Sylvia's Journal

The frustration spills out of the senior government official when he returns from being called out of our meeting. It is dark outside and the government workday ended 2 hours ago but we are in his office for a late meeting that could not be accommodated during regular working hours. He apologizes when he returns and says that he had to attend a group of parliamentarians who came for some sort of photo opportunity with a ‘weak’ colleague, someone whose name he is anxious to give us, but he won’t because he can’t. I wonder if he can’t because of loyalty or because of fear.

All these extremes are side by side here: loyalty and fear, committed and creative professionals on one side and abusers of resources that don’t belong to them on the other.

I accidentally crossed paths with the minister who hurried by with his entourage of heavily armed people – I was told to freeze on the stairs, I did, as this was an order, not a suggestion. Here is a doctor who has made an oath to heal people but is entourage is trained to kill. I wonder what life is like when you are always surrounded by armed guards. It must affect your view of things.

In the small windowless room outside the office of a woman I am working with are three heavily armed guards and on the bookcase a bulletproof vest; the colors are camouflage green and brown and dark somber suits for the civilians. But my counterpart, next door is dressed in a pink dress with little flowers and matching scarf. I notice the contrast, these two opposites, side by side.

On the way home, later, after an Indian dinner with EC consultants we hurry past dark streets populated mostly with armored vehicles and men with guns and suddenly there is this two-storey TV screen that shows a commercial of a housewife in what could have been Greenwich Connecticut, washing expensive dishes in an expensive sink in a large an expensive kitchen with Joy. If not an ad for dishwashing liquids, it must be an advertisement for a bank – this is the place where you get money if you have it or this is what you want money for.

Our consultant Peter has explained to me that there is need corruption (comes from getting a salary that doesn’t cover basic needs), and shows up as the petty bakshish that you have to pay to get your name on a list or allowed to enter someplace for a service that is otherwise free. And then there is the greed corruption that is probably stimulated by the Greenwich kitchen ad because it also promises things that are supposed to come along with money (joy, loving wife, caring husband, obedient and smart kid).

Some Afghans still live in the stone ages, others live in Connecticut and some live in la-la land, all of them side-by-side.