Sylvia's Journal

Today was one of those days when I was acutely aware of the multiple universes that exist side by side in this enchanting but broken land. I interact with some of those universes and others I only know they exist from hearsay.

First of all there is the universe of the government, which in itself has several substrata. There are the people who are smart, ambitious and quite well paid (for Afghan standards). They want the best for their country. They focus on what makes senses from a technical point of view and they are fully engaged in debates and conversations that tease out where to go next. I love to work with them.

Another stratum consists of what we would call dead wood in the US: people who are beyond capacity building, who are just marking time and for that, get a tiny salary that they supplement in any way they can: petty corruption or second and third jobs or living off relatives. For them the ministry is not about improving health but about employment. Sending these people home doesn’t solve much and just increases the misery of whole families.

A third stratum consists of people who are taking advantage of the chaos and the streams of money coming in with all the possibilities for milking the projects that require millions of dollars in procurements. They are enriching themselves beyond their wildest dreams.

They are the ones building what we call the ‘poppy’ houses, the hideous architectural extravanganzas that are way too big for their tiny plots, that are decorated and embellished with a cacophony of styles, tiles, fences, gates, colored glass and what not while being barricaded behind sand bags and blast walls topped by razor wire. I presume they are also the owners of the billions of dollars, declared or undeclared, that leave the country for investments in Dubai and elsewhere.

The next universe is the one I am part of: well meaning professionals trying to do their best to build capacity of their counterparts in the ministry or local NGOs or businesses. They (we) act as if this is possible and believe we make a difference – sometimes we think this is really true and sometimes we fool ourselves. Actually we probably do make a bit of difference in the lives of individuals, but whether the systemic changes we profess to pursue are really possible in our life time is debatable. We live in this stressful universe and receive handsome compensation and benefits such as danger pay and R&R for putting up with something we don’t have to put up with if we so desire.

Within this universe there are many strata, differentiated by the sources of our contracts and how much we earn. It’s all rather unequitable I suspect and a function of whether we are part of a buyers’ or sellers’ market. I saw an advertisement for a Pashto translator with a base salary of 215.000 dollars. This must pull some Afghan Americans back to their homeland I imagine; a great way to pay for college or medical school.

A third universe is the one inhabited by the foreign Christians who have lived here for ever, moved here with small kids or produced them here, and who are teaching us Dari and about Afghan culture. They live very low to the ground and do good Christian work. They have no SUVs, no army of guards and drivers; they live in simple houses and walk to work or class. They blend in as much as they can. Many speak the local language(s) fluently. They dress either in local garb (especially the men) or they wear frumpy frocks. They are kind and lovely and very sincere. As Christians they are always at risk and they have had some casualties, both in terms of lives and real estate, but they soldier on, as Christians do.

The fourth universe is inhabitated by the Americans who live in hooches (containers) in their own bubble that has nothing to do with Afghanistan. They are guarded by Nepali ghurkas and eat imported food froom imported furniture in imported prefab buildings. They try frantically to implement American policy which changes all the time and serve many masters. We sometimes help a few of them escape into Afghanistan that’s just down the road. They rotate in and out of Afghanistan as fast as windshield wipers which creates an institutional memory problem.

A fifth universe is populated by foreign armies. I know nothing about them expect that they fight, are young and see a totally different Afghanistan than we do. A subset of this universe consist of the civilians embedded in their FOBS (forward operating bases). They are professionals trying to help but because they are from the government, the help is sometimes misguided as when they cut across our path and bypass the government structures we have been trying to build so carefully. Clinics where such doctors work sometimes get shot at.

And then there are the sixth to umpteenth universes that are scattered across the country: the stone-age people that live far from the modern world in places where nothing we take for granted exists; the nomads who try to keep up a lifestyle that is from another century and not good for one’s health; the slave girls in service and bondage, the illiterate couples trying to eke a living out of hostile ground producing baby after baby with few surviving the harsh conditions.

The violence and conflict keep producing more universes: the IDPs (internally displaced persons), the Taliban and Al Qaida fanatics sneaking in every which way, under cover or openly in tanks or pick-up trucks with guns; but also the smart kids that show up in Axel’s school out of nowhere riding on this or that opportunity that fortuitously showed up on their door step or was actively pursued. These are the ones to go for further study to the US, where they will tumble into yet another universe.