Sylvia's Journal

While I was sitting in a basement meeting room in the center of Kabul, comparing notes on work with colleagues working in other health projects, to see if we were overlapping or leaving holes, Axel landed, as planned, at Kabul International Airport.

My colleague Steve picked him up because I couldn’t; being the token woman in an all male meeting, as is so often the case, sometime I am also the only foreigner. It can be an advantage.

At the head of our basement meeting room was a large plastic banner that indicated that this place was also the meeting place of Toastmasters International’s Afghan Chapter, founded in April 2008. That is good to know; I always recommend people who want to learn to speak in public to join this group and so now I know there is a place to send them to in Kabul.

Earlier in the morning I attended another photo op with the same cast of characters: the US ambassador and the minister of health. This time security was even tighter than during the previous event on Sunday; so tight that several Afghan dignitaries’ weren’t even let in. I feel sorry for American security people who have to work in this place where everyone looks like a Talib. Who’s to tell the difference between a good and a bad man?

I remember when I was first here in 2002 and found a poster with 24 passport pictures stuck to the front of each of our guesthouses to indicate who the guards were. The poster was not that different from the poster with the head shots of the nineteen 9/11 terrorist. Yet the people on our poster were there to guard us. How to know the difference?

The H1N1 tally is now up to 80 deaths and 800 confirmed cases and, who knows, how many undiagnosed. The ministry has declared a public health emergency, just like our president. I am watching the processes unfold and look for what works and what doesn’t work of the emergency preparedness planning that has been taking place for months now. It will certainly help me make a case for more attention to management and leadership.

And now a toast on being re-united with my best friend, a rare sip of authentic Dr. Beam, hidden in a cup of hot licorice tea.