Sylvia's Journal

My antivirus software is spotting Trojan horses nearly everyday. Not only is Afghanistan risky for life and limbs, it is also risky computerwise, especially if you interact with a government that does not provide its staff with the kind of anti-virus software that needs to be paid for periodically. It is like Africa in that way, where government officials, even the highest levels, use yahoo email addresses because the government doesn’t pay its internet provider’s bills (or its electricity and water bills for that matter).

Steve and I were placed on standby to write the pieces for the minister to bring along to the US. Since I never got a good answer to the audience question I made one up: congressional staffers. I wrote in ‘I’ voice as if I was an Afghan, expressing sorrow for the young American men and women who have died in Afghanistan, their family’s sacrifice and the debt that Afghanistan owes them.

I also wrote about what has happened with all those American tax dollars, the miracles that have been produced with those. I did not say anything directly about corruption and mismanagement – everyone knows it is there – but it is not good to highlight it when you come to ask for more money.

We are given assignments like ‘a two hundred words piece,’ a two-pager and a 5-to-6 pager. The 200-word piece was completed last night and this morning I turned the 2-pager into a 4-pager, leaving others to do the cutting. I left Steve to deal with the 5-to-6 pager that is so far ill-described.

In the afternoon I listened to rehearsal presentations from three of our provincial health advisors, one from Faryab province in the north, one from Khost province which borders the Waziristans where all the bad people hang out and Kabul province, a late bloomer in our team but catching up fast.

The men are presenting their accomplishments in building management and leadership capacity at USAID on Thursday. I am afraid I will not be able to attend but I know they will do a great job.

Instead of the frantic last day at work it was actually a very good day, after I had sent in my writing pieces and I was able to do my handover note to the person who will be acting in my stead.

And now I am sitting with Ankie van Holland (the TB Ankie we call her as that is the work she is doing here) on the terrace drinking our pretend beer and waiting for Axel to come home. The suitcases are waiting to be packed and my vacation has started. And so, when both Steve and I were called to the minister’s office, when I was already home and in vacation mode, I respectfully declined. Axel thought it was very unpolitic to decline a minister’s request to come to her office. But Steve has to do the writing now and so I was rational, with the risk of being disrespectful.