Living in Afghanistan

Moving web journal

2008-10-05T11:08:00.000-07:00

Please join me at my new web journal site where I have been able to organize my entries better...at www.parsajournal.com. Thanks! Marnie
mgustav@mac.com

Reese-my son is back....

2008-04-25T06:53:00.001-07:00

Dear All,
An update on Reese. Reese has traveled transcontinentally and his transformation is remarkable. Gone are the red curls, baggy pants and permanently affixed Ipod. Within 24 hours of arrival he sported an Afghan haircut, complete with the requisite poof on his forehead ($2-Mom!!!). He is back into his previously established routine, speaking Dinglish-no problems with language -eating copious amounts of Kabobs and Quabali pilau and on Asef's case. Asef decided to be Reese's "roomfriend" and set up their beds within 2 feet of each other-in a cavernous room big enough to be a house. Asef is bossier than Colin-Reese's real brother-if that is possible and Reese's up against living with someone more stubborn than he is. I told Reese just to "take a message" like he does with all of us when he isn't interested in listening. He says Asef doesn't get it but he is working on a technique where he just starts talking to Asef with the biggest English words he knows which does slow Asef some.
Asef really upset Reese when he whipped into the bathroom before him early one morning and told him to go use his mom's bathroom. Reese took solid ground this weekend by rearranging the room so beds are at the far corners of the rooms and Reese's is stationed right outside the bathroom door.
Asef and Reese are apparently competing for what the early morning program is. Asef annoys Reese by telling he smokes too much and can't "sport". Cheryl, our volunteer has gone out early for a walk up the mountainside is a big attraction for an early morning "Chakar" or sightseeing. I think this morning Reese and Asef managed to agree on the program-a walk ensued as well as a good workout with the local young man who has no legs on the chin up bar at the children's play ground. Reese informed me that he is "buff" and a great guy.

Reese is working daily at the orphanages. Yasin included him in a meeting with Soraya the head of Afghan orphanages - Reese had the foresight to count toothbrushes the day before when he dropped them off to be distributed....He apparently recounted, found 175 missing and and brought it to Soraya's attention.-apparently the staff took some for personal use. She had to settle it by sending out a staff member to the bazaar to purchase more to replace them. We appreciate her partnership. I wouldn't have thought to count the toothbrushes but we are now going to include this "test" in our orphanage program. He has written up the protocol and decided that Tai Maskan staff need working with before he starts a program with the children. I pity them.

Finally, he misses his well behaved sensitive dog. He is not impressed with my heaving, panting, out-of-control "Mongrel Horde" and indicated to me that the training challenges are overwhelming. In fact, we thought he was a Dog Whisperer but he has taken over Norm's role as Dog Nazi. He is equally unimpressed with my new product line of "Koochi Dog" collars-(Mootee has one on ) complete with goat bell. I think they will be a seller and a great fundraiser.

Anyway-we are settling in and he is doing great....My mother would say I deserve him. Love to all.

A pink villa in Afghanistan? Our home and place for our volunteers

2008-03-31T01:47:00.000-07:00

Our home in Marastoon has emerged from the winter suddenly...leaky adobe roof...young coakroaches coming up the drain in the tub but the beauty of its old Afghan architecture is warming and gracious. Uncle Nasim ignored Yasin's direction for a cream colored exterior and picked a vibrant pink for our home. Build in the 1920's this was the first Afghan Red Crescent office and a ruin when we came here last year. But we have managed to renovate it as this type of structure is inexpensive to fix and it now is our home-has dormitories for our volunteers-a community kitchen and is connected to our "Center for Creative Abilities" that we will be completed this month-as a vocational training center in Marastoon. Under the guidance of Aisha-the women in the sewing center designed floor pillows and curtains so everything possible here is a showcase for how beautiful Afghan made designs can be. These pictures are welcoming Camilla Barry, her son Nicholas and photo journalist, Ginna Fleming.

Letter to my family -Winter February 2008

2008-03-06T21:48:00.000-08:00

Dear All,
I am sitting here after a long day and making good on my promise to write. It is snowing today and Kabul is at its most beautiful...smokey skies and gentle snow falling on the mountains. I was woken at 4 by dogs needing to get out todo their business..All four dogs have weaseled their way into the house at night now that Norm is gone home for R&R...it is having the equivalent of a barnyard in my bedroom. "Puppy" is the size of my small donkey but very polite and communicative about his needs. He hales from the ancient line of real Afghan hounds-bred and trained to protect herds of sheep from wolves...this gives him a strong inclination to protect me...from everything but his personality is sweet and he listens carefully to all commands...except the fact that at nine months he is the size of a pony ....and if he forgets himself he pulls me off of my feet...he is a great dog. Assef checked in with me at 7:30 where I was still in bed because it was warm..and then availed himself of my bathroom because the water at PARSA where he lives is frozen and there is no water....other than the stench of all of the manly perfumes that Reese (my younger son) left him to use it did not inconvenience me much. My housekeeper arrives at 8 to light the fires in all of the rooms I use and to clean. I check my e-mail...and move into my great room that I use...an old completely round room with views of the snowy Paghman mountains and the Hindu Kush....All the colors of the rainbow and a silky red rug Norm bought us..Fran wrote me a letter asking me to explain the security situation so that Willy (my nephew) can get permission to come this summer...I wrote the following:

Dear Dave and Fran,
I really have held off pushing to have Willy come because I wanted to see how Reese responded being here. So I want to explain to you why I am not worried about security.

1- I have an amazing staff of over 25 people who function as support and surrogate family.
2- We live in the Red Cross Compound...400 feet off the road, well guarded and frankly an unlikely target as the Taliban like to have the populace think of them as their saviors...there is the added bonus of having two insane asylums neighboring..on the 20 acre premises...which all Afghans are highly superstitious about. I know this may not sound like a great place to live but in fact we have a very friendly and benign community of misfits...some of which talk to themselves alot. Norman has medicated most of them creating alot more quiet and the potential for rehabilitation. AND only very compassionate Afghans like to hang with us on the compound...we are not an attractive target.
3-Willy will never be alone. He will always be accompanied by me, our drivers, Assef and Reese or Yasin. this is more togetherness than he will have experienced in a long time as well as all activities are discussed by the Afghan family before embarking ad nauseum.
4- We need Willy. He will step into a role of responsibility and usefulness that he never conceived of. And there is so much work that Reese had to really think hard about whether he wanted to watch movies at the end of the day. We usually fall into bed at 8:30 exhausted...no problem.
5- We don't go to places that other internationals go....our car is crappy looking...and we generally are hard to tell from the people on the street. We are not targets.
6- Most of Willy's time will be in Bamyan-which is designated very,very safe...He will be building a summer camp with Reese and riding horses to and fro from our guest house up there.
7-Willy will have a view of the world and what most people live like...and how amazing they can be at a young age....it has changed Reese's life and outlook and I think it can really change how Willy sees himself and his future...

PS.... I think I have lost my perspective...I don't think you should forward my well meant e-mail to David. Doesn't sound very attractive. Very,very hard to explain why I feel so safe...and insane ayslums are an iffy prospect in all cultures. Frankly, both Mahboubha and I are probably out on the Taliban list as "Do NOT Kidnap!!! at any cost...we will have to pay to get rid of them!!! When I put the word out that my nephew is an expert at drawing people's anatomical parts...and is looking for models...preferably Taliban...it should insure our security...Love, Marnie

Dawn (work here with me for last year- my childhood friend from when I lived here in '60's) has taken over the operations of Parsa so that I can focus on fundraising and calls me hourly to tell me about the craziness but I am deeply grateful to be out of it for a minute...the last call was to talk about the fact that our book keeper couldn't find tape and needed her advice which indicates the level of management we are struggling through.
Other issues:

Habibullah thinks there are ghosts at the PT clinic so he refuses to sleep there unaccompanied to spell our night time guard.
The bulldozer the Afghan Red Crescent hired to level land has cut through our water main for the second time in two weeks....we have joined the long line of residents at the water spigot.
The women on staff hijacked the car on the way home to go to a women's party without consulting anyone-causing hours of recoordiantion and discussion of Transportation.
The Girls in our sewing shop are making new designs without any approval...resulting in some of the most amazingly awful clothing---Dawn is capacity building however and has challenged them to find a market and sell them...

Dawn and I have been asked to teach at the American University which is very exciting for us as it is on our old campus where we went to school as children. But I look at her...blond hair greasy from no bathing (PARSA hasn't had water for two months) and clothing dug out of the bottom of some donation box...while she waits for her other clothing to come through from the "washing auntie" ...and I say that we need a "make over"...I am wearing the same shirt I have for a couple of days and a skirt over my pants to keep me warm...with a serious static cling factoring into the whole "look". Heavy socks embroidered from Nuristan and heavy boots don't help much.

Obaid from American University writes me to confirm my first consultancy on leadership with the Roshan company.. look in my wardrobe and see alot of what my friend Jean calls "character pieces" and I move my need for a new wardrobe higher onto my "to do" list. I do have a fabulous coat being made in the sewing room out of some of the wool blankets donated to the orphanage....but looked at the prototype today and for some reason they have embroidered white candy canes along the lapels and I am not sure it is going to do for my consultancy gig. I told them "no candy canes" and they were fine and decided the coat would go to Dawn who they have decided will wear anything.

At the end of the day Asef turns up to talk to me about his girl friend problems, in "Dinglish"..I have refused to hire her at PARSA and tried to explain that she needs to find her own job...he is all I can handle right now...I excuse myself from his tearful account of problems with his love life to go to my round room and do yoga and my breathing excercises from the "Art of Living" program...I have found an Indian Guru who is arriving in a month to consult with Karzai on the needs of the Afghan people. Sri Sri Ravishankar who found the "Art of Living" and is in line for a Nobel Peace prize for his international work. I can see why too...Last week I hosted 30 Afghan school boys for our first "Art of Living Course" here at PARSA as they learned yoga and meditation with Dawn and I the only women in the course. First, there is no human being on the planet that I have more hostile feelings toward than Afghan schoolboys. I think they are nasty, hormonal and they spent a good amount of the workshop sniggering at my backside as I attempted to do yoga postures. Thankfully, the intent of the workshop prevailed and I managed to feel a modicum of compassionate, universal love for them at the end of five days of yoga and breathing in their presence. If I could change my mind about Afghan school boys, in this course it is something special.

At the end of my yoga session today, I took Puppy for a walk around the compound as he explored for dead bodies...trying to remember Reese's training rules for him...making sure he knew I was "in charge"...dragging him away from questionable mounds of snow made sure that my shoulder is out of joint as a result and I am too tired to build a fire in the bathroom to take a warm bath.

I brought the dogs in and Reeses puppy , Motee, is trying out her "fighting dog" moves on Puppy in the house so both have been banished to the yard and are outside now whining to get back in.

In the evenings, I really miss Norm although I am glad to know he is resting.....love to all.

Second day in the Panjshir-Colin

2007-06-12T06:28:00.000-07:00

5/14/07
Today we woke up to Mabouba shrieking “what a beautiful day, oh I love this place so much” at 5:30 in the morning. I had slept quite terribly the previous night and though tired, was looking forward to the coming day. We drank a couple of cups of coffee and set on our way. Our goal was to reach a small village a ways up-river and do a survey of their access to the radio programming on Equal Access and the affectiveness of the civil-rights programs being provided.

The wonderful blacktop road ended about a mile up-river from the community we were staying in. So much for that little bit of luck, as it turned into what we had originally predicted; terrible, narrow and rocky. As we were trying to get through a section of the road cut high above the rushing river we came upon a car coming the opposite direction. Nisar, who is not a very good driver, did not do what he should have done when the on-coming car pulled off to the side. He stopped where he was instead of trying to pass on the cliff-side, obviously not confident enough to get around. He would have been fine but I guess prudence is a virtue in most situations such as these. He also knew that if he came anywhere close to the edge Mabouba would have bitten his head off. Instead the oncoming car came right up to us, where there was no option for passing. The driver got out of his car and came up to ours. He took one look at me and passed by my door to open up my mom’s and have words with us. I just about leapt out of the car, the audacity of aggressively opening a woman’s door instead of mine to try and intimidate us. I am not at all a violent man, but in this case my blood started to get a little hot and I got ready to open my door to get in the man’s way. Luckily Mabouba started talking to him in pharsi and he was caught aback, changing his tone to a less hostile one, asking for us to back our car up a way.
This little incident aside, we continued up-river asking directions to our village. Wow, the Pansher is beautiful. Green terraced hillsides and quaint villages above a raging river with snowcapped mountains in the distance. This area was much more intact, as the last war to touch this area was that against the Russians. The Taliban had been kept out of the region by the Northern Alliance and Massoud throughout their domination of most of the rest of Afghanistan. The difference between this and other areas of Afghanistan was clear. Walls and building were in better shape, looking well formed and older. The people had a different attitude as well, not quite as humbled by their difficult experiences; I found them intelligent, strong, confident and engaging. The Pansher people are quite varied in their appearances, some with red or blond hair, blue eyes and fair features. They are an outgoing people even to the point of being obnoxiously so, which is saying a lot for someone used to the Afghan nature.
We wound our way further up river, with the road getting worse as we went higher up. At some points we were literally driving in the riverbed with a couple of water crossings necessary. One of these was with water up to the middle of the doors. I was a bit nervous, especially with someone else driving. I didn’t want to get stuck up here with no other cars to back us up. I had to teach Nasir how to use 4-wheel drive properly and how to get through these water crossings. We did not have a proper exhaust system for this kind of stuff, but we made it anyways, luckily.
At one point we picked up a young boy whose mother asked us to take him to the village that was our endpoint. He was courteous and quiet, riding in the way-back of the SUV we were driving, helping us find our way. This last part of the drive was especially slow given the condition of the road, but oh was the scenery beautiful. We finally came to the end and the village we were looking for. As we emptied the car in the middle of the small bazaar, we were immediately circled by about 40 of the villagers, primarily men and boys. I usually get a little wary in these circumstances but everyone seemed just curious about us, especially me. I always draw the most attention in these situations and am getting used to it. I just affect the attitude of being kind and generous, yet they had better not mess with me, or the women I am traveling with. Given my size and with my sunglasses, I think they usually at first take me for a bodyguard of some sorts, which is fine with me. Let them think I’m carrying a gun under my vest until I’m sure that their intentions towards us are not malicious. As in every other meeting with a new village I’ve had, things went well and we were accepted to be good people. I let my guard down and smiled a bunch, saying hello to all the little boys and shaking their hands, which they think is a hoot.
Mabouba eventually found out that the radio transmitter was located in the cultural center and controlled by a madrassa. This was located far up the hillside, necessitating a walk. As we started walking up, with a boy and a man as guides, it became apparent that it was going to be a little too difficult for Mabouba (who is 59) to make it much farther up the difficult trail. We got to a point where it was cool and shady and told the boy to bring the Malawi down to us.
While we were waiting for the interview, a woman and her daughter showed up. Mabouba called her over and began asking her about herself and her access to the radio. This woman looked to be about 35, had 16 children and was quite beautiful though a bit worn out by the difficult life she had had. She was very affectionate with Mabouba, telling her all about her life with her husband and asking if we could come up to her house for chai and food. We declined the request, but she talked with Mabouba for quite a while until the Malawi showed up. It was apparent that her access to the programming was not very good, but she would be interested in it. It would help if the programs were at 8:00 pm after the work was done and the electricity was turned on for a few hours. This was taken note of.
The Malawi showed up with a few other young men and some young boys that had been hanging around came and followed. Mabouba began interviewing the man, who was a typical religious leader with big black beard and white hat. I have yet to have any good encounters with men that have big black beards but this one went all right. He described the educational programs for the girls of the village and the access to the radio programming. They can get the program up on the hillside, but tape it for people to listen to in the bottom of the valley. At least this is what he claimed. He also claimed that around 600 girls were getting an elementary education in his and the surrounding villages, with half-day shifts of classes. This seems like a large number given how small the village is; yet I guess it is possible. Hopefully he’s telling us the truth and not just what we want to hear. They are not teaching women, just young girls up to the age of about 10 years. I guess this is a start in a country that for the past decade previous to the fall of the Taliban allowed no female education whatsoever. This meeting went okay, however I have some doubts as to the commitment this man has to equal education for both boys and girls.
The madrassas have often been the focus of aid from the West as of late. I believe this stems from a hope that if we incorporate the Islamic religious centers into our system of aid that our credibility in the Muslim world will be increased. While earning credibility with other countries in the region is important, it should not be done at the expense of the individuals we are supposedly trying to help. What can we expect from local leaders of whose interpretation of their religion and the cultural context of that interpretation is contrary to our ideals of equality and civil rights. I’m not saying that they should be left out; they should be incorporated, but monitored closely if they are the ones that are supposed to distribute our aid. Otherwise we will once again end up backing the wrong faction. At what point do we stand up and say, “these are important items that our aid should be contingent upon”? I’m not sure what the answer is. It’s a very sticky situation, as we don’t want to be seen as imposing our own views on the rest of the world. However, I am firm in the belief of individual rights for women, men, children, ethnic/religious minorities and all members of society that wish to live peaceably within such. Do we have the right to impose these very basic views? I hope so, but am not sure that everyone agrees with me. Most Americans would, however some religiously strictured societies might disagree and we have to respect this to a certain extent. We cannot force change upon people, it has to be desired from within. If the people desire it then we should do what we can to help produce change. If not, leave them to their own devices. Unfortunately those within a society that usually have the loudest voice are not typically those who need to be protected, but the ruling class that want things to stay as they are. When we do decide to interfere it needs to be thoroughly researched and thought out, for the good of all members of a society. As of late, we have too often listened to the voices we want to hear, to back the cause we want to enforce.
We finished up the interview and made our way slowly down the hillside. We left the village, picking up an old man needing a ride down-river. I was glad to not know pharsi for once as he talked Mabouba’s ear off the entire time. He was a nice old man but absolutely would not stop talking the whole way. We dropped him off in one of the villages and continued on, wanting to make our deep river crossing before the water came up in late afternoon. We made the crossing and stopped for some lunch under the shade of a large mulberry tree. We watched some men working on reinforcing a retaining wall damaged by the spring floods. They were playing as much as working, splashing each other with water and generally having a good time.
After lunch we continued on to our guesthouse, all quite hot, dusty and tired. I took quite a nap, falling into a deep sleep. We had one more piece of business; to go back to a cultural center we had been at the previous day and collect a letter from the director that would be used to fundraise for the program developed the day before. When we arrived he was not there, as he was attending to the death of four people that had driven off the road when their driver tried to pass by a goatherd. He apparently put the car in the river and everyone drowned in the rushing water. This was very sad and totally avoidable. As we were leaving to go back to the guest house the man showed up and promised to work on the letter and get it to Mabouba in Kabul.
That night we relaxed in our guesthouse and I cooked a dinner of pasta with red-sauce. It was simple but good. We went to bed early, getting ready for the 5:30 wake-up call that was bound to come the next morning from Mabouba. We were to head back to Kabul in the morning, looking forward to showers and fresh clothes.

The Panjshir-Northern Alliance stronghold...by Colin

2007-06-06T20:11:00.000-07:00

5/13/07
Mabouba her driver Nisar, mom and I traveled up to Pansher Province today. Mom and Mabouba are completing their survey work for Equal Access Radio. A program was developed a year and a half ago to provide civil rights workshops for primarily women in several provinces, both by radio and in person. The two of them would go into the communities and evaluate the effectiveness of these workshops as well as access to the radio transmissions. Their project is transitioning a bit due to their observations. Mabouba is going to be doing a weekly radio address on public access, focusing on the things that Afghans are doing right in their country as well as what is needed further. Much of their attention at this point seems to be on women, however this will likely turn into a broader focus on Afghanistan, men women and children included.
Trying to get out of Kabul was difficult as someone of importance was being transported in or around the international area in the center of the city near the UN compound. The police and soldiers block off huge sections of the city when this happens, bringing traffic flow to a halt. It may seem reasonable to those requiring the security, yet it really pisses people off. This is definitely not good for relations with the locals. Nisar took some back roads and eventually got us to the highway leading north out to the Shomali plain.
This was my second trip through the Shomali and it was interesting looking upon it with more practiced eyes. This area is the traditional battleground for wars in Afghanistan as it is the northern route into Kabul. It was continually devastated and then rebuilt. Mines, as always in this country are a problem and clearing work continues. There are many relics left over from the war depicted by rusting tanks and blown out buildings. Yet, amongst this you can witness the industriousness of the Afghan people. They are replanting their fields and rebuilding structures. Grape vines seem to be a primary crop, at least along the highway. The whole plain seems to have good access to water, it is lush and green at least this time of the year. Duchans (small stores) spring up all along the highway, yet as is typical they all hold the same stuff, usually right next to each other.
It’s interesting that not many afghans seem to collaborate their resources into larger, better operations. This seems to be part of the independent spirit of these people, no one wanting to work for another. They all want to be their own boss, which is commendable, yet I’m not sure if it is good for the development of the country. At a certain point people need to be willing to compile their resources to project themselves into a larger operation with greater gain for all in the long run. I’m not saying that the U.S is the perfect model of capitalism, yet some things have been figured out. Imagine if every person that would work in a supermarket were to instead try to own their own tiny little market, all right next to each other selling the same limited assortment of things. They would only end up competing with each other, underselling their neighbors. Instead, maintain a “monopoly” on the area and work together, keeping the prices at a level that will sell the goods for profit. Again, this is only a cursory look at the matter, yet I have repeatedly seen this phenomenon in Afghanistan. There are whole streets of small mechanic workshops, all right next to each other. Butchers right next to each other, and what I call “crap stores” all selling the same thing right next to each other. Instead they could build a single large mechanic workshop or butchery and probably be more efficient and make more money in the long run. However this would require people following someone else’s directions, “electing” a leader, which is definitely a problem for Afghans. These people don’t like to be under anyone else’s rule.
We turned off the highway and drove into the Kapisa district, stopping to have yet another lunch of kabobs. I’ve finally gotten used to the traditional version where they sandwich the meat around a piece of fat. Neither mom nor Mahbouba like it, yet I find it a little tasty, as long as I don’t think about it too much and just wrap the whole thing in naan.
From Kapisa we passed through a canyon that is the entrance to the Pansher region. We had to pass by a guard station; they took one look at me and made us stop for further questioning. They didn’t know what to think of us; I looked dubious to them with my red hair and sunglasses, camera in my lap wearing traditional dress. Mom says they thought I was some sort of bad-assed afghan. I usually take my sunglasses off when I get to these stations, yet forgot to in this case. We eventually got ushered through. As we traveled up the Pansher Valleys we followed a raging river that looked like it would be a blast to raft/kayak through. Truly, if the safety concerns weren’t there Afghanistan could one day have a booming adventure travel business. I have rarely seen such whitewater, especially with good access to roads. They all do because that’s where people live in Afghanistan, in the valley bottom, irrigating off of the main rivers that will run through the dry months.
The Pansher region is a safe area for Americans to be in and I feel very little animosity. They were the main component of the Northern Alliance under the leadership of Massoud that the U.S backed financially and militarily to overturn the Taliban. It is obvious that these people are flush with capital at the moment. Compared to the road up to Bamian this region has a perfect, new blacktop with guardrails along the river side. It’s so much easier to travel on. There are many new buildings being constructed, not cheaply either. The military presence here is excessive and well organized, much more so than even in Kabul. It sounds like though they wear the same uniforms as the other regions, they are essentially under their own direction. President Karzai seems to project that he has control of this area, but I’m not so sure. If it came down to it I’m not so sure that the soldiers in this area would not just abandon the needs of Afghanistan for those of their own region. They had a lot of money and arms given them by the U.S. and have probably retained control of most of these. Is it smart to have regional armies under the control of warlords in the guise of ministers?
We came into a small, but tidy village and met with the first person that Mabouba wanted to interview. He is the headmaster of a madrassa (religious school). Most of the discussion was in Dari, yet I could tell things weren’t going well. Mabouba was asking the man if he was using the transmitter that Equal Access had provided the school. It appears they don’t. The man was not very receptive to our presence, I could tell that much. After the interview ended and we were back in the car, Mabouba went off about the man. Apparently he was disdainful of us, even Mabouba, seeing her as a Khereji who left the country in a time of need. He was not going to help us find accommodations in the village. This was ridiculous, Mabouba was placed in prison before she was released and allowed to escape the country; he likely would have fled if he could have. He outright said we should not stay in the village because we were not welcome. He did not want us painting the picture of his people needing help from internationals. He was afraid of how he would be thought of in the village and elsewhere. Mom and Mabouba were literally stunned by the man’s attitude. They had not once been treated in this manner and it was thoroughly un-Afghan.
Mabouba said that this was a bad sign, as the headmaster was a young afghan man and that she was afraid it was going to be a prevailing attitude in the region. She said that the un-graciousness, even if he did disagree with our mission was unheard of and an indication of a lack of elders teaching their youngsters the Afghan way. She was literally afraid for Afghanistan if this was any sort of indication of the mood of other young people in her country. We left that village with a bad taste in our mouth, a little nervous about what we were going to find further up river.
We came into the next village and found the cultural center. I could tell mom and Mabouba were a little apprehensive as to what they would find. We were ushered into a room to meet a middle-aged afghan man and what seemed to be a couple of his assistants. Again not much was translated for me, but mom kept me abreast of the general happenings. I could see Mabouba relax almost immediately and we were received well. She began telling the man about her radio project and asking the man about how well the civil rights workshops had been received. Apparently they have no transmitter in this village, but Mabouba said she would be petitioning Equal Access to remove the one from the previous village and have it re-placed there. During the interview the man told Mabouba about his educational projects. There was a great dialogue where Mom gave the man some good ideas for programs to develop his children’s voice on the radio. Program development occurred right then and there with a grant proposal forthcoming in which they will try to get funding for the children of this village to make their own radio shows. It will be an offshoot of Mabouba’s weekly radio program and seems like a great addition. We had, after the encounter in the first village been considering heading back to Kabul this evening, yet the man suggested a guest house further upriver that would allow us to stay in the region and get more work done tomorrow. They will meet again on our way out and further develop their grant proposal for the children’s program. We had to go to the police station and get permission from the regional deputy to stay, but that went well.
As we traveled upriver we were wondering what the guesthouse would be like. I was prepared for anything and not really expecting a whole lot. We finally stopped outside the compound walls and it didn’t look good, but at least we would have a place to stay. As we were ushered in, entered the house and looked at our accommodations. We were stunned; it was great, clean rooms, a bathroom and a kitchen with even a comfortable living room. The nice man who was the owner said we could pay what we thought fit. We really couldn’t believe our luck as we were all prepared to stay in a mud room with dusty floors and terrible beds. Not only was it clean and comfortable, but right along the river. Apparently the man was a friend of Massoud and the home was once used as the Foreign Ministry of the Northern Alliance, go figure.
The ladies went down and sat by the river, debriefing and I wandered around taking pictures, free to do my own thing in safety. A wonderful end to what started out as a difficult day. Tomorrow, given our accommodations we will be able to travel far up the valleys to an area that mom and Mabouba want to survey. I think I will like this region; it is absolutely beautiful, clean and actually fairly well developed. It is what all of Afghanistan could look like if the aid were evenly distributed.

Dinglish-Colin's Journal

2007-05-18T09:47:00.001-07:00

5/11/07
Dinglish
I’m sitting back in Kabul now and it’s oh so comfortable. We made the trip back down from Bamian yesterday. Everything went smoothly, except for 3 flat tires and not too much to mention about the journey. I drove for the first 5 hours, which was exhausting on such a terrible road. We all wished we could have flown. After a week together it was hard for us not to get a little annoyed with each other during the long, hard drive. But we made it, relationships in tact.
It really was a good crew to have taken up there for this trip. Everyone was easy to get along with and they all knew at least a little English (except Faisal) so I could communicate with them. The PARSA staff have perfected what we call Dinglish, a blend of Dari and English that sounds funny but gets the point across. For example; “Marniejan gap we go bazaar, get buz wa pepsi” translates to “ marnie says we should go to the market together and get goat and pepsi”. Asef is the master of this and we would have conversations for hours in this manner. I really like him, although he has earned the title of “mister problem/ problem-solve” as he seems to create as many problems as he solves. He is always happy and takes our teasing well. We’ve determined that Dinglish is a great way to learn dari, or English for that matter, as it gives you words in both contexts. Its especially good for those of us that don’t like to sit down to learn languages in a class room, though in the end real study is needed to not sound like a moron.
Before we left Bamian, at 6:00 am the ladies that were to start making rugs for us showed up for final negotiations. I was busy getting things squared away to leave, but apparently it didn’t go well, as the negotiations lasted only 5 minutes. Mom and Yasin came out of the meeting quite frustrated. Mom knew things wouldn’t go well when the entered the compound complaining. Now it was “the wool is poor quality, and we don’t have wood for the frames of the looms”, which is the sign that you’re in for some stiff negotiating. The ladies had told them that they wanted a payment of $40 per kilo of rug. This is outrageous and far far above market value, especially given we were going to provide the materials to them. She pointed to a high quality rug we had that probably weighs 5 to 7 kilos and was bought at the fair price of $40, without having to pay for the materials. They didn’t believe her, but I watched her buy the rug myself and it’s true.
When I heard this I was in disbelief. These people up here are not looking at what we’re trying to create, a market for their work. They are not understanding that they need to give fair prices for their work and in exchange will have consistent income, far exceeding what they bring in now which is next to nothing. All they see is that they have a Khereji (foreigner) with a large pocket book (false) and they want to get what they can out of it and run. This is not the first time we found this in our attempts to develop this “micro-industry” and in discussing it we really think it comes out of a couple of things.
For one, most of these people are illiterate and really have no understanding of math, especially the women. We could probably offer them a base wage of $100 a month for full time work and they would take it, yet we are not trying to set up a sweatshop. Mom and Yasin are just trying to facilitate the market to get more people access to cash, especially women. Secondly, they are trying to get as much as they can out of a single transaction; this I believe is due to the war-time mentality that has developed in this country over the past 25 years. You need to get as much as you can, when you can because the opportunity might not be there tomorrow. They can’t think in the long term, and probably don’t trust the development that my mom and Yasin are trying to construct. It’s hard not to be frustrated with both their ignorance and mentality; you have to think of what they have been through and their lack of education. Mom and Yasin realize now that it will not be quite as easy to set this system up as they had hoped. Provide people with materials and give them a fair price for their work to stimulate the local market and bring cash into the community. Simple right? Not at all; as typical of any program development in this country, or the third world in general. They will have to think out their strategy and find the right people to develop it with. I believe they have the right idea and are going in the right direction, but its an experiment and needs to be toyed with to find a working solution.
Today has been spent catching up on my journal and resting before our next trip into the provinces for my mother’s survey work. We’ll be going to Pansher, an area to the east of Kabul in the mountains, which should be beautiful. We’ll be staying only a couple of nights and then returning. Tomorrow I’ll go over to the Marastoon compound where PARSA is located to check on the progress of my soccer field for the orphans and plan out the construction of the goals. Kabul seems so easy and even a little boring after our time in Bamian, but its good to get some rest before we leave on Sunday.

A village-Colin's Journal

2007-05-18T09:46:00.000-07:00

5/9/07
Today was one of the best days I’ve spent here so far certainly a highlight of the trip. It started with our visit to the giant Buddha’s that we’ve looked at from a distance the past week, but haven’t had the chance to explore. We hired a “guide” that said he was an archeological student from Kabul, however whenever I asked him about the history of the area he either knew none of the details, or couldn’t voice them in English. He mainly kept us from wandering into areas that were potentially still mined.
These Buddha statues were carved out of the face of a cliff in the 2nd and 3rd century AD, considered the most impressive depiction of the Buddha and until the Taliban destroyed them could probably be considered one of the great wonders of the world. Amongst them are literally hundreds of caves that the people who inhabited the valley of Bamian, the Kushans, lived in. This was a defense against raiders such as Ghengis Khan’s grandson who razed the valley in the 12th century AD. As Buddhism spread westward along the Silk Road, Bamian became a center for the study of Mahayana Buddhism, with hundreds of monks living in and around the statues. As we climbed the tunnels up above the Buddha’s, our guide explained the existence of slots with views of the Buddha. Apparently monks would come and pray, sleeping in these slots, allowing people to walk over the top of them, remaining undisturbed in their meditations.
When the Taliban arrived in the valley they saw the Buddha’s as false idols and sent the Hazara people up with dynamite to destroy them. There are still lots of chunks that some people want to try and use to reconstruct the Buddha’s. Though I consider the destruction of the Buddha’s a terrible tragedy for the world, it is a good example of how horrible extremism in religion can be. Why would people be so insecure in their own ideas that they have to destroy such beautiful icons of another system of beliefs? Maybe they should remain in destruction, as a reminder of what the Taliban was all about. When they destroyed the Buddha’s they got the attention of the world and it was really the start of the Taliban being viewed in a negative light. The Buddha’s have now been declared a UNESCO World Heritage site and have the protection of the international community, for whatever that’s worth.
After seeing the Buddha’s we went back to the compound and left Same and Asef to work on getting it ready for our departure the next day. They wouldn’t have been nearly as excited to do what we were setting about next. We took Rahim our landlord and went up into a high mountain valley above Bamian. We drove the car as far as we could on the bad dirt road and then got out and walked. We were bringing a sun oven, donated by Caroline Firestone, of the Firestone Tires fortune to a widow with four children that my mom had met on a previous visit a few months previous. She had promised she would return in the spring with a development program and aid, she was keeping her promise which is something I think these people are not used to. Too often internationals show up making big promises and then don’t follow through.
This is a very beautiful mountain village that reminds me of pictures I’ve seen of Nepal or Tibet. These people truly live the same as they have for thousands of years. We stopped at the first main dwelling and were welcomed by a man and his family. Invited to chai, we sat down and were served tea, nan and maste (a creamy yogurt-like product that I couldn’t eat for fear of dysentery). Mom saw a “nemad” (rug) that the man had made and asked if he could make more. This was another opportunity to try some “micro-industry” development in a small village that needs access to cash. As before, when negotiating the price we could buy the final item at the man came up with an astronomical amount that we could never come close to paying. We couldn’t sell it for even 1/4th of what he was wanting. As on previous days we were a bit perplexed at this, I don’t think they understand that if they develop their own village industry they will make far more money in the long run, but we can’t do this at the prices they are quoting us. We stopped the negotiations there, leaving it for another time, as the main point of our visit was to develop good relations with the village, helping this poor woman. Yasin and mom also talked with the man about the need for a small portion of land for use in building a school building and small widows garden; to teach English as well as how to grow something other than potatoes and wheat. At first he said that it wouldn’t be possible to find land unless purchased. Yasin told the man that they are an organization that is trying to help his village, not turn a profit. That the problems the village faces are theirs to solve not ours. We want to help facilitate the development of the village literacy and well-being but are not going to do it without the full support of the people there. My mom has always, even before coming to Afghanistan, tried to instill self-sufficiency in the people she works with such as the women on welfare that was her previous focus. She is not interested in just handing out aid, as it does nothing in the long run but enable a begging mentality. Her programs are about empowering people to change their own circumstances, which is much more effective to their well-being over the long-term.
This man offered to help us transport the sun-oven the rest of the way up the valley to the widow’s house. This took about half an hour and was a decent climb. The widow lives in a little mud dwelling that is pretty much a hovel with no compound walls. The inside is dark and damp with no furniture and really nothing other than a few blankets spread on the mud-made floor. As word of our arrival spread we had quite the little crowd of villagers, aside from the widow and her daughters. Yasin went to work explaining why we were there, as my mom had made a promise and was keeping her commitment to her and the village. He then went about explaining how to use the sun oven. As I ran around taking pictures of the scene it looked pretty funny. These villagers spend almost their whole life in this tiny little village. We must have seemed like aliens descending on them with two kherejis (mom and I) and this sun oven that looks like something from outer space.
After the demonstration my mom told the widow that it was her responsibility to the village, to use the oven and find how many different ways it could be used to cook. If she was successful then more ovens would be brought for more families. At this the widow looked so upset, she could feel the pressure and was nervous she would fail. It was kind of touching really. After the fact I asked my mom whether she had put too much pressure on the poor woman. She said that pressure was what she wanted the woman to feel. Otherwise the woman may not really try to learn how to use it. It will also be empowering for her to become successful and play her part in helping out her village. Mom will bring more aid regardless, but the pressure on these people is key. It’s not just a handout but a responsibility. These people must be active in the process of improving their lives.
In the middle of the demonstration a man that was the elected village headman showed up, watching everything with great interest. Though we had passed by his rich dwelling on the way up, we had purposely avoided the invitation for chai by his wives, as it would have sidetracked us for at least another hour. He’s not the one that needs any help, as he owns most of the land in the village; yet we knew we would need to deal with him at some point for the future of the development program. We left the widow and her daughters, giving them some money as well, which is probably what they were more immediately interested in, promising to return in one month. I’m sure they believe my mom this time.
The headman and a few others escorted us back down the hill. When we arrived at his compound we talked with him about the need of finding a small plot of land, which a school could be built on, as well as a bit more for a widow’s garden. The school is needed in the village because as of now only the boys are allowed to go down the mountain for class, the girls needed back home to get the household chores and farming needs taken care of. With a school in the village the girls can attend half a day and do their work the other half. The garden will be used to reintroduce a subsistence level of farming. Right now they grow only cash crops, primarily potatoes and wheat along with their fruit orchards. They don’t get the nutrients they need because the cost of them in the bazaar is prohibitive.
When we reached the headman’s compound we discussed the need for a small plot of land for a school and garden. He stated that he should receive a salary for his time in searching out this land. This was a ridiculous request as he owns most of the land and knows where he could put the school and garden. Yasin laid into the man. He told him that the man was the elected leader of his people and it was his responsibility to take care of them, not ours. Another man could replace him, especially if it was found out that he failed to help an aid program enter the village. Yasin smoothed things over a little by saying that when they returned they would bring an oven for the headman’s family as well as others in need. I think the man got the picture, yet mom says that this was just the opening volley in the negotiations, so we’ll see.
As we left the man’s house and the whole conversation was related to us, we told Yasin how proud we were of him. He said exactly what mom would have told the man and didn’t even need to consult her. He has learned my mom’s way of doing things and the two of them are an awesome team. He is so important, as it is crucial these days in Afghanistan to have a man as the lead negotiator in certain circumstances. If he is seen just as a translator for my mom, things go differently. Most of these rural people don’t really know what to do with my mother, as her strength and personality as a woman are so alien to them. At first they think they can railroad her as any other woman, or just don’t take her position seriously it’s so foreign to them. Yasin continues to be impressive and is gaining strength and confidence under my mother’s leadership.
On the walk down to the car we were all happy with how things went, discussing all that had occurred. One last little thing that made the day even more special was the arrival of a little “sag-e-chopan” (sheep herding) puppy. Yasin had been looking for one to take home they whole trip. This is a very special breed of dog that exists in the highlands of Afghanistan. These are huge dogs that traditionally are used for sheep herding, yet often these days get turned into fighting dogs for sport. They are very intelligent and have an interesting look to them, as their ears are cropped as a defensive measure in fighting with, traditionally wolves and more recently other dogs. Yasin bought the puppy off of a little boy for 500 afs ($10), making both of them extremely happy. When the transaction was finished mom told the puppy, “ You just won the lottery” which is a saying they use when they rescue street dogs and cats from abusive homes or the street. The dog will have a much easier, happier life with Yasin. He was so excited about his new puppy, though his wives probably won’t be. I came up with her name on the way home. Zorine, which means “golden” after the name of the place we got her; “village of the golden oat”. When we got back to the compound we fed her a huge meal, as she was so skinny. This cemented the relationship and she was instantly ecstatic to be with us, running circles around the compound and playing with everyone’s feet.
It was a wonderful day. I had so much fun taking pictures and it was incredibly rewarding. New ideas about what I should be doing with my life have been circling through my head, especially after this experience. But I’ll formulate them further before sharing them. Tomorrow we leave Bamian and go back to Kabul, none of us are looking forward to the drive back down the terrible road, but we’ll all be happy to take a shower an enjoy a little bit of comfort, such as electricity and soft beds after a long, yet successful week in the mountains.

Shari Zohawk-Colin's Journal

2007-05-18T09:42:00.000-07:00

5/5/07
In The Heart of Afghanistan

Today we set the painters up with enough work for the day and went out to explore. We drove 45 minutes to an ancient and abandoned fortress built in the 6th century AD by the Shansabani kings. This is an abandoned refuge from invaders. It is located on an isolated outcropping of rock, maybe 800 feet above the river valley of Bamian. The people built these dwellings high above where they farmed, as a defensive measure from raiding barbarians such as the Mongol hoards of Genghis Khan’s grandson in the 12th century. There were a couple such fortresses in this high valley that was once home to hundreds of thousands of people. When the Mongols invaded in the 12th century they laid siege to Sharizahak (the red city) and also a nearby fortress aptly named the “city of screams”. The people here were decimated by the Mongols, but eventually incorporated them into their bloodlines, which can still be seen in their facial features.
When we arrived at the turn off from the main road we were stopped by a “poopy little man” as my mom called the short soldier. He said that if we wanted to see the ruins we had to purchase a ticket (45 minutes) back in Bamian. We were slightly put off to say the least at there was no sign indicating this anywhere, nor was this the case just two months earlier when my mom had been to the ruins. Yasin started to drive down the road anyways and the soldier went and grabbed his gun aggressively. We stopped and he reiterated his demand that we return to Bamian and purchase tickets. Yasin stepped out of the car to talk to the man. As it appeared he was getting nowhere, my mom got out of the car and walked stridently up to the man, whom she towered over. She expressed her anger and then called for Norm to come out and “beetle” his eyebrows at the man angrily, as he is the big Khereji (foreigner) man. Slowly our group gathered momentum with the man as all of us seven of us, Faisel included, got out of the van and surrounded the man. I couldn’t say anything but I took off my sunglasses and did my best to “beetle” my eyebrows angrily, (though I wasn’t quite sure what that was supposed to look like) and generally huff about. My mom had Yasin translate for her. She said that this was a ridiculous thing not to sell tickets at the location and if she had to go back to Bamian she was going directly to the governors office. She said she was an acquaintance of the governor and demanded to know the soldiers name and his commandant’s name. I could see the little soldier’s resistance start to crumble and he went inside a building, bringing out a quiet looking, younger soldier. It was finally agreed that we would pay the young soldier 500 afs. ($10) to be our guide up to the ruins. We had not problem with this, paid the man and he jumped in our van with us, with his machine gun.
This was a good example of a couple of things that happen constantly in Afghanistan. As I mentioned in an earlier entry there are “25 million kings” in this country. Anyone in any position of power typically tries to enforce whatever rules he sees fit to, when he wants to. It’s a fairly arbitrary decision and often has no basis in the reality of the situation. Yes, someone probably did make the poor decision to sell tickets to the ruins in Bamian. However, it was obviously not that big of a deal given the soldier relented in the end. If he truly did have orders not to allow anyone access without a ticket, then he should have stood by these orders and prevented our entry without fear of losing his job. As it was, we did what is needed so often in this country to get anything done. We made a big scene, dropped phony names, threatened the man’s job and made a general nuisance of ourselves. It was kind of fun, though I would not have been the first one to start bitching out a man with a gun. My mom has gotten used to this and is unafraid of “poopy little men” with machine guns.
So we went on our way and parked the van for the walk up the ruins, which were amazing. These dwellings are perched high on the sides of the mountain and cliffs, constructed of mud that was also molded into designs. I tried to imagine what they looked like when first built and what it would have been like to live high up above the valley with thousands of other people. The defensive nature of the choice to build up there was immediately apparent. Walking up the path was difficult enough, let alone trying to take the city while being defended by its inhabitants. We had to stay on the path and I was introduced to the white and red rocks that are found all over Afghanistan. These were painted to indicate the presence or lack of mines left over from the various wars that Afghanis have been subject to for the past 25 years. I really wanted to hop around the rocks and explore the ruins further, but the young soldier with us got very distressed whenever I crossed over a red rock, so I stopped doing this and stayed on the path. I probably would have been fine, but I guess it’s not worth the chance.
This outcropping, I don’t really call it a mountain because it is set apart all alone and less than a thousand feet above the valley floor, was used by Mujahadeen against the Russians, as well as the Taliban against the Hazara of Bamian. It is the perfect place to use as a defense against invasion from the east. There were old dug out spots that held large howitzers and anti-aircraft guns. Empty ammunition cans and caves dug into the hillside with evidence of soldiers having lived in them. At the very top we came on a large gun that was either broken, or too much hassle to try and bring back down the treacherous trail; a helicopter probably brought it up in the first place.
As we stood at the top, next to this gun I was struck by the understanding of why it has historically been so difficult for invading armies to take Afghanistan. The mountains are a great equalizer; they don’t allow large armies to utilize most of their complex machinery of war. Tanks get bogged down in valleys where they get bottlenecked in passes and can be taken out by a handful of men sitting on the hillsides above with rockets. The Russians lost so many solders in their 9-year attempt to take Afghanistan and many attribute this as one of the main reasons the Soviet Empire fell. The people of Afghanistan are historically a very warlike society of different tribes, none of which will stay subject to another’s will, especially that of imperialist non-believers. Given America now has soldiers here in Afghanistan, I worry that our government will make the mistakes that the Soviet Union made. I actually think that in some ways it’s a good thing that we moved on to Iraq so quickly. In most areas of Afghanistan there is not much of an American military presence, it’s my impression that the majority of Afghans sees us less as an occupying army and more of a stabilizing force. Afghans seem to fear other Afghans as much or more than they do us. The years between the fall of the Russian supported communist regime and the takeover by the Taliban were the worst for most Afghans, as it was a time of warlords vying for control, with at one point three separate armies fighting over Kabul. There is a reason why the Taliban were embraced by most when they first won. People wanted stability, though the form of stability that ensued was realized eventually by most to be absolutely undesirable.
We eventually finished playing tourist and descended back down to the valley floor. We gave the young soldier that was our “guide” another 250 afs., as he was actually pretty nice and didn’t rush us even though we took endless numbers of pictures. I could tell he was pretty amused by us. He made $15 more that day because we showed up and I hope this makes it a little easier for the next people who want to go see the ruins. When we got back to the “poopy little man” we gave Same some bakshish to give him, our attempt at smoothing things over with the locals. He slipped it into the soldier’s hand subtly and we could see he was a little surprised at the tip. He opened the gate and let us back towards Bamian.
We returned to our compound and our painters hard at work, though truly doing a terrible job by American standards. It’s interesting to see Afghans at work. They make great farmers but are truly unskilled at anything remotely technical like plumbing, electricity or painting. The average American knows more about these things than most people here that claim to be specialists. I was talking to mom and Norm and we decided that for one reason, most Afghans don’t even have these items in their home. Secondly, in America the cost of labor is so expensive that we learn to be independent and do things ourselves. We learn to paint our own homes, work on our own cars, and do our own basic carpentry. Here in Afghanistan you can always hire other people, a base wage is usually around four to five dollars a day, with specialists not usually earning much more than 6 dollars a day. Everyone with any money has a houseful of servants to do what is needed. On the surface this seems great, though Afghans make terrible servants. But I’m glad that I grew up learning to do household basics on my own. I can cook better than most, I’ve done roofing, painting, plumbing, electricity, drywall, and wall-to-wall carpet, have a good basic knowledge of cars and lots of landscaping. I think we often surprise the Afghans by the breadth of knowledge Americans have on these subjects. They seem to think that because we are rich Kherejis we are soft and incapable like their own elite. Its kind of fun to know how to do all these things yourself, although great when you can afford not to. In a country like this, if you want to have things done well by our own western standards, it is crucial to be able to direct your workers with efficiency. It is rare to find anyone that really knows what they are doing. People need work so desperately that they will call themselves a specialist at anything to get a job. Its important to not get too frustrated at this, we have pretty high standards for work as Americans. Find a good hard worker and teach him how you want it to be done. But be ready to repeat yourself because they so often just do what they want anyways. They are Afghans; a historically proud independent people and one must take them for what they are worth or be continuously frustrated.

Colin's Journal: BandiAmir Lakes

2007-05-18T09:32:00.000-07:00

5/6/07
Today we packed up the van and headed out to Bandiamir lakes. The road out of Bamian heads generally west and is not in very good shape. It took a little over 3 hours to drive to the lakes and it was a really rough ride, on both people and car. First we passed through a system of canyons, following a small fast flowing river. There were small farms on any land that was relatively flat and could have water run to it. I’m constantly amazed at where the Afghans can get water to run.
We eventually made our way out to wide open tundra like land where men and young boys watched over herds of fat-tailed sheep and goats. We passed through a couple of small villages of Hazara people that obviously did not see many foreigners. These people seem to lead a tough life, not much different than their ancestors had thousands of years ago. The faces of some of the children were red from the sun and malnourishment. Little 11-year-old boys have the faces of 40 year olds.
At one point we stopped in a village; the name escapes me, that had recently had an international donor build a medical clinic and two long buildings that are supposed to be shops. While I’m assuming the clinic is well used, only a third of the duchans were in use, most locked up and empty. This project cost about a million dollars, is actually quite useless, and is after only three years beginning to disintegrate from the elements. It looks like crap and is thoroughly un Afghan. Why build a bunch of shops for people when they have no economy? This makes no sense and is just one example of the misuse of international donations to the rebuilding of Afghanistan.
Though obviously well intentioned, this money is going to waste. It would have been more effective in helping these people if it had been put into the building of their local economy. Not many people drive up to this village because the road is so bad. These people need roads and access to cash economy. I doubt that someone that had spent any time in the community, or even in Afghanistan for that matter devised the project. The people of Afghanistan have been through so much and deserve the help of the international community. They comprise the largest refugee population the world has ever seen. They are frustrated that even 5 years after the fall of the Taliban there is little improvement in their daily lives. Yes, girls can now go to school, but if their parents can’t afford to let them away from the farm because they are too poor to give up the time away, then they won’t be allowed to go. What is the solution? I’m not sure but this is not it. This is a country that needs to be rebuilt from the ground up. There is literally no infrastructure outside any of the major cities, and that which is in the cities is dubious. Kabul, until this spring was living on 3 hours of electricity a day. It took 5 years to get to this point in the city that is the heart of Afghanistan’s economy. The outlying villages have far less. Up here in Bamian there is no city electricity, nothing to do with garbage or sewage and there are probably around 100,000 people living in town and the surrounding area.
It’s not solely our job, but I believe that America has let these people down. We made promises of a better life without the Taliban and have not even come close to fulfilling this commitment. We jumped on to Iraq and are poring billions of dollars into the rebuilding of that country, while still fighting a large insurgency/ civil war there. I would hazard to guess that there is a larger percentage of the afghan population that is happy to have America here compared to the population of Iraq. We could make such a difference here, but if we don’t act quick enough there will be someone else, a local warlord that makes an offer that the afghan people will take up in a desperate bid for a better life. There are two things that would make a huge difference here; roads and electricity. If we gave them this Afghan people would truly be strong allies and would cast out those elements that fight the development of their nation and way of life. They are hard working, industrious people that given the chance will build a great country. There is immense potential to develop their natural resources in a way that would benefit the whole country.
Okay, off of my soapbox and back to the trip. We rolled on through the high plains with the sporadic herds of sheep and goats, as well as the occasional winter wheat fields being prepared (this is a horrible practice that causes huge amounts of erosion). We eventually got to the high point and started going down hill. Occasionally throughout this high grassy area we would see the red painted rocks that indicate the presence of mines. These people are pasturing their animals and herding them through these areas where the Russians placed mines, probably in this case and people are still dying from them.
We got to our first glimpse of our destination. We could see one of the upper Bandiamir lakes, which are a series of five large, emerald blue lakes of incredible, unmeasured depth. The contrast to the barren landscape makes the blue of these lakes all the more startling. The place we stopped was actually the same place that my mother had stopped as a little girl on her first visit, a picture of her taken in the same place that I had a picture taken of myself. We continued to work our way down to the lakes, the road getting even more fun and finally got to the bottom. These lakes seem to have been formed by mineral deposition damming up the exit. So the lake level is about 25 feet above the valley floor, with small waterfalls running off the edge. I’ve never seen anything like it before and would love to learn more about it’s natural history, though I have a feeling that there hasn’t been much research done given its isolation. This series of five lakes could be a wonderful place to do speciation research, especially on the fish and amphibians. The bottom of the largest has never been discovered, probably due to a lack of sophisticated equipment, but there have been attempts. It was recently declared a UNESCO natural heritage site, so development has been halted and the few local people that have been living around it are subsidized so that they don’t upset the area too much with farming. Unfortunately Afghans, like most third world people, don’t have a concept of garbage control and garbage is starting to pile up a little. Its not bad yet, but will become so if the area becomes easier to access and outdoor ethics are not instilled in the visitors. It would be a shame ruin such an amazing place with plastic bags and aluminum cans. Mom and I couldn’t help but pick up a large bag of garbage while we were there. It wasn’t much but the purpose was more to provide an example to the Afghans with us and those local people that saw us doing it. I think they are just blind to the garbage at this point, as most Americans were until about the last 50 years.
We wandered up to the edge of the lake and went to a place that had a ledge where you could get in and out. The lake literally drops off immediately, and I mean immediately, to some incredible depth. In some places you could jump in and not be able to pull yourself back out, and you’re not jumping off a cliff, but from lake level. It’s kind of intimidating even to someone that’s a decent swimmer. Everyone looked a little apprehensive, so I lead the way; changed into my swimsuit and leapt in. As I predicted my breath was immediately taken away by the cold of the water and I swam back to the ledge and got out. The water was bearable on the ledge because the sun warmed up the foot and a half of water there, but once you stepped off the ledge it was ice cold. Once they saw me do it, Norm, Asef and Same went and put their suits on. The Afghans didn’t have shorts, but used light pantaloons that they rolled up to above their knees and then blew air into from their waistline. I didn’t understand why they did this until I saw them attempt to swim. Neither of them could do much besides a doggie paddle and they used this air in their pantaloons as a flotation devise. The end result was absolutely hilarious, though I was a little scared that I was going to have to rescue one of them. Asef called this method the “paghmani system” because he saw Same do it, who is from Paghman an area outside of Kabul that has a decent sized lake called Carga, which I believe I mentioned in one of my first entries. We had quite a few laughs at this “Paghmani system” and it became a running joke for quite a while.
Faisel looked like he wanted to jump in but Yasin can’t swim at all so I told him I would take the little boy in. He had been holding Faisel’s arm tensely the whole time we were near the edge, fearing the boy would fall in. The lake drops off so immediately that there is really no wading except in a few areas where a tiny bit of a ledge exists. Yasin could see that both Norm and I were good swimmers and allowed me to take Faisel into the water. He splashed around on the ledge a little bit and then I took his arms and dipped him into the deep part so he could be completely submerged. He loved this and I wished Yasin could do this with him, though I had fun connecting with the child that I couldn’t talk with at all as I have very little Dari and he knows no English. Eventually we did get Yasin to stand on the ledge and play with Faisel and this made us all happy to see. It was quite the funny scene, four Afghans and three Americans on a jaunt to this amazing lake, Norm and I in our American swimsuits, the Afghans in their pantaloons and little naked Faisel. Mom could have gone swimming as there were no other Afghans around to glare at her, but she would have had to do it in full clothing, not that much fun.
There wasn’t a whole lot of swimming, just in and out because the water was so cold, but it was good to get a little bit of a bath as there were no bathing facilities back in our compound in Bamian and it had been a few days since my last shower. We finished up our “swim” and wandered back to the van. We tried to get to some of the upper lakes but a bridge was washed out and we couldn’t access the road. I offered to drive us back home and was glad that Yasin relinquished the steering wheel. For one its easier to be the driver on bad roads as you can anticipate whets coming up and brace for the swerves and sudden stops, secondly I have been driving a lot longer than any of the Afghans and was afraid that Asef might be the next in line to spell Yasin. Yasin is a good driver, but hauls ass on these roads and it’s quite a rough ride. I went just a touch slower, as its not my own car, and the ride was deemed by all to be much smoother and worth the extra few minutes it took us to get home. He’ll probably let me do some of the driving on the ten hour trip back to Kabul, as Norm is flying home earlier I don’t really want to be subject to Asef’s driving and I wanted to prove myself to Yasin. I’m sure he trusts my driving now, though I have no desire to drive in Kabul, as this is another matter entirely. I’ve driven in some crazy places, such as Mexico, but there is not a traffic light or dividing line n the city of about 2.5 million and I don’t want to get into an accident in a foreign country with someone else’s car.
When we got back to the compound all of us were tired from the long day. We found our “wonderful” painters finishing up for the day. I saw that an ant nest I had noticed the past few days that is on the edge of our “patio” was really active with ants spreading out everywhere. Someone had spread a white powder out from the entrance and at first I thought that someone had found an insecticide and they were trying to escape. This was not the case and one of the neighbor boys hanging out explained that Dauood the painter had put flour out to feed the ants. I looked at the boy incredulously and asked why they were feeding our ants that I didn’t want there in the first place and was planning on killing. He said that the ants were considered some sort of good luck charm and to feed them would bring luck to the person or some sort of nonsense. Now, I’m a person that loves animals, plants and all sorts of insects, but there are plenty of ants in the world, they are probably the most successful land animals in the world. The ants are not suffering. This, at the end of a long day, from painters that had been a real pain in the ass already was just too much. The whole “ straw that broke the camel’s back” analogy is perfect. I stomped over to a five-gallon jug of water and very animatedly dumped the whole thing on the ants, washing away the flour. Not only was this in front of our painters, but our landlord and several other guys that were milling around for some reason. Several saw how upset I was and decided it was time to leave the crazy Khereji as my mom called me, for the day. The whole trip I had made every attempt to ingratiate myself to the locals, but this was too much. Most of them couldn’t understand a thing I said, but I made it clear that if they wanted to have good luck, they could feed their own goddamn ants, in their own houses and deal with the mess themselves! I was wearing full Shawar camise and my scarf was wrapped around my head to protect it from the sun. My mom looked at me and asked me to remove it because I looked pretty scary with it on when I was mad. I wasn’t so much mad as flustered and incredulous, once the painters left, quite quickly after this display I just laughed with mom and Yasin who knew exactly what I was feeling at this moment. Yasin said that whenever you work with Afghans they surprise you with the things they do that make no sense at all to anyone but themselves. I don’t speak dari, but I doubt that the painters will make that mistake again; this communication needed no words to be understood.
I finished up the day by making a quick meal of spaghetti that we all inhaled and was the most satisfying meal we’d had so far. I was really tired and started to feel a bit of a chill that didn’t bode well. The night ended with a sudden windstorm that blew up with a bit of rain. I heard our garbage spreading throughout the compound and ran out to see it blowing everywhere. I had tried so hard to instill a division of garbage for the Afghans. Burnables, organic and true garbage such as plastic. My system was rolling all over the compound in disarray. Same and Asef heard me get up and came out to help get what hadn’t blown away put into one of the rooms. Asef called this the “garbage dance”. Oh Afghanistan, you really do know how to put someone on their heels.

Colin's Journal: Trip to Bamyan

2007-05-18T09:20:00.000-07:00

a

5/4/07
Fun With Mom In a Country of Contradictions
I’m sitting here, in a traditional mud built compound, our home for the next week, with my laptop playing hip-hop for entertainment, wearing a shalwar chamise and sunglasses. Though I am a khoragi (foreigner), this illustrates the contradictions found in a country trying to develop out of the Middle Ages to the modern world.
Yesterday we made the 10-hour trip yesterday from Kabul up to Bamian. This is a small town up in the mountains that exist in the middle of the country. The trip up was primarily on a bad dirt road that wound its way up mountainsides and through beautiful little green valleys. A little scary at times, as the road is not very wide and trucks bring goods back and forth on it, with people passing in terrible places with 500 to a thousand foot drops bellow. The farmers here who create amazing irrigation systems, at times literally getting water to flow up hill, work every arable peace of land. These farms are truly fascinating; Afghans are industrious, wonderful gardeners. Everything is ordered and neat, well designed and done the same way it has been for thousands of years.
With the exception of cars, cell phones and electric generators, the outer provinces of Afghanistan are a trip back to the middle ages. Families work their fields; men move the dirt and create the irrigation systems, women and children plant and harvest the crops. They still till the land with oxen and wooden plows. It was interesting to move from the ethnic Pushtun areas in the lower valleys, to the Hazara areas in the higher valleys.
The Hazara are an ethnic minority that has been persecuted by other Afghans for millennia. They are a Mongoloid looking people who I believe have their roots in the Chinese Buddhists that expanded along the Silk Road. Bamian is the heart of Hazara territory and is actually quite safe for westerners. The big draw here is a set of large Buddha statues carved into a mountainside that is now a UN World Heritage site. It is also a place of almost unparalleled beauty, green valleys and stark mountainsides carved out by the heavy snows that come in winter. The taller mountains are steep and still full of snow; they would be fantastic to snowboard on if you could access them. The whole trip up I kept making the van stop so I could jump out and take pictures. I’ve seen quite few places in the world by this point, but it might be the most beautiful landscape I’ve ever had the pleasure of traveling through.
We only had a few small problems on the trip. One flat tire and the framing that holds the spare under the back of the van kept getting knocked out of place by the roughness of the road, but all in all a pretty smooth journey up here. We arrived at the home that had been rented for 6 month, sight unseen. It was a little bit of a shock to see what we would be living in. My big question before coming here was if there would be furniture. I didn’t imagine that we would be showing up to a traditional mud dwelling. I think even the Afghans with us; Yasin and his son Faisal, Asef and Same were a bit surprised. There are some things that as Americans we don’t even think to check on before renting a new place. Like, will there be a water source and access to electricity! The khinuraab (toilet) situation is a little grim, as it is merely a second story hole in the floor that can be accessed on the outside by a man that comes around every few days to collect it and then it gets spread on the fields (fertilizer!).
We immediately started planning what needed to be done to make it a place we could enjoy. Within half an hour we found a man that would organize a team of painters to come the next morning. The floors are made of dried mud, so we are going to buy plastic covers and then rugs to cover these. They will hook up the electricity to the public system, which runs from 7pm to 10pm, and then we also have a generator. We will buy a cistern to put on the roof for water, for now we have 5-gallon jugs. Its basically like camping, but more dirty. I wish I had my tent so I could just escape into a nice clean, scorpion free place. As it is I have to sleep on a charpoee that is an afghan version of a cot. These are cheap and are ruining my back. It takes me an hour every morning to truly straighten up.
We finished our first night in Bamian by going to a restaurant, which serves in a family style. It was full of mostly travelers and single men. Mom was the only woman present and we were stared at the whole time. These for the most part did not seem to be hostile stares, just curious. I’m sure that most of these people have not seen many foreigners before. It’s also pretty strange to see a woman out of the compounds at night. We’ll be cooking our own food the rest of the trip. It’s more comfortable and less likely to give me dysentery. I’ve made it a week and a half without any signs of sickness, oh I hope this lasts but I’m not counting on it.
Today we went about getting the painters started on their work. Oh what I wouldn’t do for a nice Ace hardware. Finding paint is a difficult chore and often what we do find has been sitting around for a decade and no good. It is also very difficult to find colors that will work, that will cover all of the stains on the walls. We are essentially trying to paint mud and mud with plaster on it. The painters are another issue. They are good hard workers, but really terrible painters. They slop the paint everywhere and have no concept of strait lines. The end result was that we did as much work as they did and had to direct them all day or it would have looked like crap. I think they get the concept now and will be better about it tomorrow. We were all pretty exhausted by the end of the day and have resolved to just mix up enough paint for the whole day in the morning and leave them with strict instructions. We’re just going to have to trust them to do the job themselves or we won’t have any fun on this trip. Once the wall are painted we can get something on the floors and the place will feel much more livable. The outside walls were for the most part finished by the end of the day and we feel a little better already.
I had my first day of frustration with Afghanistan today. I couldn’t really pin down why, but getting anything done in this country is a challenge. Nothing goes smoothly or according to plan. This is a good lesson for internationals working in Afghanistan. It takes patience and understanding of the culture, as well as a willingness to let certain notions go. You need to adapt your projects to the logistical realities and realize that things are not going to go exactly as you want them. The end result, if you get there, will be an amalgam of your wishes, the local reality and way of doing things. You must let go of certain things and keep the larger picture in mind. I, having just come from the states looked at what had been accomplished at the end of the day with the work of all of our three painters and us was frustrated. My mom and Norm, having lived here for two years, looked at what was accomplished and were impressed, especially as it was a Friday (their Saturday). At one point I, having gotten extremely frustrated, sat myself in a corner of one of the mudrooms for a half an hour and calmed myself down. I realized there was no point in butting my head against a brick (mud) wall; I needed to let things go. I re-emerged from the room and felt better about things. I chose my next little project and got back to work. This trip is about the process and the learning, not about any end result.
At the end of the day, with the painters gone we sat around in our new furniture (plastic chairs) and drank warm Heineken at $2 a can. We looked at our nice red walls with blue trim and laughed about the day. I really enjoy the Afghan people; they are so wonderful when they accept you. The guys we have with us, Yasin, Asef, Same and little Faisal are just great. I can hardly talk with any of them besides Yasin, yet the communication is there. They love us and we love them.

A Country of Twenty-Five-Million Kings-Colin

2007-05-16T06:25:00.000-07:00

5/2/07

Yesterday was fairly uneventful. In the morning mom and I went to PARSA to finalize the plans for their grand opening of the new building in the Marastoon compound. Though many Americans would not understand the significance of the type of organization my mother has created, I am truly impressed. Though there are a couple of international workers, it is primarily an afghan run organization. Men and women are working side by side; there are female directors and male directors for the different projects. This often puts men under the direct control of women, which is not often found in such a male dominated culture. But everyone seems to know their place and fits well within the system. If they didn’t they would have been fired.
One of the more funny moments occurred when Asef came back with some prototype table designs for one of the crafts sales departments. The tables had a good overall design, but were inconsistent in height. Some were the right height, and could be sat around with chairs, however others were too tall to be sat around on cushions and too low to sit around with chairs. Mom said, “Asef, we need a ‘table program’, so that we have consistency”. It may not translate well here, but it was quite humorous.
This scenario illustrates the type of managing that has to be done in Afghanistan. If not overseen directly, the workers often, no usually just go off on their own and do what they think should be done, regardless of what they have been told. They will listen to what you tell them, nod their head in agreement and then go off and do what they think is best. Mahbouba introduced me to a saying that runs true. She said that Afghanistan is a country with 25 million people, each of them kings.
Mom runs into the same problem with her servants. Her cook, gardener and house keeper each have their own idea of what a good house should look like, what food should taste like, what a garden should be comprised of. She is constantly fighting small battles with her servants, where she confronts them on an issue, they agree to do something and then go about it their own way. Mahbouba said, and I agree, “ afghans make terrible servants.” She compared them to Indians, who make wonderful servants and this makes sense given the cultural and religious differences that exist. Indians understand and have no problem with their place when subservient. Their belief system allows for them to be subservient without feeling inferior. I don’t think that Afghans have the cultural latitude to allow them to feel this. I think it’s an interesting contrast.
Today was the official opening of the new PARSA building at the Marastoon compound. What mom and her staff are trying to create is a model system for Afghanistan and the third world in general. Its simple, in the third world you can’t educate people if they are going hungry and have no job, you can’t improve a person’s position without addressing the basic needs of the person first. PARSA addresses the whole person, she first deals with the Well Being of the individual, with her Well-Being department, a psychosocial and physiotherapy focus addresses these concerns. They assess their people on a physical level, and then start in on the Economic programs. She has artisans and craftspeople working in this department, as a way to make money and support their families. She has a program that teaches widows to create self-sustaining gardens. After the physical well-being and economic concerns are addressed she can then attack the Education of the individual, with English lessons, and other basic educational concerns. I’m not the best person to outline what her organization does, but I do understand that what she is doing is approaching the problem of poverty by dealing with the whole person, and all the problems that the person has. From what I’ve seen, this is an innovative approach that not many charities/ngos ever try. It’s ambitious, but I believe will become a model for the dealing with poverty in the third world.
The opening went extremely well. It was a short, succinct ceremony, beautifully presented, and moving. The guest of honor, a woman named Fatima Gailani, that has worked hard for her country, and is very well respected for her work and her family here, gave a moving speech. Most of it was in pharsi, so I didn’t get the details, but the sentiment needed no words to be understood. At one point she said, “ it doesn’t matter which national flag the person who wants to help Afghanistan waves, it is the flag of humanity that is being presented”. This was wonderful to hear, as I believe many international workers are quite sensitive to the fact that often the indigenous people resent the help of foreigners as somewhat “condescending” in approach. For those of people in the field, this is a validation of the work that is so hard to do.
This ceremony was a transition of sorts, from the old PARSA that existed before my mother took control, to the new PARSA. My mother has won the love and respect of her staff. She is truly loved by all. All of the staff that had been there for the earlier times appreciate the approach and dedication that mom brings to the job. I believe they are relieved to have someone that they can count on and defer to. My mom is truly great at what she does. She is loved by many Afghans who recognize the dedication she has to improving the lives of their people. They are starting to see her as one of their own. I believe it helps that she lived here as a child, otherwise they might have wondered where her motivation comes from. She works so hard for them, often at the expense of herself. After the ceremony Yasin came up and thanked my mom, almost in tears, essentially saying that he considers her his American mother and greatest mentor. He is such a wonderful, sincere and dedicated man. This evening my mom said that when she and Norm have had trouble with being in Kabul, have wanted to go home and pack it in, it is Yasin that keeps them here. She has found a wonderful man that will become a strong leader for his country under the guidance of my mother. Though at this point he has much to learn, I hope he gets into politics eventually. His country needs people like him to lead it into a prosperous future where all components of his people are taken care of. He neither acts like, nor desires to be a king, which is exactly the type of leader that is needed in Afghanistan.

2007-05-11T11:21:00.000-07:00

4/30/07
My Day with Heroes
The past two days have been a great introduction to the work that my mom really does here. Having grown up with my mother’s work surrounding me, I learned to insulate myself from the depressing details of her world. From the work that she used to do with youth at risk and welfare women, to homeless and mentally ill; I think I actually became habituated to the myriad of problems that people face. There’s always been someone that needs her help more than I do. From a very early age I had to share my mother’s attention with a lot of other people, sometimes feeling that her priorities lay in helping others more than her own family. This is truly not the case, but it’s hard to feel differently when you are young and cannot see the whole picture. I’ve always recognized that she does great work, and it is born of a profound dedication to improving the lives of those surrounding her. However, I don’t know that I have ever felt more proud of my mother than I did today. But I’ll get to that a little later.
Yesterday morning we went to the Marastoon compound where PARSA is located. I’d been there previously, but as it was a holiday, there was no work being done. I met the Afghans that comprise her core staff, Yasin, the country director for PARSA I had already met, and I like very much. He is intelligent, dedicated to his people, loves my mother as his mentor and is practically a family member. Palwasha, is an afghan woman who is Yasin’s “right hand man” and seems incredibly intelligent and competent. There are many others that I met, and I like them all. She has a staff of about 81 at PARSA. cooks, drivers, and gardeners included, beyond their many different project managers. She has essentially created an Afghan version of Washington Works, an organization that she founded back in the 1990’s that dealt primarily with female welfare recipients, but as necessary in this environment takes an even more holistic approach to the problems of poverty. I really do think it will be a remarkable organization.
I had a short Farsi/dari lesson with a young man that I think just graduated from high school, and am starting to get a hold of the basics that one needs to get around in a country; greetings, numbers etc.. I’ll have several more the next few days, and would like to continue to learn. It’s not actually that hard of a language to learn, and in many ways my understanding of Spanish is helpful, especially because of similarities in syntax. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it isn’t as bad as trying to learn something like Japanese or some African tribal language. After this lesson I went up to the orphanage that is in the same compound and further formulated a plan I have for building a new playfield for the children. My first night in the country we went to the compound and in wandering around we came across the “soccer field” that the children use. It has no goals, is covered in large rocks, not even close to level and has holes and trenches all around it. I decided that wouldn’t do, and I asked Yasin to help me talk to some people about what it would take to make a proper soccer field. Labor is cheap here, it costs about 4 dollar a day to hire a good laborer, so I decided that I could probably afford the costs of the project. I talked to the head gardener at PARSA, and he is finding me a man with a bulldozer to do the initial leveling (at the whopping rate of 8 dollars an hour), and then a few other men to finish picking out rocks and smoothing out the dirt. I have no illusions that grass will take hold, let alone survive the dry summer months, so I’ll be happy with just smooth dirt. I’m then hiring a metal worker to make some movable goals and will try to find some sort of netting (might be difficult, but I’ll find something). Things are moving quickly on the project, and they will start bulldozing tomorrow, the field should be smooth by the end of the week. I haven’t told the children what I’m doing yet, but I’m sure they’ll love not having to play soccer on hard rocks in bare feet. Real goals in place of the stacked rocks presently in use will be a novelty I’m sure. I know its not really much in the scheme of things, and there might be more pressing needs, but this was something I could do for the children that I understand and feel competent to take on as a project. It’s also something that I can afford to fund myself, and can see to completion in my short month here. I might try and get some equipment donated by some companies back home, but even if I don’t, they’ll be able to make use of the field for a lot of different games beyond just soccer, and they won’t ruin their bare feet on the rocks. Hopefully it’ll turn out how I have envisioned it. We’ll see, this is my first attempt at getting something important done in the Third World, and there are bound to be hang ups, but its’ simple enough that it’ll probably turn out just fine. I’ll go rake the whole damn thing myself if I have to.

In the afternoon I went shopping and ran some errands around town with mom and Aziz (her favorite and best driver), who doesn’t speak a lick of English but seems to take great care of my mother. I like him a lot and trust him to watch out for us. The drivers for PARSA are all trained to be on the look out for bad situations and kidnapping attempts, and what to do in the case of the latter (i.e. If s someone tries to block you in from the front and the back, get the hell out, regardless of the damage to cars, buildings or anything else). It is truly worth having good drivers that you can trust around here, they keep you out of trouble and could possibly save your life.
We had dinner that evening with Yasin, his second wife Salia, her brother Asef (who speaks a little English and I am coming to like very much), Dawn (mom’s childhood friend from her time in Kabul) and her husband Jim. It was enjoyable, and I love the Afghan family that Mom and Norm have created for themselves.
Today we had a very important meeting to attend at the ministry regarding a report that mom put out regarding appalling conditions found at a local Kabul orphanage run by the afghan government. Mom had written an unofficial report on the conditions of the Alluhoddin orphanage that PARSA staff and she had witnessed this winter when they were allowed access to the compound. The offenses are extensive, but I will touch on a few of the highlights. There were children running around with sandals and no socks, clothes falling apart and threadbare in the winter. Children would be given money for bathing and then have it taken away, there were boys that hadn’t been allowed to bathe for 3 months. In one instance, it was brought to the attention of orphanage staff that a girl had lice; she was slapped on the head and sent to have her hair shaved off. The girls have no access to feminine hygiene products and are not even taught about the change that occurs as they grow older. In one instance a girl was seen berated for hiding rags. There is inadequate staffing. Often the children were found with no adult supervision on the premise and these are hundreds of children. There was no female staff member set up to stay with the girls at night, just think of the terrible abuses that could occur in this scenario.
I could go on for quite a bit longer, but I think the picture has been painted adequately. The meeting with the ministry of social affairs in charge of orphanages had been forced by pressure my mother garnered from international and domestic NGO’s, by the circulation of her unofficial report. This had brought out other anecdotes from other organizations that had witnessed similar problems in orphanages throughout the country, and at least 7 different organizations representatives were present. The presiding ministry representative was the deputy minister of social affairs, previously the minister of martyred and disabled, until a merger brought him under the control of another man. I think he’s of a slime ball that is only interested in preserving his position of power.
The meeting started off fairly well, with my mother and Mabouba (her work partner here) presenting their findings to those present, and calling for an investigation into the conditions of the orphanages of Afghanistan. Their request was simple. They did not want anything to come out of the meeting other than a formation of a committee of NGO representatives that will oversee an official investigation into the matter, and design policies that will bring about systemic, long lasting changes for the sake of the children affected. They did not try to defend the veracity of the report, even under questioning by several of the people present (most likely implants by the minister), but stood by their simple request for an investigation, and then action based on the official report. Several other NGO representatives voiced their support of this initiative and it appeared that the meeting would be concluded successfully.
Then what we feared would happen, did. The minister said that he had formed a committee of 5 different NGO's to oversee an investigation (good). However, he then launched into an extensive defense of the work done by the ministry and the conditions of the Allahoudin orphanage. He slammed the report my mother had presented, as well as her organization. He said that as PARSA had only been allowed a month and a half of official access to the orphanage, the entirety of the report should not be taken into consideration, only those allegations pertaining to that time period. He made claims to refute the report presented. He made such claims of a 1:2 staff to child ratio (bullshit!), and that the lack of female attendants overnight was a cultural problem that could not be solved (women are not allowed to live on their own away from either their husband or a male member of their family). This last claim especially demonstrates a lack of true interest in solving the problems and making changes. For example, I’m sure there would be no lack of international volunteers to help little orphan girls for a few months at a time, or a family could be living on the compound so that a woman would always be present at night. It was apparent to me that the minister was trying very hard to save face in front of the international NGO's, but I believe that in the process harmed his reputation with them (I hope). The request was simple, have an official investigation on the problems that not only PARSA, but many other organizations had witnessed and could attest to. The meeting did not need to go in the direction that the minister took it. The man went on and on about how much had been done already, defending his position and the actions that had been taken so far. As far as PARSA and the other NGO's were concerned none of this matters, if the orphanages are not running well, something needs to be done to change it. End of story! My mother was
After, listening to this monologue for about 20 minutes, my mother found her chance, stood up, and addressed the meeting one last time. She thanked the minister for the formation of the committee, said she expected the ministry to follow up on their promise to initiate changes based on the official investigation and the committee’s recommendations. She said that now the discussion had turned defensive and she was done with it. The PARSA staff then got up and walked out of the meeting. Mom was not interested in listening to a bullshit defense, nor was she going to listen to someone slam her organization’s integrity.
As I walked out with my mother, I couldn’t help but feel immensely proud. She has such presence and courage in front of people. She is a great speaker and is not afraid to take a stand on important issues, even under very adverse circumstances. I gained even more respect for her than I already had. She takes on so many projects and issues and always puts everything she has into her work. It’s been so long since I’ve really seen her in action. Having grown up watching her work (she never was into day care for my brother and I so we were drug around with her for years), I think I forgot how great she is at what she does. She is absolutely my hero.
It is unclear whether the minister we met with will really bring about any substantial change, however at least what my mother wanted will happen. There will be an investigative committee on the conditions of the orphanages. Hopefully there will be a policy of minimum standards made and followed through with. Mom has her doubts, but we shall see.
Later that evening Mabouba and her husband Hassan came over for dinner. I made fresh pasta salad and cooked hot dogs (sort of). It was explained to me that Hassan was once a Mujahadeen general. He was in charge of 4 or 5 major generals, had thousands of fighters under his command and was responsible for kicking the Russians out of Jalalabad during the Afghan-Russian war. He is revered as a hero and practically a saint given his family background. He is a soft-spoken, unassuming man whom I like very much. When asked about his experiences he merely said that he never wanted to be a soldier, but his country needed him. He doesn’t really talk much about his experiences. Once the fighting dissolved into Afghans fighting Afghans he left the country for America, just recently having returned.
The day was a good one, especially seeing my mom in action here. I was so proud of her, at several points throughout the meeting at the ministry that I was almost moved to tears. The world is a better place for my mother’s presence.

4/30/07 Colin's third day....

2007-05-01T06:28:00.000-07:00

4/30/07
The past two days have been a great introduction to the work that my mom really does here. Having grown up with my mother’s work surrounding me, I learned to insulate myself from the depressing details of her world. From the work that she used to do with youth at risk and welfare women, to homeless and mentally ill; I think I actually became habituated to the myriad of problems that people face. There’s always been someone that needs her help more than I do. From a very early age I had to share my mother’s attention with a lot of other people, sometimes feeling that her priorities lay in helping others more than her own family. This is truly not the case, but it’s hard to feel differently when you are young and cannot see the whole picture. I’ve always recognized that she does great work, and it is born of a profound dedication to improving the lives of those surrounding her. However, I don’t know that I have ever felt more proud of my mother than I did today. But I’ll get to that a little later.
Yesterday morning we went to the Marastoon compound where PARSA is located. I’d been there previously, but as it was a holiday, there was no work being done. I met the Afghans that comprise her core staff, Yasin, the country director for PARSA I had already met, and I like very much. He is intelligent, dedicated to his people, loves my mother as his mentor and is practically a family member. Palwasha, is an afghan woman who is Yasin’s “right hand man” and seems incredibly intelligent and competent. There are many others that I met, and I like them all. She has a staff of about 81 at PARSA. cooks, drivers, and gardeners included, beyond their many different project managers. She has essentially created an Afghan version of Washington Works, an organization that she founded back in the 1990’s that dealt primarily with female welfare recipients, but as necessary in this environment takes an even more holistic approach to the problems of poverty. I really do think it will be a remarkable organization.
I had a short Farsi/dari lesson with a young man that I think just graduated from high school, and am starting to get a hold of the basics that one needs to get around in a country; greetings, numbers etc.. I’ll have several more the next few days, and would like to continue to learn. It’s not actually that hard of a language to learn, and in many ways my understanding of Spanish is helpful, especially because of similarities in syntax. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it isn’t as bad as trying to learn something like Japanese or some African tribal language.
After this lesson I went up to the orphanage that is in the same compound and further formulated a plan I have for building a new playfield for the children. My first night in the country we went to the compound and in wandering around we came across the “soccer field” that the children use. It has no goals, is covered in large rocks, not even close to level and has holes and trenches all around it. I decided that wouldn’t do, and I asked Yasin to help me talk to some people about what it would take to make a proper soccer field. Labor is cheap here, it costs about 4 dollar a day to hire a good laborer, so I decided that I could probably afford the costs of the project. I talked to the head gardener at PARSA, and he is finding me a man with a bulldozer to do the initial leveling (at the whopping rate of 8 dollars an hour), and then a few other men to finish picking out rocks and smoothing out the dirt. I have no illusions that grass will take hold, let alone survive the dry summer months, so I’ll be happy with just smooth dirt. I’m then hiring a metal worker to make some movable goals and will try to find some sort of netting (might be difficult, but I’ll find something). Things are moving quickly on the project, and they will start bulldozing tomorrow, the field should be smooth by the end of the week. I haven’t told the children what I’m doing yet, but I’m sure they’ll love not having to play soccer on hard rocks in bare feet. Real goals in place of the stacked rocks presently in use will be a novelty I’m sure. I know its not really much in the scheme of things, and there might be more pressing needs, but this was something I could do for the children that I understand and feel competent to take on as a project. It’s also something that I can afford to fund myself, and can see to completion in my short month here. I might try and get some equipment donated by some companies back home, but even if I don’t, they’ll be able to make use of the field for a lot of different games beyond just soccer, and they won’t ruin their bare feet on the rocks. Hopefully it’ll turn out how I have envisioned it. We’ll see, this is my first attempt at getting something important done in the Third World, and there are bound to be hang ups, but its’ simple enough that it’ll probably turn out just fine. I’ll go rake the whole damn thing myself if I have to.
In the afternoon I went shopping and ran some errands around town with mom and Aziz (her favorite and best driver), who doesn’t speak a lick of English but seems to take great care of my mother. I like him a lot and trust him to watch out for us. The drivers for PARSA are all trained to be on the look out for bad situations and kidnapping attempts, and what to do in the case of the latter (i.e. If s someone tries to block you in from the front and the back, get the hell out, regardless of the damage to cars, buildings or anything else). It is truly worth having good drivers that you can trust around here, they keep you out of trouble and could possibly save your life.
We had dinner that evening with Yasin, his second wife Salia, her brother Asef (who speaks a little English and I am coming to like very much), Dawn (mom’s childhood friend from her time in Kabul) and her husband Jim. It was enjoyable, and I love the Afghan family that Mom and Norm have created for themselves.
Today we had a very important meeting to attend at the ministry regarding a report that mom put out regarding appalling conditions found at a local Kabul orphanage run by the afghan government. Mom had written an unofficial report on the conditions of the Alluhoddin orphanage that PARSA staff and she had witnessed this winter when they were allowed access to the compound. The offenses are extensive, but I will touch on a few of the highlights. There were children running around with sandals and no socks, clothes falling apart and threadbare in the winter. Children would be given money for bathing and then have it taken away, there were boys that hadn’t been allowed to bathe for 3 months. In one instance, it was brought to the attention of orphanage staff that a girl had lice; she was slapped on the head and sent to have her hair shaved off. The girls have no access to feminine hygiene products and are not even taught about the change that occurs as they grow older. In one instance a girl was seen berated for hiding rags. There is inadequate staffing. Often the children were found with no adult supervision on the premise and these are hundreds of children. There was no female staff member set up to stay with the girls at night, just think of the terrible abuses that could occur in this scenario.
I could go on for quite a bit longer, but I think the picture has been painted adequately. The meeting with the ministry of social affairs in charge of orphanages had been forced by pressure my mother garnered from international and domestic NGO’s, by the circulation of her unofficial report. This had brought out other anecdotes from other organizations that had witnessed similar problems in orphanages throughout the country, and at least 7 different organizations representatives were present. The presiding ministry representative was the deputy minister of social affairs, previously the minister of martyred and disabled, until a merger brought him under the control of another man. I think he’s of a slime ball that is only interested in preserving his position of power.
The meeting started off fairly well, with my mother and Mabouba (her work partner here) presenting their findings to those present, and calling for an investigation into the conditions of the orphanages of Afghanistan. Their request was simple. They did not want anything to come out of the meeting other than a formation of a committee of NGO representatives that will oversee an official investigation into the matter, and design policies that will bring about systemic, long lasting changes for the sake of the children affected. They did not try to defend the veracity of the report, even under questioning by several of the people present (most likely implants by the minister), but stood by their simple request for an investigation, and then action based on the official report. Several other NGO representatives voiced their support of this initiative and it appeared that the meeting would be concluded successfully.
Then what we feared would happen, did. The minister said that he had formed a committee of 5 different NGO's to oversee an investigation (good). However, he then launched into an extensive defense of the work done by the ministry and the conditions of the Allahoudin orphanage. He slammed the report my mother had presented, as well as her organization. He said that as PARSA had only been allowed a month and a half of official access to the orphanage, the entirety of the report should not be taken into consideration, only those allegations pertaining to that time period. He made claims to refute the report presented. He made such claims of a 1:2 staff to child ratio (bullshit!), and that the lack of female attendants overnight was a cultural problem that could not be solved (women are not allowed to live on their own away from either their husband or a male member of their family). This last claim especially demonstrates a lack of true interest in solving the problems and making changes. For example, I’m sure there would be no lack of international volunteers to help little orphan girls for a few months at a time, or a family could be living on the compound so that a woman would always be present at night. It was apparent to me that the minister was trying very hard to save face in front of the international NGO's, but I believe that in the process harmed his reputation with them (I hope). The request was simple, have an official investigation on the problems that not only PARSA, but many other organizations had witnessed and could attest to. The meeting did not need to go in the direction that the minister took it. The man went on and on about how much had been done already, defending his position and the actions that had been taken so far. As far as PARSA and the other NGO's were concerned none of this matters, if the orphanages are not running well, something needs to be done to change it. End of story! My mother was
After, listening to this monologue for about 20 minutes, my mother found her chance, stood up, and addressed the meeting one last time. She thanked the minister for the formation of the committee, said she expected the ministry to follow up on their promise to initiate changes based on the official investigation and the committee’s recommendations. She said that now the discussion had turned defensive and she was done with it. The PARSA staff then got up and walked out of the meeting. Mom was not interested in listening to a bullshit defense, nor was she going to listen to someone slam her organization’s integrity.
As I walked out with my mother, I couldn’t help but feel immensely proud. She has such presence and courage in front of people. She is a great speaker and is not afraid to take a stand on important issues, even under very adverse circumstances. I gained even more respect for her than I already had. She takes on so many projects and issues and always puts everything she has into her work. It’s been so long since I’ve really seen her in action. Having grown up watching her work (she never was into day care for my brother and I so we were drug around with her for years), I think I forgot how great she is at what she does. She is absolutely my hero.
It is unclear whether the minister we met with will really bring about any substantial change, however at least what my mother wanted will happen. There will be an investigative committee on the conditions of the orphanages. Hopefully there will be a policy of minimum standards made and followed through with. Mom has her doubts, but we shall see.
Later that evening Mabouba and her husband Hassan came over for dinner. I made fresh pasta salad and cooked hot dogs (sort of). It was explained to me that Hassan was once a Mujahadeen general. He was in charge of 4 or 5 major generals, had thousands of fighters under his command and was responsible for kicking the Russians out of Jalalabad during the Afghan-Russian war. He is revered as a hero and practically a saint given his family background. He is a soft-spoken, unassuming man whom I like very much. When asked about his experiences he merely said that he never wanted to be a soldier, but his country needed him. He doesn’t really talk much about his experiences. Once the fighting dissolved into Afghans fighting Afghans he left the country for America, just recently having returned.
The day was a good one, especially seeing my mom in action here. I was so proud of her, at several points throughout the meeting at the ministry that I was almost moved to tears. The world is a better place for my mother’s presence.

2007-04-28T07:36:00.000-07:00

Journal entries from Afghanistan

4/25/07
So I’m sitting here in the Seattle Tacoma airport. Just got through check in and security. Now I have 2 hours to wait until my flight. Excessive security measures require 3 hours advance arrival for international flights. I got through check-in and security within 30 minutes.
As I look around me at all the other international travelers enjoying a cocktail before their flight, I can’t help but ask myself, “ are they going somewhere as crazy as I am? “ In most cases no! As I’m riding a British Airways flight most of them are probably going to a destination in Europe somewhere, though Africa and Asia aren’t out of the question. Who is going to the Middle East? Not many Americans that’s for sure.
Am I crazy? Why am I going to a place where Americans are openly disdained? Is it going to be as bad as it seems it would be? The reactions of people that I told I was going to go to Afghanistan were exactly what I would have predicted given the portrayal of the war on terror by American media. An incredulous “why?” was the overwhelming response to the statement. My sarcastic retort: “for vacation!”. Which of course brought even further incredulity.
Why? What a great question. Superficially this is a trip to visit my mother. Granted I do really miss my mother, but there is a whole host of other reasons that are a little closer to the truth of the matter. I was always able to resist my mom’s attempts at luring me out to Afghanistan in the past. However it is really the change in my own self that is allowing me the courage to undertake what will likely be the most challenging travel I’ve ever undergone. The past year of my life I’ve undergone a transformation of self that I feel has left me in the right spot to take this trip. There are things I want to prove to myself that this trip will allow. I truly love other cultures, people, and ways of life. In past travels I have found myself feeling homesick for the “good ole US of A” . This was more likely a function of missing loved ones back home than missing the way of life. This time I have no girlfriends back home waiting for me, nothing other than my wonderful family, which is always there. My girlfriend is actually in Japan right now, starting her own adventure, while I start mine.
What freedom! To take off and leave the country for two months without a thought to what is left behind. This is a wonderful feeling of independence and self direction. I’ve never really had this before, and it excites me.
I want to talk for a bit about the reactions and impressions of “my fellow Americans” upon hearing that I was going to Afghanistan. While in Montana I received the typical conservative American response. “Don’t get your head cut off by a terrorist” was pretty common, or “I’ll see you on CNN” was another good one. It was rare to hear anything other than a “you’re crazy” type of response. The idea that an American would go to Afghanistan for any reason other than military engagement was unreal to them. Most Americans these days see a middle eastern man and have a gut reaction of distrust. Although understandable given our history, its too much a “black and white” distinction, which Americans have become good at as of late. Most Americans believe that all middle eastern muslims hate America. Is this true? I think I know the answer to this question but would like to verify it with my own experiences. I’d like to compare the ideas Americans have of the region, people, and religion; impressions influenced by the intense media coverage on the matter as of late; to the facts on the ground in Afghanistan.
Are there differences between what is being portrayed here and the realities of the conflict? If there are then, is there a motive behind this or is it just reactionary? Is there true design behind the propaganda or is it just a function of fear run wild? Fear has caused terrible scenarios in the past. Consider the average German during WWII-did they all hate Jews? Probably not, but why would they let such horrible things happen under their noses? Fear. When a leader learns to wield fear upon his populace, he can get almost anything to seem reasonable. It is a tool that has been used and abused in the past. Is 21st century America a case of this? I hope not but fear it to be true.
So off I go, with lofty ideas and questions in my head, to one of the few places in the world where I probably shouldn’t go. Oh well, you only live once. Right?

My arrival in Kabul-Colin

2007-04-28T05:13:00.000-07:00

4/28/07

Wow, I’m here! I was picked up yesterday afternoon from the wonderful Kabul airport by mom and Norm after 40 hours of some of the most grueling air travel I’ve ever experienced. Everything went fairly smoothly, no real problems surprisingly enough. Dubai was an interesting experience. I had originally been told by my mother and Mahbouba that I could check my bags all the way through to Kabul, however that was not the case. I had to claim my bags and transfer them to a second terminal to check them into my Kam Air flight to Kabul. I wanted to stay in the main terminal as long as I could, yet as I got shuffled through the system at the airport I found my self with bags on a trolley outside of the airport. I tried to get back in, and had been told by a few people that I could check my bags through at the international terminal and then go over to the other terminal closer to my departure time. I eventually, through many different communication attempts with tall Arab men in all white, found that this was not the case and that furthermore, I had to take a taxi (no free shuttle) to the other terminal. I couldn’t get back into the main part of the terminal, which is actually very nice with lots to do, because I didn’t have a departure ticket from that terminal. With nothing else to do, I got a taxi and went to the second terminal, went through security, only to find that I couldn’t check into my flight for another 5 hours. So I was stuck in this area next to the check in booths that had no facilities or services (no toilets!), and couldn’t go back out to the toilets or the one snack bar available, because the security guards didn’t want the hassle of checking my bags again (there were 8 of them sitting around with nothing to do, but for some reason this would have caused great problems). I had no options but to post up and try and sleep sitting, with my head resting on my luggage. Didn’t happen. Now I should remind you that I had just completed 17 hours of flight and had been awake for more than 24 hours by this point.
I met two Afghan Canadians returning to Kabul for the first time since they had fled the violence 20 years previously. These men were more nervous about going to Afghanistan than I was, and they spoke the language and blend in. They couldn’t believe I was going, and were very concerned for me. They advised me not to leave Kabul for any reason. They were very nice, and I eventually felt safe enough to leave them watching my luggage while I went outside security to get some water and go to the restroom. By 5 am I was able to check in, go through more security, and get to the departures section of the terminal where I could buy some food, use the restroom and relax for another 3 hours until my flight left.
While waiting to depart I met a man working for NATO in Kabul. He had been in the country for 4 months and lived in the main international area where most foreigners spend all of their time. Much different than how mom and Norm go about things. He also seemed amazed that I was going for “vacation” and also advised me not to leave Kabul. He said that most of the country was fine, but there were certainly “no go” areas for westerners. It was the random acts that could happen anytime, anywhere to watch for (hard to do when their random). This man was very nice, and he talked me through the Kabul arrival, so that it would go smoothly. I just followed him when I got off the plane in Kabul, and was able to get through the various steps smoothly and efficiently (as much as possible in a dimly lit baggage claim with Afghans running around all over the place, and most foreigners not having a clue what to do. I passed through one last security screening as I left the airport (What’s the point?) and found mom and Norm waiting by the parking lot. Everything was less hectic than I had imagined it. Way easier than getting through the Addis Ababa airport in Ethiopia. I was not accosted by people trying to carry my bags for me or get me a taxi, which was a pleasant surprise.
I was so excited to see mom and Norm, and I could tell mom was relieved to have me there safe. We drove the “scenic route” to my parents compound in the Karte Se neighborhood, and I got to see Kabul for the first time.
Oh the smells of the third world. It is always the first, thing I notice, even as I step off of the plane in a country like this. Dust, burning garbage, kerosene, dirty fuel burning cars, uncensored male body odor, open sewers and the occasional wafting of cheap cologne/perfume. This menagerie assaults someone from the developed world, as we are unaccustomed to the quantity and intensity of smells in our sterile lives.
We got to my parents house, which is very nice and comfortable, with oriental rugs and handmade fabrics all over place. They have collected some beautiful hand carved wood furniture that would probably cost a fortune in the states, but is quite affordable here. The garden is started and promises to be a nice little green sanctuary later this summer. Their animals are many, and the politics are intense, yet they provide endless entertainment.
We went to the Marastoon compound where the new Parsa office is about to open. It promises to be quite the organization. I met Yasin, his second wife Salia and their son Osmond, along with Salia’s brother Assef. They are wonderful people that I immediately felt comfortable with. We toured the whole compound and met some of the orphans out playing. They are very curious about me, but on the whole, polite and respectful. I saw their football field, covered in rocks, and not level at all, with piles of stones as goal posts. Most of them run around in bare feet. I talked with Yasin about finding someone work the field until its smooth and well graded, and am going
to have some real goals built. This will be my little contribution to the compound. Their gardener costs only 4 dollars a day to hire, so I think that for the price of about $50 I can get them a nice place to play football. Under Taliban rule there was no playing allowed by children, so there are not many playfields in Kabul.
We had a wonderful little meal at the compound of chicken tandoor, rice and some sort of spinach dish, with fresh watermelon and bananas as desert. Yasin’s son Osemond ran around all over the place, but as typical of Afghan families was included in everything. I think I will like Afghanistan. It is truly different than Africa, I feel less foreign here, less out of place, less of an object to be stared at. Afghans seem truly friendly and hospitable, at least the ones that I have met so far. I’m happy to be here, and look forward to seeing more of Kabul and the outer provinces. It is truly an amazing country.

My son Colin-begins his journal and his journey.

2007-04-28T05:04:00.000-07:00

Afghan Spirit...images from my trip into Pakistan

2007-04-05T03:17:00.000-07:00

I just returned from a great trip to Pakistan with Mahbouba, her husband Hassan, and Ariane-all Afghan Americans with deep family roots in Afghanistan. Here are some whimsical images...I keep trying to find ways to express how funny, whimsical, creative and unexpected the Afghans are and I am getting some good pictures. We traveled down through Jalalabad, spending the night in Hassan's family estate...warm air and orange blossoms-palm trees. Onto the Khyber Pass and through hellishly chaotic border crossing...the austere looking gentleman owns the peacocks and he coaxed the male into showing his beautiful tail. Afghans love birds and this man was incredibly gentle with his birds and animals. The Afghan gentleman in the beautiful Russian scarf turban was on the border...homeless, hungry, slightly mad but happy in spirit and he had an amazingly stylish flair in his dress....the hard part about understanding the Afghan's and their plight is that there is really nothing pathetic about them. When we visited a model orphanage in Rawalpindi, the director commented about the difference between local cultures during the earthquake crisis and how many, many communities used the crisis as an opportunity to get as much in the way of services and money as possible...but the Pushtuns invoved that lived on the Afghan/Pakistan border were proud, gracious and they were barely willing to accept basic help from the donor agencies. She had utmost respect for the Afghans...the photo of the truck and mountain is the exact border crossing.

A Friday walk---and a Day Glo Goat...

2007-03-26T20:03:00.000-07:00

Happy New Year-1386

2007-03-22T23:35:00.000-07:00

This is a picture out of our bedroom window of our neighbor exercising his pigeons-I supppose Afghans have been exercising their pigeons off the rooftops in Afghanistan ever since Kabul began.

Norm and I have had a heavenly two days of quiet...a luxury for westerners here...something that Afghans have difficulty understanding as their idea of heaven is a room full of relatives-eating and chatting. For the new year, we recieved "Seven Fruits" as a gift from our Yasin and Salia, and ventured out in the streets to find a hill to walk but the streets were filled with Afghans trying to find a place to picnic. Traffic being rated as the highest stressor here in Kabul (by Afghans) above suicide bombers.

My son is getting ready to come and visit me-my mother is extremely nervous and it seems that the airwaves are full of dire stories of the disentegration and chaos here....as usual not the whole picture or even part of the picture. In fact, as far as I am concerned it is all old news and the upheaval was anticipated and is being addressed. American media has not lost their ability to promulgate fear, hopelessness and the sense that nothing we do makes a difference-a view of the world I do not subscribe to.

I will stand corrected if the predicted "spring offensive" materializes and impacts us...the conditions do not seem much different from when I started coming to Afghanistan-but Afghans-at least in Kabul are getting on with life. Especially as our hard winter relents and is turning into spring. Maybe it is just our two year mark and we are used to exercising caution and living with it but we feel like peace has taken root and is imminent.

An “Afghan Women’s Walking Dog” ..the daughter of a “fighting dog”….

2007-03-21T09:57:00.000-07:00

My dog, ChooChay (little one) has been with us a year and a half…I take her for a walk periodically and I am unlucky if I do it when the high school gets out. I am just fluent enough in Dari to understand the casual comments obnoxious, high spirited school boys make about me and my dog….dogs in Afghanistan are feared, persecuted, admired and I always raise comment when I walk her. Afghans have what are called “fighting dogs” or “Sahgee-Jangee” that are expensive and magnificent. We have one around the corner that stands almost to my chest-who waltzes out for his walk with his fierce Pushtun owner in smart red boots. They are bred for fighting and having one is quite fashionable as well as speaks well for ones courage. Pictured here is “Palang”
or Tiger –a fighting dog we encountered on our walk today.
One day on a walk with my Choochay, a couple of neighborhood high school boys saw her and sniggered in an offensive way. I was just irritable enough to turn on them and ask them what they were looking at…..”Your dog, it is a bad dog” they commented.
“Why do you say that? I asked.
“Well she has no chest, and is not big enough to win a fight. She is a small poor example of a dog”.
“Oh” I answered.” But you are mistaken. She is not a fighting dog. Men do not even have permission to walk her….in fact, she is an “Afghan Women’s Walking Dog”.
They looked at Choochay with astonishment having never conceived of such a dog, or in fact of Afghan women ever walking dogs.
“She protects me.” I said smugly.
“Oh!” they said " in this case she is a very beautiful dog…and it is right that she is with you…”
I could hear them as they walked away...agreeing that an Afghan Women's Walking Dog is an imminently sensible idea-if you could get an Afghan women to agree to get near a dog enough to walk with one.

This success in establishing the usefulness and beauty of my dog in the neighbor boys eyes has gone to my head....I am now dead bent on getting some henna so I can dip her paws and make them red…the ultimate sign of regard for a dog…after red boots.

I am home...

2007-02-01T01:56:00.000-08:00

Sunrise on the Paghman mountains. I have arrived to subzero temperatures-an ice block for a house with our water tanks completely frozen...and no husband. He is in the states trying to get an Afghan visa...a mystifying process with an indefinite time line. Glad to be home though and animals happy to see me.

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My home in Kabul-One and 1/2 years...

2006-12-19T09:28:00.000-08:00

I have left Kabul for home and finally time to update my journal. At over the year and 1/2 mark Norm and I marvel at our adjustments and we finally feel at home. A lot of questions from friends...security? The current situation was all predicted by experts at the time we initiated the Iraq war. I have a great faith in the Afghan people and in fact my own. The unfairness of behind medias focus on the war is that it paints a one-dimensional picture of a very complex country and serves to make the rest of the world feel that Afghanistan is a lost cause and not worth investment. I feel that there is little good in trying to predict the future...only work to focus on at hand.

Currently, I feel most at risk from Kabul's electricians and "Wanna be" electricians such as our operations manager, Gulam Ali. Dawn recently had an unpleasant shock when she tried to take a shower one morning and the electric current passed through the shower water from one of Gulam's (our operation manager) fixes. His three day electrical revamp of our home resulted in the destruction of our entire city blocks power access. I love Gulam but I am now prohibiting him from even changing light bulbs now. He is the master of resourcefulness, short cuts and low cost electircal fixes....I am retiring him in this capacity. I consider it a serious security measure.

I love my home. It was built in the 1940's from adobe mud and with beautiful wood ceilings. Aisha- our head widow in our sewing room and designer has helped me furnish it with Afghan style furniture (floor pillows). Immediate peace for me when I walk in my door.

After a long silence...

2006-06-09T01:29:00.000-07:00

Dear folks,
I am sorry for the long silence-especially during such an eventful couple of months. We have moved and I don't have access to internet in the evenings which is when I was able to keep up my journal. Norm and I leave for the US in three days and I will have time to catch up before we head back here. Dates for US are June 16th through July 12th and I will be staying at our home at Harper. Take care. M

Farsi Lessons...

2006-02-23T19:28:00.000-08:00

With the signing of our new contracts and plans for an extended stay we have hired a "farsi" teacher to give us intensive lessons at home. 21 year old- Rahmad Ali, is enthusiastic, loves teaching and loves us. "Mature" people being revered in this culture he angles for more time and dinner when ever he can. He shouts his lessons at us as if in a room of 50 students, cracks corny jokes and admonishes us to practice and study. After a couple of three hour lessons where Norm and I found ourselves chanting our verb conjugations in unison using the traditional Afghan rote method of learning I managed to organize our lessons around two principles. I will never study so make use of the time with me. And If I am thinking about what I am doing and I am creative I will remember the lesson. Rahmad was gracious and organized the lessons differently and then was astonished at how much we retained.

Norm is learning very fast but I had enough pidgeon-farsi to get along so I am struggling to relinguish what I know and relearn. Norm has the grammar and order of sentences much better. I have learned enough to be dangerous. After I greeted Mahbouba saying "May you never be alive"....informed her that I was going to "Buy Mr. Atoi..." and that "Women Parliamentarians play cards with the people of Afghanistan" She has forbidden me to use my farsi until I am more versed in it-especially given the high profile work we are doing. I am allowed to say "Salam" and "Khoh" (good) in public settings. However, I still have my good comprehension and I can understand most of what is going on around me-even to the point that I heard two little boys plotting to set off a fire cracker under a poor, sleeping dog and I was able to shame them and chase them off.
I am however, highly motivated to learn now, as Mahbouba is finding too much humor in my mangled attempts to speak.

Sorry for such a long silence...

2006-02-22T06:53:00.000-08:00

Well, for a while here it seems that all I have to report on is puppy's and plumbing. Norm and I have news about our work which I will start updating you on my other blog "Working in Afghanistan". Our plumbing is working now after two more weeks of mishaps. And we have all puppies adopted but two puppies still living with us..."Patu Puppy" with the fetching Afghan coat that the girls at PARSA made her and a little tiny girl I rescued last week-abandoned by mother-shivering in a depression in the street. We call her "Pookie Bear" and all love her. Yasin has claimed her for her own but she stays with us until thursday. She is smaller than our kitten,Pee Shue Gak, who has had baby dog in a headlock every chance she can get. I am delighted to say that I have connected up with the woman who runs "Tigger House" and we are going to start puppy rescue in April so I will be moving that story onto my "Working in Afghanistan" page....more later.

More on "Pelumbing"

2006-01-31T04:36:00.000-08:00

Not taking my own advice....I decided that we would once and for all handle our plumbing. We began marathon negotiations with the landlord, requiring tricky strategies and counter strategies as to who would pay what. We engaged "our" plumber who came highly recommended. And we started. Two days later, our carpet which has been liberally soaked in water during the renovation of our plumbing is ruined....Our weekend was spent in companionship with the plumber and his tools, dogs and cats stealing his plumbers "hair" that he wraps pipes with-Gulam Ali who is in charge of all jobs to do with fixing things, proudly showed us how the upstairs bathroom worked spraying the sprayer and turning all of the knobs. It was an electricity night and I went to bed with the notion that I would be able to hop in the shower and wash for the first time since I can remember-instead of heating my water by wood, pouring it into the bathtub-adding cold and sitting in two inches of tepid water-a 1/2 hour operation.

The next morning-the lever broke on the shower handle-no cold water and the toilet seat was hanging by a thread. That day Mahbouba cautiously asked if any bathroom was operational-tentatively ventured in and came out laughing so hard that tears ran down her cheeks-as 4 days into it the bathroom light gave her a shock, the toilet seat came apart and when she went to wash her hands the water just funneled onto the floor. This display apparently hurt their feelings so they redoubled their efforts to please and Norm says the bathroom looks like the inside of a submarine.

The staff are very sensitive to our mood and by noon, when I couldn't wash my hands or find a bathroom to use- and lunch was late for some unknown reason-I was having a "get me on any plane-even to Moscow but just get me out of here!" day...The staff started to feel insecure and want to make sure we are happy. And they began rearranging our stuff with new heights of creativity, effort and resourcefulness. Both Gulam Ali and our housekeeper, Aisha competed for the honor of pleasing my eye refreshing our house with little arrangements-Making me crazy...The plumbers of Afghanistan are a secret weapon...I am convinced.

The Kabul school of plumbing...

2006-01-23T00:16:00.000-08:00

This sign explains it all. It says "Pelumbing...and Belding...no offer not accepted". I have a dear friend, Dede Sherrard who started his life as a plumber now working as an inventer and engineer. He also is dyslexic, which no one in the family has too much sensitivity or compassion for as he is so accomplished. I have to notify him that I have found "his people" the creative Afghan plumbers. There is a street of "plumbers" with signs that say "Plummery", and "Plum.bing" and offer mysterious services such as "sanitary washes" , "pips are blown", "no piepe untouched". And all, of course, would never disappoint a customer and say they don't know how to handle most plumbing jobs.

Kabul's water systems were functional once, as we lived here when this was so but 23 years have taken its toll and any house that has not been almost re-built around a new plumbing system doesn't work. And the biggest mystery is where does all the sewage go. We now know that it goes under our gift shop, as our plumbing came to an abrupt end after it left our house- fact that we discovered after living here for a week and the sewage backed up into the kitchen and erupted all over the bathroom. But no one has been able to tell us what we do when the big hole under the gift shop gets full. A very Afghan custom is to wait until the problem happens to figure out the solution.

Mahbouba called me in tears of laughter over the fact that in her townhouse-her husband wanted a brand newly remodeled house to avoid problems-the sewage had erupted all over the floor this week-and they were borrowing bathroom time at neighbors. By Wednesday this got very old but they could not find a plumber who could actually fix it. The plumbers just come and go-do something which doesn't work- and then shake their heads.

So, Dede, as much as I miss everybody, we should probably get you over here ASAP as the stress of not being able to flush our toilets, take showers, baths..is really taking a toll on the expat community....I looked at my husband this week with his hair standing on end, and grime under his nails and asked him if he would like a bath, as we have been without a shower for 3 weeks now..I bypass all of the plumbing and use a good old-fashioned fire heated water heater and "draw" my bath...When he snapped defensively "I have bathed this week already" I knew we have somehow turned a corner here and if I don't get the plumbing fixed soon...I am going to lose him to the "kinar robs" and "tashnaub" method of bathing- a pint of water splashed over critical parts...Help, Dede.

Missing my mother in Seattle...

2006-01-17T21:21:00.000-08:00

My mom was the final impetus behind our family move to Afghanistan 36+ years ago and she insisted that her daughters write letters to our family at home to help connect us while we were so far away. She loves to write and communicates so beautifully through her writing that as a result all three of us have the same passion. I have to share some excerpts of her letters to me. There are not many mothers who can comfort and advise their daughter in Afghanistan. I told the "jinn" cousins about her letters and they have asked for her address to get advice on their domestic troubles with their cook. I think that Mom has a unique niche in the world of advice columns.

Mother writes:
....."when I got up this morning there was the full moon going down in west over the Olympics. Frosty roofs. No fog but evidence of icy streets. Have thought of you all week as the moon progressed, thinking that you were also seeing it earlier with the snowy mountains around Kabul."

"The Afghan winter is severe under the best of situations. Can you roast goat...will your electricity stay on long enough? needs to be slow. That was one dinner we all liked with lots of garlic. Also the yogurt that Nana made using dry powdered milk. It sounds like you are pretty confined to compound with the state of the roads and isolated. The kids are no doubt expressing the anger & frustration of the adults....with not enough food, warm shelter or clothing. Easy to understand but very hard to live with and keep your perspective. The more farsi you learn, the better in these circumstances. I wonder if "dwana bachas" (crazy boys) might not be a good reply to the taunts about your dog.?? Big article in Times last night about the opening of the fancy 5 star hotel in Kabul....how can that fuel anything but resentment with the population?"

(On my note to my son Colin)
....."Marnie....well that message got Ruth & I laughing pretty hard. I got corrected by Fran earlier. His address has an underline: colin_hume@yahoo.com....don't know if that would make a difference. But having an London Colin Hume answering to "write me you big poop of a son" in such a nice way is quite a feat. As you know from where you are....life is very fragile and we need to love each other and not call our son a poop! xox mom"

The "jinn" cousins...

2006-01-17T08:29:00.000-08:00

In Jalalabad we were treated to three days with what I now call the "Jinn" cousins. A "jinn" being something along the lines of a spirit but Afghan style which means it can be good or bad....but it is always disruptive. Afghans being renowned for drama, a wicked sense of humor as well as a limitless capacity to talk about anything made our vacation a three day marathon of teasing, stories by the fire, political arguments, commentary on fashion, and being filled in on history from their very personal experience. Mahbouba and Selma ( the scary looking ones) are first cousins and descendants of Abdur Rahman, Habibullah, and Amanuallah...Trina (the beautiful) is a convoluted cousin but I have to enquire further as relatives are a very complicated thing here. These three talked from morning to night and nothing escaped sharp eyes and an opportunity to tweak noses. Then we topped it all off with a solemn trip to their progenitors graves sites in Jalalbad...where I thanked Allah for their irreverent and loving presences in my life.

A brief respite in Jalalabad

2006-01-17T06:21:00.000-08:00

Mahbouba could hear me moping in Kabul all the way from Jalalabad and she called me to invite me down or rather she said "Pack up and get your butt down here." It took me all of 20 minutes to arrange it and we were off. Jalalabad is east down through the mountains and the weather was gorgeous. It was a lift to get out of cold and snowy Kabul.

We were invited to stay at Mahbouba's husband, Hassan Gailani's family house in Jalalabad and to spend a couple of days there was an unusually close glimpse of Afghanistan's history. Hassan's uncle is the head of a sufi religious sect that originated in Iraq and migrated here. The family were also major resistance fighters during the war with Russia. The house was on a beautiful plantation, rebuilt and staffed by "followers". Jalalabad has flowers, orange trees is full fruit, and was mild and fragrant. In the days before the war most of the influential Afghan families had homes in Jalalabad for winter. I found the following excerpt that described the Gailani's.

"Hazrat Naqib Sahib, father of Sayyid Ahmad Gailani Effendi, the present pir of the Qadiriya, established the family seat in Afghanistan on the outskirts of Jalalabad during the 1920s. Pir Ahmad Gailani is the leader of the mujahidin Mahaz-i Melli Islami party. The leadership of both the Naqshbandiya and Qadiriya orders derive from heredity rather than religious scholarship.

Afghanistan is unique in that there is little hostility between the ulama and the Sufi orders. Numbers of Sufi leaders are considered as ulama, and many ulama closely associate with Sufi brotherhoods. The general populace accords Sufis respect for their learning and for possessing karamat, the psychic spiritual power conferred upon them by God that enables pirs to perform acts of generosity and bestow blessings (barakat). Sufism therefore is an effective popular force.
In addition, since Sufi leaders distance themselves from the mundane, they are at times turned to as more disinterested mediators in tribal disputes in preference to mullahs who are reputed to escalate minor secular issues into volatile confrontations couched in Islamic rhetoric."

We visited a remarkable "Kallo" a fortress like adobe fort that Hassan's family wintered in that was unoccupied during the war but is remarkably preserved for this kind of construct. This is a very, very old type of building that we see all over the country but this one was very handsome in its day.

A sweet moment when the "Malem, Saihib" who took care of us and arranged armed escort, brought a young boy to Hassan for his prayers and blessings. An ancient moment.

Hassan is the heir to the current "Pir" and he has two brothers and a cousin elected to parliament. I look forward to watching this family as they participate in the rebuilding of Afghanistan.

Eid and our next level of culture shock...

2006-01-09T21:56:00.000-08:00

I remember a story my mother told me about when we were here when I was a child. My mother was talking to our Afghan landlord on the balcony of our house and she was exclaiming over the beauty of Kabul in the wintertime. The surrounding mountains are spectacular when covered with snow. And the landlord said "Ah, yes they are beautiful but then you can leave them...for me they are a prison."

Norm and I had made plans to go to Pakistan for a couple of days because we have been working non-stop for months now. I had really looked forward to this as I missed a trip north because of work. But the Pakistani consultate must have learned from the same "customer service" book as the Afghans-first priority is to tease and enrage your customer. He spent a good long morning at the consulate, of course, he did not have all the required references and documents and he was sent away empty handed and told to come back on Sunday. He did and was promptly notified that the consulate had left for Pakistan and no more visa's would be issued until after Eid. I was surprised at my reaction which was a sense of claustrophobia...and a desire to get out of the country anyway possible...even if just for a few days. I am so used to being able to travel our large continent with no restrictions it is strange to be here with no way out!

This Islamic holiday, Eid, when the pilgrims make their Haj to Mecca, is a holiday where sacrificial animals are slaughtered so not my favorite holiday here as I see these beautiful animals standing waiting their turn...however I have more respect for a culture in which butchering is all part of the day here, than us at home who do not witness the death of our meal and are disconnected from the unpleasantness and pain of it.

Norm and I have no staff and no drivers in an attempt to give everyone holiday, so we walked downtown to the huge bazaar, Mandai-ee. It is for the most part just frequented by Afghans because so much of the goods are new, cheap imports from Pakistan, Iran and China. But rich in tradition. They don't see foreigners there much so lots of staring but quite a few strangers stopped to talk to us or to help us. We are both taking Dari lessons again, and I can for the most part understand what people are saying and respond. Norm was taking my picture in the melee that the bazaar was and a man right next to me commented saying "look! the foreigners are taking a picture! to which I notified him "These foreigners understand you! and you can address us directly!" They don't mean to be rude but just are not used to us at all, which is strange for me -as a child I was in that bazaar often -I even remember where certain places are and I never experienced being strange.

We had a great day. We have been steadily reducing our reliance on our staff to attain a more normal life than is expected for foreigners here. We have two days now without staff altogether and are minimizing our needs. We realized yesterday that next to go is our driver. We can actually walk downtown in the time it takes to drive in this traffic (and we desparately need exercise) as well as we cannot explore with driver in tow the way we both love to. So, next purchase, an old Russian Jeep...we won't drive much in Kabul -impossible but we will be so much less dependent- which we really need now.

There seem to be so many layers to culture shock and just when I think I am getting used to it here I will get hit sideways with something so alien to me that I get upset. But we ended our day yesterday in our own neighborhood bazaar-and everyone was buying presents and excited about upcoming holiday. An Iranian woman went out of her way to speak to me out of friendliness. I saw an old Hazara help a young man up from a bicycle fall. Everytime I start to feel critical if I observe closely I will see these small but important gestures of humanity and kindness that is at the heart of the Afghan people.

The demise of the Xmas tree brings snow...

2006-01-03T07:16:00.000-08:00

Well, finally, after everyone started worrying...snow arrived in Kabul. No one wants to see a draught again and it was getting late in the season. We stocked up on wood again. Three puppies left, and they like to stack up on top of each other like Yertle the Turtles and peer in the window looking at Ahmad Zia at work who has an intense fear of dogs. The "pee shoe" gang took down the Xmas tree. We are coming up on Eid when muslims go to Mecca for the Haj.

Mahbouba is back and has moved into her own house with her husband. Nothing works all at the same time...and she has spent the summer fall watching me struggle with my household difficulties-vastly amused while living at her sisters well established house...now the tables are turned and I am really unmoved and unsympathetic. Today, she had no water because the pipes are frozen. I think it is funny.

I was unable to get pictures New Years Eve but Norm and I went to Mahbouba's party at her brother-in-laws-Daoud's. I realized shortly into it that I was with the old royal family-grand daughters of Zaher Shah, and everyone a cousin to the next. It was so interesting to hear all of them talk about Afghanistan, past and now. And to realize that each of them are trying to recover and to assist their country in their own way. It was very different than being with expatriates because the expats are here for a very short time and the feeling is of such transiency and no depth to their commitment to this country-with special exceptions of course. Yesterday I was coming back from bazaar and a 30 year old woman came up to me asking for work. She was distraught because she had been working for some "koragee" or foreigners and they left to go back to Germany. She seemed so bewildered and surprised that they could just leave and she could be without work or money to feed her daughter. How we must seem to them, coming here for such a short while and then going.

I love being with the Afghans who have such a long history of this country and who are back to stay (although they might go back and forth to their foster country).

Days and days of proposal writing and writing to finish the survey. I sit in my cozy office by the wood "bukhari" now watching the snow and I have such a beautiful view of the snow covered mountains that ring Kabul. I am from the Northwest where we are lucky to get one day of snow a year. And after the initial wet snow and dealing with "choo chay" who became a mud dog from head to toe wresting with mother dog I decided I was finished with winter but now I am loving the beauty of it and I am glad we can afford wood.

2005-12-30T21:17:00.000-08:00

Norm went to Mazaar-i-Sharif last week with Habib and Ahmad Zia. I was planning on going as well but had to stay behind to work. It is such a treat to get out of Kabul and Norm has been here for 4 straight months. Mazaar-I-Sharif is in the province of Balkh and the city of Balkh is the birthplace of the 13th century poet, Rumi. (first photo). Afghans have a great tradition of poetry present in their daily language and the dialect of "Dari" which is "Farsi" would sound like old English to us-complete with "thee" and "thou" and prefacing important pronouncements with "in the name of Almighty Allah".

It is challenge to conduct trainings in organizational development with a translator because we tend to have to spend time trying to define the concepts. For example "bottomline" in English might be translated as "where the rivers converge to make the tide flow" and then I would have to say "No, more like where the match meets the firewood to make the fire burn..."and these metaphors just simply don't communicate like they do in the short and abrupt English language.
Imagine trying to lead a business meeting where you try to emphasize the importance of the bottomline or taking corrective action in "Dari" It might sound something like this "Listen, La La, Jaan, (big brother, dear) you need to pay more attention to where your match meets the firewood"....... or you try to discourage gossip among your employees (stop "carrying the watermelon under your arm for them")...It is a whole new world for Western consultants and without great translators we often miss the mark.

I heard of one consultant who felt he was doing a fantastic job of getting across the definition of a "paradigm" in business-only to be told by an Afghan American in the audience that what his translator was discussing was a description of how beautiful his home province of Laghman was-as he couldn't firgure out how to translate "paradigm" into his metaphorical and poetic language and he didn't want to disappoint.

Mahbouba and I are starting a manual for working on organizational development concepts with Afghan managers. Our first chapter will be about the concept "He is eating my heart and liver" which is a behavior that is a cross between "passive-aggressiveness" and "the peanut gallery"...and at its worse it becomes like a team sport-the victim of which becomes enraged to the point of insanity.

But as you can see from Norm's pictures it is an ancient and heart breakingly beautiful country. Afghan's are justifiably proud of their legacy of great poets and I hope they do not lose this as they move back into the 21st century.

Almost a new year...

2005-12-30T06:49:00.000-08:00

Well, I am starting to recount my survey experience but have put it on a new journal called "Working in Afghanistan". (see link on side of this page) We have a standing date with Dr. Patricia Omidian on thursdays where I send all staff home for the weekend, light a fire, cook a simple meal and we debrief from the week and try to make sense of our life here. Soon, I will be able to share more insights but the hard truth is that I am just living the very immediate life of trying to run a household, an NGO where I live, and develop the programs for women I came to Kabul to produce...all while essentially living in the middle of a power outage-in the maelstrom that is Kabul. By the end of the day yesterday, my hands were black from trying to keep our Afghan "bukhari's" or stoves going all day, and our wood heated hot water had sprung a leak so there was no hot water and I hadn't had a bath in three days-which believe me means something different here than back at home...our new gas oven had blown out on our little Zeba causing burns on her risk and frizzing her hair and scaring us...it is a zoo.

We are sending Norm off to "Pinjao" this week to get him out of Kabul -which he throughly enjoys and I am hoping to finally get ahead of my workload since Mahbouba is back.

The vandals are taking apart our Christmas wedding decorations...I guess it is time for a New Year...Love to all.

The "muppies" and how it is working out...

2005-12-26T06:12:00.000-08:00

At times I have really questioned my sanity as we have had close to 12 dogs here, wrestling in the yard and scaring the staff. In Afghanistan, Afghans are justifiable scared of dogs because the population is diseased and out of control. I took in 10 puppies and a very damaged mother dog and we have been caring for them. We have adopted 7 puppies out now-to Afghans-defying the notion that they do not care for animals, specifically dogs. Our puppies-well cared for- they love our staff who have given all of our puppies beautiful necklaces and they genuinely care for them and enjoy their presence during the day. I have been looking for a better solution than running a rescue operation out of my home.

When I was on survey our big fat "Pee Shoe", (cat) caught a virus and Norm managed to find an angel of a volunteer vet, Susan who was here to train vets at Kabul University who saved our cat. I met with her and she came back the next day and vaccinated my entire menagerie, but we cooked up a plan to start a puppy rescue operation at the Kabul University vet training center. Kabul U would provide the medical care and I want to start a training center for assistance dogs for the disabled.

She introduced me to James Hogan , in London, of the Mayhew Animal Care foundation who is supporting the training of vets in Kabul and we are now exchanging letters about how to develop programs that make sense to the Afghans.

PARSA's Director of Rehabilitation,Yasin, loves my puppies and has taken 5 home and is now working with his staff on how to train dogs. He is wonderful. I asked him if he would be interested in developing an assistants training program with dogs to assist his disabled patients and he is very enthusiastic about this.

James just responded to my inquiries about financial assistance and it seems that we may be able to get some assistance from his organization.

In Afghanistan, dogs are considered almost like rats in our culture, so to accomplish a change like this would be quite extraordinary. Not for the sentimentality for animals but the out-of-control situation here is truly a health hazard. Rabies is endemic and I am afraid to walk my dog in the streets because the dogs are dangerous.

From a personal point of view, as I learn from this experience of being here, the violence visited on the animals here is indicative of the level of violence tolerated toward children and women. I and Mahbouba, have decided that our training programs this year will be geared toward offsetting the result of the years of war-which is that violence needs to be stopped toward all.

This program is very personal and sweet. My dogs have transformed remarkably under my simple and loving care. I wish working with people was so simple. But I have a great faith in the Afghans. They are loving and gregarious in nature and by culture. We will see...here his what James wrote me. I am including because it is so educational particularly to the interconnectedness of our lives with all beings.

...." The assistance dogs idea is excellent and indeed we already support such a programme as part of our Russian work. If you log onto www.moscowanimals.org you will see the link to the guide dogs site. Assistance dogs are a great way to bring home to the Afghans the intrinsic benefits of dogs, will show them in a more positive light andwill surely go some way towards overcoming the prejudice of some Moslems against dogs.

4. The issue of controlling homeless animal populations throughout the developing world in a humane manner is a subject we have been giving some thought to recently and, as you are probably aware, there is no easy answer. However, the standard approach by municipalities to this is to fund the mass extermination of street animals, which never solves
the problem and indeed creates more problems. Rabies, as Susan told you, is endemic in Kabul but killing the dogs by poisoning them will not solve this problem and can actually contribute to spreading it because it causes far more movement of dog packs from one area to another, thereby spreading any diseases they carry over a far wider area. Even here in the UK, the government has only just discovered that culling badgers in certain locations to combat bovine TB has, in fact, caused
the disease to spread more widely because of the disruption it causes
to badger populations. The same principle applies with any group of animals. Apart from that practical consideration, organisations like the World Health Organisation and the World Organisation for Animal Health advise against relying on culling and state very specifically that vaccination should be the principle method of rabies control in animals. Of course, this would be a massive undertaking in Kabul but it is already costing the Kabul City Council a large sum to kill the
city's dogs, with the inevitable consequences just described. I don't know if
you have heard of trap/neuter/release programmes but that approach,accompanied by vaccination, is the only sure way to scientifically reduce both stray animal populations and endemic diseases such asrabies. There is more to it than that and we can cover this complex issue again but it suffices to say that I am at one with you about anything which can be done to end the current primitive methods of strayanimal control in Kabul.

I will leave it up to you as to what we should consider first. Perhaps getting some little shelter established as part of the clinic? It is more achievable and, as I said earlier, if you can get me costings onthat, I will put it to our trustees and hopefully I will be able to arrange some funding.

Let me conclude by wishing you a joyful Christmas and a happy New Year!

Kind regards,

James

Merry Xmas from Kabul...

2005-12-26T05:26:00.000-08:00

Our Christmas began on the 24th and ended on the 25th...and it was a satisfying and loving time,particularly from the staff at PARSA. For those who are checking in and don't know Norm and I live at the NGO, PARSA-started by Mary Macmakin in 1996 and the last eight months have been a difficult transition as Mary who is 76 years old and a remarkable woman started turning over the organization to me. She is one of the only Americans who lived here during Taliban and has an amazing life story. Her family was here at the same time as mine in the '60's and she has spent a significant part of her life here creating programs for the disabled and poor women. During Taliban she ran secret schools and economic programs. She was arrested by Taliban with her staff-and I am hoping as the pressure of running this NGO is taken off of her shoulders that she will write her book about her time here.

The core of her staff has been working with me to transition into a strong and viable NGO but it hasn't been easy on any of us. Norm and I wake about 6:30 and try to prepare ourselves for the demands of living here.

Saturday, Gulam Ali, one of the most efficient human beings on the planet showed up unannounced with decorations in hand to set up for Christmas. He is delightful and always available to us-telling us to just "zang" or ring if we need him. Again, however, a bit of a culture shock. We had planned to have friends over Christmas day and I was attempting an American meal and decorations but by Saturday night we had lost the aethetics battle with our staff loving any holiday and their enthusiasm for acknowledging our holiday. Our home looked like something between a Mexican Xmas and a wedding party.

Gulam Ali took us shopping for our Xmas dinner. Norm was determined that we have turkey and convinced me that he would handle the whole scenario including butchering and preparation. We went to the bird bazaar which is absolutely amazing...we have found birds from all over the world including endangered species...I was emphatic, however, that if he put a live turkey in the car-the turkey would join our other rescued animals and enjoy the good life at PARSA until it died of old age or lost the battle with the dogs.

We found turkey's and Norm was appalled to discover that they are alive, skinny and nothing like what we buy in the grocery store at home. He attempted to demonstrate that he wanted a fat turkey with a breast but after spending some quality time examing the potential I heard him say "Oh...how beautiful they are!...and I knew we weren't going home with one.
Dinner was stuffed chickens from Iran with delightful friends and our staff loved being a part of it all. And Xmas cards were exchanged including a great wedding card from the staff that opened up to a Bach fugue...
Happy day for all...and on to work the next day.

Missing my son in Montana

2005-12-26T05:13:00.000-08:00

In a fit of pique I wrote the following e-mail to my older son, Colin Hume:

Subject: Write me you Big Poop of a Son or you will end up working here...

And I somehow got the wrong e-mail server and in return-to my delight- I recieved the following letter from a young fellow who actually recieved my e-mail:

Dear Marnie, I would be very proud if you where my mother. I love your pages, It's so nice to see your life in afghanistan. I would love to visit. I love the landscape very like Tibet. I'm a 36 year old MD of a digital photo retouching business in London. I'm one of those Buddhist Quakers!
Have a peaceful Christmas.
Kindest Regards
Colin Hume (from London)

So, still missing my son but so glad to have a Colin Hume in London to correspond with.

Introducing "Mabouballah"

2005-12-22T02:38:00.000-08:00

I have had the good fortune to meet here an Afghan American, Mahbouba Seraj, who has been my colleague, co-trainer, and fellow adventurer. She and I, although we are very different, are intrigued, fascinated and are committed to Afghanistan. Each in our own way. Many Afghans became refugees because of their royal blood and connections and my friend Mahbouba is no exception. They have returned to Afghans who often will ask them why they left. Mahbouba's candid reply is that she would have been killed if she and her family stayed. I have the privilege of spending alot of time with her which means I get to see Afghanistan through her eyes and I have to say for all of that she has spent a good portion of her life outside of Afghanistan she is all Afghan. Like many others she lives in both worlds-but for me-being with her is a window on a world most foreigners never get to see much less to understand. I can't say that I understand yet...there seems to be no nuetral to the character of an Afghan-I think they make the Italian culture look calm. And Mahbouba is no exception-ebulliant, loving, angry, flamboyant, and with a wicked Afghan sense of humor-we have spent days and days together on survey going through the villages.

I have a pet name for her...because King Habibullah is her grandfather, and King Amanullah, her uncle...two kings that brought Afghanistan to the modern times. King Amanullah-a man ahead of his time-outlawed the "chaderi" or burqa in the 1940's...and she sees Afghanistan through her lineage with broad vision and with a deep disappointment about all that was lost through the war...I call her "Mahbouballah", because when we are in the villages she greets the people with love, scolds them for mistreating the animals, and teaches the children manners in the unconscious way of someone who wants the best for her people. She just has an authoritative air about her that is as charming as it can be irritating. So to tease her I call her "Mahbouballah Khan"....and I could write a book about her antics.

For those of you interested, Martin Ewens has written a short history of Afghanistan which I went over with Mahbouba to see if the parts about her family were accurate from what she remembers as a child and she was impressed.

King Amanullah...her uncle and King Habibullah,her grandfather,2nd and "Mahbouballah"

Notice any family resemblance?

Notes from the first week of my survey trip-Badakshan

2005-12-21T06:03:00.000-08:00

......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....

The day after Parliament convened...

2005-12-21T05:22:00.000-08:00

Well, for those of us within blocks of the historic start of the Afghan Parliament we spent the morning trying to figure out how to get my husband, Norm to his driver so that he could go to Mazaar-i-Shariff. All of the streets within a mile were "band ast" or blocked. And I spent the morning trying to complete my survey writing as helicopters and planes flew over close enough to see the soldiers in them. ISAF convoys toured through our block which I would have taken a picture of except it is dangerous. I had to read about what actually happened on the internet as the word in the street is sketchy, rife with rumor and mostly inaccurate.
The city has come to a standstill, mostly, as the important business of parliament convenes and Afghans are baffled, and frustrated as they try to get to work. I heard very little celebration as people struggle to get through the city. The traffic is bad here on a good day as a city of 4 million plus tries to function in a city built for 1/2 million 20 plus years ago. However, today I heard possible explanations for the traffic problems.
Palwasha, PARSA's administrator informed me that "The people in the parliament are fighting so that is why the roads are blocked."
Another staff member "There are warlords in the parliament so that is why no one can go anywhere on time and the police are flying in the helicopters."
All a mystery to me. We thought we had only one more day of uproar but now that is uncertain as nothing apparently has been agreed upon.
I have personal friends that have been voted to Parliament so I am grateful for the extra vigilence and very very proud of them. But I will have to find out what really has happened when Mahbouba gets here, saturday. She is my ear to the ground here.

Below are pictures from my window 6 am in morning...

The day before parliament convenes...

2005-12-18T06:12:00.000-08:00

I am trying to learn how to post daily and I have to warn you that my pictures are just what catches my eye on a daily basis. That reflect what I see in my day.

Norm and I live in Karte Se about 3 blocks from where I lived as a kid. I am sure that I am surrounded by old houses that my fellow "Scorpions" lived in. People who lived here in the '60's and '70's and attended the American International School of Kabul. Yesterday I had lunch with two women I realy enjoy and respect, Dr. Patricia Omidian who was here during Taliban and is now the country director for AFSC..or American Friends Service Committee. They build schools and Dr. Patricia is creating a fantastic "psychosocial well-being" program that I am going to help develop and promote. (more on this later). Tilly is the country director for "Counterparts" and the capacity build Afghan organizations here with a USAID contract. It is so rare to be able to talk with expats...who have the same commitments I have here (ongoing support for Afghans) that it is always a pleasure. We were talking about the tremendous pressure of living here in the winter. We discovered upon talking that we spend as much as possible giving money for impossible situations, the most difficult is heating during the winter.

I found a young girl yesterday in our yard raking the debris and upon inquiry found out that she was heating her families home with it. My young house fellow, Sami, had given her permission. Our 19 year old, house hold help, Zeba, came in the other day in summer clothes and no socks, sicker than Norm. she makes $150 a month (I gave her a raise up from $98) and she supports 12 people. I went in to my wonderful PARSA women directors and gave them $30 to go out and get her warm clothes because I knew she wouldn't spend it on herself. She came in the next day dressed head to toe, bless their hearts, and looking like Eliza Doolittle from "My Fair Lady" and deeply grateful. It is really difficult for us here as our work is with international agencies who reside in Washington DC and to recieve our pay we go through three banks, endless paper work and work with people who do not have any idea how close to the bone we live and that there is no credit here-so delays that would not be a problem in the US are so very difficult here. Norm and I both managed to get paid today which means that I can restock the basic medications for the staff as all of us have colds. This is a very humbling experience because the people who need money are not asking for a hand out. They are simply asking for work. And we have to turn people away at the door everyday.

Security. I was so happy to live in Karte Se because it is quite far from the main city called Shari Nau where all of the security problems have been. I just really realized yesterday that the new "National Assemby" or the parliament has been built six blocks away. Two days ago I was making breakfast and here an explosion and sure enough I learned later in the day a suicide bomber had run into an ISAF guard near the new building. Apparently, other than him noone else died. But way too close for comfort.

Tomorrow the new assembly opens and the day may be declared a holiday to avoid having too many exposed to similar events. I went down to my little PARSA office in the same house as we live ( all are invited to join us if you come to Afghanistan) and we discussed the security situation. As usual, the enigmatic disclosure was 1) the people that have a bazaar stall on Jadi Maiwand are going to have their bazaar stalls thrown into the river -so we must not go near that part of town. And today, my administrative assistant called me to find out how I was because he heard gun fire- which upon further inquiry- he said that a Minister that lives a block and 1/2 away was having "internal" problems and there was gunfire.

I have told all PARSA staff to stay at home tomorrow, not because I am worried about their safety but they are so tramautized by past events and I want them to know they are safe and that I care.

My little dogs are finding homes. Three more to go, and that is my day here. Love to all.

A quiet friday....

2005-12-16T01:05:00.000-08:00

It is a quiet Friday. No staff and only a survey report to write on our "feasibility of maternity waiting homes" which I will write more later on about my trip- and three proposals to write. Here is our new Pee Shoe Gak who has made himself at home. Norm is in bed miserable with a cold so he has had to postpone his trip to Mazaar-i-Shariff. All of us expatriates who write proposals are doing double duty in all of our projects as accessing international aid is so dependent on international skills.

There is something normalizing about having animals to tend to that gets me away from the computer for a minute and makes Kabul seem like home.

This is my correspondance with a friend who also grew up in Afghanistan.

Dear Marnie,
Greatly relieved to hear that you don't do clandestine work, except in the realm of animal
rescue.
I imagine it must be so hard in Kabul, especiallyaround the holidays. I remember when we lived there,
my mother used to get depressed at Christmas time. I didn't get it, because I thought being in Kabul for
Xmas was so exotic it was fun.The first year we bought a pathetic evergreen tree in the bazaar, for
which we would express great guilt because it contributed to deforestation, but our logic was
something like we might as well buy the tree because it already got cut. The second year I think we rebelled and refused to buy a tree. I just remember how simple Christmas was and I liked that. I still have an Afghan ornament from that time, a littlesheepskin bootie, that I hang on our Christmas tree
each year.

….I'd love an Afghan kitty for Christmas. I could ask for one but I think I'm getting a crock pot instead.
Love, Anne

Anne,
So good to hear a newsy letter. Instead of international development correspondance that I am getting in abundance these days. Mahbouba wants Xmas this year and is arriving back from thestates on the 24th for dinner on the 25th. Norm and I drove by some spindly pines that are living and we are going to the wedding store to find sparkley lights. I think we will
then raid PARSA gift shop for some Taliban dolls as our "theme"this year. Mom highly recommends roast leg of goat with alot of garlic. Not a Wal Mart in sight.

It is still pretty warm here. Five of my puppies left today with me threatening to visit them and telling their new owners that I retain the right to take them back if they are mistreated. Afghans are astonished at my attitude. We have rejected 3 potential owners- and Palwasha now has my "dogs are friends to the Americans" speech down in Dari including a rosy picture of how dogs have jobs in America and- in fact -"America was built on the back of dogs love and labor for human
beings" speech...I even sent one of my smallest puppies to a farm in Paghman with my coveted hot water
bottle. I think I am going over the deep end. Love to all….

"Pee Shoe" Gak...and 10 puppies...

2005-12-10T06:24:00.000-08:00

One of the ways I appear to be coping in Kabul is to rescue animals. As if 10 days without two litters of puppies, counting to ten pups isn't enough. I was wading through puppy poop in the back yard trying to rescue footwear -as our Afghan guests all leave their shoes at the door-and I heard a pathetic "meow" in our outdoor latrine..or "tashnab". Out came the thinnest dirtiest kitten-even dirtier than our first one. So, now we have a "Pee Shoe" (kitty) and a "Pee Shoe Gak" or (kittylet) and our big fat orange kitty is thrilled. Big Pee Shoe has had little kitty in a playful headlock since he arrived. Norm did try to avoid this. He sent our Sami, the house boy, out into the neighborhood to ask if anyone was missing a kitten. Sami came back red-faced and told Norm that his question was causing much hilarity among our neighbors and he begged off the task. Our neighbors sent back a message that we were welcome to the kitten as none of the cats in our neighborhood have homes-in fact they doubt if many cats in Afghanistan have homes- and it would be a "good work" on our part.
My husband has suggested that a "good work" on my part is to find these babies good homes.