My friend and former colleague Lars Tollemark found my blog the other day and we started talking. He are working in Kabul Afghanistan at the moment for 3 months as part of the EU Election Assessment Team. Well this is not the first time my friend does this, actually he has done it 25 times before, whereas one was assessing the election in Peru. During that time he lived in Miraflores. Kabul is a bit different and even if the work is good, there is a range of security issues in the country, he says. Lars travel with 4 lifeguards in bulletproof cars to work and wear safety vest and helmet when doing so, due to this safety issues.

But where Lars lives (in the EUs own area) he is guarded by 180 Gurkha soldiers from Nepal ”.. so if feels pretty secure afterall.” he continues.

Lars belongs to the EU Election Assesment Team and the work titile is Reginal Election Expert. They are 16 persons working in the team. ”We are working with evaluation the whole elections process, everything from election laws, campaigns, the election committee´s work e.tc.” Lars says. The final product is a report about the entire process and recommendations for future elections in Afghanistan. ”But what do you do when you are not working?” I ask Lars. ”It is kind of a hectic job so we don´t have so much free time and since we are not being able to go into town we have some movienights and I also read a lot of books. ” If your are interested in knowing more, which I am sure you are, you find the team and their work on their newly registered facebookpage. Click here.

Katarina

This is Lars Tollemark in his working outfit- All the photos are Lars Tollemarks own. Borrowed for this post.