Sylvia's Journal

Yesterday I introduced Owen Harrison’s Open Space Methodology as a suggestion for how to handle unknown refresher training needs in the workshop that starts today. My counterpart Ali jumped on it – there was some skepticism among the others (but what if they pick a topic and there is no expert in the room?) but they are all willing to give it a try. We had more team meetings, both at the project office and at the ministry to help people digest this newfangled design I am proposing. The nice thing about the design it that it requires very little, if any, facilitator preparation; instead, facilitators give mostly instructions and model what we want participants to do. After that they become participants along with the other 70 people who are, supposedly, coming in today. I think the design is tight enough that it will essentially facilitate itself.

All will be done in Dari so I get to watch whether the process is working the way it is supposed to – it needs few words on my part and the participants will be active creators of their own learning. At the ministry I was able to get two young female trainers invited to our workshop so that the official facilitation team is not entirely male (they only agreed to observe). They are doctors (I learned today that there are no nurses employed at the ministry of health). It pains me to see young doctors like that doing essentially secretarial work, tasks for which they were not trained, while they ought to be in the field engaging with mothers about proper health habits, vaccinations and other preventive health for which there are simple solutions that even very young and experienced doctors can learn to do (and non doctors as well, but that is another battle).

On our way out of the ministry we met a ‘gender specialist’ who works for the UN. Those sorts of jobs are usually given to a woman. The cynical part of me thinks that this is because they tend to be low status and not much of a risk (of women taking over!). But this was a man (a doctor no less). I asked him why his organization had not recruited a woman and he replied that men know about gender too. That sounds great in the abstract but I can’t help but think that a woman in that position would handle issues about gender balance somewhat differently – and having a gender unit that cannot staff itself in a gender-balanced way makes it a bit of a joke. At moments like this I feel ashamed to be part of this enormous development and humanitarian aid industry because it is very good at making work for itself, rewarding itself nicely and paying lip service to the real work that needs to be done. I can only hope that, on balance, the work of most people employed in this industry does make a difference. Cynicism is not good for the soul.

Working here is an emotional roller coaster ride, highs and moments of great pride and hope suddenly make way for a sense of hopelessness and deep sadness. I assume that for each heart breaking story I hear there are thousands I don’t hear. On our way out of the ministry of health we met a young doctor who, Ali told me, spent three and a half month in jail under the Taliban because a (Taliban) child under his care died. His jail time left him diminished as Ali explained. The man walks around with his resume under his arm – unemployed – in this country where women and children die by the hundreds of thousands for want of medical care – mind you, what is needed is not medical specialists, but people who can deliver simple live saving primary health care. This is what this doctor could (and did) deliver in the rural areas.

The sad stories are juxtaposed by joyful images such as my neighbor – a grown up – who was enjoying an after-work kite flying diversion standing on his rooftop when I got home. He was in deep concentration when the kite plunged down and grinning ear to ear when it was soaring. It is a good image for my experience here in Kabul.

I am now officially registered with the ministry of interior – it is a new rule imposed on foreigners, supposedly for our safety. It requires two passport pictures and a trip to the ministry of the interior, filling in forms, handing over a passport, then walking up to an upstairs office where a higher up official stamps a form and a card which we keep till we leave. The process was amazingly streamlined – about 15 minutes – and kept about 4 people busy writing and stamping. The most time consuming part was the one hour drive to take us there and back.

Jon is leaving today. We celebrated our last dinner with him last night, eating once more from the 8 leftover dishes, some now over a week old. I was about to throw the spaghetti out but Steve wouldn’t hear of it and had some more. Maureen joined us just in time for storytelling, one of the favorite parts of my days here, after dinner when no one wants to go up to their room to work. Somehow, after stories about the early HIV days in Haiti and New York the conversation degenerated into in competing stories about sludge, fecal matter, shit eating pigs and memorable latrine adventures from all over the world. This is what I love about being here – the sitting around the table and the telling of (public health) stories – you only get those when you travel or live together.

Yesterday was a full day, starting with my appearance at the office and making the rounds to say hello to all and distribute gifts (mostly Dutch cookies and chocolate). I paid my guesthouse bill and arranged for my return ticket to Dubai on the 20th.

I met briefly with my colleagues, two of them new, who are under some pressure to roll out the leadership program and produce the results that are warranted by the investments made. A little later we left for the ministry of health for what was called an alignment/consensus building meeting. The latter appears to be a popular name for a meeting and I wonder whether that is a literal translation or an imported term.

We convened at the institute for public health with the chiefs or delegates of various NGOs, mostly local. The Institute is the government structure that is assimilating and incorporating our the leadership program in its portfolio of training courses. This will ensure its sustainability.

Most of the training room was taken up by one gigantic boardroom type table of dark shiny wood with soft executive chairs from China around it that showed the familiar wear and tear of Chinese goods. The decorations were quite fantastic and consisted of elaborate draperies (a local specialty it appears; this included drapes over the projection screen. Along its center line, the table – Chinese also no doubt – had one long indentation that was filled with a colorful plastic flower arrangement.

The deliberations were mostly held in Dari and so I concentrated on watching; asking for periodic translations when I had an inkling that the meeting needed more focus. Focus will be the magic word for the next two weeks I think. We listened to two graduates from the program who showcased their transformation armed with line and bar charts. They had come out on top of a competition for best performer and their reward was a trip to Kabul (from Herat and Bamiyan) and a wallchart featuring Afghan teams in one corner. Applause.

The intent of the meeting was to get the NGOs more involved in rolling out the leadership program. Whether we succeeded remains to be seen but we think we planted some seeds and we expect several inquiries to explore things further. Questions will, no doubt, concern financial support and some of that can probably be provided as long as it shows up in a plan – another assignment for this week. The project is thinking about the post project period and needs to make sure its current technical and process contributions will be taken over by local actors after it closes its books.

In the afternoon I had my briefing with the Security Chief which I have described in one of my posts in March of this year. It was more or less the same – a three-way conversation with me not knowing whether to look at the Dari-speaking Chief or his interpreter. It is hard to concentrate when you speak with the person who is not addressing you. My eyes would sometimes drift to the TV that was on, in back of them. At one point I hoped I was seeing some coded information that informed our chief about action but it turned out to be a commercial. Later at dinner I learned from my colleagues that I had missed some action; an “armed’ UN truck was stolen from the airport – empty. People thought it was funny – apparently they don’t mind seeing the UN put in their place. There are rivalries among helpers here, as one could expect, and between helpers and locals. International emergency assistance is big business, and if it is not status and recognition, than it is money that catches people’s fancy.

Back home we found new platters of food waiting for us in the oven, in addition to the other 8 dishes already prepared over the last week and not yet finished, combining into a veritable buffet dinner. Steve likes the very old dishes; I picked something a little fresher, essentially what I had yesterday and Maureen had yet another combination. The deserts are also piling up: carrot cake, honey-nut bananas, yoghurt and the chocolate I brought along.

After dinner Jon gave me an elaborate briefing on BRAC’s school of public health. It is a relatively new program that Jon midwived with a few other committed souls. It is a fascinating story, yet another one, of BRAC establishing its own of anything that it needs to have in order to conduct its essential development work – so why not go into tertiary education. I have a better sense now of the characters I will meet.

Bedtime is not entirely a voluntary thing – I stay up until the generator is shut off, a little after midnight and I am woken up when it is turned on again and all the lights and noise wake me up at about 5:30 AM.