Sylvia's Journal

After many ups and downs and countless visits to Afghan and Pakistani doctors and hospitals the mother of one of my staff died. The men will go to the funeral in Logar province, a two hour drive from here. This is one thing I cannot participate in. For one the formal ceremony is a men’s affair. The women will be at the home. But Logar is also of limits for us foreigners and the presence of a foreigner is a risk for everyone. The security situation makes it difficult for us to participate, even if only marginally, in the lives of our Afghan colleagues.

In our last day of the workshop we covered the topics of scanning methods, listening, inquiry into current reality, stakeholder analysis and work climate. I am discovering that there are parts of our program that have a very different feel and effect in an all (Afghan) female group. We had the women act out situations in which the other is not listening and then identify what makes for good listening. I noticed that the women have a high tolerance for not being listened to. This should come as no surprise. I am used to seeing (senior) men, in this same exercise throw up their hands in frustration after less than a minute of not being listened to.

I decided to drop Covey’s Circle of Influence because the center circle (one can control one’s behavior and attitudes) does not necessarily ring true for women here; the decision to walk out of the door, what to wear, and who to visit or invite is, for many Afghan woman, not their decision but their husbands’. And as far as attitudes are concerned, these are so shaped by the interplay of culture and religion that the word ‘control’ hardly applies. This became clear when we talked about life’s purpose and personal vision – most, with few exceptions, were about servitude (to God, husband, family, patients).

The hours I spent learning Dari are paying off. I can now understand a good part of the conversations and participate without having every sentence translated. The total immersion added a few more words to my vocabulary which is becoming ever more firmly anchored in my brain’s language center.

M. discovered the chairman’s hammer. The basement is also the meeting place for Toastmasters International, where Afghans practice monthly how to become more polished speakers. The hammer and speaker’s lectern are part of Toastmasters equipment. M. held the hammer like a weapon. It’s an unusual sight seeing a woman waving a hammer. It surely is an object of power. Under my breath I muttered, “you go girl!”

During the training my facilitator mentees experienced some very real life challenges; as when someone from the leadership team, who had missed most of the sessions, started voicing an interpretation (right or wrong) about what concepts and words meant in a way that created some disturbances and confusion. Managing this dynamic is a difficult facilitation challenge to manage for newbies. But that is how we learn: you trip, you stumble, and there lies the treasure! I can remember a few of such stumbles and then treasures found as a result.

On the way home one of the two facilitators bought us the sweetest mandarins, called maltas, to celebrate our sweet success in bringing this first leadership workshop to completion with everyone excited and hungry for more. We dropped her off at home before heading to the office for M to pick up some emails and her kids at the daycare center (kodakistan) and me to get my newspapers (I wanted to see how Holbrooke’s death was reported).

At the gate we said goodbye to our driver. He logged many kilometers and even more hours going all over town to collect us in the morning and drop us off at night. He drove a rental mini bus of the kind that are ubiquitous in Kabul, with a cracked windscreen and a large bunch of plastic grapes swinging wildly below the rearview mirror as we bumped along unpaved roads. It even had an (empty) ski rack on each side of the roof.