Compounds in Afghanistan, Viewed From the Sky
Michael Yon in Afghanistan:
If we’re going to win this war, we will have to win over the rural Afghans. One compound at a time. An old friend of mine has an airplane in Afghanistan, and I’ve hitched a few rides with him. On one trip, I took aerial photos of compounds in Helmand Province, between Camp Bastion and Lashkar Gah. Compounds vary in different regions, but many families and extended families live within compound walls. [Here are a series of photos documenting] large compounds in the seeming middle of nowhere.Compounds (Michael Yon, thanks Wayne de Geere)
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Looks like the extended family version of the kind of "security first" architecture that was so damn popular in Venice in the 80's.
Taking aerial photos of private compounds doesn't seem the best way to win over rural Afghans to me. Disclaimer: I think the photos are great and do the landscape and feel of the area justice. I just that this part of the introductory text seems a little facile given that this is a culture where privacy and honour are tied closely together.
its our ranch and its our home..
they do the same thing throughout africa for family compounds, hotels, and shopping centers.
in urban areas of nairobi and mombasa, they'll also have armed guards in turrents and manning the gates.
that sort of stuff is hugely popular where crime/security is a tangible , daily threat.
burbclave
#4: I don't know about "throughout" Africa. Certainly, South Africa has "gated communities", but then so does California.
And now I'm more convinced than ever that Afghanistan and New Mexico are more or less the exact same landscape.
What this reminds me of, actually, is the really old Roman villas, where a rural settlement would be all the buildings for the extended family, household servants, and associated hangers-on inside a fortified walled compound.
Seems somewhat like medieval castles from Western Europe's "dark ages".
Michael Yon has been doing phenomenal work; far better than anything from the MSM. Where's his Pulitzer?
About nine years ago I flew over Afghanistan on a commercial flight (from Denmark to New Delhi) and at a much higher altitude. The landscape reminded me more of Mars. But then, in the middle of nowhere, I'd see these tiny compounds.
The rugged terrain as seen from 30,000 feet was striking. I wrote my impressions in an e-mail while in flight. I bet I can still find that if I look hard enough. (Would that be in my old Netscape mail, or in Eudora...?)
Former Mountain View, California mayor Rosemary Stasek has been working as a humanitarian volunteer on the ground in Afghanistan.
I know Rosemary. She lent me $100 once and when I tried to pay it back, she told me to donate it instead. If she says things have gotten dangerous in Afghanistan this summer, I believe it.I think these are very beautiful. -or they certainly could be if they could ever escape the shadow of bombing and the Taliban and bone grinding poverty. The walls seem to come right out of the earth, creating outdoor rooms filled, in some cases, with fragrant fruit trees and room for extended family.
I know it is pretty mainstream by now, but, The Kite Runner is a moving story, and the descriptions of the "compounds" in the early part of the book give another dimension to these photos.
Ditto #9..... Yon is the best the web and the MSM has to offer. Definitely should be getting a Pulitzer for both his fine reporting and breaking new ground in the technology of news.
Hm, I see some very nicely made cob roofs there. I wonder how they make those?
I thought that Compounds were what the Branch Davidians lived in.
Busterfriendly @15, compounds and similar arrangements exist all over the world.
I love Michael Yon's photography, however his politics tend towards "wingnut" which has made him a hero of the nasty right-wing fringe.
The fact that he is Michelle Malkin's BFF doesn't undo the quality of his photographic work, but it makes me wonder how full of shit he may be in his writing.
http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Amichellemalkin.com+%22michael+yon%22&sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS218US219
I thought the pictures were cool.
Well, Xeni - apparently Dennis Hopper is a total asshole, too.
That doesn't keep me from watching Blue Velvet every time I take LSD, though, does it? Of course not.
Teresa @ #16
Thanks for pointing that out, however..
Surely the Afghani people who live in these places don't call them "compounds", do they? No more than the Yanomami call their home (a walled cluster of buildings) a compound either. What I was getting at in a dry way was the word Compound is a western cultural concept usually meant to imply a fortress; these places looked like farmsteads to me, maybe the walls were built to provide protection from the wind, or from animals wreaking havoc on fruit trees?
Granted, my Branch Davidians comment was a cheap shot, but it seems to me that every time I hear the word compound used by the press it's usually being burned down or shot at.
If you read through Mr. Yon's blog a bit you might get the same impression that I did, here's a quote:
"These compounds offer a strong contrast to large American houses with front lawns ringed by picket fences. The people who live in these compounds might seem very different from us, but they want basically the same things: to earn a living and raise their families. But yet again, the Afghan people are caught in the crucible of history, and their homes are battlefields. War is part of the character of many of these people. They are not all innocent victims. The ones I am meeting are very friendly, but fighting is life to them. Afghanistan is a primitive patch of Earth. By comparison, Iraq is very developed and modern. Still, it’s easy to see why so many westerners like Afghan people. They can make you feel welcome, so long as you aren’t shooting at them."
Call me sensitive, but it sounds a tad ethnocentric to me.
1. (in the Far East) an enclosure containing residences, business offices, or other establishments of Europeans.
2. (in Africa) a similar enclosure for native laborers.
3. any enclosure, esp. for prisoners of war.
4. any separate cluster of homes, often owned by members of the same family.
[Origin: 1670–80; alter., by assoc. with compound1, of Malay kampung village, collection, gathering; cf. kampong]
Call me sensitive, but it sounds a tad ethnocentric to me.
You forgot Hyannisportistanis.
Okay,
Perhaps I was a bit hasty, Qa'lah is the Afghan word for a walled settlement, which translates to some degree as "fortress", not so distantly related to "compound" after all. Imagine my chagrin.
http://books.google.com/books?id=bY8ck6iktikC&pg=PA120&lpg=PA120&dq=qalah+villages&source=web&ots=HXoGZ-puJa&sig=QeDDSFwzNyF94V-u-NGoz96yvW4&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=6&ct=result#PPA127,M1