Sylvia's Journal

Here are some of the things I will miss, not miss and the things that make me smile or cry, or both:

Not miss: walking right into the barrel of a gun each time I enter the ministry – I can only see the barrel, not the shooter himself.

Miss: the young woman with her umpteenth baby by her side who has to check me in case I carry a bomb or IED into the ministry. She does a cursory check because she has to while we speak about important things in life such as babies and eyes that are strained from the tiny embroidery stitches she makes for her man’s dress shirt.

Not miss: the toxic dust and dirt, the diesel heating in winter and the overheating in summer, not seeing the mountains even though they are very close.

Smile: the curtains in the office of the Director of Capacity Building in the ministry of health. They are made from flannel designed for children’s pijamas, with little boats or trains or cars, something like that.

Cry/smile: one of my staff who says he didn’t expect to live beyond forty (expecting to be killed before then), a target he has exceeded by 18 years now.

Cry: the way women undermine each other rather than stand together – it is a combination of jealousy and fear that works like a cancer.

Smile: the new organizational chart for the general directorate of human resources that has the (our) management and leadership development department indicated in a bright color with a smiley face right above it. It has not been officially approved but it probably will. Progress!

Not miss: the razor wire and blast walls and the sight of militarism everywhere.

Miss: the young women I have gotten so fond off – I feel like I am abandoning them but then this would not give them credit for their courage and commitment. I should be confident.

Not miss: the blatant attempts to milk the American taxpayer.

Smile: the Eid celebration breakfast and goodbye party that is being organized after the Eid holiday break on September 4th.

Cry: starting to say goodbye to people at the ministry.

Cry/smile: the students from SOLA, smile for those who are on their way to a new life and cry for the ones who are still trying to get a visa.

Cry/smile: how some people have changed since I first met them – for the better.

Cry/smile: Afghans praying for people living on the east coast of the USA, to see them safely through the Irene hurricane.

Smile: when Afghans say it is now safer in Kabul than on the US East Coast.

Smile: seeing the instruments that Fazil brought back and that are now stringed to play by Sita – from decorative to instrumental.

Yesterday evening I went into a parallel universe. I was invited by a friend who lives with her significant other in a real apartment as opposed to a hooch (a container) in the US embassy compound. I used to arrange jailbreaks for her and her man but this time I went into the jail.

The driver picked me up after Iftar which is now a quarter before 7 PM. As we drove across town I realized how strange it was to see people eating and drinking in public. Since I am usually not out after dark during this month of Ramadan I didn’t see anyone eating our drinking, including our drivers and guards. Now they were drinking water and eating grapes. They offered to share with me, part of Afghan hsopitality, but I declined as I was going to a dinner party in another universe.

The roads were empty because most people were at their homes. As a result there were few cars on the roads, which are now nearly all in excellent condition due to the mayor’s concentrated efforts to get the municipal infrastructure up to snuff. The combination of the emptiness and good condition of the roads are potentially lethal as people drove much too fast and, if they hadn’t already broken their fast, with their minds probably focused more on food and drink than on the traffic.

At the American embassy I was dropped off in front of the outer perimeter of this heavily guarded bastion. In the dark it is even more eerie than in daylight – as if you enter a warzone. I made it quickly past the outer two guard posts because of my American passport but at Charlie 1 I was stopped and had to wait for my escort. It took a good 20 minutes to check me in and, after handing over my cell phone, I entered what looks very much like the dorm section of a college campus.

There were joggers, women with bare arms and exposed ankles and long hallways with fluorescent lights. Inside the tiny apartment, the only thing that indicated we were in Afghanistan were the rugs and the Karzai coat displayed on the floor and walls.

My friend had invited other friends. All from inside the bubble and so I was the only one who had come in from that very dangerous outside world called Afghanistan. Introductions were on a first name basis and then everyone told everyone else what they worked on. Only much later, during the take out Thai dinner, did I dare to ask whether people felt their efforts made any different. The answers were depressing.

At one point people asked me where I lived. I described my house and yard, not forgetting to mention the apple and pear trees, the tomatoes and basil. People looked at me incredulously. “Aren’t you afraid?” they asked. I told them that I found being in the US embassy compound much more frightening as it seemed were right in the bull’s eye.

To leave the compound and get back to my driver who was waiting outside in Afghanistan, I had to walk half a kilometer between blastwalls and razor wire, tanks with twirling tops that followed me in their visors. A heavily armed military man offered to escort me. He told me he couldn’t keep up with my light and fast steps (I had to get out of there fast) because he had 40 kg strapped to his body. He actually kept up quite well but soon our ways parted as he went towards the outer defense line where I couldn’t go and so we said goodbye. He seemed alarmed that I was simply going to walk out of this heavily guarded nest but I told him my driver was waiting and I was going to be alright. With that I disappeared out of his sight and into Afghanistan again. Pfewww!

This morning I devoted to reading everything that the shipping company gave me to read and fill in and then I started to make lists, endless lists. Now that most things to give away have been given away I am left with three lists: to stay for future use in Kabul, to carry with me in suitcases and to ship. The shipper assured me that it will take only 21 days – this stands in sharp contrast to Steve’s stuff’s four month journey. Maybe it is because he had so much stuff.

I have entered the phase of ‘last time this, last time that’ now. I had my last Dari and Pashto class. People are puzzled that I am taking classes till the end, and especially about my Pashto class, why start a new language? Indeed, they are right, I am not sure myself. But today I said goodbye to the guard who has faithfully let me in and checked whether my car had come to pick me up and to my teacher, Axel’s old teacher, who is the most patient person in the world.

I have some illusion that I will keep working on my languages and bought all the books and tapes that the language school had – but I realize that the urgency of learning the language will have gone. Still, I am reading a book about organizational management in Dari now that is providing me, finally, with the professional vocabulary I need. It has taken me more than 6 hours to read one and a half page of the foreword.

All through the day I found myself tense and tight, following a night of constantly waking up. There is turmoil inside me although I cannot put my finger on it. I don’t know whether it is turmoil caused by leaving a phase in my life or entering a new one, or both. Or maybe it is simply the many things to do, on the job and off the job.

On the positive side, the tension does not come from what happens next job wise – Axel may be more nervous about that than I am. I have several weeks of vacation which will see me through the month of September and possibly beyond as I tinker together a series of small assignments by showing up at work and be at the right place at the right time, waiting for something more permanent.

I already have my first assignment lined up, two trips to Japan, one in November and one in February, to work with a professional training organization that prepares Japanese international development officials to prepare for their assignments – it is about leadership and cultural competency. I did a similar training many years ago and look forward to doing the work I have missed so much doing here in Afghanistan.

This morning I did the big give away at my guesthouse. I had put all the give away stuff, in multiples of five – as there are three guards, a housekeeper and a cook – on a big table cloth on the floor of the living room; the big items on one side and the small stuff on the other. The range was from a mostly (but not always) good working DVD player, my muted telephone (the first item to go), an electric shaver, a radio, large emergency flashlights on one end to sinus sprays, acid pills, wooden spoons and fly swats (the last item to go) on the other end.

I had planned the event to be with all five staff, having each pull a number out of a hat which would indicate the order of selection but Fazil wasn’t there as he is getting engaged. That sort of undid the design with everyone having a fair chance at some good stuff. I asked the other staff to pick for Fazil which they did with some difficulty.

I saw Fazil later in the day when he showed up for night duty. He told me he was very happy with his co-workers’ selections. There was much joking, in Dari, too fast for me to understand, each time Fazil’s turn came around, which added a touch of merriment to the event. At the end everyone had a large plastic bag with stuff. A Cape Ann Savings Bank commuter coffee mug and an EMS water bottle are now in an Afghan home somewhere. On my side the house is a little emptier and a little less cluttered.

Back at work I found the energy levels of my Afghan colleagues close to rock bottom. Two more workdays (next Sunday and Monday) and then Ramazan is over. Then people will celebrate, feast and spend money. In fact the money spending has already started and our office paid out salaries a bit earlier than usual to accommodate this custom of new clothes, feeding the relatives and gifts. It is like Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas all wrapped in one.

After work I went to SOLA – there are less girls now as some have started to leave for the provinces to join their families for Eid. Sattar proudly showed me his passport with his US visa – Wali standing off on the side, smiling and being happy for him, but surely being unhappy inside. He hasn’t re-applied yet as each application costs 240 dollars and he wasn’t sure where that was going to come from. I hope there is a budget line for this in ted’s meager budget but if not we can fund raise again, it’s not a big challenge.

We told Sattar to be very careful with his passport and keep it in a very safe place rather than carrying it around in his backpack. I so hope the two can be together at the school they both received scholarships for. We had liked to see them travel together but that is not going to happen as school starts very soon and Sattar has no excuse to show up late for class.

We received good news from Delhi where F and S are camping out for the UK visa. It seems F’s story has a happy ending, something that was arranged in two weeks flat and with an enormous amount of work done by several people here and in the UK who can do magic tricks. Two more girls are waiting for their school forms, one from Marblehead High School and the other from Miss Hall’s. The form is a requirement before they can even make an appointment for an interview. The next available slot on the US consulate’s appointment website is in October. We are holding our breath.

Wali is going to re-apply for his US visa, he (we, Afghanistan) has to, too many eggs in that basket – we can’t let it fall to the ground. We are keeping our fingers crossed and keep sending out prayers and appeal to the good vibes in the universe. We do the same with F. who is now in Delhi waiting for her UK visa. We need everyone’s prayers – the kids are Afghanistan’s hope for redemption.

On a more mundane level, I dropped my phone on the tiled floor of the bathroom which was covered with a layer of water. After that the phone’s microphone didn’t work anymore. People who called me sounded like they were at the bottom of the ocean. It took me a while to figure out I was the problem, or rather my phone. Funny how my first impulse was to think it was not my phone that was defective but the phone of the other.

I decided to go to the fancy electronics shop in the center of the city, at the Safi Landmark hotel, a place that has been targeted by insurgents more than once. I received a warning that the local police and army are still looking for insurgent elements planning to do something bad just off the center, near the old Dutch embassy and the hotel where many of my friends stay. So far they have come up empty but the area is blocked and heavily guarded. What/who could be the target we wonder?

Security gave me permission to go buy my new phone as the store would be at least 10 blocks away from where things are a little tight at the moment but when I was ready to go the driver and guard told me we would go shopping in the area I live rather than having to deal with heavy traffic and the astronomical prices that downtown commands. Security didn’t faze them, life does go on after all.

They took me to a small cell phone shop not far from my home. I had not done my homework about all the different models available and had myself advised by my driver who kept pointing at this and then that fancy phone that could hardly be called a phone, rather a handheld computer, for several hundred dollars. Here people pay lots of money for a nice phone, it is a status symbol. I really only wanted my old Samsung Trace phone but the model is no longer available.

I finally settled on a touch screen Samsung with room for two simcards, solving finally the problem of needing two phones for my two simcards, one pre-paid and the other post paid. After verifying that the phone came from Korea rather than China I bought it and have been playing with my new gadget that is much more than a phone and, frankly, much more than I need.

The latest bit of news I got today colored the entire day – I am heartbroken. Wali, one of Axel’s very earnest young students got his US visa request denied, in two minutes flat. He was going to go with one other SOLA student, who did get his visa, to a private school on the East Coast on a full scholarship.

This is the second kid, the other one of my students, also with a full scholarship lined up. She had a similar experience with the same officer. I have seen both returning with heads drooped and hopes dashed after a very short and extremely unpleasant interview at the US consulate. As if they were criminals. Imagine!

I would have vouched for both with my life – they would both come back and help to rebuild this country, starting schools, teaching others what they learned. I guess that consular officers operate from a very different script, probably have to, when they interview people. They probably assume that people are lying, not revealing their true intent. Yet both of these kids could have lied, about all sorts of things (in this country you can lie about anything and have it backed up by official papers that can be obtained in the bazaar for a price). Both chose not to lie and got whacked over the head. Would they lie next time?

Things appear to be working out OK for the girl as a British school stepped into the void produced by the US visa denial and she is now on her way to Delhi to get a visa for the UK. If she gets it she will be back on track. I keep my fingers crossed. But we have nothing lined up for Wali and the school year is just about to start in the western world.

My impatience, already a characteristic that I have had to keep in check here, is wearing thin as the days creep by. Half of my head is with my work, things to complete, solve, settle and hand over; the other part of my head is pre-occupied with the logistics of my departure and questions about what next.

I have received official clearance to head home from our donor. My ticket out of Kabul is being purchased, my day room in Dubai reserved and, daily, bags with stuff leave the house to be distributed elsewhere.

I sit in our early morning senior management meetings with a different perspective. We discuss the daily running of the project and ponder tactical and strategic considerations. The long term issues are taking on importance in a more abstract way; only the very short term, a matter of two weeks to be precise, still remains very real.

The traffic is so bad these days that our shuttle drivers take a very long way around. I like this route because it takes me, quite slowly, along roads that are buzzing with the most basic of economic activities – in ways that have probably not much changed over the last few hundred years. The source of energy is still primarily human or animal – donkeys, carts, wheelbarrows, horses dragging in front or behind them sacks piled up high with this or that desired commodity, most of it in bulk.

Most of the houses and warehouses along this road are still in ruins from the fighting, now more than a decade ago, and are, with few exceptions, of the mud-brick type. Occasionally one can see the remnants of and exquisitely carved but dilapidated wooden facade of an old caravanserai, a relic of this place’s ancient trading past.

I arrived late at an empty conference room that should have been filled with 5 teams busy with their management and leadership learning assignments. Instead it is filled with brand new chairs that have replaced the fancy looking but rather dangerous Chinese chairs that have seen many senior ministry officials fall unceremoniously onto the floor. The new chairs can’t go up and down (an improvement) but they do allow leaning backward. I hope the legs will hold. They are all covered in plastic and, I am quite sure, will remain this way until the plastic hangs in dirty shreds off the chairs, one year from now. I have a tremendous urge to rip the plastic off but I restrain myself.

The progress that had been booked about coming on time appeared to have vanished over the weekend and the facilitators all reverted back to old behaviors that have them wait for late comers and punish those who came on time. Nowhere in the world have I, over 25 years, been able to get people to change this behavior, even of my closest co-workers who should know better by now. Actually they know, but some forces other than knowledge push them to act contrary to this.

In an interesting reversal of the usual pre-occupations of Americans with time and Afghans with paying respect, the dispatcher called me and was noticeably irritated that we let the shuttle, out in front of the ministry, wait as it was already 5 minutes past its departure time. It was hot, colleagues were inside, impatient and there are always illiterate police around with big sticks who make trouble for cars that are not moving.

I told him we were making our way across the ministry’s courtyard as fast as we could without being impolite which meant we had to spend at least a few seconds greeting every one we met and knew. Traversing the courtyard with most of my senior colleagues cannot be hastened without offending – it has to be done slowly.

I had brought back from my last visit to the US a large bag of Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips. It sat in the refrigerator until Saturday when I finally decided I better use it before I leave. I made the dough and put it in the refrigerator, rolled up in wax paper, so it would harden before baking. The thing looked like a baguette, it was that long. By the time I came back from my language classes it had hardened nicely (which makes it so bad for your arteries). I cut it into more manageable chunks. Of course I tried some and decided not to bother baking the cookies. Cookie dough is fatal; I like it better than the baked thing.

This morning, as I was having a conversation with a colleague I found myself searching my brain for an adjective, saying that something was “too….[something].” But I couldn’t find the right adjective. I think in this place there aren’t enough English adjectives to describe things, people, or events. I have no doubt that there are enough adjectives in the local languages. There are so many ways to say the same thing if you were to translate them into English, but we’d miss the nuances. As an example, there are at least 9 words in my small dictionary to describe the color brown, a very present color in this country. There is snuff colored brown, almond brown, coffee brown, cumin brown, sugar brown, walnut brown, pistachio brown, dust/dirt brown (khaki) and wheat brown.

I went to the ministry for our weekly meeting with the future boss of the leadership program. We are now meeting very orderly with an agenda, and action items recorded. The agenda and action items related to space, tomorrow’s last leg of the leadership workshop, an update on recruitment and e-learning.

As I enter the ministry I always have to be searched in the women’s section that is separated from the entrance and the male guards by a curtain. Today a new clean curtain had been put up. I wondered how it got there. Had some woman complained, or a man? The woman who is supposed to search me was back after her (successful and umpteenth) pregnancy, with the latest addition coming to work with her, all swaddled in a little carrying basket in the tiny guardhouse. Mom’s name is ‘Light’ or ‘Clarity.’ She knows me now and doesn’t think I am bringing explosives into the ministry compound. The checking is done with a very light touch.

To kill the time between her searches she is embroidering a man’s shirt that has the finest stitches. I don’t know how people can do this. She did admit her eyes hurt. I offered her one of my spare reading glasses. A big grin indicated that the stitching would be easier with those and I told her should keep them. I took a picture of her handiwork.

I went to SOLA in the afternoon and we held a real meeting, including the creation of an agenda, the assignment of a minute taker and a final round of AOB to discuss the orphanage English teaching project. The girls are running into all sorts of surprises: first the fundraising has netted double what they needed. It is nice to have extra money but it also creates the responsibility of being a good steward of the money. I gave them as homework to do a real budget, in an Excel sheet. One of the girls knows how to do that and so she will take the lead.

And then there are the classes that are too big, the beginners books too basic for the older kids, too academic for the 4 year olds, the missing blackboard, the mismatched expectations between the orphanage director (‘just keep the kids occupied, all of them’) and the young volunteer teachers who want manageable classes, commitment, homework done and attention during class. And then there are the mentally disabled kids, two of them, that disrupt H’s class which is already difficult with 20 boys.

Among the action items is one big one – a serious conversation with the director. Next class may well be about negotiation.

It is kite season again and the sky above Kabul is filling up with kites. The victims of kite fights, or simply of poorly knotted strings, are already visible on the roof of our guard’s quarters and in the trees around our house. I have to find time to go to a kite shop to collect a few colorful specimens to take home.

Today was another clean up day. I sorted through piles and piles of Axel’s papers and created new piles, one of the language school, one for SOLA and one for the waste basket. In the evening, on Skype, Axel gave is final blessing to the choices I had made for him.

I had lunch with Katie, which has just started to be a nice weekly ritual but she is leaving next week for a break in the US and I will have left before she returns. We may be able to find a nice lunch place in Massachusetts before she heads back to Kabul.

I finished listening to 880 pages, about 40 hours of David Copperfield being read to me by a superb actor who brought a whole array of characters to life with his voice. I have gotten quite fond of all of them and am sorry the book is finished. It has become one of my all time favorite books.

Fazil my jewelry friend came over to take a last order from the Turquoise Mountain craftsmen. I sent him home with two of Sita’s instruments to be fixed for playing – if that is possible. He knows where to take them – if those people cannot do it, they will have to remain decorative instruments.

I was up early and immediately recognized the loud boom, followed by another one not that much later as suicide attacks. One gets to learn these sounds. I went on Twitter to find out what other twitterers in Kabul had found out and within seconds the tweets started to come in. It was fascinating – the speculations, the observations, near misses. All the reporters in Kabul were tweeting like crazy (some of them still are). Within half an hour we had received an SMS from our security what was happening where and that all transport was grounded.

Our security chief had the bad luck of living near the site of the bombs. His windows were shattered but no one was hurt. All of us on or off twitter guessed whether it was this target or that target until the most obvious of all, something British, emerged – it was after all the 92nd anniversary day of the liberation from the British. No entirely, the bombs seemed to say.

Because the entire city went into siege mode, my early morning massage plans collapsed until Lisa offered to come to our side of town. And so I ended spending an entire morning and the beginning of the afternoon hanging out with Razia jan at her house where Lisa and her crew got busy relaxing and prettifying our bodies.

Razia jan and I had planned to go to Chicken Street together afterwards to pick up Paula’s patchwork quilts that Ibrahim had ready in his Chicken Street store. We were on our way when the security chief rescinded his ‘all clear.’ The fighting had not stopped and everyone was on high alert. We turned around, dropped Raise jan off at her home and me at mine. Despite the massage I remained tense and ended up taking a long nap. It helped a little but the tension remains – it is not possible to shrug these attacks off despite the fact that life does go on for people who live in other neighborhoods and we all pretend that we’re OK.

At dinner time I returned to Razia for an exquisite dinner, just the two of us. All dinners are exquisite at her house but this one broke all records. We watched the grim news about bombs exploding in Kabul and across the border in the Khyber territory and tried not to get too outraged or depressed.

I posted a notice on facebook that indicated the current reading on my going-home-counter. It now reads 18 days, 19 hours, 31 minutes and 15 seconds. Many people ‘liked’ it. Axel skyped me to say that he is counting right along with me.