Sylvia's Journal

Of our six expats, two are gone now, one will return at the end of the week, plus the boss, and two more will leave on Wednesday; one for good, the other for 9 weeks. What’s left of us will be a bit busier than usual. My first day in the office was very much colored by this new and daunting reality.

During our first meetings of the day I heard several stories of the growing influence of the insurgents in the northern provinces. In Kunduz and Baghlan the insurgents are flexing their muscles and have, among other things, effectively silenced cell phones from 5 PM till early morning. In a district in one of the eastern provinces they, rather than the legitimate government of Afghanistan, are deciding whether health facilities open or not. The once heralded counter-insurgency strategy of ‘clear, hold, build and transform’ does not appear to be doing what it claimed. These stories and the daily avalanche of incident reports in our English language newspaper (it used to have more positive stories on the front page) only confirm that the idea of ‘winning this war’ is an illusion.

In the meantime it is clear that Karzai has left the American bedstead and is bedding down with Pakistan, a more logical mate since Pakistan will be next door forever. I am not sure whether it is paranoia or a logical consequence of this old new partnership that is producing logjams for us to get visas and working permits renewed. And who can guess which forces put Saturday’s bomb near the Chinese embassy?

Work-wise it was a day of stock taking as we are in the process of finalizing our activity plans for the remaining 15 months of the project. The deliverables loom large on the horizon. A critical look reveals many more challenges, problems, bottlenecks than signs of smooth sailing. Ahhh, where is appreciative inquiry when you need it?

I sometimes wonder whether the hiccups are just the unintended consequences of nothing more than a series of culture clashes. I hear daily about expectations that don’t line up for the simple reason that ‘we don’t do things like that here.”