Sylvia's Journal

Last night I was invited by Sabina from Germany who is a radio reporter based in Delhi. She travels all over Afghanistan, essentially alone, unfazed but veiled whenever in public (like most of us Western women).

She stays in a guesthouse in Shari Nao that is not recognizable from the street. Rooms surround a lovely garden and are luxurious and costly, at 124 dollars a night. Dinner is not as luxurious but costly as well. The menu includes much British comfort food such as steak and kidney pie, sheppard pie in addition to pizza, pasta and a few Afghan dishes. There is wine and beer which makes it a favorite foreigner hangout. A very English looking pub is in the basement including darts and a big screen for cricket games.

When I ate the grapes last week that were washed under the garden hose I probably ingested something else with the grapes that nestled inside my intestines. Today I asked for a consultation with my boss and watched local prescribing practices. He checked my pulse and asked if I had a fever. When I said no he wrote a prescription on a Post-It note: 1+1+1 Flagyl – 20, gave it to me and sent me to the deputy director for provincial capacity building. I don’t know why, but the man was prepared, asked me for 50 Afs (1 dollar), made a phone call and about 10 minutes later one of the office housekeepers showed up with a small plastic bag with 2 strips of 10 pills each. The provincial doctor checked the strips for tinkering and approved them as authentic Flagyls. That’s how these things work. Easy.

For lunch the boss had invited us all to the Intercontinental hotel that is built on a hill overlooking part of Kabul. It was in this hotel that I participated in my first post-Taliban activity in Afghanistan in 2002. That was a time of relative freedom and so much optimism. We thought everything was possible then and that the Taliban would never come back, the veils and burkas thrown to the wind.

One of our Boston-based colleagues, Saeed, is here for a few days more. He is Afghan himself and left this country 16 years ago. He has relatives at high places and hears much of what is cooking behind closed doors. He was hopeful which made me hopeful. The idea of Afghanistan returning to something akin the normalcy of the 70s makes for the sweetest fantasies.

After lunch we drove off in two cars, one back to the office and the other back to the ministry. I was in the latter heading for a meeting with one of the Director-Generals to explore expectations about our staff (some are on my team) who are placed in the ministry. This has taken years to be realized and now it is nearly done. We only need to get everyone to agree what they would be doing there. As it turned out, many will find they are asked to do something they are not quite equipped for (and may be didn’t sign on for), namely being a management and leadership coach rather than a technical (public health) advisor. Surprise!