Sylvia's Journal

All morning we discussed the support functions of our common operations management unit, things like procurement, HR, finance, security, transport, housing, etc. Two people have come from HQ to see what is going well and what needs to be improved. It was a chance for them to hear directly from those being served and those serving. We are after Management Sciences, so this is a matter of pride, of good stewardship and of security, among others.

The afternoon program was a visit and meeting to the children’s hospital. We were early and had a chance to check out how the triage is working. The changes in three short weeks were phenomenal. The resuscitation room is now working so well that the dreaded assignment to the emergency ward (‘too much work’) has now become a desirable assignment (‘a place where much can be learned’). The various chiefs told stories about kids now saved because of the quick action and the functional resuscitation room.

On the down side, every up appears to come with a down, we are having a hard time getting some of those who ought to be doing the monitoring and checking to do so in our stead. It is the same old problem, encountered in nearly all our counterpart offices that are thinly staffed and with not enough of the technical skills that are needed, to avoid having the blind (or one-eyed) leading the blind.

There are other problems that have to do with the private practices most doctors have in the afternoon – to supplement their meager government salaries. This makes it hard to get people to travel along to the provinces.

While we were in the emergency ward I watched one bloodied and screaming kid after another enter the place, carried by an anxious parent. When we saw one of the guards leading the kid to the resuscitation room we knew that the training had taken; a victory. The guards at the entrance of the hospital have learned who should go straight to the emergency ward (and where) and who can stay in queue. The queue was the place where, until their training, everyone went, even those whose lives were in jeopardy.

Most kids brought in were victims of traffic accidents. In my year and a half here I haven’t witnessed any kid getting hurt in a traffic accident but being at the emergency ward for half an hour made me realize they do happen all the time which is actually not a surprise.

Back at the office, after an uncomfortably hot car ride back, I put the finishing touches on our proposal for a one year extension for review by Boston where the day had just started.

And now I am working on a slide show of 40 years of MSH in Afghanistan. I have solicited pictures from people who were here at different periods during those 40 years. I received many positive responses to my request – getting pictures with people on them who I don’t know. It is both fun and a lot of work.

This morning we met with US and Afghan government officials to discuss what the ministry wants to do with our US tax dollars to improve health. It was an interesting negotiation process to observe – I had not been directly involved until now.

Much of the shift in US policy requires behavior change from all parties. I observed how easily we all slide back into default behaviors – doing things for people who have gotten used to it; expecting more than advice.

There is a lot of hurry to complete the negotiations, get things formalized, write and sign a memorandum of understanding between the governmental parties and start spending the money.

When someone suggested we move slowly and try a ‘pilot’ to see how this momentous transition from assistance agencies like MSH to the Afghan government will work, the reply was a tense and terse, ‘we have no time to learn.’ I don’t think the person who uttered those words realized what such a message conveyed. It is worrisome. We are all in for a bumpy ride.

Today was another balmy spring day. The heap of snow in the corner of our garden is melting rapidly and will be gone tomorrow – exactly when the first tree blossom will burst open.

In contrast to the hurry of governments we had a leisurely evening with some of my pharmaceutical colleagues, the ones we affectionally call ‘the druggies.’ For the first time in months we sat outside on our terrace drinking Kriek and GTs, compliments of Paul and Andy, while finishing the last of the Italian anchovies antipasto which was bought some months ago in the bombed Finest supermarket – a treat no longer available.

We finally made it to Sadiq the woolman’s factory. We met Sadiq last fall at the agricultural fair. I have been buying wool from him and trying to sell the woolen hats made by the women who card, spin, knit and knot for him. Since last December we have been trying to visit him and finally we did this morning, on a beautiful spring day.

The ‘factory is located in a bare-bones house with concrete floor and bare brick walls. No heat, plastic on holes in the walls that serve as windows. Today several of the women were sitting outside in the warm sun. The whirring of spinning wheels and the sight of these ladies reminded me of the scenes described in Grimm’s fairy tales where princesses sit in bare rooms spinning flax into gold. These very destitute ladies did not look at all like princesses.

In one room two women were knitting hats on four small needles. I gave them Alison’s package of needles which she had brought from the US. It included needles of all sizes and length. It took a while for them to realize that these needles were for them.

Outside two women were cleaning out heaps of dirty wool and pulling the knotted clumps apart. The result of their work then went to the spinners. One was spinning by hand, a tedious job that required giving a ball of wool a big whirl while feeding the wool to the whirling ball. Upstairs more women were spinning, using simple wooden spinning wheels, turning the rough goat wool into skeins for the carpet workers in yet another room.

Five carpets were under construction. One young boy was working on a carpet from a picture of someone. Sadiq suggested I bring a picture of myself next time and they will make a carpet of me. A boy and a girl were working on a carpet with the Chelsea Football Club logo. The patterns look just like my cross-stitching patterns grid. Two of the carpets were more to our liking. It will take another month or so before they will be finished.

As we drove back through this dense and enormous shia part of Kabul, where most of the Hazaras live one of our drivers was making politically incorrect remarks about what he called ‘these Chinese people,’ while commenting on life size posters of now dead men who, revered by the Hazaras, were certainly not revered by our guard and driver. If I didn’t know it, this country, even without the Taliban, is still much divided.

Little Assefa with all of her 21 years is managing the massage place while Lisa is in her native Philippines. This includes confirming appointments with clients, getting the room ready, doing the massage, serving tea or coffee and writing receipts for services rendered. Here is one skill set that has been successfully transferred to an Afghan – she may not be quite at Lisa’s level but 15 years from now she surely will if things don’t fall apart here and the foreigners she practices on don’t leave.

Today it was clear that winter was over. Unlike in Massachusetts there is no regressing once this threshold has passed. Spring starts very near the 21st of March, give or take a week. From one day to the other bucharis can we turned off, gloves, hats and winter coats put away.

Fazel showed up with the sapphire earrings and rings that I commissioned last week. I am very happy with the result. Sita and Tessa will have to wait a few months before they get them. He also brought samples of the finest embroidery imaginable, made by his 45 year old mom. She must have very keen eyesight. Compared with that my cross stitching is of the crudest kind.

After lunch we went to Babur Gardens, partially to be outside in the balmy weather but also to see a photo exhibit from 6 accomplished photographers. Four of them Afghan, one contemporary foreigner, and one long since dead, John Burke, an Irish photographer who was the first to capture Kabul on his cumbersome glass plates.
In the evening we joined a mostly World Wildlife crew for an early St. Pats party.

Before we knew it the men were standing outside around a fire pit while the women sat inside – we have taken on the habits of our host country. Axel was happy for once to be with guys who are not doctors and who are not working on USAID projects. He was surrounded by rugged outdoorsy types who, evidently, like fires and strong adult beverages, large slabs of meat and who come from commonwealth countries. They got so carried away that they started to burn the garden furniture. That’s just about when we left.

Back home we watched in disbelief the images of Japan’s earthquake and tsunami and then more Libya scenes to which we are becoming inured.

I am trying to use my teaching skills in-house but I keep walking into walls. There is no time for the things I want to teach about organizational dynamics, teambuilding, leadership, emotional intelligence, dealing with conflict – I can’t seem to get anything going, neither in the ministry nor in our own project. Despite all the expressed wishes about training and development, when I think I have something organized it gets cancelled, or when I propose a session it takes months to actually happen, if at all. The paradox is that this is why I came out here in the first place.

And so I get my jollies reading Three Cups of Tea with the SOLA girls. Connie brought back no less than 10 copies of the young reader version of this book. We tried it out today after most of the girls got stumped by the rather difficult original version. It was a big hit; the glossary at the end of the book is particularly appreciated.

Axel is stepping up his (volunteer) teaching after we have come to the conclusion that the paying jobs that are out there won’t quite give him the satisfaction the teaching is giving him. I think this is good for his soul, aside from being a good thing for the SOLA kids.

He went to the market to buy some flipcharts for his teaching. What he got represents the most creative translation of flipcharts in local (transliterated) language.

The best International Women’s Day gift for me was not the jewelry set I received from the company, even though I love it, especially since it was selected for me with the greatest of care – I wore my red stone/silver setting earrings and pendant to work this morning minus the ring as I am not much of a ring person.

The best gift was the news that M. had organized a gathering in her flat for women in her building. Most of these women are housewives and don’t get out much, let alone meet with a young female organizer who is bent on waking up her sleeping and passive sisters, old and young. The women enjoyed the gathering so much that they wanted to meet again. This is exactly how change begins, oh such joy. S. is also busy planting seeds, these for her own future and education. All this is activity is very hope giving.

Today was a long day that started with an enormous traffic jam that kept us sitting in a hot car for over an hour; once more I arrived half an hour late at a meeting where the entrance door is right next to where the projection screen is so you cannot slip in unnoticed. This was the third time I miscalculated how long it would take me to drive across town. Only on days that I leave extra early is there no traffic and I find myself twiddling my thumbs in an empty meeting room with everyone else coming in late.

The purpose of my trip to the ministry was to listen to and comment on Afghanistan’s national gender strategy. A thick document, beautifully researched and written by a foreigner, listed so many gender mainstreaming interventions that I got dizzy and wondered who would pay attention after the document was filed.

I learned to my great surprise that there is, since 2009 a law on the books (Law on Elimination of Violence Against Women) that has defined no less than 22 acts considered to constitute violence against women. Here they are: rape; forced prostitution; publicizing the identity of a victim in a damaging way; forcing a woman to commit self-immolation; causing injury or disability; beating; selling and buying women for the purpose of or under pretext of marriage; baad (retribution of a woman to settle a dispute); forced marriage; prohibiting the choice of a husband; marriage before the legal age; abuse, humiliation or intimidation; harassment or persecution; forced isolation; forced drug addiction; denial of inheritance rights; denying the right to education, work and access to health services; forced labor and marrying more than one wife without observing Article 86 of the Civil Code.

Going over this list with one of my female colleagues she described how she was publicly humiliated in a recent workshop by a prominent politician who got away with what we now know was an act of violence against women, leaving her deeply hurt. The hurt was exacerbated because none of her otherwise supportive male colleagues confronted the man on his unacceptable behavior. The worst part is that, probably, none of the men had any idea about what had just happened. Such things are normal. I am afraid this is the story of so many women here (and not just here of course).

On the home front, I started downloading The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, now that I am really into Romans having followed Antony and Cleopatra’s adventures and horrific self-inflicted endings.

With our slow connections downloading is a big deal. It took about 24 hours to download part 1 which is now taking up much space on my iTouch. It will take as long if not longer to download volume 3 (volume 2 is not available). Together with some other books (Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, Conrad’s Nostromo and Sinclair’s The Jungle) I have at least 48 more hours of downloading ahead of me which, if successful, will deliver to me about 105 hours of listening pleasure – this should keep me happily exercising on my every-other-elliptical-days till we depart Afghanistan, I calculated.

The real International Women’s Day Celebration was a day off for us at MSH but a workday for the rest of Afghanistan. and ended up a workday for me just as well. In the morning I caught up on outstanding reviews. Never in my life have I had to review so many documents. It is astonishing how many terms of reference, minutes, drafts of strategies, policies and concept notes are being produced here. Not reviewing such documents in time means you cannot complain later. Some of these will serve as foundational documents for activities later so there can be no slacking.

It was a lovely spring day, blue sky, warm sun, which had a softening effect on people’s moods and the pace of work. At the ministry many of the women I had wanted to wish a happy Internal Women’s Day (roz-e-jihan-zan Mubarak) were not in. I don’t know whether they had been given the day off or took leave.

On the streets in our neighborhood I saw clusters of women in their finest walking to or from one celebration or another. The combination of the spring weather and the well dressed women gave the day something festive.

In the evening Ted had organized a dinner at SOLA for the girls and those foreigners who are contributing one way or another to the success of the school and, more importantly, its students, especially the girls. It was a most inspiring evening, with heartfelt speeches, gifts of roses, a heart shape cake and a chance for some of the foreigners who live in bubbles (people from Eupol and the US Consulate) to interact with a most promising segment of young Afghanistan.

Ted told us that one of the SOLA alumna will be with Michele Obama at the White House – such an honor. We are very proud to be part of this school.

Today we had our International Women’s Day celebration. S and I read the poem, she in English and I in Dari – we were equally nervous about reading in each others’ tongue.

There were long speeches and poems by the leaders of our projects which I could barely follow. They were full of references to passages in the Koran and Afghan culture that I did not understand. I can follow meetings about health much better in the local language than these speeches about women.

There were also Pashto poems I did not understand but they sounded nice and poetic, a out mothers and tears and what not.

M. did an excellent job on her presentation about her stay in Egypt. I was very proud. I hope others were too. When I left the celebration she had received three congratulations. I am counting because this is not a culture in which praise is easily dispensed, so three is a victory already.

At the end of the celebration all the women received a gift. After the gifts were handed out we had to sign a paper that we had indeed received them. Those are the rules here – everything needs to be signed for because there has to be proof, just in case.

Here is the poem:

She sits there often
In the rain
On a small piece of cardboard
Hands outstretched
In the mud
In the middle of the street
Cars, bicycles and people rushing by

عموماً در زیر باران
در سر پارچه کوچک کارتن
دستهایش را دراز میکند
در سر گل
در وسط سرک
موترها و بایسکلها و مردم
تیر می شوند
او در کندهار مکتب را شروع می کند
بعداً وقتیکه دیپلوم در دیوال نصب شد
حالا او تا ناوقت شب درس می خواند
بعد از ختم شدن تمام کارهای دیگر

She will start a school in Kandahar
Later, when the diploma
is hanging on the wall
Now she studies
Late at night
After all the other work is done
She entered the room
Eyes red from crying
Why? What happened?
We asked as we embraced her
Back in our midst
I am not allowed to be here anymore

او داخل اطاق شد
چشمهایش از گریه سرخ است
چرا؟ چی گپ شده؟
ما از او پرسیدیم
وقتیکه او را در اغوش گرفتیم
دوباره او را با خود داریم
اجازه ندارم که دیگر اینجا باشم
او سرحدها را تا اندازاهای شکستانده
در اول مشکل بود اما حالا آسانتر است
او در جهان قدم می گذارد
او برای دیگران الهام بخش است
همراه فامیلش که در کنارش است

She pushed the boundaries
An inch at the time
Rigid at first, more supple now
Stepping out into the world
She will become a beacon
With her family by her side
Choices are made that aren’t hers
We don’t do that here they say
And she sits there
With a heavy heart
Will she be one more lost
to her sisters she could have helped?

چیزهای برای او انتخاب شده
که دلخواه او نیست
ما ان کارها را انجام نمیدهیم
و او با دل پرازغم انجا میشیند
و او یک باردیگر باخت
که خواهران خود را کمک کند
انها پیش من دویدن
دستهای خود را دراز کردن
با چشمهای روشن
آموختن لذتها به من
دختران و پسران کوچک در کنار هم ایستاده شد
ایا چیزی را که ما نمیتوانیم
انها می توانند؟

They run to me
Outstretched hands, eyes sparkling
Teaching me about joy
And standing side by side
Little boys and girls together
Will they do what we could not?

I came home late, 11 hours after arriving at work, tired and hungry. I found a plastic bag with melting ice cream, two half frozen steaks and a roll of thawing minced meat outside our door. Our refrigerator went to the repair shop – it would only cool correctly if you pushed the door up with your foot before closing it. This I forgot to do 9 out of 10 times. And so they took the refrigerator away after taking everything out.

The temperature in our unheated kitchen is about the same as inside the refrigerator, and so keeping the food out is not a problem at the moment. But it is no longer freezing outside and this did pose a problem for the contents of the freezer. It was my Dutch mentality of never wasting anything, plus being cold, hungry and tired and in great need of comfort that led me to eat the remaining pint or so of mango vanilla ice cream before I had even taken my coat off. There was no time to lose.

Only after that, and some not so nice remarks back and forth about who was to blame for the thawing goods, that we had our pre-dinner drinks with the last of the (also thawing) ice cubes. Every end of day is one day closer to our departure date on March 25 to Sikkim.

At work some of us put the final touches on various Women’s Day Celebrations. M. will do a powerpoint presentation about her stay in Egypt, there will be presents given by the men to the women (though the women bought the gifts), some speeches and I will read my poem in Dari while S. will read the English part. We rehearsed our parts in each other’s language. It will be far from perfect but good enough we hope.

Many people tinkered with the Dari that my teacher and I so carefully crafted yesterday. There were typos and the few men I let in on my secret made corrections that were then corrected again by the next one. I can see why we are having so much trouble with getting agreement on translations of some of our leadership materials.

In the afternoon several of us (health) implementing partners went to hear about the US civilian assistance to Afghanistan version 2.0 and the implications for our work. It is all about migration and transfer, those are the critical words that will have to figure prominently in the paperwork we will need to submit by next month to make the extension of several of our projects official.

The poem is translated now, in more or less poetic Dari. I could not get my teacher to take poetic liberties so the Dari may not sound quite as much like a poem as I would liked. Now I have to work on the pronunciation and practice a bit in the office tomorrow so people can understand what I have to say.

With three hours of Dari lessons and another few hours of catching up on work that had not been done and needed be done before the start of the new work week there was little time left to do all the thousands of things I always plan to do over the weekend: cross stitching, knitting while listening to the adventures of Antony, Cleopatra and the Roman empire (he died, she’s already ensconced in her tomb but still alive and the Roman Empire strong as ever) and cooking.

We had some old and some new friends over for dinner; a small intimate gathering around good food and good conversation – something that makes our constrained existence here so much more interesting.

Now the last guests have left, some by an unmarked car, one by a marked car and the others on foot. We all live by different rules. Which rule depends on one’s employer. Our security regime is somewhat in the middle of those three options, nearly the best of all worlds.