Diary

20 February 2010

Janine di Giovanni opens her diary

The thing about Ak-47s, a friend of mine once told me, is that when you hear that god-awful crack, you know the bad guys are around. Good guys never use that kind of rifle. The noise reminds me of all the creeps I have come across over the past two decades — Chechen thugs, Sierra Leone rebels, leering Serb snipers, teenaged Liberians in wedding dresses and fright wigs, and the drunken Ivorian government soldier who pointed his AK at my heart, safety catch off. Here in Afghanistan, too, the baddies carry AKs.

After a long break from reporting war — in the form of a five-year maternity leave — I find myself fumbling around with a safety belt on a chopper flying over Helmand. From Camp Bastion to Sangin, I am moving into the heart of the conflict, to be embedded with the good guys. My wartime experience had always been as a ‘wild cat’ — an independent who covers what she wants, when she wants. But as I fight the urge to be sick, I realise how much of a scaredy-cat I have become since becoming a mother. I’m out of touch with modern warfare.

I tried to pack lightly, warned by a hysterical (male) colleague in a rather macho way that ‘No one is going to carry your bags!’ He went on to explain, in detail, the horrors of Sangin, a town in the valley of the Helmand river: how many people die per patrol; what exactly happens to your limbs when a roadside bomb blows you up. I am pretty sure I have seen more active combat than my friend, but I know how sensitive the male ego is, so I don’t complain. We land at Forward Operating Base Jackson. I struggle to lug my gear off the helicopter before someone kindly offers to help. I am then introduced to a young officer named Emma, a graduate of Sandhurst, who looks as if she should be competing at gymkhana. She gives us a brisk tour, pointing out the outhouses and describing, in the most embarrassed voice possible, that the outhouse was for ‘Number one only’.

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