FAIZABAD: When John Simeon worked on the 1994 election in Mozambique he used roads, but here in Afghanistan he is juggling helicopters, donkeys and satellite phones to get ballot boxes to and from polling sites.

Simeon is in charge of logistics in the remote northeastern province of Badakhshan, where most of the 13 districts are accessible only by a bizarre combination of helicopters and donkeys.

"Satellite phones will be put on the donkeys and then with the GPS (Global Positioning System) the donkeys can be identified wherever they are," he said. By tracking the satellite signal, and making crackly phone calls with handheld Thuraya satellite phones, Sime on hopes that within two days of the October 9 vote all the donkeys will be able to congregate on a flat spot so that the helicopter can land and pick up the ballot boxes.

"Maybe it will take two days, but we will be working full- time. We are not going to sleep," he added. Simeon will have to recruit almost 8,000 staff in the next two weeks to ensure that the 228 polling stations across Badakhshan province are staffed with queue controllers, ink monitors and supervisors in time for the election.

Voters will have their fingers marked with indelible ink to ensure they only vote once. More than 1,000 police will be needed to guard the sites, to ensure the security of Badakhshan's 362,700 voters, almost half of whom are women.

With creaky Russian jeeps, helicopters and donkey riders he will have to get 2,367 tables and the same number of screens, thousands of chairs, and hundreds of tents out to polling sites in districts which are only accessible by foot and donkey.

Although the United Nations has organized elections in post- conflict situations such as East Timor and Cambodia, Afghanistan's geography poses one of the biggest challenges to the organizers of the country's first presidential elections.

Badakhshan borders China, Pakistan and Tajikistan and has some of the country's the most inaccessible and mountainous terrain. Compounding the challenges is an estimated 80 per cent illiteracy and an electorate unfamiliar with the idea of a secret ballot.

"I am very confident that although time is limited the majority will understand the whole process in time," said Sudanese civic education trainer Riak Gok Majok, who is working in the province.

When his female colleague Ghul Jan Harimya goes to the villages she has to explain what the voting booths will look like and how people should file into them and cast their votes. She also shows them mock ballot sheets.

"When we go to the villagers we show them who the different candidates are, and we say 'This is the box, this is where you put your vote, we show them where to go'," she explained.

Almost 80 per cent of the women understand what she means. If they don't, Harimya talks to their husbands to explain things. Her work became trickier after a riot in provincial capital Faizabad earlier this month following allegations that four women working for an international aid agency were raped and tribal elders became suspicious about women working with foreigners.

But she has continued training and expects tensions to simmer down in time for the ballot, the first elections in war-torn Afghanistan since the collapse of the fundamentalist Taliban militia in late 2001.

She and 24 other women will go to the districts and train other educators who will spread the message among women, who have been overwhelmingly enthusiastic. "During the Taliban they didn't have a chance to go out of the house, but now the government and their husbands give them permission to vote and choose a president so they are happy," she said. -AFP