Sylvia's Journal

We picked up my brand new young colleague, the one who didn’t find out the name of her fiance until 2 weeks after the engagement party, and her 21 year old sister in a part of Kabul I had never been to. It was a crowded popular area of the city. On our way to fetch her we ran into a demonstration of young angry males with so much testosterone that the police had to intervene. Apparently it was an election rally that had gone sour.

In typical motherly fashion I was thinking, “What are all these young men doing on the streets after dark? It is a school night; they should be studying,” a thought I believe many Afghan mothers share with me. It sort of sums up the problem and its solution, two very old ideas: idleness (the devil’s playground or, as the Dutch claim, ‘Satan’s pillow’) and education.

The wedding party invitation, which I took to my Dari teacher for practice, indicated that guests should arrive at 5 PM. We arrived at 8:30 PM and were still over two hours early if the serving of dinner counts as the real start (and end) of the party.

The invitation also said ‘no children and no cameras.’ But that, I learned is not taken seriously by anyone. When we arrived, a gulf of overexcited kids poured out of all nooks and crannies of the large building that contains several wedding halls. They were in various states of dress up: from outfits that would befit a beauty pageant (in mini size) to ordinary t-shirts and dirty pants (mostly the boys). Also, everyone had cameras and clicked away like crazy – so I will have pictures later to post.

Most of the little girls were dressed to the nines, even though at 8:30 most of these outfits were showing the wear and there or the frantic running around. You’d think all the kids had been given speed. Yet there was no sugary drink or food in sight. Nothing is served, except the occasional bottle of water (people brought?) that I could see on some tables.

By the time dinner arrived several kids had collapsed, some of the boys had joined their father in the adjacent but hidden room – I suspect because they knew that the men get served first. I had to suppress some outrage that the women and children were served close to midnight. Who thought of this idea? I was happy that my colleague Fahima plans to reverse things when her son gets married next year. Someone has to knock some sense into the men.

In the meantime the bride, unsmiling as she is supposed to, stood stiffly next to her new husband, posing for dozens of pictures then with this relative or friend, then that one. The father and brother(s?) were allowed to be on our side and posed a lot. One brother even danced with a woman from the bridal party, I presumed his wife. It was odd to see a couple dancing like that in public. It was an elegant dance and fun to watch.

Everyone was bedecked and bejeweled in ways that made even my colleagues unrecognizable. Some had so much make up and and gold jewelry, and without their veils, that I had to look twice before recognizing them.

I pointed at my 1 dollar silver like ear-rings. “You are smart,” said one, “we spent way too much money on jewelry.” After which she showed me her 750 dollar ring. There was more, much more, hanging around her neck and all the necks within a 30 meter radius.

When dinner finally arrived it arrived with a vengeance. It was as if the wait staff wanted to say; ‘What? You want dinner? Here, take this!” The platters of food were practically thrown on the table, dishes piled upon each other with no sense of aesthetics or cook’s pride.

My colleague was whacked in the head by a waiter’s arm thrusting a dish onto our table; another waiter slipped on the wet floor (all waiters were running fast and furiously, on bare feet, with heaped platters between the tables) dumping his dishes unceremoniously on the floor and on some fancy dresses.

Fahima commented, “you see, you have schools were people learn how to serve meals, but here they take just anyone who can carry a platter.” That was certainly true. The table next to us didn’t get served until after we had finished eating. At our table it was hard to get to the saran-wrapped dishes at the bottom of the pile.

The mothers of the bride and groom walked busily between the tables to make sure everyone was served well (well referred to quantity rather than quality of the serving experience). We all said we were full but more dishes arrived and were piled on top of the debris on our table.

I the meantime the bride and groom and their families ate in a separate room downstairs; we went to see them and give Rabia, our colleague, a hug. She was allowed to smile in the intimate setting, but not in public. I hardly recognized her under her heavy makeup and the hairdo that looked more like a sculpture.

We left before the bride and groom changed from their green into white outfits, indicating that the religious ceremony, the Nikah, had been performed. It was way past my bedtime and we skipped whatever next parts of the wedding had yet to be completed.

I am waiting for a car with several of my female colleagues to take me to a wedding hall in Karte Parwan. I am dressed in my finest; a gift from the company to all its female employees on International Women’s Day (bought by the women themselves). Somebody selected my dress, red with glitters and white glittery pants plus a shawl that looks like Mother Teresa’s except it has a red band rather than a blue band around the edges. Axel had me pose in the garden and made pictures.

When I unpacked the gift, early March, I discovered that it was a three piece outfit that was only partially sewn. It was more like a kit. The seams of the pants needed to be stitched and the dress had no opening at the bottom (huh?) but the sides were open and those seams that were stitched were not finished.
Over the weekend and tonight after coming home I put the finishing touches on the outfit – it was time to go out in public. I hemmed and stitched enough to keep the cloth from exposing me or unraveling. On the inside it would make by sewing teacher gasp. But it will do for now – its test ride.

It’s a week night and I wasn’t particularly keen to show up at a 5 PM wedding when everyone knows that food won’t be served till 10 or even later. It is apparently not polite to leave before the food. So Axel, Sallie Craig and I, in my finery, had dinner at home so I wouldn’t starve before 10 PM.

And then I discovered that the car that was supposed to pick me up with the ladies went another route, without me. The dispatcher revealed the miscommunication and I graciously backed out. But then another young staff member called up that she was waiting too. If I wasn’t going, she couldn’t either, on her own. That’s the way things are here. So the wedding party is on again. More later.

I am tapping into the holdings of electronic and audiobooks of our local library in Manchester-by-the-Sea. I have finished the 55 km book ‘Helping’ by Ed Schein. It is finished now and I have I can be a better helper and help receiver as a result of it. My next choice is The Big Oyster by Mark Kurlansky, if I can get the download completed before tomorrow morning. It is taking some time.

Our Thai massage spa has checked out it seems (‘everything must go’), unfortunately; the Thai ladies are returning to Thailand. This required a search for a new massage place. We found one, it is called Fig Spa. The website is fancy and the menu of choices is quite elaborate. Most days are for women only, except Wednesdays. For men a male masseuse will come to your house for 10 dollars extra on the day he is not on duty at the spa. I made an appointment for next Friday.

I had a meeting in the middle of the day to complete our investigation of allegations made against one of our consultants. The formal report should clarify next steps for several people involved in this unfortunate affair. I arrived at the appointed time and then had to wait 35 minutes for the rest of the committee to arrive. This left only 25 minutes for our deliberation that had to be conducted in two languages because two people were not bilingual (me hardly and an Afghan gentleman not at all). I hope we can put this affaire to bed, an expression I had to explain in Dari where the words made no sense at all.

Axel hung out at a nearby Turkish restaurant which was nicely cooled (unlike our house); together we drove back to our Dari class through endless traffic jams – there is a major push to get the roads properly paved before Hillary, Bang Ki Moon and other notables arrive in this city – enormous road construction equipment is blocking traffic. The appearance of progress is important, not just for the Kabul conference participants but, psychologically, also for us. My only fear is that all this road construction activity will stop once the notables have left.

Tomorrow we have a new guest in our house from the Head Office. Sallie Craig is moving in for a two week consultancy. She used to live here when I was at the Head Office. Now our roles have reversed.

Tomorrow our senior leadership team will also be complete, a foursome again after nearly three weeks. It is a new team that is tackling old challenges. But after listening to Ed Schein, I realize that we are not a team yet and have to reconstitute ourselves from scratch again.

Axel was up first with the promise of cooking a chili omelet, a Friday morning ritual. First one, then two, then all of our eggs were bad. We were warned about that in our orientation course, “When the weather gets warm, food spoils very quickly.” Indeed. We had to send our guard out to get fresh eggs since we cannot simply walk down the street to the store. We did have our chili omelet after that.

Aside from an expedition to the supermarket in the afternoon we had a quiet day at home of reading and doing not much of anything until dinner time when Ben and Tara came. It was their last escape from the US compound bubble to our house, for a farewell dinner. They are leaving in two weeks for a new assignment further east. Ben brought his knitting project while Tara took over one of mine and added about 20 rows.

Over dinner we made plans to visit Iran some day, their ancestral home land. They think it is going to get worse there and we should go now, join a tour, from Holland. Apparently even a few Americans are doing this. See Isphahan, Shiraz and then get out of there. After that we are invited to see them in Cambodia and tell our story. This sounds like a good plan.

In the afternoon, while I was cooking a recipe from our Lebanese cookbook (apricots stuffed with spiced rice), the usual afternoon dust storms started, leaving everything inside and outside our house covered with a layer of grit, like fine sandpaper.

Tonight I learned from the French TV station that we watch occasionally to get the news, that Holland is number 4 of the 6 happiest countries in the world (Denmark, Finland and Norway take the first three spots, then Costa Rica and Canada in 6th place). The full report will be published soon and will tell us also the unhappiest place in the world. It’s probably a tie between Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan. My Dutchness should be good for something in this country.

I felt a bit down today and I recognize the stress symptoms. It is good that it is weekend. The complexity of working here sometimes hits me like a sandbag that has fallen of one of the barricades. A part of me wants to grow wings and soar away; the other part of me whispers in my ear – this is the work, hang in there.

With my new female colleague Chris, who is from Australia, I went into town to have a bento box lunch at Mihori’s place. It took over an hour to get there. I enjoyed the slow ride with Chris as I never had a female & foreign colleague with whom to talk about the kinds of things that don’t cross gender lines. When the sexes don’t mingle freely, being among women becomes a treat. I no longer think it is silly that women and men don’t mingle at lunch. I totally get it, these separate lunches – a short break and a time to (quite literally) let your hair down.

We picked Meghann up at her place of work in the center of town to complete our threesome. We had a wonderful girl’s lunch in a lovely old building that is occupied by several small shops that cater to foreigners: calligraphy, carpets, fancy one-of-a-kind clothing and felt products. The food is served in the basement in a large room full of needlework that is made by a Bamiyan women’s cooperative. Chris loaned me some money to buy a lovely embroidered dress. Outside there was Afghan ice cream but we were too full with Japanese food.

After lunch we participated in a monthly meeting with other organizations with which we sometimes partner and sometimes compete. It’s a bit of a boy’s club except for Chris, myself and one other (American) woman who was here on a short visit. All the Afghans were men.

Today our new man had his first day of work. He brought his young wife along for the staff introduction. I assigned one of my young female staff to take her out on a clothes shopping trip into town so she could get arm- and leg-covering clothes.

The two young women had something in common: the experience of going along with a husband to a foreign and alien country. It is an experience that I had too, 35 years ago. I know it is not a small thing. I gather they had a good time. I hope that she discovered right away that most Afghans are wonderful people, not the gun carrying, women-hating violent men that represent Afghanistan in the international media.

I had lunch with two of my new female colleagues. One is Sita’s age. She has just gotten engaged. Her parents are enlightened and let her study. They decided to postpone her marriage until after she finished her studies and gotten some work experience. But she just turned 29 which is rather old in this country for an unmarried woman.

Her parents offered her a choice in her life’s partner but she declined. “How can I determine who would be a good life partner when I have so little interactions with men?” she said, wisely. The only men she interacts with are fellow students and male colleagues, but these interactions are limited and superficial. And so she entrusted the choice of her husband to her parents, “they know who/what is best for me.”

At the engagement party she met her future husband. But it took more than 2 weeks to find out his name. No one bothered to tell her, not even her parents. “Why didn’t you ask him?” I asked, incredulously. But then I learned that that is not appropriate and so she didn’t.

I asked her whether her future husband was as enlightened as her father; she didn’t think so. Would he let her continue to work outside the home? She wasn’t sure. Did that worry her? She shrugged her shoulders.

I told her about my daughter who has been living for about a decade with her husband-to-be. To my Afghan colleagues that is totally unimaginable; she was as incredulous about that as I was about her not discovering her fiance’s name until two weeks after the engagement. On one thing we agreed, change will come very, very slowly.

Today our senior management team became a little more complete with three of the four positions in place. Steve’s phone number was given to our new (German) Finance and Operations Director who has arrived with his Kenyan wife. It felt a little disloyal to delete Steve from my phone list.

If Holland makes it through the semi-finals we will have a divided office with some people rooting for Holland, on my side, and other rooting for Germany, on Peter’s side. Right now there are a lot of Holland fans. Unfortunately, the games are much too late for me to watch.

We had our weekly meeting with our donor, requiring a drive across time that now is taking quite a bit longer because Kabul municipality is frantically upgrading roads before the Kabul Conference in less than three weeks. This means everything is dug up and under construction. Today’s newspaper explained that the process of repair and reconstruction is delayed because of ‘forceful men, irrigation and canalization system (read ‘open sewers under construction’), trafficking, property possessing, power pillars, junctions and telecommunications main wholes (sic).’ Road construction management is not easy here.

Actually, nothing is really easy here. The incident report for July that tracks attacks on health facilities and people who provide health services amounted to about 190, several of which were deadly, all of which interfered with the delivery of health services to the people of Afghanistan.

That’s what we’re all up against. We try not to get too discouraged because, as one of Axel’s students wrote, “Hope is like open wings for flying in the height to reach the prosperities, because hope can cause get all the humans in the highest positions. Hope gives us confidence to have effort in our life and not to end our improvements until we have our life with pride and proud (Sabera, 2010).”

Meghann came over for dinner. Meghann is working with midwives this month before heading back to the US to become a midwife herself. But she should have been working for DAI, living in the DAI compound in Kunduz if things had worked out with her contract, some months ago. But things hadn’t and so she was not in Kunduz the other night when the compound was attacked.

Such is life. Some people call it Providence, others call it luck. I am not sure what to call it but I was very happy that she was with us tonight and not traumatized on a flight home.

The boss was back today. I had not seen him in nearly a month. We spent hours going over everything that was on our plates, left from before, new stuff, very urgent, mildly urgent and not so urgent right now. One of my staff who spent the last month in the US was also back and so I don’t feel so lonely anymore.

He told me about the short experiential workshop he went to in New York. Experiential learning is not for the faint of heart and even less so for people from this culture where learning is something teachers make you do, and something that requires much lecturing. He had learned about technical versus adaptive challenges and the notion of ‘work avoidance’ (when the hard work of bringing together people or groups who can shed light on the adaptive challenge requires you to change the way you have been (adapt) and behave in new ways with others).

With another colleague, sitting around the table we thought about what the US is trying to do here; tackling Afghanistan as if it is a technical challenge, which means that somewhere there is the solution, that we know how to do this, when, in fact, we are all clueless. But how could you admit that to the world and to those who lost kin and limbs here?

Today’s Fourth of July didn’t feel much like an Independence celebration, except that it was a day off which was nice.

I spent the morning reading up on various blogs about Afghanistan, going from one hypertext to another, in order to make sense of what’s happening here. It left me utterly depressed because I think we are doing this ‘saving Afghanistan from itself’ all wrong.

The absence of women in public life, at any level, and the parochial views that the male-headed families, clans, villages, districts and even provinces pursue are in my view root causes that no army in the world can address (or root out, as in ‘dig out and destroy’ – think weeds!)

It seems to me that only education and bringing women into public life and decision making roles can turn this country around – together these two strategies are more powerful than the most sophisticated armies and weapons in the face of violence, corruption, and other manifestations of unbridled and uneducated testosterone.

Each woman in a decision making position and each boy and girl who go to school long enough to learn to think for themselves bring us one thousandth of one thousandth of a millimeter closer to peace. It’s that slow. It’s at least a 1000-Year-Project. I am just one small actor in an enormous relay race that started seriously in the 1800s and will continue long after I am gone. What keeps me here is the many Afghan and non Afghan women (and men) who are participating in this race in which our main responsibility is to prepare the next relay to carry the torch forward.

I felt a little better after seeing a YouTube video of the Free Hugs project that friends sent me. It took about 3 hours to download the three and a half minute video about a few brave souls offering free hugs in Sondrio (Italy) and another one in Australia. I wondered how that would go over to offer free hugs in downtown Kabul, or Riyadh or Cairo. If it can be done in Japan, not a very hug-friendly place, why not here? God knows people here need hugs real badly.