Sylvia's Journal

On the way back from our weekly meeting at the US gated community I noticed several SUVs with ski racks. That struck me as odd. But when I asked my Afghan colleagues it turned out that people used to ski in Afghanistan, at the Salang Pass. In fact, when my housemate Steve got married here in 1977, MSH gave the couple skis as a wedding present. Skiing now would be a bit risky because of all the mines. So, no skiing this winter, unless of course we choose to go to Dubai and ski on the ski slope in the shopping center.

The consultant floodgates have opened and I now watch the stream from the other side of the table. Consultants want to meet, and should meet of course. Between counterparts, funders and consultants, most of my office hours seem now to be spent in meetings, some short and sweet, others long, at times arduous and occasionally difficult. There is much more ‘grappling’ at this level with complex issues that have no simple solutions and have consequences for many more people. This is the reality of being in a senior leadership position. Although I always knew this intellectually, living it is something else. The flipside is that I have staff who can do things for me, a luxury I enjoy.

The entire day we ran our meetings past their ending time. Time boundaries here are very elastic, more than the rigid time keeper that I am is used too. But everyone is very accommodating, partially because there is always the excuse of the traffic jam. Here traffic jams are the same as everywhere else in the world and then a little worse because of shifting military or police presences. Whenever high level people with their enormous security contingents move around town everyone stands still. Sometimes whole roads are blocked off because of a conference or meetings. On some streets our green car plates give us special privileges that ordinary white number-plated cars don’t have. Still, I sometimes wished that I could take taxis and explore the city streets on my own, stopping whenever and wherever I wanted.

I use the time I spent in traffic to learn Dari or practice the names of drivers when I am the only passenger. When I travel with a bunch of Afghan colleagues I learn about the jokes that Afghans from one province make about another province, like Wardakis about Konaris. These are very much like the jokes that the Dutch make about the Belgians or vice versa. That alone would be a good reason to learn the local language. There is much joy in those moments.