Steve came in a bit later with a large pack of ice cream that needed to be eaten or put in the freeze (he did both) after which we left for the Kabul museum to join my other housemates. It has been repainted and restored after much damage and looting which I read about in the Bactrian Gold exhibit that I saw in DC earlier this year. The museum, which used to be crowded with stuff, is now empty with mostly large items that, I suppose, weren’t easily carted off. One of the exhibits was a series of large photos of the covered bazaar in Khulm which I remember from my hippie-trail-tracking days with Axel. It no longer exists as it was destroyed during one or the other of Afghanistan’s many armed conflicts. Seeing the photos flooded me with memories of the trip some 30 years ago. Somewhere we have our own pictures of this extraordinary place, but I bought a set of poor quality small reprints that were made of the large photos.
Back home we all went to our various rooms to nap, read, work, email and facebook. I worked my way through a book about senior leadership teams that cemented my wish to do more on that level and figure out how. I hope to get a chance here with the DG for Health Services and his team of direct reports, a request that was added to my scope of work at the last minute, in addition to all the other stuff. It’s the task I am most keen about.
Before we had dinner I had a private tour of Steve’s quarters which are stuffed with Afghan goods like a bazaar: all the drawers, closets and even the closed in porch were piled high with rugs, carpets, old shields, pots, musical instruments, old dresses, embroidered cloth, you name it and he has it. With his purchases he keeps at least one merchant family in business and with food on the table. His wife, back in Wellesley, is trying to get rid of stuff accumulated over their years of globetrotting, but Steve keeps refilling the pipeline on this end.
For dinner we collected in the kitchen over numerous platters with leftover foods from the week and those the cook leaves us when he has his days off. We had a choice of limp and cold French fries, rice, beans, chicken curry, an eggplant dish, dried out lasagna and more. Everyone piled their selections on a plate and micro waved it. It was the company that made it all palatable. We discussed American politics for hours and then it was time to go to bed.
I stayed up in order to participate in an OBTS webinar that started at 2 PM at Drexel University in Philadelphia – which meant 11:30 PM for me. Connections are slow here and it took me about a third of the time of the one hour webinar to get everything downloaded. Then, just as I was getting into the subject matter (the scholarship of positive leadership by Kim Cameron) the generator was cut off and my connection lost, about 20 minutes before the end. Still, the 20 minutes I was online were great and it was exciting to be virtually present from such a distance.
I like my long evenings when I am on the road, sometimes going to bed as late as 2 AM. But here there is a full stop just after midnight, when the generator stops, and the room is suddenly pitch dark. You better have your teeth brushed and piyamas on unless you want to do that with a flashlight around your neck. I was prepared for that and ‘attended’ the webinar in my jammies, tucked under the 15 kilos of my Chinese blankets and with a hot water bottle by my toes. The temperature drops down to about 11 degrees (Celsius) at night and the warm water bottle I brought from home is especially nice.
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