Posts Tagged ‘Afghanistan’

Ages and ages and ages ago, when Michel and I were in Afghanistan, I did a video about the management of, well, sh** on kamp Holland.
I finally got around to editing the video… and here it is.
And btw, no, the first two systems don’t smell… and yes, the third one does. A lot.
Have fun!

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Hahahaha! I just read this and I think it’s hilarious.
Apparently, Australian soldiers have complained about the bad Dutch food being served in Kamp Holland, Afghanistan!
Of course, it’s perfectly understandable. While the food on Kamp Holland was… plentiful… and, well… food, it’s not exactly going to satisfy the gourmet palate (and apparently not even the palate [...]

Timo Smeehuijzen - May 24, 1987 - June 15, 2007
There are no words to fully express what the Smeehuijzen family has gone through since 2007, when their son Timo was killed in a suicide bombing in Afghanistan.
The bomb went off as a Dutch convoy headed back to base after celebrating Women’s Day in Tarin Kowt. [...]

So the Dutch army runs into Taliban insurgents pretty often. These encounters are often violent… and sometimes the Dutch capture some of the militants.
Which got me curious… were there detainees on the base? While we were there? There must have been… but we never saw any “detainment center”… and nobody ever talked [...]

Yup, the mortuary girls.
This was my shorthand name for Corporals Kimberly and Cisca - the only two people on Kamp Holland who work in the mortuary.
It’s not the only thing they do (they also work shifts as nurses in the hospital), but they’re the only ones who do it - so when somebody dies on [...]

In Afghanistan, soldiers see a lot of stuff that they wouldn’t normally see - poverty and pain and sadness in a population already devastated by decades of war. And sometimes you don’t even have to leave the base to see it - Afghan kids hang around the outer edges of Kandahar airfield
Lieutenant Rene, one of [...]

Deep inside Kamp Holland is Echos. We’ve mentioned it before, it’s the “bar” on the base where you can get a drink (alcohol-free) or a bite to eat, play video or board games, and just generally hang out with your friends.
Annelies is one of the people working at Echos. Her story is a peculiar [...]

This week on Curious Orange (the radio show)…
It’s part three of our Dutch in Afghanistan series - On-Base, but Off-Duty.
We’ll take you for breakfast at the Afghan bakery, a portable lunch on the road, and, a little later on, a (non-alcoholic!) drink at Echo’s bar. And then it’s the weekend - with salsa lessons on [...]

I’ve seen some of his work, and, if you ask me, Gerben van Es is a great photographer.
My personal favorite is a picture of soldiers out on patrol in Afghanistan. To the left is a high mud wall; the soldiers walk towards the camera in the center of the photograph. They are serious and watchful. [...]

Lou Cuypers is a Dutch entrepreneur working in Uruzgan. He is not affiliated with the army and he likes to keep it that way. Basically, he works with local farmers in Southern Afghanistan… and they aren’t too keen to have army trucks showing up at their door - that might get Taliban attention, and that’s [...]