Day 122: Want to be a Police Officer?

Adraskan is the location of a training facility for the Afghan Civil Order police. I’m spending the week with them as part of their new recruit in-processing. My job is to supervise the medical screening. The funny thing about the screening is that it doesn’t really matter what you find--they don’t disqualify anyone. So say you are into marijuana or heroin (a lot of guys here are) and we catch it on your urine drug screen...no big deal...you can still be on the police force. Let’s say you only have only one eye and you can’t see out of the one you have left...still want to be a policeman?...sure why not. Can’t walk?...well that’s not such a big deal. It definitely is a different standard than what we would be used to.

Me and some of the clinic staff. The guy on my right is an Indian MD, to my left is an Afghan MD, and far right is a pharmacist.

I had some down time while we waited for the recruits to make it up to the medical clinic. I hung out with some of the recruits who are close to graduating. They thought it would be fun to come talk to the American. I tried to speak a little Dari--they tried their hand at English. They did a little bit better than I did, but hey, they have the advantage of having seen John Wayne, Rambo, and the Terminator. How many shows in the US have you seen lately where the actors speak in Dari? I rest my case--I think I did alright.

This actually was very funny to watch. They look imposing in the picture, but if you were to see them in person you would be convinced that Eden--all 25 pounds of her--could walk right through without any difficulty.

These are the guys who I was chatting with. Some spoke surprisingly good English.

This gentlemen, Aseef, was particularly friendly--who knows, maybe he's Taliban? They say that some of these students are. Good thing we have weapons and they don't.