Rawat. Their black, low-slung tents, made from goat hair, were dotted all up the valley.

Goat hair tents in a Kuchi camp in the hills behind Herat, Afghanistan


They tend to go in large extended family groups with one of the men leading heavily laden camels, between, 2 to 5, carrying tents, pots, water jars, bedding, firewood and materials to trade etc. The men were dressed in the way of normal Afghans but the women were conspicuously different.

First of all the striking colour of the baggy trousers, either dark green and a red, near maroon red top/dress over the trousers. The head scarf was usually a bright colour. The younger women, under 30, had their hair parted in the middle and broaches/hair clasps on the fringes.
Facial tatoos were noted on all women, probably done at or around puberty. In most women seen, they had tatoos on either cheek, sometime one on the chin and forehead.

Young girls seemed to all have dark black hair cut in the page boy style. Eyes very large and striking, ranging from the predominent dark brown to a few with blue eyes.

They cared well for their animals. Young goats were in the tents being protected from the elements, women tenderly carrying lambs in their arms, an old sheep, probably lame, riding on the back of a camel. The camels were usually adorned with colourful braids, goats had bells on their necks and the donkeys carrying saddle bags.

Babies and young children were tied on to backs of camels or donkeys and wore intricately embroidered hats/bonnets. The children seem so content sitting on the backs and thrive on their mobile geography lessons.

The children and young women seem to be gatherers of wood, berries, leaves, wild vegeta-bles, powdered lime/rock.

Carpet making is clearly an activity. Ian saw one women making a kilm runner. One old man was preparing wool from a sheep skin.

The above is merely from observations on the trip.

Louis Dupree, the great authority on Afghanistan wrote this :

"Before the war started in 1979, it was estimated that about two million Afghans are either fully nomadic or semi nomadic, and an increasing number of these two types join the already numeropus semi-sedentary groups.

These are herdsmen who move as a group from summer to winter pasturages and back again. Most nomads are either Pashtun, Baluch, or Kirghiz. The Pashtun and Baluch move more horizonatlly than vertically; but the Kirghiz in the Pamir Mountains move more vertically than horizontally."

It is likely that the nomads we saw were mainly Ghilzai, Eastern Pashtuns.

Actually, the nomads have a functional symbiotic relations with the villagers along the routes from grassland to grassland.
Sheep and goats supply meat, dairy products, wool for clothing, rugs (Khilms) and goat hair for tents. Nomads often trade these items for grains, vegetables, fruit, and nuts, and although cash exchanges increase every year, barter is still common when the migration routes leave the modern lines of communication.

Trade items (tea, sugar, kerosene, matches, guns, ammunition etc.) are offered to villagers by the nomads; itinerant peddlers function only where the nomads do not control the monopoly.

Money lending is a major economic activity of the wealthier nomads. Even landowning
village farmers need extra cash for birth, circumcision, marriage, or other ceromonies and rituals; the nomads happily lend money at exhorbitant rates. etc

Animal dung, a primary source of fuel and fertilizer, is liberally spinkled on farmers' fields by the nomads flocks after harvesting. etc.

Communications flow from region to region through the mouths of nomads... the nomads also serve, contrary to popular belief, as the maintainers and perpetuators of marginal grasslands.

When you delve deeper into where the word Kuchi came from, it is from Kachchh, the far western corner of India in the north of Gujarat. Tejinder Singh Randhawa an authority on the Kachchhi people says in his book., " Katchchh has been a significant confluence point for different races and people. The nomadic pastoralists are certainly the most interesting and their links can be traced on one side to the Marwar and Mewar (regions of Rajasthan, Saurasht and, on the other side, Sindh and beyond to Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asia."

I lived in Bhuj, during the Gujarat Earthquake in 2001 and spent a lot of time with Kachchhi people and the similarities in dress, embroidery, pastoral nomadic life were so similar. I studied the embriodery closely and compared it with the Kuchi nomads in Afghanistan. Virtually identical. The similarities were astounding. I would like to quote my my good friend Bernard Dupainge, Ditrector of the Museum on Man in Paris. His words on embroidery are revealing about culture.
He says this about embroidery:

" The richness of its history, the diversity of the landscape, everything inspires to make Afghanistan a stronghold of traditions and art forms. Each valley has its own cultural identity, it own orininality. In a country where the main route of communications were overrun by invaders, the mountaineers turned in on themselves. Access was difficult and uncertain, the valleys isolated."

As Louis Depree says earlier in my piece, that the nomads traded, bartered and influenced culture. Embroidery would have been traded, and of course copied. Hence similar embroidery a thousand miles or more apart.


Kuchi children in Afghanistan. The embroidered shirts on these Afghan Kuchis are almost identical to the designs i saw in Katchchh district, Gujarat, India.

The largest group in Katchchh district in India are the Rabari who are Hindu cattle herders and shepherds. The other main group of pastoralists are consist of two dozen nomadic or semi-nomadic Muslim groups who trace their roots from Sindh and beyond. The Jath are the largest of the group.


Kachchhi nomads near Bhuj in Gujarat India with their camels.

But despite the seemingly romantic way of life the Kuchis appear to have, the situation in Afghanistan is grim as Paul Garwood reported recently from Kabul, Afghanistan
One man lives penniless in a field under a patchwork tent with baying dogs roaming outside. Another, wearing a suit jacket and tie, glides past his silver Mercedes as he welcomes guests into his plush Kabul villa.
Both are Kuchis, which means "nomads" in Pashtu language. Yet they have little in common, except their shared heritage and the view that the life of Afghanistan's wandering peoples is fading.

Kuchis on the move in Afghanistan

Few of the itinerant tribesmen have settled down and prospered. For the majority, life has been pushed to the brink by poverty, war, shrinking access to land, ethnic tensions and leftover land mines.
"We are the last of the true Kuchis, but because of the hardships we are fed up with this life," said Fugal Khan, a 50-year-old Kuchi who has hit the road with his family and five others, heading for higher country to beat the coming summer heat.
Officials estimate there are about three million Kuchis among the 25 million or so Afghans, with about 60 per cent of them still following the nomadic life. They are among the poorest of the battered country's poor, owning little more than a tent and a few sheep and cows.

For more than 3,000 years, Kuchis were Afghanistan's pre-eminent transporters and traders, serving as a mobile bridge between South Asia and the Middle East.
But now Kuchis like Khan, who recently arrived on Kabul's outskirts after walking 100 kilometres from eastern Laghman province, are a largely forgotten people, neglected by government.
Armed villagers and warlords often chase them off the land guaranteed to them under the new constitution. Hospitals refuse their sick, and graveyards reject their dead. They earn money by selling milk from their animals, but many also make their children work or beg. Even if they wanted to settle down, most couldn't afford to buy or rent a house.

An elderly Kachchhi women near Bhuj, Gujarat


Yet not all Kuchis share the same lot.
Some have bought property and use it as a base to return to after several months of travel. And there is a smaller, more affluent group that settled down long ago, leaving the roaming lifestyle behind.
Hashmat Ghani Ahmadzai, chief of the Grand Council of Kuchis, is among the wealthiest and most influential Kuchis, thanks to a large family inheritance based on land ownership as well as a successful transport company. He is also a vice president of an American security and reconstruction company.
As chief of the Kuchi council, which represents the interests of largely settled Kuchi tribes, Ahmadzai deals with important Afghan politicians, including President Hamid Karzai. But he says ideas he has put forward to improve life for the poorest nomads, such as providing community centres and integrating them into settled societies, aren't being taken up.
"Nomadic life is coming to an end. Ninety-eight per cent of the Kuchi lifestyle has changed," Ahmadzai said, sitting in his luxurious Kabul home filled with deep red Afghan rugs and dark brown lacquered tables. "The grazing land is not there, transportation and trade has changed so much. Kuchis are not needed."
Kuchis played a key role in Afghanistan's post-Taliban political revival, throwing their support behind Karzai in 2005 presidential elections.
The nomads' most influential figure, Naim Kuchi, was detained by U.S. forces in early 2003 for being a Taliban commander, then freed in late 2004. Karzai feted him on his return, a gesture many Afghans believe was aimed at courting Kuchi support at the ballot.
Ten of the 249 seats in Afghanistan's parliament have been allotted to Kuchis, but many are filled by people who aren't nomads because few actual Kuchis stepped forward to contest the election.
Warlords with records of war crimes and serious abuses during Afghanistan's civil war in the 1990s, such as parliamentarians Abdul Rabb al Rasul Sayyaf and Burhanuddin Rabbani, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, and current Vice President Karim Khalili, have been allowed to hold and misuse positions of power, to the dismay of ordinary Afghans.

Kuchis were also promised a government department to handle their affairs, but it never materialized.
Shahbuz Ahmadzai, a prominent tribal leader hand-picked by Karzai to advise him on Kuchi and tribal affairs, accuses the government of doing nothing to help nomads.
"Kuchis have the hardest life of all Afghans. These people have no possibilities even after giving their vote to President Karzai," he said. "If my advice keeps being ignored and I continue to be disappointed I will resign."
Nomadic life on Afghanistan's high plains has become more dangerous amid the proliferation of weapons and scattering of land mines, particularly during the mujahedeen uprising against the 1979-89 Soviet occupation and the ensuing four-year war to topple a communist government.
"Before the revolution, we Kuchis had a very good life and were free to use huge areas of desert," said Alim Jan, a 45-year-old nomad.
"But things changed with the war between the communists and the mujahedeen. Everyone took up guns and nobody now listens to the government. Now when we enter the desert, men approach us with guns and say: 'Go away, Kuchis.' "

This is just a snippet of information I have gathered on Kuchi or Katchchh nomads and would appreciate feedback on those who probably know more than me. They are rarely written about.. Next article I would like to elaborate on the embroidery of Afghanistan.

Leaving for Christchurch tomorrow - Total knee replacements on both knees

This is what I am in for early next week. Two total knee replacements.


Yes, its off to Christchurch tomorrow. Jakarta-Singapore-Christchurch. These are my two favourite photos of Christchurch above and below,


After decades of marathon running, tramping, climbing, skiing, triathlons, lugging heavy packs full of hut repair equipment up to tramping club huts, and later resupplying huts in the Mt. Cook National Park, my knees have finally given up. No cartilage, just bone on bone. The quality of life is going. So I have taken the big decision !



So next Tuesday in Christchurch my orthopaedic surgeon Ed Newman is going to put me under the knife for total knee replacements on both knees. I am looking forward to the operation and a full recovery that will get me up into the higher mountains again.

I just received a note from my good friend Paterika, a Poet Laureate from Barbados
and I give my reply that explains a little more about why I am having the operation.

Kia Ora Paterika

Thanks for your blessings and prayers. I need all the help I can get to make this a full recovery. At my age, I feel I should be able to play football with the boys, climb moderate mountains and get back the mobility I had five years ago. Its an exciting time and I have a great surgeon in Christchurch, Ed Newman, who, with his first class skills, enables crippled shepherds to ride again, fishermen to fish, women marathon runners who have given up, able to run again etc. So I am sure Ed will have me out climbing again.
When I was director of the New Zealand Outward Bound school I used to quote the philosophy of its founder, Kurt Hahn. He said " your disability is your opportunity." Had it not been for my knees restricting my movement I would not have written my last two books, nor would I have been blogging. So its time to turn my disability into another opportunity.

Arohanui.

Bob


I am going to get something like this new Knee system which was launched in March this year. If you are interested, have a read.

SAN FRANCISCO, MARCH 5 /PRNewswire/ -- Stryker Orthopaedics, the maker of
the Triathlon Knee System, the industry's fastest-growing total knee
replacement system worldwide, today announced the addition of Triathlon PKR, a
partial knee resurfacing system, to the Triathlon Knee System family.
"Triathlon PKR with X3 is a great addition to the Triathlon Knee family,
which allows surgeons to treat the unique needs of each patient and provide
them with a personalized solution," said Mike Mogul, President, Stryker
Orthopaedics.
Triathlon PKR is the industry's first partial knee resurfacing product
that utilizes Stryker's X3 advanced bearing technology, which has demonstrated
up to a 96 percent decrease in wear in laboratory testing compared to
competitive premium bearing surfaces in total knee replacements.(1)
Potential benefits of partial knee resurfacing include a quicker operation
and a shorter hospital stay-with the procedure in some cases being performed
on an outpatient basis (<24 hours)-as compared to a total knee replacement.(2)
With Triathlon PKR, less bone is removed and there is often less trauma to
soft tissue during surgery, which may leave the patient with a more natural
feeling knee than with a total knee replacement.(3) The device is also
anatomically shaped and designed to enable surgeons to use the latest
minimally invasive surgical techniques, which may result in a smaller scar for
the patient.
Also unveiled today is Stryker's Triathlon TS Revision System, which is
designed to provide Triathlon performance in a streamlined revision procedure.
The intuitive and evolutionary design is based on the Triathlon Primary System
and millions of Stryker knee implantations. The Triathlon TS Revision System
is designed to provide improved motion(4), better fit(5) and the potential for
greater implant longevity(6)(7).
The Triathlon TS Revision System is also the only revision knee system
with X3 bearing technology and "post preservation features," which aid in
alleviating the stresses typically exerted on a stabilizing post in a revision
setting.
Stryker will be showcasing its Triathlon PKR and TS Knee Systems at the
2008 American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Annual Meeting in San Francisco,
March 4 through March 8 at booth #4946.

To sit by the Samovar

Nomadic Kyrgyz boiling water in a Samovar for tea. Note the silver coloured Sanovar at the ankles of the man who has a wood supply around him to keep it going all day. Note the pipe on the Samovar which helps the fire draw better.

Tea made from water heated in a Samovar has always tasted better than any other type of tea. Perhaps the charcoal and the smoke flavours the water. In my travels in Afghanistan, Central Asia, Pakistan and India, I must have drank thousands of cups of tea from Samovars. But I rarely get the chance to talk about Samovars but a few weeks back, Satya Tripathi and Bill Nicol came round for dinner and began admiring my Samovar collection.

The Russian expression "to have a sit by samovar" means to have a leisurely talk while drinking tea from samovar. Satya, Bill and I did just that and we had a wonderful evening talking about tea, tea shops (Chai Khannas) and the origin of Samovars and of course Afghanistan, Pakistan, Central Asia and India. I recall some vodka and red wine being produced at some stage too.

Two of my favourite Samovars are a beautiful brass one with the Royal Seal of the Czar and Czarina of Russia and dated 1895 (below in front of me on the right) and a home-made silver one I found in a bazaar in Afghanistan (in frony of Satya on the left below).

A samovar мовар, Russian pronunciation: [səmɐˈvar] literally "self-boiler") is a heated metal container traditionally used to heat and boil water in and around Russia, as well as in other Central, South-Eastern and Eastern European countries, in Iran, Kashmir and Turkey. Since the heated water is usually used for making tea, many samovars have an attachment on the tops of their lids to hold and heat a teapot filled with tea concentrate.

By the time Catherine the Great died in 1796, Russia was consuming over six thousand camel loads of tea per annum-better than 3.5 million pounds! This is especially impressive when you reflect that nobody had invented a faster camel. What they had invented, probably as early as Elizabeth's tme, was the samovar, a Russian word that means "self heater."

An 18th-century samovar of Baroque
shape, depicted on a 1989 USSR
postage stamp below.
The likeliest explanation I can come up with for this invention is that the samovar is a modification of the Mongolian firepot, which operates on the same principle and was used by the trans-Ural nomads for cooking. Be that as it may, the samovar soon became a feature of everyday life throughout Russia. For reasons of tradition and economy, Russians were accustomed to a single, if mammoth, daily meal, and high and low resorted to the samovar the rest of the time, generally sipping their tea from glasses through a sugar cube held between the teeth.
Though traditionally heated with coal or charcoal, many newer samovars use electricity and heat water in a similar manner as an electric water boiler.

Tea plantation in India

Samovars come in different body shapes: urn- or krater-shaped, barrel, cylindric, spherical.
A traditional samovar consists of a large metal container with a faucet near the bottom and a metal pipe running vertically through the middle. The pipe is filled with solid fuel to heat the water in the surrounding container. A small (6 to 8 inches) smoke-stack is put on the top to ensure draft. After the fire is off a teapot could be placed on top to be kept heated with the passing hot air. The teapot is used to brew the заварка (zavarka), a strong concentrate of tea. The tea is served by diluting this concentrate with (кипяток) kipyatok (boiled water) from the main container, usually at a ratio of about 10 parts water to one part tea concentrate, although tastes vary.


A conical urn-shaped silver-plated samovar
It is particularly well-suited to tea-drinking in a communal setting over a protracted period. This compares with the Japanese tea ceremony, but only superficially.
In everyday use it was an economical permanent source of hot water in older times. Various slow-burning items could be used for fuel, such as charcoal or dry pinecones. When not in use, the fire in the samovar pipe was faintly smouldering. When necessary, it was quickly rekindled with the help of bellows. Although a Russian jackboot сапог (sapog) could be used for this purpose, there were bellows manufactured specifically for use on samovars.
The samovar was an important attribute of a Russian household. Sizes and designs varied, from "40-pail" ones of 400 litres (100 US gallons) to 1 litre (1 US quart) size, from cylindrical to spherical, from plain iron to polished brass to gilt.

So whether it was Elizabeth or Catherine the Great of Russia who promoted the invention of the Samovar, it didn't really matter as Bill, Satya and I sat round the Samovar the other night. It was tea for all and not one slip between the cup and the lip.

Barack Obama -Watch a thousand flowers bloom

I was so excited yesterday when Barack Obama gave his victory speech and watched the re-run of the day's event over and over. My heart is full of hope in a time of deep dispair, depression and growing poverty.

The short article below by Michael Moore moved me. It came closest to my thoughts over the last day and a half as we begin to watch a thousand flowers blossom.



Who among us is not at a loss for words? Tears pour out. Tears of joy. Tears of relief. A stunning, whopping landslide of hope in a time of deep despair.
In a nation that was founded on genocide and then built on the backs of slaves, it was an unexpected moment, shocking in its simplicity: Barack Obama, a good man, a black man, said he would bring change to Washington, and the majority of the country liked that idea. The racists were present throughout the campaign and in the voting booth. But they are no longer the majority, and we will see their flame of hate fizzle out in our lifetime.
There was another important "first" last night. Never before in our history has an avowed anti-war candidate been elected president during a time of war. I hope President-elect Obama remembers that as he considers expanding the war in Afghanistan. The faith we now have will be lost if he forgets the main issue on which he beat his fellow Dems in the primaries and then a great war hero in the general election: The people of America are tired of war. Sick and tired. And their voice was loud and clear yesterday.
It's been an inexcusable 44 years since a Democrat running for president has received even just 51% of the vote. That's because most Americans haven't really liked the Democrats. They see them as rarely having the guts to get the job done or stand up for the working people they say they support. Well, here's their chance. It has been handed to them, via the voting public, in the form of a man who is not a party hack, not a set-for-life Beltway bureaucrat. Will he now become one of them, or will he force them to be more like him? We pray for the latter.
But today we celebrate this triumph of decency over personal attack, of peace over war, of intelligence over a belief that Adam and Eve rode around on dinosaurs just 6,000 years ago. What will it be like to have a smart president? Science, banished for eight years, will return. Imagine supporting our country's greatest minds as they seek to cure illness, discover new forms of energy, and work to save the planet. I know, pinch me.
We may, just possibly, also see a time of refreshing openness, enlightenment and creativity. The arts and the artists will not be seen as the enemy. Perhaps art will be explored in order to discover the greater truths. When FDR was ushered in with his landslide in 1932, what followed was Frank Capra and Preston Sturgis, Woody Guthrie and John Steinbeck, Dorothea Lange and Orson Welles. All week long I have been inundated with media asking me, "gee, Mike, what will you do now that Bush is gone?" Are they kidding? What will it be like to work and create in an environment that nurtures and supports film and the arts, science and invention, and the freedom to be whatever you want to be?


Watch a thousand flowers bloom! We've entered a new era, and if I could sum up our collective first thought of this new era, it is this: Anything Is Possible.
An African American has been elected President of the United States! Anything is possible! We can wrestle our economy out of the hands of the reckless rich and return it to the people. Anything is possible! Every citizen can be guaranteed health care. Anything is possible! We can stop melting the polar ice caps. Anything is possible! Those who have committed war crimes will be brought to justice. Anything is possible.

President Obama and Red Cross

Today I thought of Henrik Beer, Secretary General of the International Federation Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies from 1960 to 1982. If he were alive today, Henrik would have been so moved to see a black American President. Henrik Beer worked tirelessly to bring diversity into an organisation that was European, North American and Scandinavian dominated in the 1960s and 70s.



Henrik Beer

Henrik bought in Bill Dabney as his Deputy Secretary General in the late 1960s, the first black American to hold that position. Justice Adefarasin, from Nigeria in 1977 became the first African to hold highest position in the Red Cross, the President of the then League of Red Cross Societies.

Recently, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies appointed Bekele Geleta, from Ethiopia, as our first African Secretary General.Bekele is bringing about positive changes that will enable us to scale up our efforts to assist the most vulnerable people.


Secretary-General of the UN Ban Ki-moon (right) meets with Bekele Geleta, Secretary-General of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent (IFRC), in July this year.


These are times of change, healing and renewal in world politics and world humanity. I salute you Barack. You spent many years as a boy in Jakarta, and won the admiration of so many Indonesians. They called you Barry and now the 'Menteng Kid' after the school you attended. I live in Jakarta and hear and read from people who knew you. My boys go to school in Jakarta too and I know you will be an outstanding role model for them, and so many young people in Indonesia.

I also note that when Hurricane Gustav struck the US in September this year, you asked people to give to the American Red Cross. I quote from AFP.

Associated Press
September 2, 2008
DETROIT - Barack Obama urged hundreds of thousands of supporters yesterday to donate to the Red Cross to help victims of Hurricane Gustav. The Democratic presidential nominee scaled back Labor Day speeches to unions in an effort to keep the focus on the Gulf Coast.

It will be a challenging road ahead, but I am convinced we now have the moral leadership, both political and humanitarian, to tackle the issues of inequity, poverty, conflict and discrimination and the will, to turn the World's economy around.

Jakarta celebrates the Menteng Kid’s victory
The Jakarta Post this morning ran the headlines above and the following story which shows the affection people have for Barry (Barack)or the Menteng Kid.

Jakarta shared the anxiety and the joy of the U.S presidential election won by new Indonesian darling Barack Hussein Obama on Wednesday.
It was a special day for students of Obama’s former school SDN Menteng 01, Central Jakarta, who gathered at the school’s hall to watch the final results pour in. Several pictures of Obama during his school years there were prominently displayed.
A 15-minute silence has been held here every day since Monday to allow the students to pray for Obama’s victory.
“Every day we have something different to pray for, but since Monday we have prayed for him,” said principal Kuwadiyanto.
Obama, or Barry as he was affectionately called during his time in Indonesia, enrolled in the school — then named SD Besuki — as a third-grader in 1968. He previously attended the Fransiskus Asisi Catholic School, also in Central Jakarta.
Obama’s historic election as the next U.S. president was a dream come true for his supporters in Indonesia.
“I think it’s good motivation for the children to study hard and set their dreams high,” Kuwadiyanto said.
Israella Dharmawan, Barry’s former teacher at Fransiskus Asisi and an avid follower of the U.S. election, said she was proud and touched by Barry’s win.
“I hope to see him become a good president and keep his campaign promises,” she said, adding he was good, cheerful and easygoing as a young boy.
“I remember he once wrote two stories titled ‘My mother, my idol’ and ‘I want to be a  president’,” she said.