Sylvia's Journal

I attended my first Technical Advisory Group meeting. The Japanese were presenting a plan for urban health care in Kabul, an area long neglected in favor of more rural populations. It was interesting as I don’t know that much about urban health planning. Afterwards I walked upstairs to join our team that manages the NGO contracts. It is an expanding family. For lunch we crowded around the conference table for a noisy family lunch.

AB and I walked to the outer USAID gate and waited for the rest of our team to arrive for our weekly meeting. We killed time watching the parade of large armored SUVs exit the heavily protected compound. Each SUV (worth probably a quarter million dollars) was packed full of testosterone: large muscular guys filling up the entire inside of the car. They were going into the dangerous out-of-the-bubble world.

There is some grumbling in the Afghan government about the amount of money that is destined for this country but never makes it here because of all this equipment. For 100.000 dollars you can keep many schools going for a long time or buy four such armored SUVs.

There is also grumbling that these cars don’t have license plates. I find it arrogant and I don’t understand the reason. It couldn’t be safety because the only cars without plates are the armored US SUVs – they are easy to spot. The one that flattened the car that my colleague’s kids were driving belonged to this group. The kids are, by the way, still at the air force base in Baghram, not in Germany as I was told earlier. One is still in coma, now 10 days after the accident, the other one conscious and slowly recovering.

I went to dinner at Razia Jan’s house and we planned the mother-of-the-bride dresses (one for the wedding and ne for the day after). After she comes back from Bamiyan she will start sewing.

We heard about the explosion in Taimani, a residential area far from where we live, via an SMS from our security office. It is a place we tend to visit during the weekend because it is where all the coffee houses are. We go there for lunches, massages, movies and visits to friends.

It was not clear what motives drove the suicide kids to their act. I was told that you can go to the bazar in Peshawar and ‘buy’ these suicide kids. They have been brainwashed in the madrasas and told that God wants them to sacrifice themselves for some vague greater good. They have learned not to question what, where and why and, like zombies, have themselves strapped in suicide vests. If you don’t want a suicide kid you could also buy a degree in any field from any university in the world, including Harvard, on official paper, sealed and signed.