Sylvia's Journal

Nearly forty years ago, during my studies in psychology, I sat in a day care center and did ethnographic research using a particular technique that required me to indicate with dots on a grid which child moved from where to where and what they were saying and doing. I was not allowed to attach any interpretation to what I was seeing, only descriptions. This was very difficult to do.

Today, as I was once again a fly on the wall, I remembered that time and tried to ‘simply describe’ without trying to attach meaning to acts. It was still difficult but it made me observe better.

I recorded each visitor, giving them numbers, like V1, V2, etc. and then described what I saw. It went something like this:

V1 enters, reads document, responds, remains standing at considerable distance of HE; exchange of a few minutes, then visitor leaves with paper; V2 enters, reads paper for 5 minutes then comes back with copy while V3 enters and has a particular question that requires some study. V4 enters, sits down, reads paper, responds, then turns to V3 while V5 enters and participates in V3 discussion. V4 gets paper signed and leaves while V6 enters and then leaves with V5; V4 also leaves. V7 enters with V5 and V6, V3 remains for a meeting about…etc, etc.

I did this for about one hour (last recorded visitor was V10). Then there was a change in office and role, from deputy to acting. I observed another meeting till it was time to leave. The first part of the morning was in Dari, the second in English. I am getting a considerable dose of Dari immersion and love it; my Dari language skills are increasing in leaps and bounds.

I left the ministry for the Blood Bank where a refresher meeting was taking place about advanced facilitation techniques with some of our leadership development facilitators. I was there mostly for moral support as I wasn’t really needed; Ali and the team he has coached are doing fine without me. The meeting was mostly in Dari and my understanding has increased from 10% to 20%. It was another one of those very joyful experiences where you can see that planted seeds have taken root and beginning to show what you hoped for.

I finally returned to the office when everyone else was just leaving for home, fanning out over Kabul in 6 or 8 little buses. For me it was the start of my other workday that is centered on my more managerial tasks which have been severely neglected. I am lucky to have such great staff but there comes a time when they need more attention. I attended a rather confusing meeting about data quality and integrity that, I think, was supposed to ensure that the American people get a better idea of what their tax dollars pay for. If the quality of the meeting was any indication of success, we should be a little worried.

After that meeting we, three quarters of the director’s group, discussed our upcoming trip to Mazar and how to handle Axel’s security as a tourist there while we worked. There is no precedent for a hanger-on spouse in this non-family post and so he is treated like an MSH staff member. Since we are not supposed to go touristing in Afghanistan he could only come along if he attended our workshop or stay in the hotel room. For a 600 dollar roundtrip on the UN flight this did not seem like a good idea so we regretfully dropped Axel from our party. We were both hugely disappointed, even more so because this decision dashed all our hopes to use up some of my excess vacation time in the Panshir or Badakhshan, later this spring.

At 5 PM we had our usual weekly call with Boston and so it was yet another long day when I arrived home just before 7 PM, exactly 12 hours after I had left this morning.