Sylvia's Journal

We were still on high alert in the morning and only essential business travel into town was allowed. Our business was essential and so we drove into town past the other shopping center across from where the first detonation was completed – broekn windows top to bottom, glass all over the place, fresh bullet holes in a building that hadn’t even been completed.

Our essential mission was to show our support to the new acting minister who is the same person rejected lasted Saturday by parliament. I wondered whether this is construed as a slap in the face to the members of parliament who voted against her. But having finally a minister again, even though acting, is good.

So far we have 2 women in the top team – a reason for joy.

I listened to various speeches in Dari and although I couldn’t really understand them, I was able to distinguish the preliminary thank yous and welcomes from the substance of the speeches. The new (acting) minister laid out her plans for the first 100 days and gave everyone something to judge her by. It is an ambitious program but it matched what we can offer in support.

We had lunch at the Turkish restaurant where the signs on the wall and the menu remind me of the Turkish I learned several years ago that still comes in handy. My boss gave us, three non Dari speakers, a summary of what the speeches contained while we enjoyed our Lahmacun (Turkish) pizza and Iskander kebabs.

We holed up for a brief while at the ministry waiting and preparing for our scheduled appearance at the US government offices around the corner for our weekly touch-base meetings.

These are the meetings where we can inform the US government policy and strategy making simply by telling people what we know about healthcare in the provinces and the activities within the ministry of health. This is where we can influence ideas that come from or will make it onto PowerPoint slides, by sharing our experiences of the messy reality on the ground.

Our counterparts are good listeners and appreciate what we bring to the table. It is a very collaborative and supportive relationship and we consider ourselves lucky. But people change frequently and rotate in and out these government positions so this may change. So far it has been a good three months.

Once again I got home after dark; another 11+ hour work day. They keep on happening unless I put a stop to this. Easier said than done. I know the workday is over when I hear the driver call on his radio: hotal-see-oh-say-mobile-panj-over. It miraculously opens our guesthouse’s driveway gate. And then I am home.

When I entered the house it smelled like a French whorehouse (Axel’s words). We trained one of our staff not to use the ‘air freshener’ but not yet the other. The sick smelling perfumed mingles with the diesel fumes to produce a nauseating aroma until you get used to it – the human being is infinitely adaptable!