Your daily bread

Bread (or nan) costs about 20 cents. You can buy it on nearly every street, and once made, it is hung by hooks inside the shops walls. The dough is stretched and slapped onto the interior wall of this clay oven/fire pit contraption which gives it its elongated shape When you buy it, the bread maker will take it off its hook, and put it on a clay buchali-type oven to warm it. This bread is fantastic when warmed. The bread shops are basically just store fronts (or perhaps even the front rooms of the people’s homes), and the choices are: long shape, round shape, and (only in certain places) with seeds. Each morning I will see men on bicycles bringing back stacks of breads to their families, or boys carrying them wrapped in papers to the local restaurants. The bread shop storefronts are local meeting and gossiping places, the way barber shops typically are/were in the US.

The truth about nuts

There is a lot of nut and dried fruit eating here. In fact, dried fruit producing is a viable way to earn a living (especially for women since it can be done at home). At the office, the staff likes to snack on bowls of dried chickpeas (or something like it) mixed with raisins, or other dried items like figs or dates. But here is what I have learned about nuts: in the wintertime, you should eat nuts because it keeps the body warm. In the summer, you should avoid nuts, because they will give you pimples. Now I have been eating a lot of nuts and still haven’t gotten any warmer; I hope that means I am not in store for a pimply summer!

I guess it can be a religious experience ...

Every day I would see men kneeling against the wall outside of my office window. The wall is to the west, so I had assumed that it had to do with prayer. The wall is actually a toilet wall and since men here squat when they use the loo, what I thought was them praying, is actually them peeing. There aren’t any signs to indicate that it’s a good spot to pee, I think that it is advertised by word of mouth.

Guess who's coming to tea

Her Excellency, Minister Ghandafar, requested my presence to give me some presents. She has been trilled with how the new Directorate is coming together and wanted to show her appreciation; it is common in Afghanistan to give gifts for the slightest of things. I received a carving of Afghanistan with the country’s flag intertwined with the American flag. The thing weighs a ton! I also got a felt, heart-shaped box with lapis (the country’s gemstone) jewelry. I thanked her for opening her house to me and I offered to host her for tea in my house should she ever make it to NYC. On the way out, her senior advisor told me that I needed to give him all my information as they are, in fact, planning a trip to the US soon. Uh oh.

Some lessons learned

If you don’t ask for something, the chances of you getting what you want are 0%. If you ask for it from the Director of the Department that handles said request, the chances of you getting it are 5%. If you want even the smallest thing done; it requires an official letter. Even if you don’t think you need an official letter, you do. Don’t sit too close to the window when you are in a car; the bumpy roads will knock you against that window and it will hurt. That flower you are admiring … it is fake, so don’t bother testing. Oh, and the most important lesson: don’t use the squat toilets if no one else is using them - there is a good reason for it.

Thrill Ride

I experienced a first in Kabul – I took an elevator ride! There is a new ex pat “rooftop” lounge in one of the hotels and by rooftop I mean the 7th floor. Once my fawning over the electricity stopped, so did the elevator! There I was, trapped in the dark, with a voice beckoning to me from the elevator intercom. The problem was that it was all in Dari and for all I knew I was being told to “get down get down the elevator is about to plummet!” I started to laugh (funny how fear will do that to you) and kept repeating “hello, how are you .. hello, how are you” in my best Dari. It was all of ten minutes (feeling more like hours) before the electricity was back on and the doors opened. I walked the rest of the way up. ((the photo was taken against the mirrored wall of the elevator .. I was in total darkness which will explain why it is not some of my best photographic work)).

Ashura

For all of the build up and the security warnings about staying away from certain Shi’a zones (I live in the middle of one), the day was quiet. The occasional low flying aircraft buzzing overhead, the louder than usual calls to prayer, the waving of the Shi’a flag were common sights and sounds, but otherwise the day was marked by bright sunshine and a group walk to Kabul Coffee House for lunch (4 blocks away .. the girls all shrouded). The din of the “spring offensive” does put a damper on the warming weather, but I’m excited by the prospect that we might actually have running water again soon! As adept as I am getting at scoop showers, I’m looking forward to not having to work as hard to get clean.

Not a banner year ...

To understand the challenges faced with the launch of the Media & Communications Directorate, is to understand the type of people who used to run the Ministry's “image". Last year for International Women’s Day, banners were written with a message designed to empower women. These banners were paid for by donors (what we call the government and NGOs who assist in funding) … anyhow the man in charge with Ministry PR changed the banners at the last minute without notifying anyone. On International Women’s Day, banners were hung with the message “A woman’s virginity is the jewel in he husband’s crown.” People were outraged .. soon after the Minister was ousted (though told that there was no relation to the events) …but, and here’s the kicker, the man responsible for the banner change is still in place and still doing the job he couldn’t do. This year, that same man suggested the Afghan proverb of “A woman’s silence means her consent” Even in America, if a friend of the president fails so obviously in their job, they get fired .. eventually.

Are you chicken?

We had a visitor to the office; a French woman who is making a documentary on Afghan women. She came at the conclusion of the staff’s English lesson, and I introduced her to the group as “so and so from France who is here making a documentary.” Harkening back to their first English lesson when they were all animals, I said to the staff that she would have come in time for their English lesson, but she didn’t want to be a chicken. (insert a roomful of giggles here). One of the staff members (who believes their English to be far superior than that of her colleagues) turned to the visitor and asked “are you from Chicken or from France?” I assume Chicken is next to Turkey.

Spring offensive

We keep hearing about the spring offensive that the Taliban is readying to launch. People want the snow to stop and the weather to warm, but with every day the degree notches up, the closer we get to the threatened offensive. I have never seen so many people conflicted about the weather’s changing pattern (save for Al Gore). The plus side to the warming weather is the streets get very muddy. The goopy kind of mud. The chances of someone being able to run in to a crowd with a bomb is practically nil. There is no running through Kabul mud (and there is no getting it off either!).

Doughnut aid

There is a small café on the outskirts of Kabul in the area called Karte-sei I didn’t see any Krispy Kreme doughnuts for sale, but the staff were big supporters (that or they received an “aid package” full of the paper hats.)

This is no chicken dance

The religious observance known as Ashura is nearly upon us. If you are Shi'a (and that’s roughly 10 % of the population, with Sunni making up the rest), this is a very serious time of year .. it is the time when the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson Hussain was killed. For Shi'as, they mark this 10 day period with prayer and self flagellation. On the 10th day, the observances spill out of the mosques and in to the streets. There has been violence on this day in years past when gawkers (or non-Shi'as) make fun or ogle them during the flagellation. Now that you are up to speed on Ashura, I can explain the dance. My intrepid interpreter is Shi'a. On a recent afternoon, he began singing ; a very sweet sounding tune in a very high key. I was impressed by his ability, and to spur him on (and show him I was a fan), I started faux-dancing. Since I was still in my chair, I moved a little to the left and little to the right, all while moving my hands and arms (the way you would if you had maracas). Everyone in the office stared at me. Their eyes were wide, their mouths were open .. all in that “wow! You’re something special!” kind of way … it turns out the song being sung was the main song of Ashura, and I was getting stared at by my staff because the little seated dance move I was doing with my arms looked like I was whipping myself (if you try this move the way I have explained .. move your arms and turn side to side, you’ll see what I mean .. trust me). So here is this very important day where the key is to not make fun of people whipping themselves, and what do I do? I dance. Kind of. Thankfully I found the error of my ways before Ashura ..since doing this same supportive dance could have lead to an international incident.

I don't know what is worse ...

... getting an email like the below, or having to figure out what all the acronyms are!
(fyi #1: Laghman Province borders Kabul)
(fyi #2: RCIED stands for Remote Controlled Improvised Explosive Device)

1. ANSO EAST - INCIDENT REPORT –RCIED Found–Laghman Province, Mehtarlam District, Mehtarlam City, Behind the Women Affairs Department,

Location: Laghman Province, Mehtarlam District, Mehtarlam City, Behind the Women Affairs Department

Incident type: RCIED Found, Date/Time: 24th January 2007 1015hrs, Report status: Confirmed

Information: Information received indicated that ANP discovered an RCIED packed in a bag and placed behind the women affairs department building in Mehtarlam city. Further information received indicated that the area was cordoned off by ANP while an ISAF EOD team defused the device. A controlled explosion was carried out on the device at 1315hrs with no injuries reported. No arrest has been made in connection to the incident thus far; however a police investigation is ongoing in the area.

Casualties: Nil, Arrest: Nil

Assessment: The ER has experienced an upsurge in IED activity and incidents of this nature can be expected in the future.

Advisory: ANSO east strongly advises NGOs to adopt a low profile while deploying staff to the above mentioned district.

Let me hear your body talk

This has nothing to do with that Oliva Newton John relic .. this is about how in Kabul, people aren’t afraid or embarrassed to let their bodies talk. At first I thought it was reserved for burping, but then I saw/heard it was no holds bar when it came to other sounds. For a country full of bean eaters, it can be quite a noisy place after lunch, and there is no hint of shame. It isn’t done with pride either .. it is more a fact of life. It is actually quite liberating, once you get over the oddness of it happening at meetings and you are the only one giggling.

The Hunt for Red .. Wine

I always thought it would have been cool to have lived through Prohibition.. I loved the idea of a whole underground world. A world full of secret revellers and real entrepreneurs (and yes, a few mobsters thrown in for good measure). I can now say, unequivocally, that prohibition sucks. The ex-pat community is up in arms over the lack of red wine and if you happen to stumble across a bottle, it is something you want t keep to yourself rather than share (and that’s not a fun party). The way liquor is procured here is either through an Embassy contact (and from what I hear, it is the Embassies who are to blame for the red wine shortage ..let’s just say foreign relations are made over hearty cabernets and not fume blancs or an “in” with someone who runs a restaurants. Yes, while most people pick up food for carry out, all over Kabul there are liquor bottles hidden in doggie bags! The shortage of the more desirable grape drink is a hot topic at any ex-pat gathering .. it tops even comments about the weather. “Did you hear so and so has a red wine connection?” “Really .. who is it?” “So and so won’t say.” “Bitch!” Yes friendships are made over a bottle of red and many a friendship has been broken as well. I imagine if I stayed a few more months, I would turn in to one of those people .. for me, I still enjoy the hunt of it.

My virtual refrigerator door

My staff issued their first press release today. The statement is a condemnation of the murders of two women (one, a policewoman who was mutilated by an alleged member of the Taliban, the other, a midwife, who was allegedly murdered by her husband), and I am very proud of them. The writing is stilted, they added this weird sentence about how "women are the most fragile community of Afghanistan who have no authority to protect themselves, so we see violence against them,"
and it took them over a day to get it together, but like a proud parent who puts their child’s scribbles on the refrigerator door, I want to frame their first statement. Who knows whether any press will actually pick it up, but at least they finally tried to be proactive.

Bukhali dangers

My little bukhali. We have a love/hate relationship. It burns me nearly every time I put my hand in to stoke the fire, yet it is the only thing that keeps me warm. These little dears are really just cleverly disguised death traps. The exhaust "system" is a series of pipes fitted together which eventually makes its way into a hole in the wall. The pipes are ill fitting and there are gaps between the connections .. sometimes you get lucky and the smoke flows freely out of the room .. and sometimes you have happen, what happened to me last night. The exhaust back up was so fierce that it actually knocked the pipe out from the wall … the pipe arms then started spinning around the room spewing ash … I didn't know whether to duck and run or try to grab hold of it and stick it back in the hole. I tried fixing the problem myself (unsuccessfully) and then ran to the guard house doing my best bukhali-pipe-spinning-around -the-room-on-fire impression. Sharif (who has saved me once before) came running behind me and like a monkey grabbed hold of the pipe and put it back in to place. The photos are of the bukhali's exhaust system, the aftermath, and my hero.

The news that didn't fit the print ...

In case you didn’t see it, the New York Times travel section featured Kabul in its January 21 edition. There are a few things the article didn’t mention, that you might want to know before booking your adventure vacation here. If you only have one to two weeks to spare, you can sufficiently see Kabul in 2 days. Spend the rest of your time in other parts of Afghanistan. The reason being is that Herat (border city with Iran) is a far more beautiful and well-kept city. It offers all of the cultural charms that Kabul does minus the muddy streets, lack of electricity, and open sewers. You will also want to spend a few days in Bamyan in the center of the country. This area is famous for having the huge Buddha statutes that were blown to smithereens by the Taliban during their rule. Bamyan is also full of natural beauty with mountain lakes and air that has been described as crystal clean. The travel author also neglected to mention what it would be like for a woman to visit Kabul. Unless you don’t mind being gawked at, pointed at, rushed, or have your photo taken by hundreds of strangers, a woman does not engage in a “walking tour” of Kabul unless she is Afghan or in a burka. The author writes of the beggars, but what is worth noting is that Afghanistan is probably in the "top 10" in number of amputees (due to years of civil wars and use of landmines), so many of those beggars are coming at you on rollerboards outfitted with steering wheels. A few other notes .. the author mentions “Cabul Coffee House”, which is a fun place to hang if you want to be around expats, but what was not mentioned is that the coffee shop was started by Debbie of “Beauty School of Kabul” fame. She is an American who came to start a beauty school (still in operation and soon to relocate in to the posh Serena Hotel) and a documentary was done of her school by the same name. The restaurants that are mentioned in the article, are all tasty, but are all for expats only. Meaning you must show your passport to get in and you cannot bring any Afghan friends in with you. Also, the restaurant Red Hot Sizzlin’s bathrooms are in a house not attached to the main restaurant, so you have to put on your jacket if you want to use the loo. To create the allure of warm water, a heating element is submerged into a tub of water which creates this dry ice, foggy type of setting which is cool for a disco but not for a bathroom .. after all, a bathroom is not the place you want to feel your way around in! Finally, should you decide to visit Afghanistan, I would recommend coming in the spring or fall as the summers are stifling (allegedly) and the winters are harsh (at least in the capital city). And pack sunglasses (although Afghans don't wear them) as the sun shines brightly when it is not barfing.

International Women's Day (IWD)

One of the big campaigns I am gearing my team up for is IWD, and one of my main objectives is to get them thinking of innovative (by Afghan standards) ways to reach their audience. For example, Afghans love to print up pamphlets and posters or to put up billboards. Here’s the problem: over half of the country is illiterate. On top of that, it is estimated that at least 30% of the female population is shut-in; meaning their husbands/fathers control what they see and listen to and forbid them to go out without an escort (usually themselves). By the way, all numbers are estimated as Afghanistan hasn’t had a census since the early 1970s. Most of these figures come from the various province heads (of which there are 34), and there is no organized media measuring organization here so you have to trust that when a TV or radio group says they are the most listened to, that they are. Trust isn't something you do easily here.
Back to the way we are going to reach our audience. In the first brainstorming session, the staff came full of ideas for posters and billboards. When I asked them about how we reach the illiterate they looked perplexed. Since I am here as a capacity builder, I should not be plying them with ideas, but rather guiding them on how to get their own (so they can function without me). All I wanted was for one of them to think of radio as a means to reach the audience, but since they kept coming back to print, I had no choice but to offer an extreme suggestion to nudge them to a middle ground. I brought up “Afghan Star”. It is the hottest show on TV and when it is on, all work in Afghanistan stops. It works like “American Idol”, with people calling in their votes. I suggested we, in conjunction with a radio or TV station, run a version of the show, but call it “Afghan Mother Star” for the most inspirational mother. It was at this point that my plan backfired. They loved the idea. They put all things on hold while they sussed out which TV or radio station would be the best to work with on it. And here I was just hoping they would come to the realization that perhaps billboards weren’t the most effective use for our marketing campaign. Since I cannot stomp on their enthusiasm and I given them a few days to think about it and t talk to their friends about it. Standby. Afghan Mother Star might be coming to a cable channel near you.

(this is a photo of the press office. Going from closest to furthest from the camera: Yari, Abbas, Hasseb, and in the background Gity and Solma)

A civil servant's salary

Because my group will need to work longer hours than the other departments, I am negotiating with one of our project’s main donors to give them what is commonly referred to as a super salary. The highest paid person on my staff currently makes $230 a month. The lowest paid, makes $80. It is believed that anyone who works for the Government supplements their meager salaries with kickbacks, but at the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, there is very little in the way of kickbacks. Rent inside Kabul proper ranges anywhere from $50-$300 depending on what type of housing needs you have (i.e. number of rooms), but if you want luxury items like running water, or the occasional use of a generator, that monthly rent rises. Those prices are for Afghans only. For foreigners, Afghan home owners have found a good way to make a living. They rent out their larger homes and charge thousands of dollars in rent. For example, my compound which has a generator (occasionally), running water (unless it it too cold), 12 bedrooms, 5 bathrooms and a guards shack, costs $4000/month. The owner is allegedly holed up in some nice place in Germany, and lives off what he makes in rent. The typical Afghan meal of rice (pilau), beans, some meat (normally mutton), cauliflower, and a whole lot of oil, typically runs about $1.00 depending where you eat (that is usually from street vendors which is where most locales get their food). A bottle of water will also run about $1, so it is easy to see why everyone drinks tea instead. It is easy to understand why so many children are in the streets yelling “bakshish” (give me money), or for some of the more enterprising youth, they’ll yell “bakshish! Dollar! Euro!”