Sylvia's Journal

Today was Sita’s thirtieth birthday – imagine that, having a daughter of 30! I remember having vague images of Sita turning 30 when she was still very little though it was mostly unimaginable in the same way that imagining the death of one’s parents is so very difficult.

I am sitting here contemplating Sita’s 30 years while listening to the music of her birth place, Senegal. The music pulls at my heart strings like any music with sweet associations does. I miss the warmth, colors, rhythm and freedom of Senegal, sitting here in our cold concrete house that a small stove is trying to heat. Outside it is getting cold and dark, there is no rhythm at the moment and people are dressed in variations of tan and grey, the national uniform for men, or black and blue, the national uniform for women. Yet I know that one day I will listen to Afghan music and be nostalgic in the same way. I will not think of the bad stuff then, only the good things.

Bad news came today from the girl we are trying to get to her school in Connecticut next school year. A terse email indicated that the family had changed its mind once again, now also forbidding email use. We brought her the Kindle and started fantasizing about her trip to the US in August, only 10 months from now. The school in CT must be roller-coastering along with her. They get excited about their new schoolmate and then hopes are dashed all around. I wonder how it feels like to be on this roller coaster while not living here. It is very much part of our experience here, but in CT it probably is not. How we deal with disappointment says much about our circumstances.

Disappointment is the stuff of everyday life here – as is the ecstasy of small victories.

I took M along to an awards ceremony for media that had increased awareness about HIV/AIDS in Afghanistan. There were prizes for TV, radio and print press, distributed after many speeches by high level officials from the ministry of health, of culture, the independent media, and the university.

Between speakers the mistress of ceremonies recited poems about HIV/AIDS and, I assume, healthy living. I don’t think I have attended any ceremony that did not have poems in between speeches. I asked M whether these poems were written for the occasion and by whom; did project or department staff write these? Can anyone in Afghanistan write poetry just like that? It seems that poetry is in the cells of most Afghans. I was impressed. I try to write poetry myself during bouts of inspiration (marked by long periods of silence). M told me that sometimes students of literature are asked to write such poems. What a concept!

I took advantage of the down time that being part of an audience granted me by knotting the fringe of the scarf that matches my new outfit. It would unravel without the knots. I let the Dari words of the speeches wash over me and enter my ears (and occasionally my brain when I recognized a word). This is how one learns a language, by immersion: listening to speeches and finding the recurrent words (culture, awareness, important work) and then looking them up or asking someone. It is a bit like deciphering the Rosetta stone, except here people already have the key.

The small stoves in our house have been filled with fuel and the one in the bathroom and in the living room are lit. This required airing the house for a while, letting more cold in. It had the opposite effect of what a stove is supposed to do, leaving us more chilled. It’s a temporary thing; until the fumes have dissipated.

Tomorrow I am going to request a different heating source for my office and our guesthouse. Now that we are on the municipal grid, I am told, we can heat electrically – odor- and fume-less, such a luxury.

I tried out my new Punjabi (tunic and baggy pants) outfit made by M’s tailor from the cloth I bought at the agfair some weeks ago. It is beautifully tailored and very comfortable even though the tailor thought little about the quality of the material. My housemates liked it too. Unfortunately the weather is a little too cool for this spring dress.

Today was the first day I needed a heater in my small concrete office. Our yard was covered with a thin layer of frost this morning. All across the compound and in the guesthouses the diesel stoves (‘bucharis’) are fitted back into their winter spots requiring much moving of furniture.

I had to remove an entire bookcase. I pulled out dusty books that I had forgotten about – reading I thought a year ago that I might need but didn’t. It reminded me of how little the work I did before I came here I am actually doing nowadays.

I am preparing an event that draws on my somewhat rusty design and facilitation skills – a visioning workshop with one large urban hospital that has been limping along from one crisis to another. There must be a way to turn it around, like one can even an oil tanker – slowly and in a wide circle with all hands on deck. That’s what I hope we can do next month, when all important hands are back from abroad, even Axel and myself.

Axel went to the Kabul International Fair that is being held in the Loya Jirga tent, the one provided by the Germans for the first Loya Jirga way back in the early 2000s and then used for the Peace Jirga in July; the same one that had rockets shot at it – out of the media limelight all is quiet there now.

He came back with a bottle of locally made extra virgin olive oil, pressed using age old methods with the technical assistance from the Italians (of course), two plastic bags of fresh full-fat milk (a forgotten delicacy for us used to UHT milk) and a local pasteurized cheese (we are discouraged to buy the unpasteurized cheeses that are sold down the street, displayed on pushcarts on bright green fake grass sheets).

We are wondering if some of the new local enterprises that owe their success to technical and financial assistance from development organizations will soon find themselves without that support. The removal of the private security companies is turning into a big crisis. There is much rhetoric about this move by Karzai. Everyone appears to be painting themselves into a corner that will be hard to get out of.

I was dressed in orange today and Sophia in black – we made such a nice Haloween combo that Axel thought a picture was in order. He posed us first in front of the tomato tree (our pear tree with bunches of harvested green tomatoes hanging from its branches – a source of many chuckles and, hopefully for the guards, a tomato meal down the road, if the sun keeps shining). Then he posed us in front of the arbor, with and without the pink squeegee.

I had asked Axel to come to the office and be my scribe for what I had hoped would be a well attended brainstorming meeting on how MSH could celebrate its 40th birthday in Afghanistan. When the time came no one showed up and so Axel and I brainstormed together. Then a colleague showed up who was clearly on his way to another meeting but we roped him in and he enthusiastically participated for a bit, populating our large mindmap with more ideas; then Sophia showed up, the only one who had actually accepted the invitation. So in the end the four of us brainstormed and produced something that I can send to headquarters – at least we gave heed to the call of ideas. As one of the largest MSH projects, how could we not have?

During the afternoon I was on an interview panel for a position on our drug management team. I was the only non pharmacist and so I asked the non-technical (or fuzzy) questions, like what is your vision and tell me what good qualities do you bring to a team? Most of the 6 candidates didn’t understand the question, sometimes not in English (at which point my Afghan co-panelists translated the question) and sometimes not even in Dari. The concept of teamwork as we know it, or having professional or career goals is so rarely asked (if at all) that they don’t think about this. Jobs are for income and survival – a career path maybe an irrelevant western invention.

I was at first surprised when one of my colleagues asked the candidates to describe the job they were applying for. I didn’t think such a question needed to be asked but I soon learned it does need to be asked. Some people apply for any job they see. One of our candidates had applied for three jobs in the pharmaceutical unit at the same time: one senior position, one midlevel and one of a low level assistant. There was something not quite right about that.

Two of the six candidates were female; one very spunky the other quite the opposite. I wanted to follow the shy one out into the hallway after we prematurely concluded the interview, to explain to her that how one presents oneself is really important in an interview – she has a long way to go. Once again we noticed the difference between those candidates who were educated, even in camps, in Pakistan and those whose families had stayed here. The former are confident, speak English well, the latter don’t have any of these qualities yet fill their resumes with promises they can’t deliver. It is sad that after having suffered through some much here they can’t compete with their refugee brothers and sisters who went to Pakistan or Iran.

Yesterday we had another dust storm, the now dreaded khak-bad. It sweeps a fine dust into the air from there it has free play. When we arrived home our guard Rabbani had a scarf wrapped around his head with only his eyes showing. The driver quipped that he was now ‘mullah Rabbani.’ It made everyone laugh even though mullahs here are no laughing matter.

This morning all the surfaces in the house were covered with the brown dust that we know contains lots of very unhealthy particles that float around Kabul. The guard took a big hose and sprayed water on everything to wash it off the terrace, trees, plants, arbor, windows and furniture. And so it falls back on the ground until the next wind takes it up again. It will always be like that.

Although we still can’t see the low hills behind our house (obscured by the same dust), above our heads the sky was blue and the wind was down this morning. We sat outside and enjoyed the late summer sun while we ate our breakfast. It’s is a short lived pleasure because once the sun is gone we realize it is actually fall.

We stayed home all day except for our Dari class. I found out that I am reading an Iranian fairy tale (the lady of the 1000 stories), which explains the many words that were new. The teacher and I decided to read on, it’s good reading practice. And so now I am learning words that are only spoken further West. It is a third grade book with pages that contain only words, no pictures – I am reliving the experience of a beginning reader who sees all those words and no pictures, a little intimidating at first.

Our house guest went carpet shopping, a nearly obligatory experience for which time can always be found. She returned very content with an old Turkmen carpet, an AndKhoy runner and a Baluchi carpet that are now spread out in our living room.

More stuff came to our house when our Turquoise Mountain friends delivered a liquor cabinet that had been made for Prince Charles. He had not taken it and it was for sale. Doug had bought the pricey chest, partially because of its exquisite woodcarving but mostly because of the Prince Charles association. He likes stuff that has a story attached. We had the chest for only a few hours and then it was delivered it to its rightful owner.

One of our current house guest’s ancestors survived battle in Afghanistan, a long time ago. She wanted to see the British cemetery where some of his comrades were laid to rest. Originally established for British military dead in the Second Afghan War, in 1879, the British cemetery is now a place where people are laid to rest who tried to do good deeds here.

As it happened today was a volunteer cleanup day organized by the Friends of the British Cemetery. We had signed up and took her along.

We hacked at the toughest weeds that had cracked open marble slabs. With a pick axe I cleaned up the grave of a young couple, he Dutch, she Finnish. I learned later that they died on December 30, 1980. Their mutilated bodies were found on their bedroom floor. Their two children, age five and age three, were found unhurt, having sat in the blood of their dead parents for almost a day. They had been mistaken for Russian spies.

The only graves that the weeds had not found yet were those marking the final resting place of several members of the medical expedition that had been ambushed in Nooristan in July this year.

One of the volunteers was tasked to map the graves, both the marked and the unmarked ones. The latter were simple mounds covered with the spiky grass. No one knew whether there had once been marble that had been stolen, or whether these were hastily dug graves, with no time or money to mark them.

At 10:00 Am this morning Axel, Doug and I sneaked out of the office for a private tour of the Murad Khani urban restoration project by Will from the Turquoise Mountain Foundation that is undertaking this massive project.

He and others have seen through mountains of garbage, kilometers of red tape, and who knows what other obstacles why holding fast onto a vision that is becoming reality right now. The digging and constructing is still going on but what has already emerged is breathtaking.

If ever I need an example of the power of vision and how it transforms people and things into something only dreamed of a few years ago, in spite of numerous obstacles, it’s right here in Kabul, about a 20 minutes ride from our office. I think I may take people on a field trip to see what having a vision, a shared vision, does. Some people think that this vision stuff is fluff but what we saw today is all but fluff.

We visited a primary school that is now teaching 200 kids from the neighborhood. When we visited a group of kids was practicing circus acts. The school is in one of the many restored old buildings, with classrooms filled with eager little kids, boys and girls three to a bench, singing us a welcome. The teacher hoisted on of the girls top of a schoolbench to read the numbers one to 10 in English. I could have stayed the whole day there.

We went to a pristine little clinic, set up in a few small rooms with a male and female doctor. They were able to reduce the number of cases of watery diarrhea to very low levels, tackled the problem of acute respiratory disease and organized a community that never was organized to pull together the necessary funds to send a very ill 29 year old mother to Pakistan for treatment not available here.

A new urban health clinic is being built. We met the young female Iranian-German architect who is specializing in buildings that are green, use local technology (mud clay, straw and egg whites for waterproof walls and roofs) and makes sure that surfaces allow for easy infection control.

On the way back to our office I talked Doug into considering a vision-driven intervention rather than a problem-driven one to deal with one of the large urban hospital that has been sucking up drugs and money as if there is no tomorrow. The visit had made the case better than I could in a hundred years. That’s what seeing things for yourself does. I am a big fan of field visits.

I left work in the midst of a terrible dust storm that blocked everything further than 10 meters away from sight. Everyone wrapped their heads with whatever cloth was on hand. At such time scarves come in very handy.

Today was SOLA day. Three girls showed up, all also part of Axel’s writing class. We talked more about vision. One of the girls is slowly filling in a poster with details about her vision, every week there is more detail. Today she had included a round table with people sitting around it and with microphones in front of them. It is about working together to solve the problems of Afghanistan. I wondered whether the Taliban were at the table but I did not ask.

Instead I asked what they would do if (once) they were president of Afghanistan and they had one million dollar to spend. How would they allocate it? Without any hesitation all three said ‘education,’ though they did not all start with the same age group. That they picked education is not a surprise. They themselves are beneficiaries of education when they are not victims of ignorance.

This led us to a fascinating conversation about the future husband, if there were to be one. After revelations about the age their mothers were married (12, 14) and whether there was such a thing as a good marriage (not obvious), we discussed the ideal husband (kind, let’s me work, talk with other men, move around freely).

Very quickly the conversation drifted into horror stories about girls being bought and sold for 25 thousand dollar. I wondered whether some of these thousands of dollars come from the enormous amounts of dollars that are sloshing around in this country.

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All the good and all the bad things one could imagine as well as everything in between happen here, all the time. Being in Afghanistan is one very long roller coaster ride. I think I have said this before. I am reading Obama’s Wars, many of us are, and learn that you don’t have to live in Afghanistan to be on the Afghan roller coaster.

A high level US government official claims that president Karzai is on meds for being manic depressive. So what’s the big deal? One cannot help being manic-depressive here and maybe we should all be on meds.

Manic: In today’s newspaper a small boy, looking no older than 14 or 15 (he is a 10th grader), appeared on the front page next to his home made airplane. It is being looked at by aviation experts to determine whether it can be issued a certificate of airworthiness from the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation. It looks a bit like it could be a ride at the fairgrounds. It has three wheels, a triangular wing above the fuselage which is shiny blue with white stripes. I was so excited to see this – imagine this boy from Bamiyan, amidst all the chaos and disorder in his country he is dreaming big and then turning his dream into a real thing that can fly. Thank God for always having a next generation – it is Afghanistan’s only hope. If only the adults could remove barriers to other boys (and girls) to turn dreams into innovations the possibilities are endless.

Depressive: Somewhere in the west of the country armed men stole a truck full of fortified biscuits intended for school children. They also entered a clinic, removing all drugs and dressings and throwing all other supplies on shelves and in cupboards on the floor. The staff fled. Nobody could interfere or do something about it. I can only conclude that someone in a high place is protecting them.

Where’s my lithium?

Today we tackled the complex issue of coordination. Several of us went to see the minister who had blocked out one and a half hour for us – an unknown luxury. In the end we took even more of that.

As part of an effort to re-energize one of the consultative groups we had realized that this one group had way too many objectives: information sharing, donor alignment, policy discussions, feedback on policy implementation, just to name a few, each requiring different audiences, different frequencies and different leadership. We proposed instead four different mechanisms, some of which exist already but are essentially dormant, having lost their inspired leaders.

Coordination is probably one of the most used words in reports and the least understood organizational function. There is no dearth of coordination mechanisms, sometimes even coordinating bodies to coordinate the coordinated. The discussion circled around various issues, doubled back on itself, and moved into side roads.

At one point I felt like everything needed to be ‘cooked’ a little more as they say here but the minister wanted no more cooking and tasked everyone around the table to get on with the job. I was assigned to assist in this effort and pointed out to the acting leader of this small committee that this may well be the reason why people don’t like to go to such coordination meetings because they often return to their office with a new job. We both did.

Today was full of small management glitches – they kind that are maybe not very serious in their consequences and beautiful opportunities to remind people to check assumptions and expectations before it is too late and they turn out to be wrong or not met. That is probably the number one cause of organizational irritations in any part of the world. If not nipped in the bud, these irritations become organizational dysfunctions, like when people no longer talk to each other or stop taking action because they think it/they/you are no good.

I also learned from my (female) Dari teacher that I had exposed my ankles too much and people were talking. I was grateful that she told me and realized that the many men around me could probably not say anything about that because it meant they had been eying my ankles. It is true that I have been wearing a long skirted dress that ends about 6 inches above the ground. Somehow I thought that by now it would be OK – I don’t know why, wishful thinking maybe, and besides I like the dress. My teacher told me to wear pants underneath them – the lacy pantaloons that women wear under dresses. I don’t have them but I have leggings. I am not sure that is OK. I guess, to be on the safe side, I will return to pants. Since winter is coming that is not too much of a sacrifice.

Ankie left for Dubai and then Holland and then Cameroon (if the French aviation fuel is flowing again next week), and Sophia, our new house guest moved in. I don’t know Sophia, other than that we are friends on facebook, which is why I asked her to stay with us. She is from our Washington office and this seemed like a good opportunity for us to get to know each other.