Slate eBook Club - Best of 2003

by Slate. com

  As you leave the airport you pass by an airline graveyard—727 bodies and noses, assorted helicopter fragments, and several charred lumps of metal. It's almost an encouraging sight when you arrive—you feel great that your plane has made it over the mountains. As people prepare to leave, however, a sudden religious urge seems to come over many as they contemplate how many planes lie here in peace.

  As we left the airport there was a minor demonstration going on against the ministry with which I will spend much of my time working over the next six months. I should have taken this as a sign of the return to chaos.

  After the airport, I went straight to my new house—a place I've rented with four friends in order to get away from the U.N. accommodation. I walked in the door to see two men tinkering with an engine, which proved to be from a Toyota truck. They assured me that this was on the instructions of my roommate and that somehow it would produce electricity. Outside, I found a guy digging a hole in the garden, which he explained was for our new football pitch. At least that's what I think he said.

  We are required by U.N. security to have blast glass on our windows. So, we asked the blast-glass window people to do just that. When I looked at the windows I realized that the curious half-tint wasn't a wonderful way of protecting us from shrapnel while maintaining our view; they'd just done the top half of the windows.

  Since home wasn't working so well, I figured I should go to the office. The next sign that I was back in disorder was when they told me that my office had been moved to the roof. Then, my computer had vanished; my mobile-phone had been lost; my radio assigned to someone else; and my files purloined. Also there was no heat, but that's more normal.

  Being useless without a computer, I sat in on a meeting to try and figure out mechanisms for supporting this ministry. There's a tension between capacity development and output delivery—helping the ministry build itself up and develop the skills it needs versus needing to satisfy the protesting proletariat with real services. Getting the balance right is the most rewarding part of the job—you help people in a tangible way while building something sustainable. Getting it wrong is perfectly frustrating.

  The meeting went on for a few hours. When I got back to my new penthouse suite, I discovered that someone had cleaned out my desk drawers. Actually, they'd just taken the $500 I'd left in there for a few hours so I could run to my meeting but had courteously left some old candy wrappers.

  Subject: Entry 2

  Posted Wednesday, Jan. 15, 2003, at 10:15 AM PT

  I got up on the wrong side of bed this morning, and I guess it showed as I walked in. One of our senior engineers decided to cheer me up by way of a joke: "There were three men stranded at sea on a lifeboat, a Japanese man, a U.N. worker, and an Afghan. After a whole day at sea, the Japanese man suddenly picked up the radio and threw it overboard. When confronted by the other two, he explained, 'In my country, we have thousands of radios—when we get home I will get another.' Not to be outdone, the U.N. worker promptly threw his satellite phone overboard. A similar explanation followed. The Afghan sat for a while, his pride wounded, for he had nothing to throw. Then he grabbed the U.N. worker and threw him overboard. Before the Japanese man had time to respond he said, 'Oh don't worry, we have thousands more where I come from.' "

  It seems that the level of resentment against the international community is rising. The frequency of security incidents has crept up, but more worrying, the stories people tell when they come back from the field all have an edge. I was nervous about returning, and perhaps this is just because we're worried about Iraq, but my internal anxiet-o-meter is running high. To some degree it's understandable in Kabul—we ride around in our Landcruisers and live in gated compounds, with power and water (most of the time)—which is a far cry from local conditions, but most of the services we deliver, such as schools and roads, are built in the provinces.

  It was another big meeting day—again with concern about the ministry and the riots. There is a lot of pressure building for us to deliver quick-impact projects, which will help with short-term stability and address (real and substantial) needs. At the same time, the ministry sees a need for more substantial, long-term programs that will help transform disability from a charity-based to a rights-based approach.

  As we sit and brainstorm, I can feel myself being drawn to short-term plans, both because I think the situation is serious, and the ministry needs to establish credibility, but also because I know that I am only here for six more months. I tell myself that I want to do something substantial because I want to ensure that I am useful to the Afghan people, but there's a strong element of wanting to leave something tangible behind other than a mountain of paper. The guilt associated with the absolute luxury of our living conditions, especially when you go beyond Kabul and see the villages, also plays a part. I feel an urge to justify my wages, which is always a dangerous thing.

  There was some fun today; I spent the late afternoon showing off the photographs I had developed in New York. Buzkashi has re-emerged post-Taliban, and our staff are fanatics—some of our drivers have pooled together to buy horses. Before I left, they took me to a match where their horses were on the Panjshir team and asked me to take pictures.

  For the uninitiated, Buzkashi is described as calf-carcass polo; the spectators define the playing field—there is a chalk circle at one end and a flag opposite. To score points, a team has to drag the carcass around the flag and then down to the other end, dropping it into the circle without letting the opposition gain control. Whipping, kicking, and everything else is allowed, which leads to unbelievable displays of horsemanship where riders hang on to their horses at 45 degree angles while clutching carcasses and being soundly thrashed. It is considered unsportsmanlike to stab or shoot your opponent, but it is permitted. After leafing through the photographs, we had a long discussion about my holiday in the United States and my family. The driver who speaks the best English paused carefully, then told me that I "need to get married and have children." In response to my startled "why?" he pointed out that all my photos were of children and I was clearly lonely because I kept jumping from city to city, without a family to keep me somewhere.

  I went back into the office slightly perturbed and complained to our office assistant, who promptly ran outside and explained, "All the men are ugly with big hairy beards, so he only takes photos of the children."

  Subject: Entry 3

  Posted Thursday, Jan. 16, 2003, at 12:21 PM PT

  I arrived at work this morning to be presented with a small camel. It's stuffed, but it's a camel nonetheless. To explain, the Afghan ritual greeting goes, slowly, like this:

  Greeter: Salaam Aleikum

  Respondent: Walaikum Salaam

  G: Chitour Hastain? (Are you well?)

  R: Chitour Asteem, Khoob Hastain? (I am fine, are you fine?)

  G: Khoob Asteem, Sihat-e-shuma Chitour ast? (Yes, I'm fine, Everything is really fine with you?)

  R: Tashakur, Shuma Khoobastan (Thanks, Really well)

  G: Khana Kairat Ast? (And is your family/house well?)

  R: Kho, Tashakur (Yes, Thank you)

  At which point, the respondent repeats the last two questions. Then, after this is conducted at breathtaking pace for Afghanistan (about three solid minutes), the interrogator will ask again, "Shuma Khoobastan?" which in this case means, "Now that we're through with the ritual, is everything really all right?" At this point, but not before, you can confess to serious illness, death, and other such news.

  Unfortunately, during my first three months, I would say "Shatoorasten," which means "You are a camel," instead of "Chitour Asteem."

  Last night I trickled out of work at around 9:30 and wandered over to the U.N. guesthouse to meet my housemates for a little libation. We sat around the fireplace and chatted about the mechanics of setting up our new house ("Curtains? You were getting the curtains! I had to buy the carpets!") but also about returning and life here in general.

  Quite a few people have ch
osen not to come back. It's somewhat crippling for our various programs, because figuring out how to get things done in Afghanistan takes a few months. There's also the body of knowledge, the contacts, and the relationships that you lose. There's no real resentment though—contrary to the picture painted in the New York Times a while back, life here isn't a picnic, and everyone has regular moments of "What the hell am I doing here?" (I must admit to feeling slightly betrayed by Mr. Ignatieff, as I was hoping for a land full of frolicking young people, and I'm still looking hard for the frolics or the young people. …)

  We expend a lot of emotional effort trying to replicate our lives at home in small ways. There's a degree of alienation here that, even though the people are warm and welcoming, is hard to overcome—the physical, linguistic, and cultural environment is completely different. One of the most charming of these efforts was before the holidays when the Swedish ISAF held a Santa Lucia festival. Santa Lucia normally involves small children dressed in white and wreathed in candles singing Christmas carols in a small parade around an office. The Afghan version had burly blonde ISAF soldiers in white kurtas singing in deep bass voices—almost comical, but more touching. Most of the Swedish diplomatic staffers were teary.

  Our former accommodation felt more like a barracks and less like a home, and I can't wait to move in to our new house and throw dinner parties. I know it sounds slightly ridiculous—but to cook, have wine, get politely drunk, and just have a place to hang out with people without always being on-stage will be a huge stress relief. Whenever you're in public there are always eyes on you, and you have to act as a "representative of the international community," which is exhausting.

  Work today was mostly meetings, but a little troublemaking. There are significant constraints, normally, on what I can do and say as an employee of the United Nations. In the coming months, however, I will be working at a ministry—as a result, I have spent most of the morning drafting terse and critical letters to people with whom I'd normally not be allowed to speak.

  Most of what I am working on nowadays falls under the nebulous heading "capacity building." Everyone has heard how Afghanistan has been decimated by 20 years of war, but most people don't realize how this extends beyond physical destruction. It is rare that you would crave a bureaucracy, but that's exactly what a lot of what my work over the next six months will be built around—helping a Ministry to develop the procedures and processes required to create policy and function as a ministry. The challenge and the fear for me is, again, making sure that this will be sustainable. It's easy enough for me to sit and draft letters requesting or demanding greater cooperation; it's much harder to make sure that I am working with counterpart staff closely so that this will happen after we leave. I need to ensure that I devote time to training, but there's a lot of work and only so many hours in a day.

  Thursday is technically a half-day here, so I managed to sneak out in the afternoon and play a little street football with neighborhood kids a few blocks from the office. The two sports of choice here are kite wars, which involves cutting down your opponent's kite by way of the ground glass attached to your kite string, and football. I was graciously allowed to kite-fly once but lost the battle in about 30 seconds, resulting in hastily concealed disappointment and reclamation of the kite. They do, however, let us play football, and we like to think that this isn't just because we sometimes buy them Cokes. As we played, we were watched by a group of girls who were working in the stalls nearby. They were all between 6 and 10 and seemed quite fascinated by the game but kept a healthy distance. When I walked back past this area an hour or so later, I happened to see into a courtyard through an open door and saw the same girls playing their own game inside.

  Subject: Entry 4

  Posted Friday, Jan. 17, 2003, at 10:23 AM PT

  Friday is the day of rest in most Islamic states. Unfortunately, this does not include rest for the muezzin. This may be blasphemous, but I think the muezzin near our house is fresh out of training school. Unlike the sweet, holy melodies from the great mosques of the Middle East that draw you out of your sleep and inspire devotion, his voice quavers and wavers, perhaps suggesting a more querulous relationship with the divine. It's not my favorite way to wake up, but at least it's regular and it doesn't need electricity.

  It being a holiday, I crawled in to work a little late (around 8:30) only to find that the computer that I am using was locked behind an iron grille. Since no one else was in yet, I sat around and stared for a while, perhaps hoping that someone would turn up and explain the grille, or even better unlock it. When this didn't happen I opted for breakfast.

  The staple foodstuff here is naan—the Indian flat-baked bread. The words for breakfast, lunch, and dinner translate as "morning naan," "afternoon naan," and "evening naan." Now, while fresh naan is great, after you eat it for every meal the allure fades. An office-mate of ours, who shall forever be hallowed, discovered that Nutella was being imported and invented "naan au chocolat," one of the rare and wonderful delights of Kabul.

  After breakfast some friends summoned me for shopping. We're uncertain if we're allowed in the bazaar because of the grenade incidents with the American soldiers a month back, and tensions are running high because of some rumors flying around of assassination attempts. (Most of our Internet connections have been down for the last few days, and so our flaky awareness of events is worse than normal. Afghanistan has also vanished from the major media map, so you really have to dig for information.)

  I love the bazaar. It's easy to get depressed as we sit in our offices reading worst-case scenarios and/or the media coverage of how the United Nations and the "International Community" have failed Afghanistan completely. The bazaar is a riot of people and colors; the shops are selling everything, from fridges and DVD players to carpets and curtains, and everywhere there's the hustle and bustle of business. These may be everyday goods for the rest of the world, but they are a sign of normality here and great to see. The only sight that I'm less keen about, as a vegetarian, is the freshly slaughtered cows and sheep, dripping from great big hooks.

  My two favorite portions of the bazaar are the fruit stalls and the children. The fruits here are amazingly fresh (they would probably be sold as "organic" in the States at a huge premium) and tasty. Perhaps more important to me, the colors are strikingly vivid against the backdrop of mud, mud, and mud.

  Since the international community arrived, more than a few shopkeepers have realized that we're all soft. As a result, a large number of the stalls are manned by small, cute children, who are far sharper than we are and make us overpay horrendously for everything we buy. We try to persuade ourselves that we're getting good deals when we haggle—and we do try to bargain on everything as a matter of pride—but there's no question that the kids are taking us for a ride.

  The young gentleman pictured, by the name of Abdullah, managed to persuade me that $20 was a fair price to pay for a blanket. When we went a little farther down and spoke to a charming old man, who invited us in for tea and cakes, he inspected our blankets and offered us more of the same for $6 apiece. This photo was snapped by a friend, it and captured the man's attempt to conceal his horror and disbelief at the price we paid.

  It's been a fairly quiet first week. There is a definite period of readjustment—a colleague calls the recent returnees "Puddleglums," which seems appropriate. It's particularly hard on the people who have young children at home, all of whom get regular sniffly phone calls that begin with "Daad, when are you coming back?" and that end much the same. I don't have kids to call, but I've come to realize that while e-mail keeps you in touch, it also lets you know exactly what (and who) you're missing.

  That said, it is good to be back, and I'm excited about the next few months. I have become very wary of the claim that development jobs have any inherent moral benefit—they're jobs like any other, where satisfaction comes from completing your tasks. All in all, though, it is a lot of fun and a real privilege to be here. Sometimes it's a litt
le far from home, sometimes a bit dramatic and occasionally simply strange—after all, how often do you get to watch men on horseback fight over a calf-carcass and find yourself cheering them on?

  diary

  By Bev Clark

  Bev Clark is an information activist. She was born in Zimbabwe and currently manages Zimbabwe's civic and human rights Web site.

  Subject: Entry 1

  Posted Monday, Aug. 4, 2003, at 2:28 PM PT

  These days, in the early morning while lying in bed, I do a reality check.

  Q. Where am I?

  A. Harare, Zimbabwe.

  Q. Who am I?

  A. Bev Clark, activist.

  Q. What am I going to do to?

  A. Anything to bring Robert Mugabe down.

  With that squared away, I haul my body out of bed and take an icy plunge in the pool. The water is still freezing as it is the tail end of winter. I last only a few minutes and come out gasping. The guy next door often pretends to pick avocados to get a view of me taking my naked dip. My neighbors are an eclectic bunch. On the right is Malcom. He's got a bushy black beard that almost reaches his knees. And apparently, he has seven guns. Not that I've actually seen his hidden weapons, but in a city engulfed in a wave of rising crime, having him next door makes me feel a bit better. The avocado fraudster is the gardener for a family of farmers that recently moved in. For some months their front lawn has been piled high with farming equipment from their seized farm, snuck off with while Mugabe's militia were looking the other way. In the space of a week they've put up a wall, razor wire, and an electric fence. Not long after they moved in I could hear the plaintive wails of a goat. Then silence. Either it got the chop or it was sold.