For the next three days I am sitting in the back of a windowless basement room watching my two female mentees facilitate the leadership program for the Afghan Midwives Association.
I have forgotten what it is like to be in a room with only women. My one male staff member who was assigned as coach to the facilitation team could not accompany us for family reasons. The only male in the room is a young boy who accompanied his mom. He is well behaved and sits quietly in a corner. I gave him paper and markers and the English alphabet to practice.
On our way into town one of the facilitators realized she had left her prepared flipcharts at home. I asked her whether she could redo them at the workshop site. She replied, “yes, hopefully.” My immediate reaction was to say, “no, not hopefully! You can or you cannot?” Of course the word hopefully was a translation of “incha’allah” a word that stands at the end of every statement of intent. It is an acknowledgement of man’s powerlessness in the face of God’s intent with us. All human intent can be derailed if God wishes to do so, even the preparation of flipcharts.
In true Western fashion I consider much of what is needed to prepare for a workshop under my control – I over plan, over anticipate; I have contingency plans A,B,C all lined up in my head like a British queu. And when things are not under my control I know they are under the control of other, more powerful people, except of course for ‘Acts of God’ (as defined by our insurance industry) like volcano eruptions and earthquakes. That’s when I would use the word incha’llah.
As we worked our way into the center of the city the ubiquitous construction of open gutters blocked the entrance to a side street on our way. The detour made it difficult to find the building in which the workshop was being held. “See,” my colleagues said, “what happens when you leave incha’allah out? We lose our way!” Here, God is everywhere, and while I plan, (S)HE laughs.
I took great delight in seeing the transformation of my two young female colleagues. They stood tall, spoke with confidence and were so very different from how they are at work when in the company of men, where they look small, act from a position of low power, often speaking with soft voices (if they speak at all). I wish I could show my male colleagues how confident and talented these ladies are. For now they have to take my word but I hope, before I leave Afghanistan, that they can see for themselves.
And while I was basking in this vision of the possible, Steve visited Turquois Mountain’s Murad Khany’s urban renewal project, also a vision thing, and Axel attended another vision-drenched event; a graduation ceremony of one of his students at the Turkish high school.
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