Sylvia's Journal

“How do guys stand around a barbecue here in Afghanistan?” asked Axel, meaning, what do they hold in their hands if not beer. Our barbecue this evening would qualify as a semi or quasi barbecue if measured against American standards. Axel held a near beer in his hand. It will have to make do.

Barbecuing in the snow felt a bit like back home, except he did it with our two guards and used, as a starter chimney, an empty can of Quaker oats, to get the rough and chunky charcoal going.

Axel worked all day on school applications, helping N. find answers to his thousand questions. “I am the busiest unemployed person,” he quipped.

In the morning I took two newly found friends to Lisa for massages followed by a Starbucks coffee, which came with the massage. It is an all purpose spa. My new friends liked the place and hopefully this will help Lisa expand her clientele. It is pure self interest as I don’t want her to go out of business.

I introduced M to Chicken Street and discovered that she and I have a weakness for fabrics, interesting coats, prints, embroidery. I left them both with Ibrahim off Chicken Street wading through a foot deep of fabrics.

In the evening we had Andreas over. He came all the way from Australia to help get a pediatric hospital intervention, called Emergency Triage and Treatment (ETAT), going in Kabul’s premier children’s hospital. Tomorrow we are going to find out whether everyone involved in this initiative is actually on the same page. I will have them draw a picture. It is important enough that I am willing to sacrifice my day off to see for myself.

Every piece of paper and plastic file folder in my office is covered with fine black soot. Shuffling papers from one pile to another left me with black hands. At home it is not all that different even though everything looks clean on the surface but the soot is beneath and behind, and in my lungs of course.

Many people had taken the day off, bridging two days off before and two days off following. And so I had time to clean my desk and shuffle papers.

I had several visitors, a consultant from Germany by way of Australia who is here to help with establishing procedures that will rush severely ill children straight to the emergency room. This may sound obvious, but it is not here. The triage system is rudimentary and kids die as a result.

Then there was F, just back from Bangladesh where he got his public health degree. Now he is looking for a job to pay back the debts he engaged for his degree. And finally there was the CEO from an American hospital group that has built, equipped and staffed a district hospital not far from our house.

These contacts lifted my spirits and got me out of my self-pitying mode, showing a little bit of sun behind the grey clouds that have encircled me the last few weeks.
I did miss my Thursday after school class but there too things are lightening up. A new building has been found and the girls are moving in. I fear it is a bit far from our house and so this may make it a little more difficult to teach there after work.

In the evening we met the ambassador from a northern country who happens to be the friend of a fellow Quaker. He told us his story of how he, a small town farm boy, ended up in a top American boys academy, graduated and then made his way into Harvard. Here was, sitting right across the table, someone whose life had been changed by attending an American high school. He offered to talk with N who came to our house the other day and who Axel is helping to get into another, similar, academy.
People may think that getting individual kids out of their milieu of poverty and into learning that opens them to the bigger world is a drop on a hot plate and too slow as a process. But this ambassador is now helping street kids in Afghanistan learn to play the violin and give concerts. One life changed forty years ago is now changing hundreds more. It is a matter of multiplication.

One of Axel’s students, N, came to our house this morning. Axel had offered to help him with his application for an Academy (high school) in Massachusetts. It was an interesting education and cultural experience. For each question asked Axel asked N, “what are they asking? Why do they want to know that?”

We spent a lot of time on the question about what the prospective student had learned about diversity. As it turned out the whole concept was alien. Here in Afghanistan diversity is not the good thing it is supposed to be in the US. Diversity.. In N’s eyes, diversity has led to wars, discrimination, and violence. It is safer to be among your own people than risk all sorts of abuse when not. N is Hazara. They have learned from experience that being with ‘the other’ is risky and causes much unhappiness.

After some explanations of what was meant by the word diversity he eagerly explained to us that he was going to go to diversity, indicating that we had failed to get the concept across. Maybe for him it was something like a university, a place full of differences one goes to.

N. had to answer all sorts of questions that made no sense to him, like, “what is your father’s occupation?” Answer: shoes repairman. Axel had to explain that even though he repairs more than one shoe the occupation uses the singular. “What is the address of his business?” Answer: in the bazar of Lashkargar, near the so and so building, towards the end of the street. “Do your parents agree with your application” Answer, a puzzled look (N’s parents can’t read or write their own language, let alone English), they won’t even understand the question. “Do you have siblings who have gone to our Academy?” (huh?), “What are your academic interests” (huh?), etc. etc.

In the afternoon, after N had left with lots of homework including a 300 word handwritten essay about something important that had changed his life (like biking into an exploding shell that killed his brother and left him with damaged eye, pulled to safety by a reporter who got him to the US and then back to Kabul, a city he had never gone to. And now here he is, applying to a fancy high school in Massachusetts).

We made a brief sortie out of our house to get the ingredients for a Thai curry that we served to our friends from Turquoise Mountain, a nice break in the monotony of sitting at home, reading, knitting, embroidering and computering.

Everything was about comfort today. I stayed the entire day in my jammies, reading, knitting, embroidering and planning my birthday later this year. Sometime in the morning Axel helped me disentangle a ball of cashmere yarn which was symbolic for and got my mind off the entanglements in our life.

I cooked comfort food for lunch, chicken soup and baked corn muffins, which we shared with our guards.

While knitting a hat and booties for yet another baby scheduled to arrive in May I listened to few hours of Lewis Sinclair’s Main Street. Main Street life in that small prairie town in the early 1900s wasn’t all that different from what I observe here, the petty squabbles, the gossip, the moralizing, the tattling and spying on neighbors and the fearful renunciation of ‘otherness.’

Being a parallel reader, I am also reading William Dalrymple’s Last Mughal, describing Delhi a few decades before Main Street. I find the same social phenomena with a little more power and money thrown in. If anyone thinks the madrasas, the fundamentalism, the warlords, the corruption, the proselytizing is anything new, reading history will quickly correct that misconception. I don’t know whether it should make me feel better or worse.

In the afternoon we got a call from Z who returned from Kunduz to find the school closed and the dorm girls dispersed. She was told to return home but the Salang Pass is closed and Kunduz is out of reach for now. We offered our house but she is staying with one of the other girls who lives in town.

Ted has taken the threats to his school seriously. He moved himself and the girls out and is rethinking the school’s future. For now the school/house is empty and classes cancelled. Axel and I are thinking how we can continue the classes in another form. The six books for our next reading (Three Cups of Tea) are already on their way to Kabul. Maybe we could do a Skype reading class. This is a place where one has to be resourceful, an art Afghans have had to master a long time ago.

I had a skype call with a friend of a friend, a pediatrician of Pakistani ancestry who has the energy to do good work in Kabul. She is as enthusiastic as I was two years ago. It is good that there are people in the wings to continue the relay race and take the baton from disheartened folks like us.

Our after dinner attraction was a Morse mystery which made it, all in all, not such a bad day.

In the morning we were unpleasantly surprised with the latest news about the women shelters and attempts by reactionary forces in this society to reign them in and impose government controls because, as they claim, these are ‘houses of ill repute.’ Ministry of Justice officials have investigated the accusations and publicly stated they have no grounds. But the accusers don’t give up. They have become very active, virtually stalking women and groups who try to counter them. It is a worrisome trend, especially as we know of at least one young and talented woman who may stay alive because of the existence of such safe houses.

In the afternoon we heard of a ‘complex attack’ (jargon for multiple actors with multiple means of destruction) in the center of Kabul at the Safi Landmark hotel (a second time this place has been targeted). One of our staff was close but the driver made a quick U-turn and drove him to safety. That too is worrisome.

In between I had a lighter moment. I sat for half an hour with our housekeeper who arrived with our monthly guesthouse supply order that I have to sign. We talked in broken Dari and English to figure out why he needs 18 boxes (packs) of washing powder (brandname: Pak which means clean in Dari) – this in itself was a confusing linguistic situation – packs of Pak. It quickly turned into a third grade math problem: if he does and average of 8 to 10 loads a week (that much?) and one pack of Pak washes about 5 to 6 loads then why the 18 boxes for a month’s supply? I had to call in a translator to sort it out. The order was reduced to 8 boxes.

I am disappointed about M’s reception back in the office. None of her male colleagues asked her about her work there, and only a couple of women came to greet her but neither asked about her work either. It is as if she went on a holiday, as a tourist. I am very discouraged by this.

More bad news from the afternoon school program that, together with a women’s writers project has received threats. We have cancelled our Thursday class and the girls are being dispersed.

More discouragement from not being able to do what I came out to do, revelations of petty squabbles and jealousies that undermine our work together and pull us apart, not just me.

Two of my expat colleagues left on R&R, taking advantage of two holidays (the prophet’s birthday, Mawlud, and the retreat of the Russians). Our R&R, postponed because of a HQ visit, is still 5 or even 6 weeks away yet we never needed it more. For now we will have to make do with the next two days off and use them to raise our very low spirits.

All in all today was a very bad day. I think it is good time to watch Mr. Bean tonight.

Our Afghan snowman lost his likeness to George Washington, as well as his eyes (radishes) and nose (half a carrot). I was disappointed that the kids of the childcare center didn’t come out to make their own snowman on the vast expanse of virgin pack snow in from of my office. I had some plan to help them make one at lunch time but instead I had a long and frank talk with one of my staff who surfaced after a two week absence.

M. is back in the office and handed in the first draft of her report; we will work together on a second draft and prepare a presentation for our staff. I was sorry to see her return to her old administrative job as I had hoped to have a promotion in place but it is tied to several other moves that cannot yet happen. And so I counsel patience, to myself, to her and two other people whose job changes are all interconnected.

The US government, as part of a promise at the July Kabul Conference, has to materialize the 50% ‘on-budget’ support to the Afghan government. This means that half of all the monies obligated to rebuild/develop Afghanistan have to flow through the ministry of finance into the various line ministries that receive the assistance. Health is one of those. It is an enormous undertaking of a complexity that is hard to grasp, especially if you have to orchestrate all this from behind the barricades of the US compound.

Things that took 8 years to bring about now (a relatively small percentage of the aid being channeled through the government) have to be done in 2 years. Of course we have learned a lot from the 8 year experience but reducing it to a quarter is a bit of a stretch.

The ripples of the policy change are felt far and wide, including in our project as it affects our immediate (post September 2011) future, the handover of consultants, advisors and program initiatives to a government that is not quite ready to take over.

Ripples also abounded on Darulaman, the main drag that separates us from our guesthouses. The foot of snow that fell on the unpaved and undrained parts of the street turned it into a lake, rippling also wide and far and keeping cars from using their usual bypass of the traffic jams on the harder and drained segments of the road.

And in the middle of the muck, on a plastic bag, huddled a shape in a burqa with her hand outstretched for alms while cars splashed by her as if she was an object rather than a fellow human being. We didn’t stop and I pondered once more the ethical dilemma, does one encourage this practice by giving money, making it worse or does one ignore the plight of this woman, leaving it to someone else to sort out (where does she go at night?)? Sometime I feel so very inadequate here.

All through the night and the day snow fell, softening the sharp edges of Kabul. Any place is lovely with snow on it. The heavy wet snow also covered our internet antenna and so we were disconnected from the world. That’s the down side of snow.

In my Dari class I finished, after months of slow reading, a history of Afghanistan book. I learned about all the fighters/warriors and craftsmen/poets/scientists that crisscrossed this country, two streams of invasions that have both plagued and uplifted Afghanistan over the centuries. The sad outcome of all this is that there are more signs of the former and less of the latter.

After our Dari class it was still light and we invited our guard to help us make a snow man, an ‘adam-e-barfi’ as such is called here. The snow was perfect for this purpose, solid and heavy. Rabbani, our guard started packing the snow with his bare hands. Afghans appear to have very good circulation in their extremities, wearing flipflops all year round and rarely wearing gloves. Last year I had given each of our staff a pair of gloves fit for New England weather but I never saw them wear them. I suspect they were sold in the bazaar.

For dinner we had Alisa over. We have many intersecting interests, share part of the network of the former Institute of Cultural Affairs, and the experience of trying to change things in Afghanistan, the ups and downs of it all. We treated her to a family home experience (in contrast to her dorm experience in one of her employer’s guesthouses filled with introverted people) with a three course dinner to offset the overdose of Ramen noodles in a cup.

We sent her home with the movie “The Message” which will undoubtedly be shown on Afghan TV, in Dari, on the Prophet’s birthday next week.

This morning our Afghan snow man looked a bit like George Washington with the white snow that had fallen on his headdress overnight.

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Snow falling in Kabul
(internet down)
Baby Abel born in Brussels
Shiola in the oven
Mubarak gone
What now?

One of Axel’s students, the one who went through 12 revisions of his college application essay (over which both lost several pounds) has gotten a job as international staff in East Timor. He invited us for a goodbye lunch in a pricey western restaurant near our house. We had to order for him because he didn’t understand the choices (ham quiche, chicken sausage pie and croquet madams and monsieurs).

It was the day of my SOLA class again, something I always look forward to and immensely enjoy. We read another few pages of A Thousand Splendid Suns, a chapter about Taliban abuses. Two of the girls only knew about the outrageous acts the Taliban committed from hear-say or movies and books like this one. But one girl had lived in Jalalabad at the time, one of the Taliban epicenters. She was too young to suffer much directly but she remembers the secret schools and the women pretending to go to Koran classes. She did remember the beatings with radio antennas and tree branches.

There is no word on the missing girl. Powerful forces have been mobilized around the world to come to her rescue. We keep praying for a good ending and I was reminded tonight to always add an incha’allah to my wishes, as M. taught me since otherwise the good ending is unlikely to happen.

M. and her family are back from dangerous Egypt to the relatively peacefulness of Kabul, proving once more that everything is relative. She invited me to her aunt’s wedding tonight. As usual at such events I found myself in the company of women and watched them as they interacted free and playfully with each other in ways one rarely gets to see. It was a wedding of two older people who chose each other, not assigned by parents and family clans. It was the first wedding I attended where the bride actually smiled and the wedding was not an agonizing removal of the bride from her mother’s home but a conscious choice for a new life and a new love.

I was the only foreigner and received many stares. But unlike the previous weddings I went to I can now converse with people in their language, albeit haltingly and only when the music stops for a moment. I learned one more thing about weddings and that is that the bride’s family members are not allowed to dance; I guess that too has to do with the prescriptive behavior of brides and grooms.

In the middle of the festivities the wedding hall trembled. I was a little nervous but no one else seemed to be in the least perturbed. I had momentary visions of collapsed buildings and ambulances rushing to the scene. But the tremor passed and we continued our wedding meal, thrown on our tables and then taken away amidst much clatter and rice flying off plates onto hapless but well dressed wedding guests.

Back at home (it was an unusual early ending of a wedding party) I found Axel glued to the TV where a promise of some significant change in the Egyptian gridlock was tossed back and forth between correspondents.

Lift, in aviation, happens when the pressure below the wing is higher than the pressure above it. This evening we got some pressure from below.

Every single time we have gone to an evening organized by the French Cultural Center we have received an injection of hope. This evening we got another shot in the arm. We attended the final concert of the Afghan National Institute of Music and were touched deep in our core. Those evenings show an Afghanistan that few people outside this country know – one of beauty, hope, and peaceful coexistence, showcasing the talents of a new generation that grew up knowing little about their country’s heritage and century old talents.

After half an hour of speeches by various notables we were treated to a series of delightful musical pieces including a traditional song played by kids who used to be street kids. There they were in glittering traditional outfits playing their Afghan instruments in front of a packed audience – no seat was left empty in the large auditorium. I was already moved to tears and it was only the beginning. One of the three violin sections was populated by girls only; one had, only 6 months ago, been selling packets of gum on the street.

We listened to a rock band, a piece of chamber music that had a cello play alongside the tabla (drums), traditional string instruments accompanying the mournful voice of a female singer from famous musical stock. A peppy Eric Satie piece was interpreted masterfully and with great joy by talented young percussionists under the guidance of their enthusiastic Mexican teacher.

The grand finale was Vivaldi’s music rewritten as The Four Seasons of Afghanistan with an orchestra that included both western and Afghan/Indian instruments and music switching back and forth from European to Afghan meters. The music described the Afghan spring, summer (dust, heat and thunder claps), fall and winter (snow flakes and warm fires). It ended with an ode to fallen heroes and a call for peace.

A ten year old Hazara boy with the roundest face I ever saw, presumably one of the street kids, played solo on his Afghan violin that looked like a metal box with a wooden stem poking out of the top and a couple of strings. He picked up Vivaldi’s melody from the first violinist, then gave it back and picked it up again. He stole everyone’s hearts and received a thunderous applause and handshakes from several officials. His round face became ever rounder as he took in this homage, beaming from ear to ear.

The concert lifted my spirits that had been rather low lately though the lift was soon undone when we came home and learned of the disappearance of a young talented and smart woman we had gotten to know from the school. Everyone there fears it is a kidnapping, probably by greedy relatives, who were already bought off with an unconscionable amount of money. The girl left a goodbye note that sounded ominous and final. We are back in the shadow side of Afghanistan, universes apart from the Afghanistan in which we were just an hour ago. And all this happened on International Human Rights Day, celebrated with much fanfare with pictures of notables speechifying about the theory of it all.