Sylvia's Journal

Today is the first day of the work week for the government. I was invited to attend the weekly staff meeting of the general directorate for health services provision, at 10 AM. The boss came in late and canceled the meeting after he had shaken hands with all his subordinates and subordinates-once-removed, and apologized to me, the only one who had come in from a distance and on my day off.

The H1N1 panic is rising and an inter-ministerial meeting was called. Nursing students came in to the ministry to ask what to do and the person in charge had no idea. ‘We are poor’ she said with a voice that quivered and called for guidance and help instead of showing the decisiveness we have come to expect from leaders. Unfortunately, this from one of the very few women at the top.

Rather than going back to my guesthouse I decided to stay and do some scanning to see what people are doing about the potential epidemic that is roaring at Afghanistan’s gates. One death confirmed, but who knows how many unnoticed?

It is clear from that I saw that we still have a long way to go to get the central department heads and directors to play a leadership role. The few officials I saw are all waiting for orders. It was a good diagnostic opportunity to see what happens when there is a potential thread. Not much, I concluded.

I see what I need to do to rally our Tech-Serve troops around this challenge: they have to scan the information to see what is rumor and what is fact; they have to focus on a few high-leverage activities and align with the right departments and agencies to mobilize all resources and all hands on deck. And finally, rather than panicking, they have to inspire their own people that this can be tackled.

I asked one team to record, along the way, what they are doing well and where they messed up or where things didn’t work as expected, so that, afterwards, we can sit down and see what needs to be changed. It’s a simple idea but panic can make one forget to do the simple things. Besides, people are focused on keeping their families safe – when in danger, that’s when we withdraw onto ourselves. I get that. I should be worried about my family in the deeply infected United States.

On my way back from the ministry I stopped at two supermarkets to indulge myself a bit. I bought a case of non alcohol beer which has now become a huge treat (alternative is fermented yogurt or a non alcohol fruit beer). I also bought myself hot chocolate powder to prepare for the cold winter nights and, to counter that, some ice cream, from Herat no less.

It was quiet at home as Steve went on a day trip to one of the provinces to sort out a messy situation between ministry and NGO staff who are doing the same hospital work but are not paid the same salaries. I wished him luck and reminded him about the practices of managing and leading, as he would be needing all of them.

I emptied my mailbox a bit further until I got tired of sitting on my exercise ball in front of the computer. I picked a handful of hot peppers form the bush outside my house and tried to make sambal which filled the house with fumes and cleared out my sinuses. The resulting paste is close to inedible, too hot for me. I can’t wait to have some southern Indians visit us, the ones who made fun of what I considered hot, and challenge them to eat my concoction.

There were demonstration today of students marching through town shouting Allah Akbar. These kinds of crowds make me nervous but luckily I never saw them nor heard them. We were advised to stay in the office, not because it was dangerous but because of the enormous traffic jams caused by the student marches. Only very critical trips to senior level ministry officials were deemed serious enough to suffer such traffic jams. Luckily I was excused from such a trip and was therefore able to take care of a lot of business before heading out, very early in the morning to the airport for a week’s worth of work in Herat.

I sent Axel’s arrival information to Khaleed to make sure he is properly welcomed at the airport on November 4. Khaleed is MSH’s youngest employee and the one who picks people up, drops them off, gets visas, etc. He is our expeditor and does it well. He is also the one who periodically stands in line at the Indian embassy and whose luck it was that I retracted my passport for the previous trip to Herat. It was either good luck, or as people here tend to believe, God has something more in mind for him that required a longer life. Whatever the cause or reason, we were all grateful he wasn’t at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Although Axel will be welcomed to his new hometown, he won’t be welcomed to his new house. We are still lodged for some time in guesthouse zero because the house is not quite ready. So we get to share are dorm room for a bit, cozy but a little bit crowed with the stuff that will spill out of two more suitcases added to the contents of at least 4 other large bags, boxes and suitcases.

I received a long-distance physical therapy session over the internet from the Swedish PT who trained the local lady therapist. The inflammation after my previous session at the military hospital set me back a bit in my exercise program. I haven’t given up on her yet and hope that with the guidance from Sweden we will be able to get back on track, after my return from Herat.

Now that Obama and the State of Massachusetts have declared a state of emergency because of the H1N1 virus, I am anxious to get Axel out of that dangerous place and over here. I am counting these nine more days and hope that he will be able to dodge the virus-laden spray of Massachusetts’ infected sneezers and coughers.

Early this morning (not too early as it is our day off) Iain, who just arrived, Steve and I had breakfast at the Pelican, a real French bakery place (as opposed to the one with that is called the French Bakery) that employs the cutest Hazara boys and girls as waiters and waitresses. We each had fried eggs, bacon (yes, bacon indeed), fresh apple/watermelon juice, good coffee and a real croissant. We sat amidst enormous rose bushes, 6 foot tall cosmos and a thick patch of bright red geraniums, outside on the terrace in the cool morning sun. It was lovely. I can’t wait to show the place to Axel. After wards I bought a real baguette, an almond croissant and a bag of butter cookies for four dollars, a fortune here, but well worth it.

The rest of the day I studied my Dari so as not to disappoint my teacher who came at the end of the day. We studied body parts but not the unmentionables. He offered to teach these as well but I declined. I am not a doctor and don’t plan to date an Afghan, so I don’t need to know. I learned that the word for back or behind is the same word that is used to denote gay men by the people who live in the north of the country. The word for arm and hand is the same, which is also true for leg and foot. And fingers are described as digits of the hand and digits of the foot.

We also practiced the old verbs and then I learned some new ones. He is getting stricter with homework and I am to write the words I keep forgetting at least five times in my note book, in Dari. But my Dari writing is still very rudimentary and I requested a writing practice book for first graders. In the meantime I am allowed to type the words in Dari, which I have mastered through my computerized flash card program.

We ended the lesson with a walk around the living and dining room naming everything in sight; from carpet to bookcase, table, chairs, fruit platter, clock, etc. Since I will be furnishing my new home such words are important.

After my lesson our newest housemate, Inua, from Ghana emerged from the confines of his small room and we watched David Attenborough celebrate Darwin on a DVD that I had given Steve as a birthday present. And now the weekend is over, whereas back at home it is just beginning. I am proud that I didn’t fritter my entire weekend away behind the computer, although I did write a first draft of the chapter for the Third Culture Kids book, but that doesn’t count as it is extra-curricular.

I missed my first earthquake, luckily. My colleagues, all of whom had witnessed multiple earthquakes in places such as California, Pakistan and Indonesia, mentioned it in the morning, as we headed out for our weekly walk around the local high school. I discovered later that it was 6.2 on the Richter scale, a sizeable earthquake. And yet I had slept right through it. The only thing that had been displaced by the quake was the feather light kite that Ankie had left me. It had shifted its position only slightly. Nothing else had moved or fallen.

After our morning walk we went on our usual Chicken street outing. This time we had a purpose, rather than a random buying spree (which also happened of course). We bought a gift for Elizabeth in Boston, a wall decoration with the finest embroidery. Neither one of us knowing her taste, Steve thought that I rather than he should select something, as he trusts my taste more than his own. And so I selected and he paid.

In the process of choosing the gift in one of Steve’s favorate stores we stumbled on a large plastic bag filled with at least a hundred tiny embroidered and decorated baby caps. If you bring the fabric close to your nose you can smell the entire extended family of nomads that produced both the babies and the caps. Every possible item at hand was used to decorate the caps over and beyond the most delicate and fine embroidery: buttons, broken zippers, leftover pieces of wool, small metal shapes and the tiniest of beads. Most of these things would not even be allowed in the same house as a baby in the place I come from.

Back at home we had lunch while watching on Al Jazeera what has now become a daily news report about yet another explosion in Pakistan. My friend Chantelle and her husband Sheldon live in Islamabad and extended an invitation via facebook to come and visit them during a weekend. I think it is actually safer here in Kabul.

I finished reading the 5-part series about David Rohde’s kidnapping and subsequent 7-month ordeal in Waziristan as if it was a spy novel, especially the final part of the escape. The NYT has made an animated re-enactment of the escape that is pretty amazing to watch. To then read articles about ecotourism in Afghanistan, Bamiyan in particular, leaves one incredulous – such opposite stories; but that is Afghanistan as we experience it daily: the beauty of the people, their landscape and their crafts on one side and the ugliness of weapons, war, abject poverty and destruction on the other hand.

We went to see the progress at the new house. The yellow paint I picked is a little more yellow than I thought. I am actually not sure that they used that color (sunburst). I looked much more like the other yellow I did not want (lemon ice). I can just see them in the store, “sorry we don’t have sunburst.” “Oh, never mind, give me another yellow.”

The painters did a rather shoddy job but I guess I will get used to it. They left the bridal suite in hot pink with the doors of the closets in thick white paint with gold and silver dashes and matching ceiling light. That will be the room for consultants and our guests.

I bought a nice mirror (see picture below) for the hallway and Steve graciously lent me an enormous kelim he had just bought, which we may use until he leaves, to decorate the large living room. He has given me permission to look though his stash of carpets, kelims, wall hangings and countless other large and small knick knacks that are currently heaped on top of each other in garbage bags on his balcony.

The walls of the new house are being painted, the carpets put in and the cook and housekeeper are hired. The quality of the food prepared by the new cook got him hired instantly. The housekeeper came with the most glowing recommendations from a colleague of mine who lived here with his wife under the previous project. The young man is learning English and I am learning Dari – it seemed like a good combination. His name is Ghulam Ali. I asked him how he preferred to be called and he said Ghulam which has a guttural ‘g’ that would give Axel trouble. When I discovered that Ghulam means slave I asked if we could call him Ali.

I received the wonderful news that Axel has made his reservations to arrive on the 4th, the day before we will stop receiving travelers. We expect that after the 4th pick up at the airport may become too problematic because of extra security measures. It’s nice to be in close down mode with him rather than without him. I am counting the days.

Now it becomes even more important to get the house in order. A whole bunch of things are being scratched off the list that will lead us to a more normal existence, if such can ever be the case in this country. Having our own house and people to cook and clean for us is appealing, after somewhat of a nomad existence for the last month.

I had lunch today behind the curtain with the women, two doctors and a secretary. I asked if they travel to the provinces and to my surprise they said yes. This is extraordinary. Not being able to travel is the main reason that is invoked for why we don’t have more professional women on staff. I tried to pry out of them why they can travel and discovered that one has a very enlightened husband, also a doctor, and the other is unmarried, also extraordinary.

Probing a little further I discovered that they have travelled outside Afghanistan and had no problem mixing with the opposite sex when in another country. Why then, I asked, can they not feel comfortable here, eating on the other side of the curtain, alongside the men. They answered that it is not because they feel uncomfortable, but because it is uncomfortable for the men. Of course I had asked the same question on the other side of the curtain and got exactly the opposite answer. I don’t get it; the sexes mix freely during the workday or when they are outside the country, but when it comes to eating suddenly everyone assumes that the other sex would be too uncomfortable. I have never seen whole populations shoot themselves in the foot by not testing this very basic assumption (“they will not be comfortable”).

We are having a changing of occupants at the guesthouse. Big man Greg has left with duffle bags full of carpets that will grace his self-built house in Virginia. Niranjan leaves tomorrow for Delhi and then Dhaka, and Inua from Ghana has just arrived. The result is that, at least for tonight, we are having four occupants in the house representing four continents: India, Africa, North America and Europe.

The international theme was also present in the quarterly MSH staff meeting that I ‘attended’ by cellphone and website. It brings all our staff from opposite sides of the world together in one physical and virtual space. It’s pretty amazing to have over 100 people ‘meet’ this way across continents, cultural and linguistic barriers.

Few of our Afghan colleagues attend these meetings mostly because they don’t have the connections at home and because by the time the early morning meeting starts in the US we have already put in 10 hours of work and it is already 2 hours past the official ending of the workday. It would be the equivalent of asking everyone in Cambridge to hang around the office from 5 to 7 and then be in a virtual meeting until 8:30 PM.

If I had to travel across time in the dark and had a family waiting at home I probably would also decline. But it is too bad they can’t be part of this because it is quite an amazing feeling to be in a meeting like that with colleagues from all over the world.

This morning I am taking two pills that match my clothes: a yellow one with multiple vitamins for general maintenance. It matches the color of my Afghan shalwar kameez. The other one is exactly the same color blue as the tiny embroidery stitches on my dress. That one is to fight the inflammation in my recovering arm and shoulder. I am so very fashionable!

I was woken up in the middle of the night by a sound I did not recognize. It turned out to be my 2nd cellphone that very few people call. I had our New York based pension fund institution on the line with a chipper lady who had not made the calculation of the time difference, despite multiple emails. Something has gone awry in the transfer of my 403(b) fund into our new 401(k) company sponsored pension fund and the monies, a significant amount saved up over years, had gone missing. Setting this right from Afghanistan is hard. I spent the hours from midnight to 1:30 AM trying to do this. Because of a different kind of security concerns than the ones I have here, both institutions refuse to deal with anyone else but me. It is infuriating, especially since the stock market has been climbing, which otherwise would have been a good thing. I am not sure the issue has been resolved and there may be more midnight interruptions I fear.

I am now being quoted on an eco-tourism website that talks about Afghanistan. Imagine that! Reading it filled my heart with longing, the kind of longing I am sure many people here have. Looking at the pictures of Bandi Amir and Bamiyan, I remember those spots and wished I could invite people to come and visit us and go see these places. Actually, people here do, but I wouldn’t invite anyone to come from afar. Axel and I certainly hope to go there ourselves when spring comes around.

I am official now, with an updated ID card. My last card was from 2002. I am a little greyer now. Slowly all the settling in pieces are falling into place. The only things missing are my multiple entry Indian ‘escape’ visas (not easy to get, and particularly hard after the bomb damage), my work permit and my multiple entry visa to Afghanistan.

It is starting to get really cold in the morning, time for warm socks. My office is heated by the sun but the sun doesn’t get to me until sometime after lunch.It’s very hard to dress for these temperature extremes, from 30s to 70s and back to 30s. Winterization is starting and consists of the placement of small diesel stoves in our offices and bedrooms. I am told the diesl stoves are actually a little bit too large for my small office and so soon I will be sweating again. I have also been warned of the diesel fumes. It’s good that there are cracks between the floor and the door.

I am experiencing the novelty of being senior management on a daily basis. My opinion is very highly valued because it is no longer simply an opinion but an opinion that can quickly turn into a decision. People line up outside my office for this or that and they are waiting patiently outside until I wave them in. At least I can see them; Steve has an office without glass, so he sometimes doesn’t know people are waiting outside his door. I don’t know what is better.

We received the news tonight that the (re)elections are scheduled in 2 weeks. I can’t imagine that the election apparatus can pull this off but I guess people must have been prepared. The elections will be happen just about when Axel was planning to arrive, a decision we thus may need to revisit. I am getting a bit lonely without him.

For dinner tonight we had dishes prepared by one of the cooks who has applied for the new guesthouse position. It was our way of ‘interviewing’ him. We had him prepare a meal for our current guesthouse under the supervision of our cook. The meal was excellent. We will have another guest cook in the next few days. And on Thursday I will interview the housekeeper. I don’t quite know how to conduct such an interview, which will have to be with an interpreter. What should I ask him? I may be as much intimidated as he will be.

We shared our meal with a gentleman who is in town doing similar stuff that I do for another large organization like MSH that has a strong and large presence in Afghanistan. He is investigating how to turn an expat-managed and led project into an Afghan-managed and led project. MSH has much hard-earned experience about how to do this.

I enjoyed meeting with him as we turned out to be kindred spirits. He also comes from a family therapy background and has turned into an OD consultant and leadership developer. He has been very active working on peace and reconciliations as well as trauma response in conflict areas around the world.

Seeing the traffic on the main street leading to the other side of Kabul, our destination, the driver turned around and took the long but unclogged way across the mountain to the other side of town this morning. This included a steep drive over unpaved roads that hardly deserve the name, past small but clean informal settlements stuck to the side of the mountain. Little bright-eyed raggamuffins stared at me and our fancy car. It is an entirely different world up there. I felt like I had gone on a field trip and enjoyed it despite the bumps in the road. Unfortunately I had not brought my camera, so no pictures.

Eventually we emerged on the other side of the mountain in the part of town where the European Commission has its heavily fortified compound. It is located right next to the Indian embassy which has now become nearly impenetrable from the main road. The enormous concrete blast walls that had been removed sometimes after the previous blast were put back into place and only special-plate cars were allowed in. That included ours.

The compound looked pristine, grass cut, lovely flowers, fresh paint, no broken windows. Yet I learned later that many of the windows had been blasted to pieces and the ceiling of the EC’s conference room collapsed. Everything has been cleaned, fixed and replaced and life went on as if nothing had happened. The families back home never knew how close their loved ones were to the Indian embassy and may never know.

The European Commission is revamping its development assistance strategies and is sending consultants around the world to explain it. The process by which this was done was an interesting contradiction to the central message of dialogue: we were lectured at for the entire morning. When the consultant told us that he’d go back to Brussels to tell people what he had learned I raised my hand and asked him, ‘learned what? You have been talking at us for more than 3 hours.’ I just couldn’t help myself.

I do not have any tolerance to sit for hours looking at an expert standing in front of an slide projector, no matter how good the content (the ideas were excellent, it’s just that they did not seem to apply to him). He was a good sport and challengeable and told me what he should have done (buzz groups); pressured even further why he had ignored his own best judgment, and be congruent with his message, he mentioned time pressures, which is something all of us understand. This is the difference between theoretical concepts and the realities on the ground.

I got a few whiffs of the competition between the Europeans and the Americans and the strong resentment that the US approach seems to engender among its European counterparts. Even though, as a Dutch-American, both sides in this drama are ‘my people’ I found myself surprisingly detached from the strong feelings on both sides. Holbrooke’s name triggered some very strong reactions, never mind that he works for the Great Inspirator Obama. Maybe it is time to read The Ugly American again.

In the afternoon a smaller working group on health convened and it was indeed a listening session. It was fun being facilitated rather than facilitating myself and I watched the Danish consultant-facilitator with great interest, seeing what he was trying to do. It was a useful exchange for me as I learned much about donor issues and people’s perspectives on what’s working and what is not.

I had my second Dari lesson today. Actually the first was at the beginning of the day when I was asked to say a few words at the opening of the second workshop in a serious of four to help provincial staff for the province of Kabul act more like managers and leaders. When you are asked to give a speech it is called ‘hitting words’ if you were to translate the Dari literally. So I hit some words, mostly in English, but I can now say in Dari that I am very happy to see a significant number of women in the room. It was significant indeed, more than one third. People from countries where the sexes mingle freely have no idea how exciting that is (and how unusual).

My Dari teacher came to my office and we practiced verbs. I get to pick the verbs I want to learn. Since I am moving in a few weeks I asked how to say that I will be moving from guesthouse zero to guesthouse 33. This how I learned that moving from one house to another is, literally, ‘doing nomad.’ So now I can say that in a few weeks I will do nomad. The word for nomad as koch, as in Kochis, the nomads who crisscross Afghanistan in their brightly colored clothes.

I also learned that getting cold in Dari is expressed by saying that I eat (ingest) cold. It is so interesting to learn these expressions that reveal something about the way people think about natural or physical phenomena.

I made a few mispronunciations that are awkward in public because the bad words and good words closely resemble each other. My teacher started to giggle when I said something that, as he later explained, was like a four-letter English word (he couldn’t get himself to tell me which one, but I guessed) if I pronounced it with an ‘ah’ rather than an ‘oh’ or vice versa. Now of course I never dare to use the intended and innocent word again out of fear that I say the unintended and offensive word.