When negotiating with a warlord, don't drink the tea

Happy New Year everyone!

I was at a loss on how to spend New Year's Eve here. I did have the day off and all, so there must have been something to do right? Apparently I was the only one with that thought, no parades, no concerts, no football games, no fireworks at midnight! Afghanistan sure could use some lessons on how to party. So I of course found myself in the office trying to play my everyday game of catch up. Just before lunch we got a call from a  supplier about some materials that he no longer could sell to us. So we hopped in the truck to go find out what was going on.

There is a supplier right outside the base that most contractors get a large amount of materials from. He sells sand, stone, basically anything that you would dump and spread around here. There are middle men, but sometimes you need to go direct to the source to do a deal. I actually like that around here, lots of deals are made in person with a handshake, not a "send" button. We need a specific rock for a project here, it's similar to a river rock. We know that the main supplier has some of it but he didn't want to sell it to us because he can get more money for it after he crushes it into smaller rock than if he sells it whole. If we don't get that rock, we're screwed. There was one other guy who said he had it but based on what he was going to charge me, I think he was trying to retire. So yesterday two of us went out to see the main supplier and try to talk him into a deal.

We parked at the gate and walked out, it's about a mile walk, but since the gate is always crowded with delivery trucks, getting our vehicle back in would be a nightmare. This was my first time outside the wire here, and it's totally different from Kandahar. Here when you walk out what strikes you first is how open it is, not much to see in the immediate area other than the trucks, etc. In Kandahar you walk out and you feel as if you are immediately in the middle of a village. As soon as we got outside, we heard someone calling my coworker's name. It was a local Afghan who he knows pretty well, the guy actually wants to work for us on base as an escort. He falls into the category of the 80's retro dressed Afghan. The majority of the locals you will find wearing the traditional Afghan clothes, very baggy pants with the long baggy shirt, usually a head dress of some sort, leather sandles, sometimes that have a large wrap around them. And then there are the more business savvy ones who separate themselves from that and will have on more of a western style look. But almost always it looks like they just got their clothes from an 80's retro store. Odd looking jeans, velcro shoes, member's only style jackets, and then they will pull an iphone out of their pocket of course. So this young guy in his 80's gear comes running over to us shaking our hands for an uncomfortably long time as is often the case here. He asks us where we are going and says with a laugh "the Taliban are out here" and makes a gesture with his hand like he is cutting his throat. The guy I am with laughs and tells him where we are going, the kids says he will call them and tell them to spare us and then runs off as fast as he came. It wasn't until we had walked another 20 steps before I said "he was joking right?". The kid needs more time at the Afghan Laugh Factory I think to work up some more appropriate material.

We walked out the long sandy road about 200 yards and past the final check point where 2 marines were attempting to get the local truck drivers to understand that they cannot all park there trucks where ever the heck they want as they wait...it was a log jam, not sure how any of them ever made it through. One marine turned towards us and in between his arm waiving and yelling said with a defeated tone "f**k me".  I couldn't have agreed with him more. Imagine trying to sort out grid lock on a major road with dozens of 18 wheelers driven by men who don't even have the equivalent of a driver's license. All this while wearing a uniform that puts a target on your back. At this point the trucks have already gone through the bomb search and have sat in the "soak area" which means that they have been in a parking area away from the gate for at least 48 hours to make sure they get searched and that nothing funky is going on. This whole time the drivers are eating, sleeping, etc in, under, on, around their trucks. As we walked past them there were some who still were in the camping mood even though they were at the gate and had blankets and bags spread out as they huddled in a group to stay warm. Fuel is so expensive for them that sitting in a running truck to stay warm is not an option. The whole time we were walking I couldn't help but shake my head at the trash. It's EVERYWHERE. Empty water bottles, paper, wrappers, cans, blankets, construction debris, you name it and it is out there. Truck parts, oil, tires, it's unreal at what you can find out there just by walking around, never mind actually picking through any of it.

There was a guy and his son out there with a cart selling food and drinks, kinda reminded me of Causeway street at a Red Sox game...well minus the nice smells, good food, and cheery atmosphere. But you could tell that this was his regular spot, because the pile of trash behind him that was directly related to his cart was enough to fill dozens of trash bags. I watched as he pulled more items out of a box and just tossed it behind him and onto the pile. The young boy was busy stomping on the empty cans all around him when he saw us and as the well trained salesman that are all the children here, he locked in on his target and marched straight towards us...."you want drink" "you want eat". Note the lack of question marks there, these were not questions to his potential clients, these were statements. When speaking with the locals, they rarely take the tone of a question. Most are statements, which can be tricky when trying to negotiate something. Sometimes I leave those conversations and wonder what the heck I just agreed to. We denied his mind reading and told him that we wanted nothing. Literally having to get to the point of near rudeness to get past him.

Finally clear of the mayhem, we headed towards the entrance to the rock supplier. We were met at the entrance and waved through. Once inside we saw a guy who I recognized, I had met him previously at our office. He is the talking head so to speak, he goes on base and meets the contractors, etc. He was the one who originally told us he would sell the rock to us, and now was saying the opposite. He began by saying again how he couldn't sell to us as they needed that specific rock for themselves. After a few minutes of banter back and forth, he motioned to us to follow him. He was about 10 feet in front of us as we went past another massive pile of aggregate. We could see a group of about 6 men ahead, the guy I was with said "oh good, Hodgie is here", i asked who that was and the response was "he's the local warlord who owns this place", my blank stare led to him saying "no...he's cool". Oh good, he's cool. That eases my mind. Out amongst the piles of what must be millions of dollars worth of rock material and equipment in the middle of Afghanistan and he tells me that the warlord is cool. As we got close, the men around him all stood, one smiled and walked towards us and greeted us, my colleague of course knows this guy too, he seems to know everyone. After a quick hello we began telling him what we wanted and he turned to Hodgie and relayed the message. Hodgie is an old man, looks about 90, but most likely that means he is around 60. Long gray beard, dark wrinkled skin, arms were all wrapped up tight against his body under his wrap. We spoke to him through the other guy, though I think he understood English, protocol I guess. As we were talking price, someone's cell phone began to ring, it was one of those ring tones that are a song, no idea what it was though. Hodgie reaches deeper under his wrap and whips out a phone that put my little pay as you go model to shame. He steps to the side and begins to talk. Poor cell phone etiquette if you ask me. But I guess a warlord's business is never done, with all that planning of the next extortion maneuver and all. Once he was done presumably ruining someone's day, he stepped back towards us, reached out his hand, and we shook on the deal. Most of the locals shake your hand and then touch their heart, it's a nice touch. Basically we gave him the asking price, but that was just fine with me. I like nothing more than a good negotiation, but this wasn't exactly the place for that. Once the formalities were done, we were invited into the house for some tea. I like my tea with milk and sugar...on the lite side. They like their tea with opium in it....not really on my list of things to do around here, so it took about 5 declines before we were allowed to go without.

The ironic part is that we were probably safer there than if a local had been in the same situation. The base is the gravy train for this guy. I would estimate that he supplies multi-millions of dollars worth of materials for the construction around here, and if something were to happen to a "client", he would be expelled and out of business. Thus cutting of his "legit" bank roll. This all begs the question....by all the contractors and military purchasing these materials, and the money that is literally pouring into their bank accounts, are we actually bank rolling some of the corruption that has gotten this country into the situation that it is in? I can't see how it doesn't. Though he is not a direct enemy, and he most likely is providing information and some sort of service to the military, it adds to the already cloudy politics here.


We spent only about an hour there, but it seemed like longer. Outside the wire is a time warp for sure. On our way back in, and after the denial of hunger pains to the food kid again, the marines were still arguing with the truck drivers. We entered into the walk through portion of the gate, stood at a distance on top of the sand bag that marks the spot, opened our jackets, lifted up our shirts, turned and did the same to show our backs, lifted up our pant legs, and got the signal to come forward. Had our badges checked, and were led in front of the body scanner. Once through that we were able to skip the eye scanner and we were back to the comforts of the base.


Just another uneventful day off I guess...I better go approve that Purchase Order for the warlord.