Sylvia's Journal

Despite the dust storms that sweep each afternoon through the Kabul Valley and over the thousands of construction sites carrying with them all the pollutants that made Axel sick, and that make me grateful that Axel is not here, life goes on.

This included the volleyball game between a ministry team that administers the NGO contracts for health services and a team from our project based in our compound.
The setup had been a bit shaky as the challenging team had made a list of conditions that were essentially ignored about who could play and who could not (not our drivers as they practice nearly daily and are very good) and how the game would be played (international volleyball rules versus ‘Pakistan refugee camp’ rules – the ones most Afghans are playing by). One of the conditions that everyone agreed on was ‘no biting or scratching’ and ‘no one should be hurt.’

There was much arguing at first, before the game even started. It occurred to me that in this country the purpose of rules is to guarantee wins, not to ensure fair play. One of the contested rules was the practice of rotation. The Afghans prefer to leave the experts in their places all the time guaranteeing best use of talent. It does make sense on one level (more chance to win) but it also takes some of the fun out of the game. In the end, and with some difficulty, both teams adapted, with much prodding by the umpire, to the, for them, new rules, including the rotation idea.

About 80 people were in attendance, cheering the two teams on. I was the only female. Sports are for men even though there are valiant attempts by women in nearly every sport to break in. It would have been fun to have a real tournament, with many MSH teams. This may well happen after yesterday’s success but having female teams in the mix is out of the question. I don’t think I could mobilize a team but even if I could, women playing in front of men would be unacceptable.

We don’t have many events like this where we sit around, cheer each other and just have a good time. At work we tend to work; there is little playfulness in the way I know from my 25 year career at headquarters. When I first joined the Kabul team I had some hope that I could bring some of that playfulness along. I organized a few events – they were fun – but no one seemed to have much energy for picking up the baton. Maybe it is the daily stress, the difficulty of living in Afghanistan that work against this. And now that the end of my stay here is in sight I have lost the drive.

My first week alone came to an end with my SOLA class. The girls were happy to see me but sad to see me alone. I delivered Jo’s teenage movies and books to shrieks and laughter. I hope we can have a class about the Breakfast Club – I am so curious how these young Afghan women will react to this classic US teenage movie.

We are still reading Three Cups of Tea. A few more of the girls had picked up something about the accusations that were made about the veracity of the story and comingled finances of the person and the institute. I gave them an assignment to Google the name of the author and explore what it means to be a critical consumer of information. I had introduced these words about a month ago and they had looked them up in their dictionaries (What? judgmental eaters of information?). But the concept is so alien that I had to review it again.

SOLA will be closed for the summer soon, to the dorm girls’ disappointment. Since I have no one waiting at home I promised to return on Sunday and maybe again on Tuesday do have a few more classes before summer vacation starts. I too will miss the classes, as they are among the high points of my week.