Sylvia's Journal

The best thing that happened yesterday was seeing an ecstatic Maria Pia in the hallway of the office. Her big smile meant that the long wait is over and she can fly back to the US with her new Afghan family. Said had received the necessary stamps on his paperwork last week but Wafa remained problematic. For forty-something males (who would have been involved in one form of fighting or another over the last 20 years) getting a visa to the US is nearly impossible. For a moment it looked like little Said could come but Wafa, the closest he has to a parent, would have to stay behind. It was heartbreaking and there was much agonizing and crying.

But then suddenly the forces of the universe conspired and Wafa, Said and Maria Pia will be on their way to their new US home on Monday. We are looking forward to host them in Manchester in the next few weeks. They have never seen the ocean.

The evening has just started back in Manchester but here in Kabul it is early morning and we are all packed and ready to go through the leaving-the-country-by-plane routine. I counted about 10 checkpoints for women 12 for men on my last exit. This time we will be leaving through the new terminal.

The balance between my old and new job has shifted in favor of the new one. In the morning we talked with one of the director generals about where the advisors of the capacity building team will sit when I get back in September. This includes me. Even though sitting in the ministry is less cushy than sitting in the MSH office, it makes so much more sense, since we are supposed to be advising and coaching our counterparts. They want us there, but for many reasons, some I don’t know, the move never materialized.

I have been given my first assignment, writing the new job description for our team leader who sits in the contracting unit of the ministry. The project director wants to ratchet up the management and leadership strengthening work, which is my responsibility. There are some colleagues who still believe that this is a little fluffy. I will have my hands full with them to harmonize and streamlining what we mean by ‘strengthening management and leadership.’

We celebrated our last night at house 26, hosted by Paul who always knows how to get beer and wine. The abundance of such liquids in this otherwise dry place was astonishing. The lively crowd was dominated by Belgians, mostly Flemish and one French speaker. They switched back and forth between the two languages in rapid fire; sometimes so rapid that it took my brain about 30 seconds to recognize which language was being spoken. Axel received a thorough history of how Belgium got to be a bilingual country.

At 8 o’clock in the morning we walked by one enormous barricade after another into the gated American community that contains the US embassy, USAID and the ‘hooches’ where the Americans live. I am not sure what a hooch is but I have been told it is a room that is made out of a shipping container.

The Americans cannot get out easily. I was told that they have to request a sortie into Afghanistan (= the city) at least 24 hours in advance and I assume it is probably a hassle. I suddenly realized how incredibly free we are. We can decide spontaneously to eat out in a restaurant pretty much anyplace in town.

The meeting with our funders was to explain our budget for the quick impact work in the south and the east, and present our case for how we think this will work and why it will cost so much. Getting in and out of the actual offices takes nearly as long as a meeting itself, which is why on routine missions temporary duty staff like me are usually not asked to debrief there. But I am no longer considered temporary. The formal submission of my CV by MSH had been received and I think I will soon be confirmed in my new position. It is a key staff position, hence the lengthy and formal process. I was warmly welcomed by the USAID staff so I think all is well.

Once out of the fortified compound Steve and I mingled for a few hundred meters with ordinary Afghans and walked to the nearby ministry of health, also fortified but not quite as much as the Americans. A container with its front and rear end removed leads you from the barricaded entrance into the ministry’s compound which is a lovely garden. It is full of roses and other flowers, small seating areas (always occupied by men, rarely by women), pergolas and pathways that meander through. I am always surprised how full the garden is with people. They sit and talk in twos or small clusters here and there. I wonder what they are talking about. Is it business, the family or gossip?

I had a meeting with another Director General, as per my scope of work, which served as both a follow up of the work done 2 months ago and also a reconnaissance of what they would like to see happening in the near future. Our project’s work planning process for project year 4 starts when I come back here and I need to know what to put in that plan. This time I cannot dodge the responsibility for the plan as I have successfully done back at headquarters. Being senior staff I hope I can influence the process to be more a bit more meaningful and creative.

I am getting plenty of opportunities to practice my new skills of saying no to invitations. First we were invited for lunch at the DG. I said ‘thank you, that is very kind but we have to go back to our office.’ One of my colleagues proudly said to the assembly of men that I am learning the Afghan way and that I am a good student; everyone laughed and we said our goodbyes. A few floors down we stuck our head around the door of the child health department where the chief was having lunch with his staff. We received another invitation and I declined politely. I am getting the hang of this!

Back in the office we met with one of the consultants to discuss his work and next steps. I did not agree with the approach taken and voiced my concern in a way that is not very Afghan. I think my new boss was a little taken aback; this is certainly not his style. I will have to work on polishing my ways of airing disagreements, but I felt too strongly about the matter to remain silent. Others who had expressed concern privately, did not speak out during the meeting. That’s how things work here it seems and it essentially clogs up feedback loops. I am thinking about buying the movie about the Abilene paradox (going someplace where no one wants to go) so that we develop shorthand for such ventures (“are we going to Abilene?”)

I met with one of my new supervisees to review the work of his department and learned much about the joys and frustrations of his work. Again we talked about being straightforward or not and I learned that for Afghans like him who have much experience working with foreigners he prefers them because he can be honest, while he cannot with his fellow countrymen, for all sorts of reasons. He would, for example, never go to my boss to talk about something that I did wrong. From what I gather none of the Afghans would do such a thing.

Axel and I decided to go out again. I wanted him to see yet another restaurant, a Texmex place called La Cantina. When I told Patrick, who has been dreaming about beer, that the restaurant serves such a drink, he enthusiastically accepted the invitation to join us. Maria Pia and Nurajan also joined us, each eager to get out of the house. We had two beers each (a tremendous treat) which constituted half of our bill. The other half was for the meal itself: tortillas filled with all sorts of spicy stuff. On our way out we took pictures with the armed guard which they asked to email us. Everyone has email now.

Things are ratcheting up; for me, and for what America is planning to do here in this country to win hearts and souls. Although not formally in my position yet I am asked to participate in all the senior management team’s meetings. The subject of these meetings is the new (and extra) ‘quick impact’ work in 11 new and insecure provinces. For the first time in my life I am drawn into discussing work that has a mega million price tag. It dazzles me and gives me a headache to look at spreadsheets with three and four digit numbers that have a whole bunch of zeros left out. I woke up with a headache this morning.

I am seeing consultants from the other side now. They fly in and out and do work that we want done and asked them to do. But sometimes they do things they like to do or are good at – I see myself now through this prism and realize how I have sinned: bending scopes of work, writing long and complex reports that would be good teaching documents but overwhelm non-native speakers. I always thought I was good at looking through other people’s eyes but realize now I haven’t seen anything yet. It’s quite a revelation.

I am also getting a taste of living in a world that is full of gossip and rumors. I thought I knew about such things. The air is thick with them, and so far I am only experiencing those that fly around in the office. May be it is nicer to call this story telling, white lies and truth bending. It is impossible to tell what is true and what is not and I have to learn to contain myself and inquire, rather than let indignation and quick emotional impulses take over. Yet I see others do that as well and it is an easy trap to fall into.

I have a deep and basic trust in people, in spite of the occasional disappointment. I assume people speak the truth and have good intentions. People confide in me, back home because I can keep a secret, but here they don’t know that yet. I wonder if here they are telling me stories from below the surface because I am the new kid on the block (and need interpretation) or because people want me to adopt their view about things and people before someone else lures me to their side. This country is full of ‘sides.’

My nature is to check things out with third parties. It is also what I teach: ‘is this an inference or a fact?’ I try to model this because it is a good practice (I learned this from Chris Argyris). But here it requires a straightforwardness and honesty that is entirely counter-cultural. As much as the Afghans have a way of interacting deep in their souls, so do I; neither one of us can shed it like a piece of clothing; it’s deep inside us.

I like people to know me as I see myself: straightforward, and what you see is what you get. When I say no I mean no and when I say yes I mean it too. Other people claim they are like that but I am not sure yet. So far stories I have checked out were denied by other parties, accompanied by new stories and judgments. Just this checking could become a full time job!

And then there is the hospitality which actually isn’t hospitality. This will be a challenge for me as I tend to accept enthusiastically any invitation that is offered to me. Looking back I spot a few such misfirings along my path through this country. Having to offer people tea or a meal even if you don’t mean it has gotten my colleague Ali in trouble when he was in the US and a fellow student enthusiastically (and for Ali unexpectedly) accepted the invitation.

Everyone who has ever been in contact with the outside world has stories to tell about this. Now they are funny but they are actually very sad. Martin Buber was right: say what you mean and mean what you say. Because if you don’t there will be trouble, regret, irritation and anger down the line. Still if this is how you were brought up and everyone around you, then where does change start? I know that it would be hard for me to change in the other direction (but possible, I suppose if I thought it would be a good change – I don’t). This is going to be fun!

My immersion into Afghanistan is entering the rapids. Now that people know I am going to live here they all want to be my teachers about the culture and what things on the surface tell about what’s underneath. Opinions and viewpoints are presented as facts that state what and who is good and what and who is bad. Each story is told with the conviction that it is the absolute truth. I have no way of knowing the difference. Axel and I have much reading to do to get even a very basic understanding of what Afghanistan is. What to read is not obvious. What I thought was a good book was dismissed as shallow. The only one book that everyone agrees on is a must-read is Louis Dupree’s ‘Afghanistan,’ a book that I read years ago and will need to read again.

I met with what I have considered my team in the past to go over the program we are collectively responsible for. I am seeing the consequences of parachuting in and out twice a year with little day to day guidance about the process of teaching leadership. Things have gotten a little off track, words and concepts have drifted away from their original meaning. I have some untangling to do. I can’t tackle this until I come back because at the moment I have little formal authority to do so.

One of the things that has gone off the rails a bit is the attempt to strengthen leadership at the central level. It is much more complex than at the provincial level for the simple reason that there are many advisors who each tell the same people how to do better the things they are doing. Predictably, we have run into other capacity development initiatives from the WorldBank, UN and the EU, each with its own traditions. The resulting confusion makes all of us less effective.

After lunch we went to the ministry of health across town in the small office van that shuttles back and forth each half hour. Axel joined us because the film festival venue is along the way. These bus rides are always very animated because there is much joking. Some of these jokes are similar to the jokes that the Belgians and Dutch make about each other, or the Scots and the Brits; here it is between provinces. Axel learned about peculiarities of people from Konar, Logar and Wardak.

At the ministry we found some 100 plus newly graduated doctors in a huge hot auditorium listening to a lecture about community health. About one third of the audience was female and I congratulated the entire group with this accomplishment. I jokingly added that next year I’d hope to see women in the majority which was met with a storm of protest from the men. The women just sat their quietly, mouths closed. It is remarkable to see how threatened men are about women becoming more prominent. Some jokingly said that they wanted to fight with me over this. I offered to stay after class and talk, emphasizing the word ‘talk’ rather than ‘fight.’ The language itself is revealing. The men are used to tackle conflicts through fighting. But in the end everyone stood up and packed their books to go home – it had been a long day; so much for fighting.

I had to use a microphone that produced an echo behind me as if I was an announcer at a large stadium event. It was hard to shake anything loose from the audience, they are trained to sit still and absorb the master’s words. I was introduced as some sort of super guru and Dr. Ali told people about my plane accident (I understood enough Dari to recognize the words for pilot and plane and could figure out what was happening). The men stared at me with mouth open as if I was some creature from outer space. The women kept sitting there with their mouths closed but their eyes were scanning me up and down and sideways. I would have given anything to know their thoughts.

In the evening we picked up a former housemate Janneke from Holland who is now working for and lodged by an American consulting firm on the other side of town. All my current housemates piled along in the car because everyone likes to get out of the house when an opportunity presents itself. We ate in an Iranian restaurant that serves large quantities of meat and rice. This made Patrick from Rwanda very happy because he is not getting enough beef. The only thing missing for him was the beer, but Iranian don’t serve alcohol of course.

I received a cultural briefing from Steve about saying yes and no. It reminded me of Martin Buber’s saying that all problems we have with our fellow men stem from not saying what we mean and not meaning what we say. This is probably going to be the toughest challenge for me: when people invite you one is not supposed to accept but instead expected to say no, at least three times. Such invitations are not really meant as invitations and they should be declined. I think I have already made some faux pas because when people invite me or give me something I always enthusiastically accept. I come from a place where this is polite and the opposite is not.

Maria Pia has moved to our guesthouse with the fighting partridge that Said left with her. It runs around free in her room and pecks at everything. This includes the key board of her computer. It found the ‘delete’ key and managed to delete an email from one particular person, as if to tell her not to worry about its message. The bird is a genius because she has other things on her mind.

We know that the week starts on Sunday but it felt like Monday, so we are one day ahead of reality. I am on the last leg of this trip and the days are rushing by. There is much to do, to ask and to discover.

Axel went right on discovering new people and places. First came his delayed registration with the ministry of interior, as a foreigner – a process that I have learned to complete on arrival at the airport. It requires a passport picture which he did not have. After several stops at different parts of the ministry he got a special card that needs to be handed in upon departure. I don’t know what would happen if you did not have that card but we don’t want to find out.

While he was away I was taken to another ministry (of health) and met with one of the teams that we have handed the leadership program to – a group of young male and female doctors who are very successful in transferring skills, in their turn, to new graduating doctors. They do this with great enthusiasm, referring to Dr. Ali and me as their parents and grandparents. We know they are doing well because requests for their interventions are pouring in: the blood bank wants to become a leadership center of excellence, and so do a number of the private health facilities. All want their staff to lead and manage better. One of the young female doctors even addressed the annual congress of OB/GYNs with lessons about leadership. I asked her if she had been nervous. “No, not at all,” she answered with a big smile. To me this felt like a cultural revolution.

The young doctors are also among the star performers in a virtual change management program that we run out of Cambridge. They take this very serious and I am cheering them on from the sidelines, wherever I am in the world.

Axel and I arrived back from the various ministries in time to have lunch together in the employee café where we met two new consultants, from the Washington DC area, both very interesting people with a long and deep international career. After lunch Axel went to the film festival and made more new friends whenever he escaped from the hot and airless auditorium of the lycee into the slightly cooler foyer, while I continued my workday at the office.

I was asked to sit in on meetings that are relevant to my future job here. In one meeting a group of consultants from another organization came in for an introduction to our project for which they are designing the follow on. Together with some of our MSH colleagues we formed a microcosm of how much of the world runs: 9 older white males, 5 slightly younger Afghan males and me the only woman. Since I am not yet in my new (very senior position), I chose to observe. It was a role all of us in the minority were put in anyways, whether we liked it or not.

Even though the conversation was about rebuilding their country, the Afghan males were entirely ignored. I was also, except when anyone mentioned gender and then they looked my way. I finally had to say that, being a woman did not make me the gender specialist. They didn’t even think that was funny. I can’t wait to be official. Then I will try to put such meetings on another more inclusive track. The Afghan males are too polite (or maybe intimidated) to say anything about this. But I asked them and they told me. Although they are used to this treatment, they do notice and they suffer, quietly and each in their own way. I will meet with one of the white guys later this week (he does think I have something to contribute after all). I plan to ask whether he noticed something was awry.

In the evening we networked our way further into the society of émigré Afghans. Wahzmah’s uncle is leaving for the US today and invited us to the family house in the middle of Kabul. There we found people speaking in various tongues: a French nurse from the Herat burn center speaking in her language with some older gentlemen, brothers, from the ministry of culture and information, speaking at least 4 languages, an Italian anthropology Ph.D candidate from Boston University in Pashtuni dress, ex military and security man, speaking English, Italian, French and learning Pashto, a young female film maker and director of an animal shelter from Karachi, speaking whatever people speak in Karachi and perfect English and some other people who I never figured out. Our host spoke Turkish, French, Arabic, English, Pashto and Dari, and most people spoke at least two languages. And then of course there was the Dutch me.

Dinner was spectacular, as we have come to expect and seduced me into at least two helpings and Axel into one too many. Over and after dinner we were treated to a host of opinions about what happens here and what happened a long time ago. We are sucking everything up like thirsty travelers.

We met up with Razia and Wazmah at the Istiglal Lycee in the center of Kabul for the opening ceremonies of the film festival. Being one of the few foreigners walking into the place we were immediately captured on camera. Not just for a while but for a long time, our every movement recorded. There was no need for a special invitation as we were invited with open arms and provided with all sorts of information, most of it in Dari.

There were some glitches and the opening was delayed by nearly one hour during which the temperature rose steadily. A few other foreigners were representing the biggest sponsors: the Goethe Institute, the French Cultural Centre and the British Council. Patrons and artists mixed in the audience, the latter recognizable by their attire, although I could not make up my mind whether the men in shiny suits were sponsors, government officials or film makers.

Axel is very good at introducing himself to anyone at any time. I don’t think he is going to have a hard time networking himself into Afghan society, at the least that part of it that speaks English and likes foreigners. We returned from the festival with several new contacts, one the head of the festival’s organizing team and the other the director of the French cultural center.

We spent an hour and a half listening to speeches, mostly in Dari, by sundry officials, with occasional translation in broken English. The master of ceremonies was the professor of film making, with a penchant for poetry. I was sorry I could not understand him when he recited poetry, sometimes in Dari and sometimes in Pashto. Even without understanding it was beautiful to watch him recite and listen to is melodious voice. If I wasn’t already motivated to learn Dari I would be now.

After about one and a half hour in the musty and hot auditorium we got to see the trailers (too short) of all the Afghan and some of the international films. I wish I could go and see them all but unfortunately the festival is more or less during work hours. Axel is planning to go as much as he can.

After the trailers we were treated to a short documentary about watching movies in Afghanistan. The footage showed pictures of destroyed cinemas (presumably by the Taliban) and old men sitting in living rooms and tea houses watching semi-clad females dancing and singing. Unfortunately the film was entirely in Dari so we missed what all the old men were saying. We knew it was funny because the audience broke out in laughter repeatedly. We gathered that the documentary was about the love-hate relationship of the Afghans (men only) with films: entertaining and titillating on the one hand while rejected as perverse and inappropriate for Afghanistan on the other hand.

Once again the entire thing was primarily a male event. The only female who made it onto the stage was German, from the Goethe Institute. A few Afghan women were present in the audience, and then of course there were the Bollywood actresses, nothing more than objects of lust.