Sylvia's Journal

I continue to be very disciplined about my daily exercise regime. Every other morning I do my 45 minute yoga routine and on the other days I walk about 6 kilometers (in about 30 minutes) on the elliptical machine while Dante is descending, about 2 circles every walk, deeper and deeper into hell. It makes me count my blessings.

The cook is learning to cook for one and getting a bit inventive, going beyond the green and fruit salad I had asked him to prepare (this is not considered ‘cooking’). Yesterday, when I arrived home late after teaching at SOLA, I found a dish with a handful of peas, carrots and three small pieces of breaded fried fish, a rather unusual dish for Kabul; today he made me two small triangles of Bolani, a sort of savory fried dough with tasty but not quite recognizable stuff inside.

I am getting in the bad habit of eating in the kitchen, standing at the counter. The alternative is a TV dinner but the BBC is getting a bit stale – constant repetition of yesterday’s stories. I suppose I could watch the local stations – it would be good for my Dari, but it is not relaxing and relaxation is what I need after an 11-hour day at work.

It is customary to serve the unsweetened green tea with plates full of candy (called chocolates here though they are rarely chocolates) or sugar-coated almonds. So you don’t drink tea with sugar but through sugar.

Ever since one of my colleagues reported on a documentary about the deplorable hygienic conditions in which these sugary sweets are made in Afghanistan (even the ones that say made in Iran, Turkey or the ones with Cyrillic wrappers) I have restrained myself when these candies are put anywhere near me.

This morning I forgot all about it and a sugar craving got the better of me. By the end of a four hour meeting this same colleague counted no less than eight empty wrappers where I had sat.

After four hours of workplanning with ourselves, we had another meeting at the ministry to deal with the planning on the other side, what we call the ‘on-budget’ planning as opposed to our own (‘off-budget’) planning. It is all part of the transition from American to Afghans in charge – or rather I should say American organizations in charge to Afghan institutions in charge – since nearly all the staff of our American organization is Afghan.

We are moving in unchartered waters and the call for clarity is unlikely to be heeded – no one has been here before and clarity is elusive. But we try nevertheless to get from our funders and clients some degree of clarity of what they want. The next phase is to see what is actually possible – wants and abilities are not necessarily in alignment.

With three colleagues we completed the day coaching the executive team of the Afghan midwives, one of seven that had participated in a leadership development program we started in December and that has been hard to continue. It was all done in rapid Dari which was a little over my head. But once again there were candies, butter toffee, coffee toffee and chocolate toffee. And once again I couldn’t help myself.

We had set up a cascading coaching scheme that had me coaching one of my staff while he was coaching the two female facilitators who were coaching the executive team who were to coach their absent team members. My coachee described me as a ‘coach tond’ which literally translates as ‘spicy coach’ and more loosely as ‘strict/harsh (not soft)’ coach. I like the idea of being a spicy coach.

While we were meeting the daily afternoon dust storm had picked up and the dusty breeze slammed doors left and right. There is something very annoying about this when you watch the open door and know it is about to slam shut and then the wind from the other side pushes it open again, to slam shut again and again. The experience surfaced faint childhood memories of our home (this was long before the arrival of airconditioning) where summer heat was combatted by opening windows and letting the breeze in and out of the house, slamming doors shut and then blowing them open again. The memory was sweeter than the experience of today.

Weekends aren’t that much fun without Axel. We talked last night and he asked whether I would have a G&T, and a chilly omelet, part of our past weekend routines – but these things don’t taste the same alone.

I worked a bit on my Dari homework and took care of a bunch of private email chores that I had collected over the week. My new computer is defective. As soon as a power cord is attached the power turns off. And so I spent a lot of time between three computers and three batteries, using one up while recharging another; a royal pain in the neck.

At the end of the morning I went to see Katie in her new old Afghan house across town. The house came with several turtles and a bunch of very messy pidgeons who live in a fancy multi-room, gabled but poop-filled bird house that stands high on a pole in their yard. The small house looks like a cube, tiled on the outside with the kind of tiles we would put in a bathroom or kitchen. But inside it is cozy. The walls are thick and the breeze through the open windows cools the house off nicely.

This breeze is going to be important because painters were busy with the same high gloss/high fume paint that gave us headaches and nausea in our house – the thing that may finally have short circuited Axel’s lungs.

The house is tucked away behind an enormous poppy house, owned by Turks who have used every inch of the land to build as large a mansion as could possibly fit between the neighbors’ walls. Once again it is the juxtaposition of the very beautiful and the very ugly that is so typical for this country.

I left just about the time that four suicide bombers approached a police station a few miles away and then blew themselves up. I found this out only later when I got to the language school where everyone was busy texting to friends and loved ones.

And so this was another day in Kabul, another weekend passed mostly alone. I hope I will get the hang of it soon.

After my weekly massage I took an old and threadbare heirloom rug that I had brought from home to Wahid’s carpet shop on Chicken Street. He noticed it was old, very old, and beautiful. Repairs are possible but will take a long time (‘I have a lot of time’ I told Wahid). He is going to have it washed first and then he will get a quote. I wished I knew the history of the rug, how it came to America.

I learned from Wahid that the brown vegetable dyed wool ‘eats itself.’ The blues and greens and reds are still vibrant but the browns are gone. I also learned that moths like brown wool better than the blue, red or green wool fibers.

I asked permission from my boss and the US government to skip out of Afghanistan for a week in early July and head down to Kerala to attend the monsoon wedding of the son of an old college friend of mine. He is marrying his Indian sweetheart and business partner. And so, my second errand on Chicken Street was to look for gifts for the parents of the bride and groom. I found an abundance of lapis treasures and settled on a few items that are of the deepest blue with tiny gold veins (pyrite).

Back home I arranged my flights, my hotel in Delhi and explored hotels in Cochin. A break three weeks from now is certainly something to look forward to.

The rest of the day I worked on various things that had not gotten attention during the week. The US Government gets some extra hours out of me now that I have no housemate to keep me from working – especially on Fridays when Boston has a regular workday.

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.

I stumbled into a fascinating meeting this morning. It is or was Mother’s Day (today or yesterday) in Afghanistan. I am not sure about the history but it has something to do with a previous first lady or queen’s choice – her birthday maybe. This may require some more research on my part.

Because of that earlier this week a big Safe Motherhood event was organized. For reasons I don’t quite understand another big event, basically about the same topic, was organized today in the auditorium of the ministry. I had not intended to go there (I didn’t know and none of us at MSH had received an invitation) but the meeting for which I showed up turned out to be cancelled (which I also didn’t know).

Having made the trip across town I decided to attend the grand event but found the cavernous auditorium mostly empty – maybe 20 people at most in a place that seats more than 250 people. I settled down for the inevitable long wait for things to start with my Pashto homework and so I didn’t mind waiting.

After a few minutes the minister showed up with her usual entourage, quickly scanned the empty hall and, after a brief consultation with the organizers, turned around and invited the few people who were there to join her in her office for a more intimate gathering.

And so I spent the next two hours sitting around a big table with some 25 other people, including representatives from various other ministries, talking about what should probably be the center of Afghanistan’s efforts to rebuild itself: paying attention to mothers/women/families rather than its obsession with the military.

Although from an official point of view the event flopped because speeches were made to 25 people rather than to 250, I thought the conversations that ensued were more productive, relationships built, common ground explored and I was thrilled that I had stumbled into this event. Even more so because all was done in Dari and so I got a two hour immersion. The only speech during which I got totally lost was the one from the ministry of religious affairs as that vocabulary is not part of my usual exposure.

One of the big differences between the US and Afghanistan is the slow pace of life. Despite the war effort frenzy and the impatience of donors to get bangs for their bucks most everything else moves at a different pace than in the US.

I have to make the mental shift from ‘an impatient wait’ to a ‘leisurely wait.’ I recall a quote (a Twain kind of quote) that speaks to this: if you are patient you can wait much faster. This is true.

Yesterday my wait at the Indian embassy speeded up after I befriended an Irish woman in the line. The wait became more manageable.

Today I spent the entire morning at the National Blood Bank for the ceremonies of World Blood Donation Day (slogans: ‘Saving Lives is Easy’ and ‘Better Blood, Better Life.’). Much of that time was spent waiting for the festivities to begin, which required the presence of important people who were a few hours delayed.

During the wait I met two impressive American-Afghans who have come back or plan to come back, to help their people. I also met Mina who is 18 and in her last year of high school. Mina is a Red Crescent volunteer who helps to spread the word that voluntary blood donations are safe, good and compassionate.

Mina wants to be a doctor; her parents want her to become a famous doctor. Since she is of marriageable age I asked her whether that was a dilemma. Not for her, she replied, ‘I hate boys! I am never going to marry,’ adding quickly that of course her parents will marry her, but hopefully not too soon.

Her mother has 7 children between 2 and 20, has a full time job and studies after hours for an engineering degree. She is away from home between 7 AM and 7 PM. Mina is proud of her mom and is bitten by the same education bug as the rest of her family: her dad is a school principal and her older sister a teacher.

Mina did not speak at the ceremony though I thought she should have. Another girl spoke, an 8 year old, telling a tearful audience how her life had been saved by donated blood. The journalist jumped on her after her televised speech for more interviews – a perfect media moment.

The girl spoke into the many microphones pushed into her face with great confidence and poise, making the whole thing a very compelling story as this girl is going somewhere!

For the first time in over a month I asked the cook to prepare me a real meal rather than a salad to use up the meat that Axel had bought before he left at the Turkish meat shop. I had thawed the meat and left the Dari cookbook open on the page of beef biryani for the cook, hinting at a way to use up the beef. He called the office to ask whether I was giving a party. I told him no, and to please cook a small meal. I don’t think he quite believed me as he cooked for 2 people (which will feed me for about 4 days) and bought two small cherry tarts for dessert.

I had brought back a set of three yoga videos for the arthritic mother of one of my colleagues. I had tried out one of the 20 minutes classes on the DVD that was called ‘Get Well.’ It advertised itself as gentle. I tried to follow the poses. It was very discouraging. The title should have been ‘Advanced Pretzel.’

This morning S reported that, before going to their various workplaces, her father, mother, sister and brother sat in front of their TV and did one of the sessions from the DVD called ‘Golden Years.’ They liked it. They resolved to do a yoga session every morning. I could just picture the whole family flexing and stretching while watching a lady dressed in a way that goes entirely against Afghan clothing orthodoxy. The image tickled me pink.

Then, at our regular senior management meeting my boss explained why he had not been able to come in yesterday. I learned how traditionally justice is served when a young man tries to rob a family. It was a fascinating tale of whole communities mobilizing to deal with the pain, shame and retribution when one of their own strays off the straight and narrow.

Although the police did eventually get involved, it is the community of elders that re-arranged matters, meted out punishment and compensated the aggrieved party. It was they who, in the end, asked the police to let the boy go. I marveled about the intricate network of social relationships, norms and actions. The young man’s family was from Peshawar in Pakistan. More than 10 elders (including grandma) traveled from Peshawar to apologize. Apparently even relatives in Iran were mobilized. They spent hours sitting and discussing, offering bags of rice and what not to make up for the crime.

Although the young man, when discovered breaking into my boss’ house in the middle of the night, was beaten by at least 10 people (I was horrified) – his treatment in the police cell, afterwards, was worse it seemed (now I was less horrified). It would explain why Afghans prefer to deal with crime and criminals as a matter between families that can be sorted out without the involvement of the state.

The whole affair kept a large group of people very busy for days, spending huge amounts of money on travel and appeasement, including putting up a house in Kabul as collateral in case of further misdeeds. Now all is well again and the families are pacified and reconciled. I don’t think this young man is ever going to break in again.

We in the US and Europe take a shortcut by delegating all this to the state. We lock up these young men (sometimes together with more seasoned criminals) and think that this will solve the problem of crime – which of course it doesn’t. The Afghan way appealed to me, as long as there are no guns involved. This can, of course, not be assumed, making the Afghan approach a little risky.

I spent the entire morning waiting in various lines and non lines outside and inside the Indian embassy to renew my visa. It is always a bit risky to stand near the Indian embassy with a recent history that includes at least two bombings. I hoped that Pakistanis preoccupation with internal matters of state and governance would leave the Indians alone for now.

One small bus that didn’t stop in the right place was immediately encircled by several uniformed men with cocked guns. Although the tension lasted only a few seconds it was amazing how quickly everyone standing around drew closer, rather than away from the vehicle. Curiosity appears to be a powerful competitor with common sense. A cavalcade of speeding unmarked vehicles minutes later explained why the embassy guards were so jittery. Minutes later all was quiet again and we were asked to enter the heavily guarded consular section of the embassy.

Still somewhat sleepy from jetlag I made it through my one hour Pashto class and learned, to my misplaced amazement that the word for husband in Pashto is ‘owner.’ I talk a lot about my husband these days because everyone wants to know where he is. In Pashto my owner is recuperating in the US.

At four o’clock in the morning I was wide awake and decided to go for a virtual run around the neighborhood – without leaving the house of course. I was back on the exercise machine and surprised myself on how far I was able to walk-run in 30 minutes. It helped that I was being read to by a great actor reading Melville’s Billy Budd.

I stayed until our house staff arrived so I could tell them in person about Axel’s non return. It is clear they are very fond of him as all were hugely disappointed. One of them, Rabbani, has asked me whether he can participate when I next talk with Axel and that he wants to ‘see him in a picture’ (I presume he means Skype video). We will do this over the weekend.

He showed off his progress with the hoola-hoop. He must have practiced a lot because he can now do it with very little movement of the hips – quite gracefully for a stocky little guy like him. Apparently everyone has practiced, even the cook; the oldest of the three guards has not mastered the skill – I suspect because he is rather self-conscious and is the type that doesn’t like to make a fool of himself in front of others.

I took my time to greet all my favorite colleagues. It was wonderful to see them again and the easing into the office routine was quite painless with only one meeting set up for the entire day.

This was at the ministry to further discuss how we will transition our knowledge and experience about management and leadership training to the general Directorate of Human Resources. A lot of work has been done over the last few years to draw up plans on how to improve human resources management but the general directorate has not been getting the attention (people, money) it deserves – some very brave and passionate people are working on changing this now. Like it or not, we are now also wrapped up in these efforts.

While checking my email I stumbled on this add – a fantasy Axel and I had when we first came here. Now I think not.

I am glad I had one more day to ease into my new life as a single person. I do miss Axel terribly, and felt quite lonely in this big house. However, the incessant dust storms would have made him miserable, and I am relieved we don’t have to deal with this challenge for him.

To get around the silence of being alone I have the TV on all the time, listening to the same BBC and Euro News stories ad nauseam. At least it feels as if there are other people around.

One of the office cars pulled in this morning with our emergency rations – just in case we are stuck in our guesthouses. I was there when that decision was made several weeks ago. Since then people thought about the content of this emergency food packet.

What was loaded onto our terrace fit into 3 boxes: 2 kg bags of dried fruit, a 3 kg can of California ‘cling’ peaches, several cans of fruit cocktail, several one liter juice boxes, 1 kg of dried milk powder, various packages of cookies, including one sugar free variety and three kinds of MRE (Meals Ready to Eat) that either fell of the truck or were donated by Douglas: Menu 20 (Spaghetti with Meat Sauce), Menu 24 (Chicken pulled in Buffalo Style Sauce) and one repackaged (it must have damaged its packaging during the fall) that includes caffeinated gum and a Honey BBQ Beef Sandwich.

Now that the stuff is here for real I wonder when I should start eating the cookies and dried fruit before they get stale. The MREs and the peaches and fruit cocktails will probably last forever.

In the afternoon I went to my Dari class and delivered the news that Axel was not coming back. Everyone is sad and sends their salaams. In the middle of my class I started to get very sleepy, just when my teacher explained the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. I keep mixing them up – yet I should know better, having studied Latin during my youth.

Back home I spent the rest of the day transiting from my old computer to my two new ones: the new office one and my own NetBook. Armed with two hard drives I went back and forth, cleaning things out in the process, deleting files I don’t want to look at anymore and removing the duplicates from my music folder that came from endless copying over copies. I have separated the personal from the professional, an intention I have walked around with for a long time but unable to complete. I now have all the time of the world to do this sort of thing.

Tomorrow I will hand in the old laptop with the non functioning keyboard (teaspill) and the external keyboards, uncluttering my desk in the process. It is not much of an accomplishment but I feel hugely pleased with myself for completing this task.