Notes from the first week of my survey trip-Badakshan

......my trip for 8 days was beyond stressful with the rockets hitting within 200 meters of where we were staying two nights of being in Faizabad. It is also Ramazan, where good Muslims abstain from food, tea and even water. On the trip “my
Afghans”, Mahbouba, 26 year old Dr. Sami and Myroweis fought over everything…the direction we were going,
whether it was going to snow, what was for dinner, what the true national language of Afghanistan is, whether the people of any given town were hospitable-where we should survey etc…At one point there was a particularly heated exchange over whether the villagers in Shohada were “men” or not as their hospitality was apparently not up to Afghan standards and the debate devolved into the farsi equivalent of “Shut up!” “No! You shut up!” “You really shut up!”

When I mentioned mildly that the purpose of our surveywas to listen and not judge…they finally came together, of course, and they all agreed that as Afghans they are entitled to judge Afghans-and I as an outsider did not understand this. Mahbouba, who was into it as anyone identified Myrweis as the problem and at the end of the trip she grumped ”Myrweis, he ate our hearts and our livers!”

I agreed and then as director of the survey adopted the following rules.
1- I am the director and my decisions are paramount..
2- If I don’t understand it is not going to be discussed in Dari.
3- Everyone really shuts up.
We will see how I do in Bamiyan. A weeks rest first, thank god....