Sylvia's Journal

Last night we had dinner in a bunker. Not really a bunker but a living space carved out underneath a container, outfitted as a guesthouse. It was warm, said the owner, to be underground during the cold Bamiyan winters. But frankly, I found it a bit depressing.

We sat for a couple of hours in that place while our host was cooking an extravagant dinner, on his own, without help from wife (who was in Kabul) or staff. I think he has none. We did see the driver show up with the rice, so I guess he was called in for help.

We at the dinner in another house in the same compound that opens up to the runway on one side and to a spring and trees on the other. The back side of the house sounds lovelier than the runway side but it was dark and we couldn’t see.

The runway in Bamiyan is one of the few level surfaces in Bamiyan. In between the sporadic arrivals and departures of planes, it is used by the population as a footpath, a crossing or a road. Just before planes land and take off an official car travels up and down the gravel runway to clear cars, motorcycles, donkeys, bikes and people off the surface to make sure there are no nasty accidents.

This morning we travelled back to Kabul. The trip that took us 6 hours and 3 landings and take-offs only took 26 minutes on the way back. With that Katie completed a circle over half of Afghanistan.

We are back in Kabul with its restrictions and polluted air. Tomorrow, when we get up, we will not see the snow-capped mountains and green meadows or hear the gurgling brook; instead we see the still and stinky water of one of Kabul side rivers in back, over the barbed wire, as well as the commander’s house with his army of armed attendants and officers who do nothing but cleaning cars and their boots all day. The little snow that was left on the mountains surrounding Kabul appears to have melted while we were away.

I watched the end of Anddy’s assignment. He got things stirred up and now leaves us with the difficult task of maintaining that enthusiasm. But the team he worked with is psyched and ready and now knows a new tool for participatory organizational assessment, to supplant the consultant-driven assessments.

Maria Pia is also leaving tomorrow because the office has decided to close down in case the Peace Jirga that is supposed to start tomorrow triggers attacks; and even if these won’t happen, then there are the traffic jams caused by whole parts of the city being roped off. We get to stay home tomorrow while Anddy nurses his first beer in Dubai; we get to stay home again the day after, when Anddy and Maria Pia are welcomed back home. And then it is weekend and someone else is arriving.

We are taking advantage of a brief moment of internet access at the hotel while there is electricity, in between our travels around Bamiyan and dinner at our colleague’s house. This is the same colleague who tried valiantly to get to a conference in Geneva, two months ago. Waiting for our turn we sit on the roof while the light is dimming over the valley. It is breathtaking at any time of the day.

We visited a comprehensive health center that I will forever remember because of its spotless but rudimentary bathroom (a hole in the ground, all cemented and reeking of chlorine). Health center or hospital bathrooms are rarely that clean even though one would think they are.

Next to the health center is a school: girls in the morning and boys in the afternoon. The girls, all in their black dresses and white veils clumped around us – we were the excitement of the day. Katie was like the pied piper with at least thirty girls following her every move. I got to sit at a disk with Malika and Rahela and practice writing their and my name in neat little schoolbooks. The eagerness and energy of these girls make you feel a little better about Afghanistan’s future, assuming they get to continue their schooling beyond a few grades and are not married before they reach puberty.

We followed the Community Health Supervisor to the house of a community health worker (male) in a small village outside the provincial capital, which itself is a small village. We were received in his father’s compound which he shares with his brothers and sisters and their offspring. He served us lunch which consisted of traditional bread, large bowls of yogurt with several spoons in each and plates with fresh butter. It was my kind of lunch, all dairy, only cheese missing. It was a feast in a poor man’s house and probably a considerable sacrifice.

Back in the provincial capital we visited the vaccination office and learned about how they manage the data flow and the multiple requests from everyone and his brother to see results. They have good results but the graphic representation of these didn’t really do their results justice.

Next we visited the provincial hospital where we met the nursing team that is working on lowering infection rates. I was happy to find a very smart and vocal nurse among the team with a great sense of humor. She belongs to a pool of female Aga Khan University (Karachi) alumns who I keep running into. They give me hope about Afghanistan’s future, if the men would only let them. She talked about the Taliban with irreverence and referred to it as a boring time. When we mentioned that we enjoyed our freedom here in Bamiyan and were somewhat constrained to office and house in Kabul, she quipped that now it was our turn to be Talibanned.

We toured the brand new maternity waiting home, a collaborative effort between the New Zealand Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), local citizens who bought the land and UNICEF that will provide staffing. The lovely house, one long architectural curve sweeping around itself to come full circle (I was later told that it was designed by a Dutch (male) architect, engaged by UNICEF, who meant it to be shaped like a uterus.

The uterus building was just completed and awaiting its furnishings, equipment, water and electricity. Fifteen very pregnant women, each with a care taker, can lodge inside this uterine place until their baby arrives. This will free up the 15 hospital beds these women are now occupying. Such maternity waiting houses are being opened in other provinces as well. I was supposed to have witnessed one such opening in Badakhshan early March but the helicopter didn’t fly.

And finally we had a meeting with the provincial health team to digest our very full day. It was a complex meeting in that much was in Dari and I can follow about one third but not enough to really get myself understood well; things get lost in translation. I still have to mull over what our conclusions were and what we can and cannot do here in Bamiyan. Lots of opportunities and lots of constraints. More about this later. Photos also later. Katie has a real camera and is making awesome pictures.