Didn't Brezhnev used to hang up there?

You see, thirty odd years ago when the King was still ruling the warlords here (well kind of ) the young Rasoul turned up to manage the hydroelectric dam at Kajaki in the north of Helmand Province.

Or Wartorn-helmand-province to give it its full journo-speak name. And he's been there ever since.

I said for a joke - pointing at the big picture of Hamid Karzai over the boardroom table at the dam office - didn't Leonid Brezhnev used to hang up there Rasoul?

Oh yes, he laughed, his ten-inch black beard flapping up and down. And the king before that. And Najibullah after. And Mullah Omar after that, when the Taliban held the dam.

Sensing we were into something good here, I wondered what take the Talibs had on the potential evils and moral risks posed by water-generated AC flying out over the faithful on power lines.

Oh, he twinkled, they loved it. All power lines led to Kandahar in those days of long beards, black turbans and kohl around the eyes.

But when the unsmiling black-turnbanned lads controlled the dam they plainly needed light and power every bit as much as the next fanatic.

So he's still here. And a genuine enthusiast on producing leccy from water. Curiously, that's one thing Afghanistan is really rather good at.

And Kajaki would be better still at it if they could only get the plant in to fix one rather knacked generator and another that's not quite, erm, got built yet.

Trouble is - couple of miles down the road south and guess who is still there? Yes, the lads in the black turbanage.

And no, they won't let any kit through right now in case the power will further the evil ends of Karzai and his infidel NATO bully-boys.

Well, actually I haven't seen the latest Taliban edict on the issue. But Rasoul marked my card about what their line was. Good enough for me.

Oh - one other brilliant thing about this bloke. He's now been there so long he's the only one who really knows how the hell it works. All the Americans who built it are retired/dead/scared to call round or whatever.

So good old Rasoul's been more or less able to name his price.

Or at least that's the word on the street. Or the bazaar. Except there's nobody in the bazaar because of the war. So it's actually what some Marine told me up there.

I just want it to be true. I am deeply in love with the idea that if you ignore new technology for long enough, hard enough, patiently enough, your time witll come.

Rasoul Sayeed - Salaam Alekum.

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