A day in the life...

**Forward: I wrote this entry a few weeks ago, but in the fury of work failed to find time to post it. If it seems a bit anachronistic...well, now you know why. :)



6:30 Barely awake, I shuffle the mere 20 yards across the compound in search for coffee; a process which, in true Afghan style, takes nearly 20 minutes. Each greeting spins away in Dari (the Afghan version of Farsi—Persian) with a barrage of salutations that translate as, “How are you? Are you fine? How’s your family? How’s your health? How was your previous day? How is the weather? How’s your style?...” and countless others.

7:10 With Arabic pop music blasting through broken speakers, we pile into the 70s minivan and truck across town. The streets buzz with morning life in Kabul, which results in a near 8:1 male: female ratio.

7:30 Training begins. The distinctive features of Hazaras, Pashtuns, Tajiks, and Uzbeks are present in a wide and abundant variety as 59 men and 2 women from Afghanistan’s 12 central provinces gather for regional training. I’m responsible for managing the national health survey within Afghanistan’s central region, which can prove quite the entertaining as well as challenging undertaking.

12:00 Lunch break. Trays of kofta (ground beef), mutton (goat), Kabuli Pulao (fried rice with raisins and carrots), and an absurd pile of naan gather into a sea of food. The table of 12 men explodes into laughter following a recurrent joke of the misery a man faces following marriage. So…after the laughter subsides I comment that I’ve frequently heard a given rendition of this joke and wondered if women joked similarly amongst themselves. Blank face, they stared back until one responded…”Oh…well…we have no idea.”

2:30 Tea break….number 4.

5:00 While discussing details for our compound 4th of July party, an Afghan colleague comments that such is our Independence Day. “In your country you have only one Independence Day, but here in Afghanistan we have many….one from the Brits, one from the Russians, one from the Taliban, and hopefully, one from the US”…and the list continued. Though executed with humor, his comment was a stark illustration that Afghanistan’s fight for independence is centuries old, and will not easily be solved.

6:30 Over dinner with fellow ex-pats, the conversation turns to stories under the Taliban reign. Some stories were dreadfully horrific, others well documented but nonetheless unfathomable, and then there were recounts of the simple mundane daily occurrences. Two accounts, however…caught me so off guard, they simply must be shared.
A. Resulting from (apparently) the global rage over Hollywood’s “Titanic”, “Titanic Haircuts” were national outlawed under the Taliban…the Leonardo Dicaprio golden hair swoop would simply not fly in this country.
B. The summer of 2001, a friend was invited to join the local security force (aka…the Taliban) for dinner. After what he recalled to be a frightful dinner with long bearded men refusing to break a smile, he noticed a large display of trophies in the back of the mud compound. Plagued with curiosity, my British friend delicately probed for an explanation of the competition, war, etc. which resulted in such a collection. Stone faced, a man responded “Oh…the Taliban volleyball competition.”

9:00 The fifth and final call to prayer (aazam) echoes throughout our room with the two nearby competing mosques proclaiming from the top of their minarets:
“Allah is great
Allah is great
Allah is great
Allah is great.
There is no God but Allah
There is no God but Allah
Mohammad is His prophet
Mohammad is His prophet.
Come to prayer
come to prayer.
Come for deliverance
come for deliverance.
Allah is great
Allah is great
There is no God but Allah.”

10:00 The electricity cuts out…for the 10th time today. I surrender to this reality, and quickly fall asleep.

**The photo is from our Regional Training which took place over the past 2 weeks.

Driving in Kabul

Well…it’s a bit like herding sheep.

(Granted, I’m not exactly proficient in the ways of sheep herding, but we’ll let creative thought suffice for now.)

The same routine occurs daily at the end of the Ministry of Health workday. The drivers stream though the single entrance parking lot without the slightest consideration of the return route. The cars pile in, and quickly thereafter drivers hop out to chat with a long-lost cousin, grab a cup of chai, and goodness knows what else. Exits invariably consist of long drawn out arguments over how to resolve the unfathomable parking crises, which frequently settles through a number of Afghan men manually moving the now driverless cars. My daily dose of deja vu…

I distinctly recall overhearing a conversation between two colleagues my first week in Kabul.
Dasha: “Are there any stoplights in Kabul?”
Kumar: *Pause*…”No, I don’t believe so. Oh wait, yes…there is that one by the main roundabout.” And then, as if divinely conspired, we arrived at that exact roundabout, driving straight through the red light.

Oh, the simple delights of Kabul...


Driving has proven all the more creative in the rains last week. An anomaly to say the least, Kabul experienced downpours three days in a row. The roads promptly turned to mud (as only a few major roads in Kabul are paved), the once marigold hills turned a smoky brown, and the city’s lacking public sewer system “naturally” networked throughout the city (a thought which I’ve avoided to dwell on at all costs). Though the rain proved quite entertaining within our compound (as we stood inside watching the windowpanes’ fruitless attempt to hold back any amount of water which quickly resulted in compound wide floods) I am reminded of the large toll regional rains have taken. Though 80 people have died in Afghanistan due to recent flooding, this pails in comparison to the near 300 deaths in Pakistan and 150 in India. Though the rain death toll now fades as old news, the impact remains with 1.5 million Pakistanis alone internally displaced and otherwise impacted by the floods. It’s so easy for numbers to remain distant and cold representations of the latest in international news. As I seek to recognize these stories as those affecting my neighbors, I hope it is appropriately reflected in my actions and commitment to this area of the world.