Afghanistan - My story

It's been a while. My trip was really something special so I had to collect my thoughts before I could write them down. And before I went I wasn’t allowed to talk about it at all, for safety reasons. But now I’m back on “safe soil” in the arms of my children and with new perspectives on life.
It’s a long story but I will try to be short. We set off to Denmark and got on a military plane there. We were a bit late and although the plane was far from full I realised quickly that the more experienced soldiers had all taken a row of three seats each. So most of us musicians sat together which was nice in the beginning, but you couldn’t fold the backrest so it was very hard to get any sleep. Also the fact that a couple of Lithuanians were having a loud party in the seat in front of us, did not help.

After a first stop in Georgia to pick up some new soldiers we continued to Kabul and even though I was extremely tired and had finally found some space to sleep, I just had to stay awake and look at the beautiful landscape when we took off. Also I must admit I was a little bit scared since I read so much about terrible things going on in Kabul recently. And it was no use falling back to sleep on the short flight over to Mazar e Sharif either. As a mother of small kids with a cold this was not the perfect start but it was what it was.

On the ground we got well taken care of and where given a short security brief and armour, helmet and a first aid kit was handed out. Suddenly I was standing in the middle of the desert, surrounded by high walls with barbed wires and maybe even hostility in the area. A very absurd and strange feeling it took me a while to digest. 
But we got down to business and started preparing what we were there for. The people, from all nations on the camp, were extremely friendly and seemed very happy to see us as a nice and welcome break from their every day life down there. All musicians in the Swedish armed forces entertainers are trained before we are allowed to go on missions. But most of us are still a bit confused about many things, like all the rules in the military which I think they all found a bit amusing. But our job is to entertain so that’s ok. ;-)

We did a fun interview on the German military radio and sang a few songs outside the mess to let people now that we were there. And the shows went great. That was the easy part and almost the same as home besides from the extremely thankful audience. I saw tears running down and a lot of photos were taken after the big show in the atrium for all the nations.

We visited an Afghan restaurant and a bazaar where we could buy some silk scarves and other souvenirs and on the way home we stopped by the memorial to pay our respect to all the soldiers who had died. There were a lot. Not that many Swedes but many lives of young boys, gone far to early. I will never understand war. I will never understand how the need for power or money can make you go so far as to actually end somebody’s life. I think that what the Swedish soldiers do there now, seems like a good thing, helping the gouvernment to get a more stabile situation and work for women's rights and so on. But I also know that there is always two sides to every story. And both sides have families and loved ones that will miss them when they are gone.

I it was a great adventure but the things I will remember most are all the many inspiring conversations I had with both the Swedish and foreign soldiers. The sacrifice they make, staying away from their loved ones at home, and their everyday struggle down there with language barriers and differences in cultures and so on. They really are true heroes to me.