Sylvia's Journal

Today I went for a visit to the new house, khana nao, aka khana si-o-seh (33). In one week much had changed. I found an army of MSH staff and contractors cleaning and buffing the place. Only the kitchen was not done yet but the new cabinets were waiting outside to be put in next to a brand new American size refrigerator.

The living room is multi-cultural: not quite my taste of shiny dark wood couches and chairs with a Chinese motif, made in China or made by Chinese people in Pakistan (everything here comes from China or Pakistan it seems), on one end of the room and the locally produced Afghan tushaq mattresses waiting for their covers on the other side of the room. The Chinese furniture is for people with bad knees while the Afghan ‘furniture’ is for people with flexible and supple knees.

A stylish dark wood dining room set is the center piece in the dining room. This is for the weak-kneed people, while the rest can eat off the floor in the living room, Afghan style, from a plastic cloth spread on top of the brand-new carpet. The cook and housekeeper were already on board and buffing their own places in the back of the house. Everyone was all smiles when I came to inspect and I felt a bit like the English landholder madam who comes home to her estate and is welcomed by all the staff flanking the entrance. It wasn’t quite like that but I am not used to have all these people laboring for me.

Back in the office we are preparing for major office swap moves as some projects are expanding and re-arranging reporting relationships which requires much back and forth consultations on a variety of options. I am also mentally preparing for the departure of half the senior management team, leaving me the most senior technical staff in place, side by side with the deputy who is a master of operations. I will be involved in my first financial management consultation call with Headquarters – talking about matters of millions and financial affairs I have successfully avoided in my career at MSH. That’s part of the stretch of this new job.

I am being let in on squabbles and jealousies between government officials, with fairly senior people taking me into confidence, even traveling all the way over from the ministry to our outskirts office. I am a little guarded about these confidences as it is risky to take sides and get pushed into one camp or another. I know that all the information I get is filtered and incomplete.

I received the Obama cloth from Ghana that made its way from Ghana to Addis to Cambridge to Kabul and is now decorating a table in my office (note the fresh box of tissues). Everyone who comes in gives Obama a pat on the cheek, encouraging him to keep inspiring everyone despite the Afghan and Iraqi messes we are all in.