Sylvia's Journal

Archive Page 197

Grappling

Published October 14, 2009 Kabul 1 Comment
Tags: Afghanistan

On the way back from our weekly meeting at the US gated community I noticed several SUVs with ski racks. That struck me as odd. But when I asked my Afghan colleagues it turned out that people used to ski in Afghanistan, at the Salang Pass. In fact, when my housemate Steve got married here in 1977, MSH gave the couple skis as a wedding present. Skiing now would be a bit risky because of all the mines. So, no skiing this winter, unless of course we choose to go to Dubai and ski on the ski slope in the shopping center.

The consultant floodgates have opened and I now watch the stream from the other side of the table. Consultants want to meet, and should meet of course. Between counterparts, funders and consultants, most of my office hours seem now to be spent in meetings, some short and sweet, others long, at times arduous and occasionally difficult. There is much more ‘grappling’ at this level with complex issues that have no simple solutions and have consequences for many more people. This is the reality of being in a senior leadership position. Although I always knew this intellectually, living it is something else. The flipside is that I have staff who can do things for me, a luxury I enjoy.

The entire day we ran our meetings past their ending time. Time boundaries here are very elastic, more than the rigid time keeper that I am is used too. But everyone is very accommodating, partially because there is always the excuse of the traffic jam. Here traffic jams are the same as everywhere else in the world and then a little worse because of shifting military or police presences. Whenever high level people with their enormous security contingents move around town everyone stands still. Sometimes whole roads are blocked off because of a conference or meetings. On some streets our green car plates give us special privileges that ordinary white number-plated cars don’t have. Still, I sometimes wished that I could take taxis and explore the city streets on my own, stopping whenever and wherever I wanted.

I use the time I spent in traffic to learn Dari or practice the names of drivers when I am the only passenger. When I travel with a bunch of Afghan colleagues I learn about the jokes that Afghans from one province make about another province, like Wardakis about Konaris. These are very much like the jokes that the Dutch make about the Belgians or vice versa. That alone would be a good reason to learn the local language. There is much joy in those moments.

Surprise

Published October 13, 2009 Kabul Leave a Comment
Tags: Afghanistan

Last night I was invited by Sabina from Germany who is a radio reporter based in Delhi. She travels all over Afghanistan, essentially alone, unfazed but veiled whenever in public (like most of us Western women).

She stays in a guesthouse in Shari Nao that is not recognizable from the street. Rooms surround a lovely garden and are luxurious and costly, at 124 dollars a night. Dinner is not as luxurious but costly as well. The menu includes much British comfort food such as steak and kidney pie, sheppard pie in addition to pizza, pasta and a few Afghan dishes. There is wine and beer which makes it a favorite foreigner hangout. A very English looking pub is in the basement including darts and a big screen for cricket games.

When I ate the grapes last week that were washed under the garden hose I probably ingested something else with the grapes that nestled inside my intestines. Today I asked for a consultation with my boss and watched local prescribing practices. He checked my pulse and asked if I had a fever. When I said no he wrote a prescription on a Post-It note: 1+1+1 Flagyl – 20, gave it to me and sent me to the deputy director for provincial capacity building. I don’t know why, but the man was prepared, asked me for 50 Afs (1 dollar), made a phone call and about 10 minutes later one of the office housekeepers showed up with a small plastic bag with 2 strips of 10 pills each. The provincial doctor checked the strips for tinkering and approved them as authentic Flagyls. That’s how these things work. Easy.

For lunch the boss had invited us all to the Intercontinental hotel that is built on a hill overlooking part of Kabul. It was in this hotel that I participated in my first post-Taliban activity in Afghanistan in 2002. That was a time of relative freedom and so much optimism. We thought everything was possible then and that the Taliban would never come back, the veils and burkas thrown to the wind.

One of our Boston-based colleagues, Saeed, is here for a few days more. He is Afghan himself and left this country 16 years ago. He has relatives at high places and hears much of what is cooking behind closed doors. He was hopeful which made me hopeful. The idea of Afghanistan returning to something akin the normalcy of the 70s makes for the sweetest fantasies.

After lunch we drove off in two cars, one back to the office and the other back to the ministry. I was in the latter heading for a meeting with one of the Director-Generals to explore expectations about our staff (some are on my team) who are placed in the ministry. This has taken years to be realized and now it is nearly done. We only need to get everyone to agree what they would be doing there. As it turned out, many will find they are asked to do something they are not quite equipped for (and may be didn’t sign on for), namely being a management and leadership coach rather than a technical (public health) advisor. Surprise!

Patient 7015

Published October 12, 2009 Kabul 1 Comment
Tags: Afghanistan

I am patient nr 7015 of the Kabul Orthopedic Organization, located at the very back of the military hospital that was opened by the Russians in 1990. The hospital is also referred to as the 400 bed hospital, a phrase I need to learn in Dari so I don’t end up at the wrong hospital for my next visit.

Fahima came recommended to me by a Swedish physical therapist who lived for several years in Kabul and knows the PT scene here well.

The first home-visiting therapist turned out rather useless in addition to being extraordinarily expensive for Kabul (35 dollars) now that I know that the hospital charges 20 dollars for a session that consists of 6 half hour visits. I was led into the ladies side of the building and into a room with several beds, a big exercise ball, an infrared lamp, some flex bands and very basic and well used exercise equipment.

I was impressed by the professional approach of Fahima. She first studied the surgery notes and then the protocol for rotator cuff surgery. She had me do my exercises and checked those I had been doing wrong, substituting the wrong muscles.

The whole place was impressive; very basic but well organized and employing many handicapped people. That was actually in their mission statement and goals, prominently displayed above a large bookcase full of records.

The rest of the day was a blur as I am trying to bring my email box down to near zero and set priorities for the countless tasks that were hiding in there –some rather urgent. Sometimes I feel like I am handed a ball of wool that is entirely tangled. I am trying to find the ends so I can start unraveling the knots.

Back

Published October 11, 2009 Herat , Kabul Leave a Comment
Tags: Afghanistan

The training program that we finalized on Friday was supposed to start at 8 AM. When we left the restaurant last night everyone was told to show up at the health center at 8. But at 8 AM very few of the participants were ready to even leave the hotel, some just coming down for breakfast. It was Afghan, not American time I figured. Most men were still walking around on the ubiquitous plastic slippers that are standard equipment, even in our guesthouse; Afghan indoor shoes.

I, always on Dutch time, was ready long before the others and way too early. I ended up hanging out in the lobby for hours, engaging then with this then with that Afghan gentleman, each one doing his best to either speak English or teach me Farsi. They call it Farsi here because we are only 150 km away from the border with Iran.

Iran’s influence is palpable; not only in the white on black or grey print chadoors that women wear when not in burkas but also, I am told, in the undermining of nascent businesses that are trying to survive on the outskirts of Herat. Many have already closed their doors because of security concerns, kidnappings and other acts of sabotage. My colleagues have no doubt about who is behind this. ‘Why?’ I ask. Are they afraid of the competition?

Another bad guy was killed, the son-in-law of the bad guy who was killed when we arrived; I offered to take the team to Kandahar and see if I could magically make this happen again, orchestrating the forces from the universe to kill one bad guy on my arrival and another on my departure day.

The tension between greed or blatant self interest and enlightened stewardship of resources is a constant one in this country. Islam has something to say about it but it is of course not practiced by the people who make the news; much like the basic tenets of Christianity, in the societies I know, have little to do with the actual behavior of its most notorious citizens. In that sense both religions appear to be more aspirational than normative.

I finally gave up the practice of walking to my fifth floor (10 stairs) rather than taking the lift, because of stomach troubles that required a quick escape to a private bathroom as the lobby toilet is for both sexes, which here means men. And like men’s bathrooms everywhere they are wet, dirty and stink.

The elevator appears to be made in Japan. While ascending or descending I listen to Flamenco music and when the door opens the recorded voice of a Japanese lady announces the arrival at my floor, in Dari that sounds like Japanese. The music stops abruptly when I open the door and starts after it closes.

I learn that the UN flight that is supposed to bring us back to Kabul will depart a few hours earlier than we expected. As a result we hastily say goodbye at the provincial health office before the session has even opened. That was just as well since somehow the careful design was combined with another event about polio and countless participants had arrived expecting something else.

I told the team we would call them later to hear how everything went and what they learned. I think in the end they will do what they had planned from the beginning, something loose and unstructured with flexible beginning and ending times resulting in everyone having a good time but dubious results.

When we arrive at the airport we discover that our plane hasn’t even departed Kabul, two hours away. I don’t understand the UN flight schedule as it seems rather loose to my untrained eye. I wonder how people plan their travels. Apparently routes change easily, with planes landing at or overflying airports based on considerations other than what’s in the schedule.

Our Thursday flight to Herat was supposed to go via Bamiyan but an hour into the flight it was clear we were flying directly to Herat. Now I am not sure how we will fly, some people mention Kandahar. In the end we sit for hours on uncomfortable baby blue plastic chairs in a special room for UN passengers. For lunch there are chips, sandwiches with contents of unknown origin that I decline, and little Turkish cakes with pictures on the wrapping that have nothing to do with either the color or texture of the real thing inside.

A bunch of foreigners who are travelling with us show up with several boxes of great looking pizza which they eat, within smelling distance, for lunch. They clearly have connections with the Italian PRT, whose barracks are right next to the terminal. The water we buy in the little shop also comes from Italy and we wonder whether we are buying stolen (leaked) good.

Finally we board our DeHavilland Dash 8 Combi, a small two propeller plane that is supported, according to placards displayed prominently in the front of the plane, by the governments of Japan and Canada. The two flags look nice side by side with their red centers: one a sun and the other a maple leaf.

Everything in this country that runs or works for the common good is supported by one foreign government or another, openly; everything that does not work towards the common good is also supported by foreign governments, neighbors or world powers who have a deep stake in regional or international geopolitical games that few really understand; none of this is posted on placards, but everyone knows.

We land in Bamiyan on a gravel strip and I can see the former Buddha alcoves without their occupants. I am glad I saw what was supposed to be in there 31 years ago and the memories remain vivid in spite of what I see, or rather not see, now.

When we circle back up to altitude to cross increasingly high mountains the canned safety announcements are repeated again for the new passengers; always in two languages even though there is no French speaker on board. It’s a Canadian plane and the two languages remain programmed into system since Canada pays part of the bill.

Back in Kabul I join Azmah who has just arrived from Pakistan, also on a UN flight. She is as part of the large stream of consultants that is coming in now that the elections have faded into the past and the future and MSH has lifted travel restrictions for consultants.

I find my room just as I left it except that my bed is made and my laundry is neatly folded on my bed. It’s nice to be home again in my temporary quarters. I treat myself to a pretend beer to celebrate a first successful and safe trip out into the field, as we call it.

Duelling calls

Published October 10, 2009 Herat Leave a Comment
Tags: Afghanistan

The slightly out of sync calls to morning prayer of the many mosques around our hotel stand in sharp contrast with the very synchronized call to war as depicted in a museum entirely dedicated to the Jihad against the infidel Russians. Its center piece is a diorama populated by quarter sized puppets, tanks and planes in holy combat.

The provincial health director had arranged a private, behind the scenes, visit to the jihad museum that is not open to the public yet. The painters and model makers where still at work when we showed up after dark. But to me it looked ready for the public.

The entrance hall consists of display cases full of guns (Russian), more guns (British), landmines, grenades, etc. It so turned me off that it took much mental energy to follow the group as it stopped at every case. All the men (once again I was the only female) were fascinated with all the toys and were busy snapping pictures in spite of the signs forbidding this.

We were taken through a long hallway with bigger than life-sized portraits of all the commanders who had died at the hands of the Russians. They looked attractive, with soft features, but I know none of them were angels, especially if they decided you were their enemy, whatever the color of your uniform.

Suddenly a sound box was activated with the loud and grating sounds of bombing and fighting; it got louder as we emerged in an enormous domed space with a walkway at the bottom and a staircase to the top where you had a 360 degree view of the onslaught of war, its perpetrators and its victims.

As we walked up the spiraling stair case 30 or so near life size figures of all the commanders crouched above us, led by Ismail Khan, the commander/warlord from here in whose office I sat earlier in the day. With an arm pointed forward he reminded me images I had seen as a child of Moses, leading his people to a better future that remains elusive.

All the men were having pictures taken off themselves in front of the havoc and destruction while I noticed how quickly I got de-sensitized to the battle field and battle noises around me. With my white veil-like scarf I looked rather incongruous in this testosterone-loaded environment, like an angel of some sort.

On another floor glas cases showed us postcards, military snapshots and official photos, even family snapshots, and pictures (sometimes Polaroid photos), dramatically arranged, of fighters in hospital beds with bandages or missing limbs.

A side door took us into the museum’s resource center that was turned into a dining room with platters heaped with fruit (oranges, grapes, bananas, appled, figs) on the tables and dainty English style tea cups filled with green tea. All of this was arranged for us by the local shura, a traditional deliberative and decision making body.

By now my head was spinning with all the Dari I had been immersed in all day and my body was tired from everything. Still, the day was not over. After we said our thank yous and goodbyes we boarded our SUVs and drove up a dirt road that took us to the Thousand and One Night restaurant overlooking the brightly lit city of Herat. Another offering of friendship and support, although this one was paid for by us I suspect.

Raised platforms with carpets were lined up outside (too chilly) and inside; I was glad most of my companions decided to sit on chairs around a large table (my poor knees), although some preferred the traditional seating. Once more we were served a huge meal with much meat, rice and yoghurt; and once more everyone rattled along in Dari but now I gave up learning as I was too tired.

By the time we returned to the hotel it was nearly bedtime but there was more work to be done; USAID had asked us to translated the speeches from the governor, the minister and the health director which had all been given in Dari. I was called in to fix the English of the translators.

All of these impressions balled together into a vivid dream in which a man was ready to die until he had a reason to live again. In my dream I had something to do with his transformation. My calling here?

Without a hitch

Published October 10, 2009 Herat Leave a Comment
Tags: Afghanistan

Hundreds of people had been and continued to be mobilized for the official opening of the Provincial Health Learning Center in Herat: to lay carpets, clean windows, set up tables and chairs, feed us, protect us, and follow the script. That everything went off without a hitch and within schedule is a wonder considering what it takes to get the US ambassador, the minister of health, and the governor altogether in one place for exactly 60 minutes, not shorter and not longer.

Everything had been scripted into the smallest details – a manifestation of America’s position on one of Geert Hofstede’s dimensions of cultural differences (Uncertainty Avoidance ) which happens to be on the opposite end of where Afghanistan sits. Pulling the event off with the most senior people from both governments, simultaneously, and without having to revert to a plan B or C was a feat beyond a feat.

Our first stop in the morning was the basement where the echo chamber of yesterday was transformed into a pleasant carpeted hall with round tables and comfortable chairs and large fruit platters as center pieces. We were all given our badges which meant we were ‘screened.’ I was given two: Mrs. Salivia and Dr. Salivia. I wore the Mrs. badge which I handed in at the end of the day and kept the Dr. one.

My boss and the provincial health director went to the airport to receive the guests and I joined them at the Governor’s palace. We were let into an enormous room that could house several African villages, including livestock. The governor sat at one side of the enormous room, Tara, representing our funder, and I were seated on another side and some of the provincial health directors across from us. This was, I assumed, the same place where one of the more famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) Afghan warlords held court until he was promoted to his current government post of minister.

Under the sharp and trigger-ready eye of at least five truckfulls of soldiers, we raced at high speed along cleared road towards a dusty open space at the edge of town with more soldiers than I could shake a stick at; all standing with their backs to their high level protégés and scanning the perimeter for undesirable elements. I managed to stay outside the guarded circle as that seemed safer to me (but then, what do I know). It felt all very sweet and friendly if you could mentally remove the soldiers from view.

From there we raced back to the health office where the minister was received in the training room and given a briefing about the things that will happen in the learning center. There were more speeches, all in Dari, and a certificate ceremony, rewarding the office staff for the learning center that, as far as I know, is still only a concept.

Then we drove off again to have lunch at the Municipal Five Star Hotel that cleverly included the hotel rating system in its name. It is a fancy place where everyone and his brother (and a handful of sisters as well) showed up to have lunch with us (I am sure we will pay the bill), including tons of soldiers and police when suddenly the minister and the governor showed up, to our surprise. The governor had not been invited to the US ambassador’s lunch at the PRT. Although the minister was invited there, he could hardly leave the governor to lunch at his own place with all these notables in town, and so he took him along to our lunch place in the Five Star Hotel. And when the minister and governor show up you have automatically five pick-up trucks with machine guns and armed soldiers.

It was (is) all such a perfect example of the Y-chromosome out of control, all these guys with fast SUVs , guns and walkie-talkies, sunglasses and uniforms; a little boy’s dream come true – many little boys’ dreams come true.

After lunch we raced back again to be at our stations at 1:30 exact, according to the script. Everyone stayed on script. On cue the ambassador and governor and minister appeared all in their separate and highly armed SUVs followed by men with sunglasses and wires coming out of their ears. All of them were welcomed by the cutest little girls in bright costumes singing something about peace that brought all the old warhorses to tears.

Inside the speechifying started on time and ended on time even though several of the people went beyond their 5 minutes. The American ambassador was last and started his speech in Dari which got him a big applause. My colleague was annoyed about the translation of the rest of his (English) speech into Dari, saying it was atrocious but only he seemed to mind.

A quick mini tour, a ribbons cutting that was ingenuous in that 3 people got to cut before the ribbon fell to the ground and then the Americans left in a hurry; their plane has to be back on the ground in Kabul before dark; then the governor left and finally the minister, leaving us with an enormous mess of a traffic jam.

After we high-fived each other I was whisked off to the maternity to see the handy work of my Afghan leadership developers, impressive indeed. I would have liked to stay a little longer and meet some of the women on the wards with their newborns but the bazaar would close and that too was on the program, a whirlwind tour and a stop at a few dusty stores with even more dusty treasures.

Then it hit me that I am living here now and Axel is coming and we can come back here again. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure it is true. Contrary to public opinion in the US, I consider myself very lucky indeed to have landed this job here. I love it.

Naan

Published October 9, 2009 Herat Leave a Comment
Tags: Afghanistan

Sometimes one posting a day is not enough to capture all my experiences here.

For dinner we were invited by our staff member here in Herat who assists the provincial health office. Several of our other provincial colleagues had arrived from Ghazni, Jawzjan, Faryab, Tahar and Kabul, plus the head of the PLO which here means provincial liaison office. All the men were dressed in traditional garb, the PLO chief wore the kind of dress we associate with Karzai but without the hat.

As the only woman I was ushered into the house first and was shown to the bedroom where the hostess had retreated. Even though she is a doctor, the traditional segregation of sexes is still alive and well here; women simply do not mix with male visitors. I was given the choice to stay with her or join the men in another room. Feeling a little guilty about abandoning my own sex, I opted for the company of men. After all these are the people I work with.

We sat on the kind of cushions that I want to put in our new living room, snacking on various nuts and raisins while drinking cup after cup of green tea. The conversation was in Dari with occasional translation. I did catch the word Taliban from time to time; they were talking about the clash between government and the anti government forces last night – it appears that the government did the killing rather than the Arabs. I guess this is a good thing if killing can ever be good.

After an hour, just when my knees started to hurt rather badly we were invited into the living room where plastic table cloths had been spread out on the ground and covered with dishes of various meats, vegetables, enormous piles of rice and traditional bread (naan). Our security guard got up first and, in one quick motion, retrieved his gun from under the cushion and stuck it under his long tunic. I must say that I found that a little disturbing even though that gun is supposed to protect us. I am not in Kansas anymore.

Scripted

Published October 9, 2009 Herat Leave a Comment
Tags: Afghanistan

A big bad man was killed last night near the Herat airport. Allegedly he was responsible for much of the latest spate of mischief here. I was told that my new presence here had brought good luck; people seem to be happy he is gone. I hope that no one else thinks I have anything to do with the act.

I discovered that this luck I have supposedly brought is not necessarily good and might actually be very bad. It all depends on who killed him. Arabs were on his case because he tried to contain them, said one of my colleagues. Arabs here are the real bad guys, so if they killed him it means they are no longer contained and things may get worse. On the other hand if he was killed by government or international forces, then it is indeed good news. But even then, I assume, given his association with one of the more powerful warlords in this area, the story is far from over.

Unfazed everyone is going ahead with the preparations for the high-power visit tomorrow. We patiently answer calls that now come in nearly every 15 minutes to make sure there are no surprises. This is of course a tall order in this country but we do our very best. As the only non-Afghan and only American citizen on the team here, I received a special call to keep my eyes open and do whatever I can to make sure everyone follows the script, so carefully prepared over the last week.

It gets a little absurd at times. The provincial health director had asked school girls to sing a peace song at the entrance on the steps leading into the building. Panic on our side since it wasn’t in the script. With the risk of upsetting the entire apple cart we informed our contact on the US side and patiently answered all questions related to where these girls would be (inside or outside the compound), when and how many. At least we did not have to sing the song through our cell phones. It’s in Dari so we won’t understand what they will really be singing anyways. It may well be the Afghan version of Mary had a little lamb.

When we arrived at the provincial health office the provincial director informed us that the minister had asked him whether he could speak last, a spot already reserved for the US ambassador. Since they are friends we suggested that the minister and the ambassador talk this out between themselves and then decide. Frankly, we don’t care who ends the series of speeches but we do care about the response we’d get if we were to change the order.

There are rumors that the provincial government might be changed tomorrow. Since the governor will receive the Excellencies at the airport and deliver a speech at the event, everything is likely to be cancelled. Such a cancellation would be the fourth time of this very event in as many months, but never this late in the game. I do hope the decision will bemade before 5:30 tomorrow morning when the ambassador boards his US government jet in Kabul with his entourage.

Unfazed by this rumor (a very common occurrence here), we continue our preparations. Countless people were mobilized on their precious day off to prepare the event. In the morning after greeting everyone, we inspected the basement of the new building where the opening speeches will be given for exactly 50 minutes.

It is an enormous bare space, tiled and with large pillars in the middle. Herat 022 There is nothing to dampen the sounds from ricocheting around the room, no carpets, no draperies. Even our small group talking was an afront on the senses. When I mentioned this, the word carpet started to show up in the Dari exchanges around me and I instantly regretted having made this comment. I know who will be asked to pay for the carpets. I tried to withdraw my words but they are like flies, once flown off you cannot retrieve them.

Outside, large bulky couches were piling up. These are for the Excellencies who will be seated facing the rest of us. They will be addressed and addressing us from a side podium. After the festivities are over everyone will head towards the stairs to the ground floor, cut the ribbon (which, I was told was already cut once half a year ago by the builders and funder, the Italian government) and tour the still pristine building before heading back, exactly 50 minutes after the start of the opening ceremony, to the airport. I can’t imagine this will go according to script, especially the 5 minute speeches from Excellencies who usually talk a little longer.

After the protocol and seating arrangements had been resolved I headed upstairs to focus on something of much more interest to me: the actual learning sessions that are supposed to take place in this center in the near future. I had designed a session without powerpoints. Since powerpoints is the predominant delivery mechanism for just about anything I could see everything thinking (how can we have a session without them?).

Once I had explained the process everyone got excited. They divided the facilitation and preparation tasks between themselves and essentially my job was done. My only role now is to provide feedback at the end of the session, if so requested. Everything will be done in Dari so I can only judge success by looking at people’s participation and levels of energy. In the meantime I am studying Dari like crazy so I can at least understand what the conversations are about. I am making progress by the day as I find myself in company that constantly speaks Dari; total immersion indeed.

High alert

Published October 8, 2009 Kabul 2 Comments
Tags: Afghanistan

As we drove to the airport a bomb exploded at the Indian embassy. It was the second time. The authorities had just decided to open the road again that blocked the embassy from ordinary traffic. Now it will probably be closed forever.

We were driving around the center of town to pick up a colleague when one pointed out a large dust cloud. I would have assumed it was a dust cloud but he knew better than that. I watched the reaction of my Afghan colleagues to the explosion while the radio crackled to life and our security man communicated with all his drivers, scattered across the city about the target.

Everyone got on the phone to call relatives or friends who work or live in the area where the cloud originated. There was such a sense of despair – will this ever end? But then, very quickly, after ascertaining that no friends or relatives were injured, life resumed and we pursued our trip to the airport.

We talked about stress again, the constant high alert people are on, with increased levels of adrenaline a perpetual physical state. It reminded me of living in Beirut in the late 70s; it was like that there too. You forget that you are always on high alert but your body knows it. It shows up as high blood pressure, and, I am sure, a constant state of low depression, with spikes every time a bomb goes off. Healthy people of average weight don’t understand their high blood pressure, but my doctor colleagues do.

It is nice travelling with my new colleagues because you learn much about them as persons rather than as co-workers, employees or bosses. I have always preferred that over travelling alone. During the flight to Hirat we talk about things we have never time for in the office.

This field trip is a new experience for me. We drove to the UN terminal for our domestic flight. Outside the terminal is a square box with a small hole at the top. A sign above it urges people to empty their weapons in the box. I didn’t see anyone do it but I would have imagined if they did I shouldn’t be looking, as if this was a very private thing, like peeing in a paper cup at the doctor’s office.

In the waiting room we watched Al Jazeera’s presenting one depressing piece of news about the world after another: a typhoon in Japan, floods in India, three earthquakes in the Pacific and a bomb in Kabul, the one that we had just seen from a distance.

In between all the pcitures of distress we saw Obama with his cabinet discussing troop deployment in Afghanistan. I asked my boss what he thinks about that. He is convinced that this is not how you win minds and hearts. Many others share this opinion. The military live in a bubble. When they come into the ministry of health (any ministry I suppose) they enter in groups with their fire arms visible. It is a frightening sight. How can we possibly expect Afghans to warm to them?

One of our consultants had dinner last night with a military surgeon at one of the bases. He reported that the entire experience was surreal. There was no sense of the ordinary reality of Afghan people, Afghan hospitals and what’s possible in hospitals here. The doctors live at the base, eating imported cafeteria foods and having access to near unlimited amounts of money for their projects. I recognize a very deep-seated American assumption that anything can be bought. But it doesn’t work here. You cannot buy hearts and minds, you have to earn being let in.

The way to wiggle your way into the hearts of Afghans is to learn their language, respect their culture, ask to be taught about things you don’t understand. But much of what we do here as Americans is cooked up in these bubbles. Foreigners who are here on their own talk pejoratively about this and I assume they consider me a bubble person as well. It is true that we expats at MSH cannot mingle freely with Afghans on the street. But I can mingle freely with Afghans at work and at their homes; this is something US government officials and military cannot do. I feel sorry for them as they miss out on that one thing that makes this place so special.

Offiscat

Published October 7, 2009 Kabul Leave a Comment
Tags: Afghanistan

Today was more varied than yesterday and did not give me a headache. We now have every morning a touch base as the senior leadership team. It is helpful and short. After that I make the rounds of my staff to let them know what they have to do. This is an interesting new reality to me – making sure others do their job rather than me doing it. I kinda like it.

After I informed every one of urgent tasks I tried to sort out what my work was. In the frenzy of last minute requests from higher ups (from our funder and our government client) this is not obvious. Any message to be communicated to these higher ups needs to be very carefully thought through: what’s the medium (phone, in person, email) and I always have to image the possibility of the receiver receiving my message in a bad mood. It’s a good discipline for communicating. To be on the safe side, since I don’t know the personalities yet, I ask my boss for advice. So far I haven’t made any faux pas I believe.

From the high and complex to the banal and simple, Akram took me to select carpeting and carpets for the new house. For carpeting I picked beige rather than purple or dark green; for the carpets I asked if they can give me the money and I go to Chicken street and select my own but that is not according to the rules. I will get machine-manufactured carpets. We went to see what they look like in Guesthouse 32. They are not bad for industrial carpets (forgot to take a picture).

I did decline the monstrous furniture and asked if I could have the traditional Afghan ‘furniture’ that consists of mattress-like cushions on the floor with cushions in the back. That is how we had arranged our house in Lebanon 30 years ago. I can already picture myself lounging on those.

Office Back in the office I made my acquaintance with the office cat. When people keep a dog here they give it a name but not to cats; they are simply called peshak, the Dari word for cat. That is just like my first cat which was called Poes, the Dutch word for cat. I have baptized the cat, daftari-peshak , or office cat in Dari.

In between work related crises I have to make sure I have all my paper work in order. One such thing is my foreigner registration card that requires a visit to the ministry of interior. Everyone is searched upon entry to the ministry compound. My male colleagues are searched at the entrance. I am let in to a tiny shack where female employees do a cursory search or none at all. They are mostly curious about foreigners like me, sometimes asking for make up (I have to disappoint them).

This morning, when I asked them in Dari how well they were and answered their return question with a praise-the-lord, one of the ladies got up and planted a big kiss on my cheek. I think this is why people fall in love with this place. You simply can’t help it.

The office where the registration cards are manufactured (handwritten, a passport picture first cut to size and then stapled and then a stamp) is occupied by a person that I thought a woman but Steve told me was a man, since a woman would have worn a scarf, and he didn’t. He is a dwarf who is also dwarfed (anyone would be) by the gigantic registers that are piled up on his table.

Baskets full of cancelled registration cards are placed willy-nilly on the floor. The purpose of the registration process is not entirely clear but it keeps at least one Afghan busy and on salary. Signs are posted to say that it is a free service of the Afghan government; so no salary supplements for the little man. But the upstairs official who adds one other stamp did ask for donations to replace his old furniture and office equipment. A thinly veiled request for bribes, I asked Khalid? No, not at all; it’s a very poor ministry and they need help. That is obvious.

I asked what happened to all the registers and cancelled cards when the book or basket is full. Khalid, our logistics man told me that from time to time these places catch fire and that takes care of the archiving.

We had our weekly phone call with Boston which is tedious, partially because it is after work hours, because at least one of us is called on another cellphone and the quality of the connection is often bad and requires several re-calls.

I can now be disturbed twice as often since I am now in the possession, like many of my colleagues, of 2 cellphones and 2 numbers. One is pre-paid (using scratch cards) and one is post-paid. The latter is for calls to Boston that would exhaust multiple scratch cards. For that phone we get a bill monthly. I am now a two-fisted cellphoner.

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