Sylvia's Journal

We are all early risers in this place. The built-in alarm is the generator if you manage to sleep through the morning prayers that precede the generator. The call to prayer is coming from a distance, not like the one in Wazir Khan where it would practically levitate me out of my bed.

Breakfast is informal, help-yourself style, with many choices: cold cereal, yogurt, juices, eggs, Afghan flat bread and Western brown bread, even home-made breakfast bars and a large choice of local jams and honey. The car arrived promptly at 7:10 – as I was told. It announced itself with the chirping of a bird, which I learn quickly, is the doorbell. We piled in the car and drove the 100 meters to the heavily guarded compound. It does look indeed like we are in a war zone. But inside is a lovely courtyard with blossoming trees and a light veil of green hanging over the branches and bushes. If I ignore the barbed wire rolled on top of the walls I can imagine the lovely gardens and freedom of movement I remember from the Kabul I first encountered 30 years ago.

The morning was spent aligning expectations and greeting old friends and settling in my temporary office. Iain who was supposed to be living in Spain with his wife Riitta-Liisa, is here while she is in Nepal. And the story of Paul and Laurence is a bit like that too. These people are never home, or else everywhere is their home. Paul is Flemish and he has invited me to meet other Lowlanders at his guesthouse on Thursday. I will be halfway through my stay in Kabul by then.

Over lunch I met with the project staff who will be playing a key role in the workshop and beyond as the project is thinking about the sustainability of all its initiatives. We sat around the table and talked so that I could learn about their challenges and realities and they about how people deal with such challenges (some the same, some different) elsewhere. Three of the staff members of the Capacity Building group will be the facilitators for the next few days; the others will participate and become the facilitators in the next round of workshops, 5 days from now, when the provincial people arrive and we’ll do a twofer.

We had a working lunch which showed that the Afghan staff has taken over some bad American habits. Everyone is working very hard and long hours in an environment that is always full of surprises.

The rest of the day went faster and faster, or rather, tomorrow came closer and closer, faster and faster. It was truly a flying start but everyone is cool about it and so am I; after all, the Afghan staff will do the bulk of the stand up facilitation; in fact I would not be surprised if much of it will happen in one or the other of the local languages.

I received my security briefing, more of the dos and don’ts I can now practically recite, from Baba Jan, MSH’s Security Director. I learned from the book Window on Afghanistan that is written by my colleague Fred Hartman and his wife Mary that Baba Jan used to be Ahmad Shah Massoud’s field commander. The briefing occurred in triangular fashion through one other man who speaks English. It is odd to be in conversation with someone on your right when the meaning of what is being said comes from your left; the dilemma is where to fix your eyes? Baba Jan has never spoken in English to me, and I never in Dari to him. My hunch is that he understands English better than I Dari. I first met him in 2002 and the re-acquaintance was not lost in translation.

I arrived home parched despite drinking at least a liter of water and many cups of green tea. There is not one drop of humidity in the air. It is the kind of dry air that provokes the most awful cough attacks. The late afternoon sun lit the bathroom perfectly and I took the picture I promised yesterday. The fixtures are Afghan-de-luxe; there are gold-colored knobs and covers and matching sets of water cup and tooth bush holders, soap dishes, towel racks, etc which have lost some of their former glory or functionality. But the toilet works, there is running water for now and the shower is hot and wonderful.

Dinner with Mirwas and Steve was much nicer than sitting alone in a hotel restaurant. There was much talk about leadership. It is a never ending topic for inquiry, challenge and surprise. After that I willed myself to complete the support materials for tomorrow’s facilitators. It truly was a heroic act of willpower to overcome the heavy pull of my bed. That willpower is now gone and there is no more resistance possible.