Adjusting

Wow, it sure took awhile to recover from the Dubai sightseeing - added to the usual difficulties of recovering from jet lag, I dealt with nausea, dizziness and fatigue for a good week and a half after getting home.

Read John Weaver's new book "A Flame on the Front Line" which he so kindly gave me. It didn't really have anything new about his experiences in Afghanistan, just an expansion of his early life and the twists and turns which brought him there. Apparently one of the things he may do with his year off is write the story of meeting his wife Jeanne in Afghanistan. Her mother was in the diplomatic service there and her father had some military role which led to Jeanne spending some of her childhood there.

I also just finished reading "A Thousand Splendid Suns" for the 2nd time. It was so much more interesting as the Morningstar guesthouse is located in the suburb Miriam and Laila lived in, Deh Mazang, and I recognized many other landmarks referred to in the book. If you haven't read this, it is a MUST READ. I'm just starting Rory Stewart's famous story of walking from Herat to Kabul in January 2002.

Last week was spent honing the report of my activities and delineating possibilities for short-term volunteers. If anyone wants to get a copy, let me know. There is a major need for books, especially children's books, for the community centers. In view of the University of Kabul's goal of all teaching being conducted in English by 2025, it is all the more necessary for good English instruction at the elementary levels now. Good training in ESL teaching techniques is very important. The centers also need more and better computers, but it may be more financially feasible to purchase them in country, as shipping is such a hassle.

There will be a growing need for individuals capable of teaching leadership skills as the Institute for Leadership Development rolls out to other cities over the next couple of years. And, one thing I neglected to mention in my report, there is a great need for veterinarians to conduct spaying clinics for cats and dogs.

The link to the Playground Builders website is on my page. We've made contact with them and hope to utilize their expertise in getting playgrounds built in the Morningstar community center locations.

I've also started the ball rolling for a connection between the music departments of my alma mater, Bemidji State University, and the University of Kabul. This could involve helping to prepare the Kabuli students to attend BSU as graduate students. Some curricular coordination is necessary. As soon as we determine which music we need, I'll post a list and we'll see how much we can pull together to help provide that resource. One other idea percolating in my head is to bring some skilled teachers to Kabul for a couple of weeks for a Bemidji-style band camp.

I'll also post a link to the Byki website. It really was a great help to me to be able to learn a little Dari before I went. The students at the U of K were impressed that I knew what zabars, zers, pishes, hamzas, tashdids and sokuns were. Are you impressed now too? The Byki Dari requires use of these symbols, which are used in learning Dari, but doesn't explain them on the Express version, although I did figure out how to type them. After downloading the free Express version, they send you emails for the full version and after about 3 months, a really good deal on the full version.

Dari (Afghani or eastern Farsi) is a very easy language to learn compared to Pashtu. The students there told me they thought English was easy to learn in comparison to Pashtu. The Jegdalek community center is in a Pashtu area, but the children are taught Dari in school.

On a closing note, if anyone has a group you would like me to make a presentation to, let me know. I'll be happy to oblige.

Heading Home

Slept very well in Dubai. At breakfast we met up with a young Southern California woman en route from Kenya to Boston who wanted to tour the city. So we decided to join forces and take the Blue Big Bus of the beach areas and shopping centers of Dubai. Before breakfast, as I was checking my email and updating the blog - ooh, the internet is so much faster in Dubai - a very young man came out into the lounge area, and seeing me there, began to quietly play with his toys. His mother, alarmed at his quietness, came to check on him. On our way out to our bus tour, I met her again in the outside kitchen and she turned out to be the wife of John Weaver, the author of one of the first books I had read about Afghanistan, "Inside Afghanistan". (It's listed on my book list.) He had already left for a board meeting, and it turned out I had already had quite a long discussion with her parents about the healing powers of music in wounded cultures like Bosnia. One of the most amazing things about that guest house is meeting all the people who are crossing paths from various places of service and using it as a place to rest, regain their breath and go on. Most of the time they turn out to be children of people who have likewise spent much of their lives overseas, working in various cultures in various ways. Very interesting people. Becky, who is currently the head honcho there, told me she is always looking for people who are interested in working as hosts there, so if you want an opportunity to live at the crossroads and meet all sorts of people doing all sorts of things and are willing to make a few beds, cook or clean, let me know and I'll put you in touch.

The three of us grabbed a cab and headed for the Wafi Mall where we bought tickets for the hop-on, hop-off tour, about $60US. It was now 11:00 in the morning and the temperature was in the high 90s, with a humidity to match. Thankfully, there was no need to don a head covering! We drove west to the beach and southwest along it. We wanted to stop at the Jumeirah Beach Park, but Monday was ladies day at that beach and Brian wouldn't have been allowed in. We proceeded to a beach further along which was next to the Burj Al Arab Hotel, designed in the shape of an Arabian Dhow. See wikipedia info. It has the distinction of being a 7-star hotel, with suites ranging from the smallest at 1,800 sf to the largest at over 8,000 sf. It also has the distinction of having Tiger Woods hit a golf ball off one of its upper floors out into the ocean.

We didn't bother to check in at the hotel. We just walked down to the beach and waded for a while in the surf. The water was bath-tub warm, very clear. Just north of the beach is a man-made structure of islands called The World. Apparently rich and famous people buy individual islands for themselves.

Next stop was Atlantis on the Palms, a huge man-made complex of islands in the shape of a palm tree (one of three such structures in some stage of completion), which featured the immense Aquaventure Waterpark, the Lost Chambers of Atlantis and a huge collection of dolphins. We walked around a bit, but didn't have swimming suits nor the time to make good use of the expensive admission fee. Next stop was the Mall of the Emirates where we ate lunch, then walked over to view the Indoor Ski Slope - yup, looks just like snow we get for free in Minnesota. We decided we wanted to take advantage of the free dhow cruise on the Dubai Creek, so grabbed a cab to get back downtown to its departure point and spent the rest of the afternoon cruising up and down the Dubai Creek, looking at all sorts of huge buildings and hearing about all sorts of wonderful other things we could do - visit the Gold Souks, etc. Still very hot. Then we grabbed another cab home where I was all too glad to jump in the shower again and get my things organized for the flight home.

After supper I got to meet John Weaver and he gave me copy of his new book. Also met a nice young woman from Australia who was taking a break from language studies in Yemen to recover from dengue fever.

Then Simon (from northern England) loaded up our suitcases into the SUV and drove us to the airport. Had a serious moment of alarm there when after making it through all the checkpoints, I discovered I had left my purse at the last station. Brian went back to recover it for me - whatever would I have done without his help on this trip. On to the long flight overnight for Atlanta, a change for Chicago, then to Minneapolis, where my brother Jim kindly picked me up. A quick shower and then I hit the sack for 16 hours straight.

I don't know whether my lack of enthusiasm for Dubai crept through this narrative, but I doubt they will be contacting me for PR help. It's like Las Vegas (they boast a better dancing water show than the Bellagio) only much more commercial. Give me Kabul, dust and all!

Day Fifteen - Final Tasks and Departure

Spent the early morning watching the Twins lose the series to the Yankees. So sad. I didn't actually watch - I found a feed that would give me the pitch-by-pitch play-by-play after the batter was finished. Better than nothing. There were several other Twins fans in the house, none quite as dedicated as I in following the tortuous ins and outs of the game.

After breakfast, I got my packing done, turned in my borrowed laptop, called our friends up north to say goodbye and see you in March! A group of four men came in from the states on the early Safi flight so we spent some time briefing them about the various Morningstar projects. Brian had suggested someone as a mentor for me when I come back, so he stopped by and we had a good discussion. And Ghafar from the University stopped by with a CD of rebab music for me to take to Emel.

Lunch included an interesting spinach soup with sliced boiled egg in it. Reza puts an interesting spice in his soups, along with vinegar, I think. Also rice, spinach, cauliflower, baked chicken, and of course naan and fruit, including persimmons.

Settling up my bill, turning in the phone, getting the luggage downstairs - Aziza insisted on carrying mine out to the van (I think she is sad to see me go even though we talked very little). The Brian and I left with Zamir for the final burst of shopping. We went to an area we had avoided before because of reports of slashed tires on westerners' vehicles, but Zamir was confident we would be fine. And we were. Lots of police around so even when he and Brian left me alone in the van for a few minutes to buy a pashkul and scarf for his Afghan outfit I felt pretty safe. We went into a mall and I found a couple more dresses for Masooda - Zamir is the best bargainer there is and he's getting quite used to dress shopping with me! Then we drove a bit farther on looking for CDs of new rebab music. Finally found a store with tapes only - they offered to transfer to a CD but we didn't have enough time. Then it was off to the airport.

Fortunately the traffic wasn't too heavy yet and we made it in good time. It's quite a process. First Brian had to get out to go through a security check. Then a bit further on, I had to get out to walk through a special door where a woman patted me down cursorily. She had a small daughter with her and seemed more concerned about her toothache than whether I was carrying anything concealed on my body. When I emerged from there, Brian and Zamir were putting our luggage through a scanner. We loaded back on the van, went to a parking lot where a fee was required for the van to enter just to park and unload. Then we said our goodbyes and walked through a building with various shops, out the other side and changed some Afghanis back to US dollars. Next was the "green gate" where passports are checked. We were rather forced onto a bus, which fortunately left right away (Brian says they sometimes wait for quite awhile so he prefers walking) and two gentleman who had loaded our suitcases, then unloaded them wanted to take them in for us. We refused, Brian gave them 100Afs and we went inside to have another pat-down (more complete this time) and send our bags through another screener at which time they put these horrible "screened" stickers on them which are so sticky they are almost impossible to remove. Additionally they are sort of scored so they only come off in bits. Pesky. The rest of check-in is more of the same. More screeners, more pat-downs - in some ways it was nice being a woman because our lines were always shorter and the pat-downs were in curtained compartments with very nice women doing the work.

Our flight to Dubai was uneventful but left 20 minutes early, we were served a generous meal, the PAC TEC pilot who had flown us north and back was on the same flight. We arrived in Dubai about 9:00 pm to 93 degree temperature and what felt like the same humidity level. Such a shock to the system. The guest house driver was busy somewhere else so we grabbed a cab. I am so glad Brian has an idea where the guest house is because every driver seemed to need some help which I would have been completely incapable of providing. Brian also knew where the key for the front gate was hidden, so we let ourselves in and were greeted like old friends. I was given a bedroom on the main floor, again with a private bath. It took about 20 minutes of just lying on the bed before I was ready to face taking a shower, but oh, it felt so good - and then I crashed.

Day Fourteen - Picnic in the Hills

Today we went on a picnic to Akram’s family orchard, high in the hills north of Kabul. After breakfast we loaded up a van and Akram’s car with toshaks, pillows, dishes and all sorts of stuff Reza needed to make a meal al fresco. Zamir drove the van with our host Ken, Reza and his son Aziz, Akram’s brother and me in the back as the sole female. With Akram were Brian, Dan and Akram’s cousin. After a couple of stops for Reza to buy salad veggies , pomegranates and naan, we headed up a surprisingly nicely paved road, through a couple of villages along a stream that was occasionally shunted into various channels for irrigation purposes. I later learned this was called Sugar Canyon.

We stopped after about an hour, unloaded the vehicles and tramped down through a forest trail to a wide creek bed; crossed that and meandered downstream a bit until we reached a glade which had been built up with some stone walls. After getting everything in place, most of the men hiked up past the orchards to a higher mountain. Reza and his son began to prepare the meal. Akram’s brother and I talked politics. He is a law student at the University of Kabul with the intent of going into politics. He told me his professors have warned him not to talk politics until after he has finished his studies, but I promised not to tell.

Reza made kabuli pilau with both lamb and beef. The meat he had brought in a pressure cooker and he put that on a portable gas burner to cook further. The rice had been brought in a basin of warm water which he drained off and rinsed again in fresh water. He arranged some stones in a circle and then built a fire in the middle with wood gathered nearby. He first used the fire to heat some water which was used to clean dishes later. Eventually, he poured the meat and onions from the pressure cooker into a big pot, added the matchstick carrots and raisins we had brought, the put the rice on top and let it all simmer. Later he covered the lid with aluminum foil and transferred some of the coals to the top, forming a sort of oven with heat from above and below.

Meanwhile, Aziz had been cleaning the veggies, and with the help of Zamir who turns out to be a chef’s son, the tomatoes, cucumbers, onions were artistically arranged on a large platter. They also opened the pomegranates and piled the seeds on a platter, surrounded by orange wedges. Zamir then astounded us by creating a long string by tying several tea bag strings together and used it to cut an apple so that it could be pulled partially apart as the centerpiece of our fruit platter. A large bowl of yogurt also appeared, the pilau was heaped on another platter and we were set. We Americans were allowed to use the toshaks and had plates and forks. The Afghanis ate in the traditional fashion by gathering the pilau into balls with the naan. Ken had the bright idea of putting the pomegranates into the yogurt, which proved to be a huge hit. Some even improved on it by squeezing orange juice over it.

All in all, it was a marvelously relaxing day. I felt a bit like I was in the middle of a scene from Emma, where the servants all work hard to bring a picnic for her and her friends to Knob Hill. Akram took a couple of pillowcases and filled them with apples from the orchard for us to take home. Then it was back down the hill, past the security checkpoint at the entrance to the city (I have never had to produce my passport or my identity card other than at the airport during my entire stay here), back to the dust and the hundreds of cars beeping their horns, beggars sitting in the middle of the street on the speed bumps, young boys wandering through traffic selling things, people everywhere.

This will be last post from Afghanistan. After making a few contacts this morning and perhaps some last minute shopping, we head to the airport to leave for Dubai. Sigh.

Day Thirteen

Friday is the Holy Day here - joma'a. We got together with other expatriates at a home just a ten-minute walk away. It belongs to a Brazilian couple who have a couple of businesses here - the wife runs a kindergarten and teaches Afghan women how to work with pre-schoolers. She told me one of the hardest things is getting them to understand the importance of play.

Met many other new people, some of whom I have heard about before. One couple has been here for 40 years. That wife and a friend are building a Peace Garden by the National Gallery and talked to me about getting some music events there.

On our walk home, we stopped by the naan shop at the corner. They were busy making the bread and invited us inside to watch. A man was in the back crouched up on a ledge with his bare feet, mixing flour with water for the dough. Another man then takes it and breaks it into right-sized portions and makes them round. These go to two young men crouched on a concrete platform nearer the front. They have slanted boards in front of them which they use to further flatten the loaves and put the characteristic ridges in them. They lay them on a board where they are picked up by another crouching young man who has a padded board in front of him. He arranges two rounds on his board, then picks it up and slaps it down into a blackened hole in the concrete about two feet in diameter. The walls of the hole are heated and the loaves just attach to them and the bread bakes. Another young man on the other side of the hole uses two long utensils to pick out the completed bread and place it in the pile in front where an older gentleman is selling it to the public. They gave us a round fresh off the oven - too hot to hold, but oh, so yummy. Muhammad Gul, one of our chawkidor/drivers was there buying bread for us, as he does every day. I learned later that you can buy just the dough if you prefer and make it into cinnamon buns, pizza crusts, whatever you want.

Our cook Reza being off for the day, we had pizza he had prepared the day before heated up by Muhammed Gul, with naan and fruit.

This might be a good time to describe some aspects of life in the guest house. We have a cook and a cleaner who come in six days a week. There are also three chawkidors. Two of ours function also as drivers, and one of those, Zamir, also does errands for us at the ministries. All westerners living here have at least a chawkidor to do guard duty, do some of the buying of food in the bazaars, and wash dishes. Our cleaner, a widow woman, also washes our clothes. This level of service could get quite addicting.

I took out a puzzle to work on while waiting for Zamir to get back with our hosts who had been invited out for the noon meal, then Brian and I went with him to do some sightseeing and shopping. Brian treated us all to beef kabobs from a street vendor and while we were waiting in the van for Zamir to get the kabobs, a bunch of kids tried to get us to take them seriously as beggars. They looked pretty well dressed for beggars. One kid dusted all our windows and I finally relented and gave him a US dollar. Of course, that only brought out more kids. All over are kids carrying smoking cans of something that they will swing around your car to ward off evil spirits. They will walk right out onto the street when it gets a bit congested and walk among the cars hoping for a few Afghanis for their service.

Well, it's time for breakfast, so I'll break off. Just two days left here...already I'm sad to leave.

Day Twelve - Kabul University again

This morning I went to the Music Department of the University of Kabul for my third visit. The first was on Monday for our initial introductory meeting. On my second visit we went to a large classroom on the third floor with an old grand piano. Chairs were set in a semi-circle and over the next three hours the class grew to about 21 students. There are 50 students in the music school, 500 in Fine Arts altogether. The group that day was a mix of all 4 years, studying piano, voice, guitar, violin, tabla (traditional Afghan drums) and rebab (traditional Afghan guitar). They gave me a seat at the front of the class and wanted me to teach! Anyone who knows me well, knows that I prefer to tutor than teach, so after having them introduce themselves, I asked for questions. One piano student asked how to resolve the Dominant 7th - I wasn't sure if he was asking from a compositional standpoint or what. Another asked how to use solfeggio to learn pronunciation. After a while, our session became more productive. We talked about learning Italian as the best language to get proper vowels, steps to harmonization of a melody, what kind of music is most popular in the US, what their career goals were, on and on. There was only one female in the group, a guitar student.

A graduate piano student Ghafar played Schubert's Serenade, a piano student Fawad with the most enviable long fingers played a piece I didn't know, a violin student played a couple of pieces along with Fawad. Then another piano student Arash left the room with keys and came back with a keyboard which he placed on the desk. Dr. Faroz began rearranging how the students were seated and then I was informed that they were going to sing a composition written by Dr. Faroz. It was in the Afghan style, two part harmony, with a pathos rivalling that of gospel music, very moving. Then they wanted criticism! They didn't get any.

About 11:30 it was time for a break and we went to another room on the third floor, about one-third the size, with a beautiful Yamaha grand piano. After having tea with Dr. Faroz and another faculty member, the violin teacher, Ghafar and the other piano students remained along with the violinist and we had a bit of a master class. Each played a piece and I gave a bit of coaching. They asked again when I was coming back. When I said "In March", Arash said, "No, you are in Kabul for five more days. When are you coming back?" We had plans to go to Jegdalek the next day, but I said I would try to come back on Thursday.

Early Wednesday morning, I sent Dr. Faroz an email saying I expected to be quite tired but could make it by 10:00 am and where should I meet him? Our office manager Akram drove me there today at 10:00 - he talked the police at the gate into letting him drive me right up to the Fine Arts Building - and Dr. Faroz was waiting at the entrance to meet me. He took me up to the Piano Room, with the nice Yamaha, and I met with nine students. Mostly piano, but also a singing student who had not been there on Tuesday, a different violinist, and a couple of tabla players - one of whom is a ringer for Ryan Gosling, the Canadian actor. Dr. Faroz went off to teach a flute lesson. The rest of us settled down to a good discussion and demonstration of piano technique, especially pedalling, how to learn to sight read, basics of good vocal technique, and a myriad of other questions. I learned that they have only 3 pianos at the U and the one keyboard. I encouraged the vocal students to find themselves some cheap keyboards to use to rehearse their technique so they could learn good pitches.

At 11:00, several students had to leave for private lessons so I quick got a picture of them which I will post here after I get back to the states. Then Dr. Faroz came back and he and I and Ghafar went down to his office for tea (that makes my third tea session, which according to Greg Mortenson, has great significance in this culture). Dr. Faroz got my email address and said a letter of invitation would be coming shortly. School begins after the Afghan New Year's celebration, so will start next year on March 20. I'm hoping to put this together with other work here.

Ghafar then walked me to the Puli Sorkh where Akram picked me up. Ghafar promised to work on improving his English. I invited him to consider taking the Institute for Leadership Development next year. All in all, a very delightful and profitable adventure.

Day Eleven - Jegdalek

We left at 6:00 am in a Morningstar van with Muhammad Gul driving us. We picked up Dr. Rafiq at his home on the southeast side of Kabul, then headed north to the Jalabad Road to head east, down through the Kabul gorge to Sorobi. The road was well-paved all the way - two lanes. We followed the river so the scenery was at times breath-taking. Traffic wasn't too heavy, just a few of the famous Pakistani trucks with their detailed colorful pictures all over the truck cab and bodies. Some even have elaborate decorations on the front. When we arrived at Sorobi about one and a half hours later the river spread out into a lake - a reservoir really because apparently there is a dam just beyond. The more hardy vehicle from Jegdalek drove up to meet us there, and we left Muhammad Gul with our van while we headed across a wash south. The road was quite narrow, the vista was primarily a plain with some ridges occasionally. A bit bumpy but in better condition than the roads up north! The driver knew the road well, so we made good time. Saw our first camels by the camps of the Kuchis, the nomadic tribe of the Pushtuns - a bit like gypsies - who were obviously beginning to pack up to move further south for the winter.

We could see the community center from a distance, two very nice buildings - one white, the other made of stone (apparently they used the rock from a previous building on the site which had been destroyed by the Soviets.) Just outside the entrance to the compound (marked by a low rock wall all around) stands a police station. On the left of the road, someone is building a very tall rock wall compound which is to contain the home of a wealthy person. As we enter, on our right is the drill rig, working away to dig a new well for the center. There was a sort of bleachers to the south and several police officers were sitting, watching the work. A small building is on our left, intended to be the chawkidor or guard station, currently being used for storage. Then up the hill to the left is the medical center. Today it is full of Kuchis, the women entering the door on the west side, the men on the south side. The clinic is organized very much like the other two we had visited. The doctor's office is filled with women and children - it seems they go in for group visits! Brian got quite a nice video of it while Dr. Rafiq is explaining what issues have brought in the various women. A couple of the babies have herniated umbilicuses which are fixed by the simple expedient of putting a coin-like object on top of it and binding around the waist. After a time, it becomes an "innie". No surgery is needed. The kuchi women wear very brightly colored clothes with scarves, no burqas. Their skin is quite dark. Some of the older women were very short but there were a couple who were about as tall as Brian. One teenage girl took a liking to me and followed me as we moved to other parts of the clinic. She had refused to let Brian take a picture of her, handing the child she was carrying to me so it could be photographed. But later, she stood right next to me while Dr. Rafiq took a picture at the women's entrance.

The education building is a little higher to the south and faces west. There was a policeman sitting in the shade on the north side and just to the left was a foxhole in the ground where three police officers spend each night guarding the area. The Taliban have begun to show up in the area and recently fired a couple of RPGs aimed at the school down the hill to the east but hitting our clinic. The metal roof was damaged but the concrete ceiling held so there is no evidence of damage inside.

There is quite a bit of room in the compound south of it where the guest house should go eventually. Also there is room there for the playground we hope to build. Facing west there is a large area which is intended for agricultural demonstration projects with a new education building on the north side. The current education building will become the communications center, with computer classes, internet access and hopefully, a radio station like at Tangi Saidan.

On the south side of the building are two fairly large classrooms. In one there were some boys working on the five of the eight computers, learning a graphics program with the assistant teacher supervising them. Dr. Rafiq showed us a smaller room on the north side which is intended to be an office with a copier and perhaps a stationery store. We went to the room on the northeast side where we were served tea and biscuits. We were joined by a gentleman I had met earlier while watching the well drilling. He is a former vaccinator for this clinic, but currently is working for a gemstone company, taking rubies from Jegdalek, emeralds and tourmaline from nearby areas, to Pakistan to be cut, then back to Kabul for sale. He showed us a few rubies, I think hoping we would purchase some. He was very friendly, speaks English very well.

Then we went back to the classroom where the assistant was teaching about 10 boys English. Again, it was very much a rote method. I gave the teacher some pencils to hand out to the students. Back to the clinic where we handed out the blankets made by the Coon Rapids VBS kids to another group of Kuchi women and children. I felt terrible that I didn't have enough to give to all of them. They were very appreciative, however.

Next stop was the doctor's room next door. The male medical staff stay there through the entire week as it is too difficult to travel there each day. (The midwife has moved to the village - she had her young daughter with her - wouldn't she love to have a playground to use.) We sat down on the toshaks (after making use of the facilities - 4 little cubicles in their own little building to the rear with a "squattie pottie" in each one). A young man came in with pitcher and basin to wash our hands. Then the tablecloth was brought in with six huge rounds of nan folded inside. A huge platter of seasoned rice came next with a roasted chicken on top, then plates, huge spoons, and a dish of stewed chicken with a tomato onion sauce. The commander of the police station shared our meal with us. He is actually from Sorobi and is over about 235 police. His monthly salary is $350 US. A starting police officer can expect about $250 per month. He has 35 officers under him and a similar amount of his staff are working primarily on intelligence tasks. Shortly after we finished, we left again with a police escort of five on a Ford Ranger truck leading us to Sorobi.

A few other facts about Jegdalek. It is located on the eastern edge of Kabul province. Just over the ridge to the east is Nangahar province, which borders on Pakistan with Jalabad as the capital. The clinic serves 57 villages, with an estimated population of 22,000. The staff consists of a doctor, a midwife, a lab technician, a vaccinator who travels into the surrounding villages by motorbike, and about 40 volunteer community health workers who are given a supply of medications to distribute for headaches, etc. Cases too difficult for them are taken to the clinic, and if too difficult to handle there, they are taken to Sorobi.

There is a fairly large school in Jegalek but it is understaffed. Our center desperately needs a female teacher but no one local is qualified and it is very expensive to move someone in. The security situation is tentative here so it is not recommended that westerners spend the night on the grounds.

Our drive home was a little slower. Of course we were going uphill most of the way from Sorobi. More traffic, many more Pakistani trucks. Our engine began to heat up so we stopped to pour some water over it (the river was close enough that Muhammad Gul could refill his container a couple of times). Coming up to a short tunnel, a large semi truck was trying to pass a Pakistani truck and it seemed as though they got jammed. However, the semi finally entered the tunnel and nothing still was moving. There were a couple of cars ahead of us, but in what seems to be typical Afghani fashion, cars from behind us decided to take advantage of the fact that there was no oncoming traffic to move up beside us. After perhaps 15-20 minutes, traffic began to move on our side, a herd of goats came through toward us and a police officer walked through directing traffic to resolve the situation. Quite an amusing interlude really.

The traffic once we reached Kabul was not so amusing however. It took us over an hour to get home after we reached the city limits. We were glad to get home in time for supper, a shower and bed!

It's now 8:45 am. I went down for breakfast during that disastrous sixth inning. Jon Rauch has done his bit by having a three up, three down inning. I think it's time to switch over to the pitch by pitch commentary. I'm heading to the University again at 10:00 am to have more fun with the music students. I'll write more about them tomorrow - during game 2!

Days Nine and Ten

Sunday night after we returned, I sat in on another session of the Institute for Leadership Development. They had moved to a new permanent location, a large house where their offices, kitchen and bathrooms are on the main floor, and the lower level has one large classroom and two smaller "break-out" rooms. There is another floor or two above which will house single men, mostly PAC TEC pilots. It is located closer to the University and therefore closer to our guesthouse too.

This class was taught by two women and was a continuation of one the previous week. Participants had been asked to complete the Meyers-Briggs personality inventory online but they didn't deal with the results of it since not all had completed it. They discussed some gender issues, then spent the majority of the class debating the pros and cons of "I can only change myself" vs. "I can change others". Very lively discussion. Two women were in the class, one of which I had the opportunity to talk with during the break. She is here in country alone, her family is still all in Iran where she completed her university studies and she works in a civil service job. We were also celebrating a birthday during the break.

The next afternoon, Monday, Mae took me to the University of Kabul where we were met by an ex-pat Ben who teaches at the Engineering Department. The University has a goal of teaching completely in English by 2025 and he is working to get the curriculum and other materials ready. He introduced us to Kamiq, an English teacher in the Fine Arts Department and we all walked to the brand-new Fine Arts building which was just completed 2 months ago and is a gift from the government of Pakistan. We went round to a side entrance where the music students enter. All the floors are marble. There is a huge atrium which opens all the halls in the building to the elements. Curious construction.

We met with the Head of the Music Department, Islamuddin Faroz, in the office of two guitar teachers, one of which speaks English quite well. Dr. Faroz does pretty well himself, understands better than he speaks. We had a good talk, the result of which was an invitation to visit classes the next morning from 8:30 to 12:30. And we had tea. They found some nuts, raisins and candy and spread them out artistically on a couple of plates, apologizing for having to use a chair for a table.

So on Tuesday morning, our driver dropped me off at Puli Sorkh, the red bridge entrance after we brought the teenagers to school. Mae was unable to be with me because she had laryngitis. The Fine Arts building is the first one inside that entrance so I arrived by about 8:00. The doors were locked but a student knocked on the door for me and the chawkidor came and escorted me up to the office of the Head of Fine Arts. He was very gracious to me and after we talked for 20 minutes he called Dr. Faroz who then brought me upstairs to a large classroom with an old grand piano.

I had a delightful day with sometimes 21 students at a time. But I can't write any more now because Muhamed Gul is ready to take us to pick up Dr. Rafiq and head out to Jegdalek.

Days Four to Eight - in the North

Life is a bit different in the north, access to the Internet was somehow by cell phone so I didn't bother. But now I have five days to post at once.

We flew from Kabul Airport in one of PAC TECs planes, I think it was a 10-passenger Cessna 210 and flew home in a 9-passenger Beechcraft King 200. Our non-stop flight seemed to be over nothing but mountains. There were some clouds so the pilot nosed his way around and above them.

Arriving at our destination in the early afternoon to sunny but a bit cooler temperatures, it was a surprise to have the road to the airport being paved - the nicest road we'd seen stretching right into the new city portion. All joy of that soon disappeared as we headed across the bridge to the old city and drove through the bazaar on something which beggars the term road. It was like driving down the creek wash of Mill Creek back near Forest Falls CA. No boulders, but lots of donkeys and people. Barely wide enough for two vehicles to pass. Our host drove us to his home, up a side street from the main road where his young family greeted us warmly. They have a nice yard with fruit trees and several pieces of wooden playground equipment (I'm on a search for playgrounds while I'm here!). There is a concrete apron off the rear of the house which has sidewalks extending through the compound to the necessary places, to the entrance, to the outside lavatory, to the wash hut where laundry is done and baths are taken - yes, even in the winter.

The house is two story, was built as three rooms on each level with a rectangle at the back and two rectangles on each side coming forward. They had enclosed the front balcony area when they took possession of the house so ended up with eight rooms, the lower balcony functioning as an entrance and the upper one as a nice nook with an easy chair and bookshelves. I was awarded the guestroom upstairs on the right, Brian was in the toy room below me with orders to not play with the toys at night from the 3-yr-old son.

Rather than go through a day-by-day account of our activities, I'll just try to sum up with some general observations. Our team up north consists of our host couple with their two children and an older woman who has a small house with a huge garden a short distance away. They operate a community center in the poor section of the city which offers tutoring in basic school subjects to bolster the short public school day, English classes at several levels, computer classes and a sports program. I had the opportunity to sit in on a mixed class of older elementary students and to spend an afternoon with some older girls reading a book in the library. Two older girls, ages 17 and 20, stayed behind with the Afghan teacher and we had a lively discussion on all sorts of topics. All three of these clad burkas to make their way home.

President Karzai was hard on our heels, arriving the day after us with a flurry of helicopters and troops in various uniforms. He apparently came to see the new road and a new hydro electric plant being built by the Germans. Traffic was pretty tied up all over town - which didn't take much.

We spent one afternoon in the bazaar. So many shops, many selling the same things - vegetables, plastics, fabrics, men's clothes, small appliances, shoes - one wonders how they make enough to survive. The street was full of donkeys bearing loads, women in burkas, a few beggars, children who seemed fascinated by three western women without burkas! Some shops stay open quite late, and most are open on Friday too.

On Friday, the holy day, we had the opportunity to meet many of the ex-pat community, the majority of whom were German. They work for a variety of NGOs, doing medical work, translation, teaching English as foreign language (EFL). Some spend much of their time up in the Wokhan Corridor.

Our hosts took us out to eat at a couple of restaurants. The first was located on the 2nd floor of a beautiful guest house and offered hamburgers and quesadillas. We weren't too sure whether the hamburgers were really beef - it was pretty dense and tasted a bit like liver. Goat, maybe? The second restaurant was KFC - the K stands for Kabul though, not Kentucky. They had pizza, some chinese dishes and yes, some chicken. To travel to these restaurants in the new city, we took the "high road" on the south side of the river to avoid driving through the bazaar. A bit easier on the vehicle, but the drop-offs were somewhat frightening. Many new government buildings are being erected along this stretch.

Other items of note: Downtown is located one of the few buzkashi fields located in a city setting. It was complete with viewing stands and a fence around it made of concrete pillars and wrought-iron with Olympic logos on it. Did I miss something? Is this now an Olympic sport? If so, the Afghans are sure to take the gold. Also, on the way to the airport, one can see a large compound up on the north. This was built by Rabbani, one of five major players during the mujahadeen period, as his headquarters. He was part of the Northern Alliance and was President of Afghanistan until the Taliban came to power.

One of the biggest challenges of living there is not having indoor plumbing. Water for drinking comes from a naal pipe serving the neighborhood which still has to be filtered before it is safe to drink. Water for washing clothes and bathing must be fetched in a big tank. Electrical service is improving. Because our hosts live close to a commander, they now have pretty much 24-hour service, a recent development. The other team member who lives just one side street over, only has electricity at night. All yards have a water trough running through them, a jouie which provides water for irrigating the trees and flowers. These are subject to the whims of one's neighbors, who may or may not cooperate with allowing the flow of water through.

Taking a bath involves heating up a bucket of water, combining it with cold water in another pail, then using a ladle to pour it over you as needed while you stand in a concrete depression which has a drain. It worked pretty well, but I was very thankful to be doing it in such pleasant temperatures. When it gets cold, they heat the room as much as possible with a wood heater. The latrine doesn't get heated though!

Clothing. Life is more conservative in the north. We saw no women without burkas. We wore chapans, long coats over our long skirts, which also had long pants underneath. And of course, scarves over our heads any time we left our compound. Most difficult for me was learning to take off my shoes every time I came into the house. I bought a pair of house slippers in the bazaar which I also need in Kabul.

The flight back to Kabul was a bit more interesting. The PAC TEC flights serve the NGO community only and are organized to fit the travel needs of the various groups. On our way back, two men got off at Rostok at a less frequently used airstrip next to a melon field (they had to buzz the airstrip before landing to check for rocks and encourage the donkeys to get off!). Then we stopped at Kunduz to pick up a man and his wife. The Kunduz valley was very extensive and green, much greener even than Kabul. While waiting for the Kabul airport to clean off some flares, we flew east quite a ways, but I don't think we got as far as Jegdalek.

It was nice to get back - albeit much warmer and dustier. We were met by Zamir at the airport, and came home to a delicious lunch which had been delayed for us.

Day Three

Finally slept well last night. Took a shower after supper and was in bed by 7:30 pm. Had a brief period awake from about 11 pm to midnight, but woke at 5:30 am. So that's very good. Taking a shower is quite a process. First you turn the cold tap on at the sink which signals to the hot water heater to turn on. Then you turn on the tap in the bath/shower and start collecting the water in a huge bucket as it begins to warm up. When the temperature gets to a nice warm temperature, you turn off the sink tap, step in the shower and pull the knob to release it to the shower head. You have to wash very quickly before the water gets too hot. Yes, I said too hot. It keeps on rising in temperature. When you can't stand it any more, you shut it off and use the water you collected in the bucket to finish off. I had to dunk my head in it to rinse the conditioner out of my hair and then make sure my feet were clean. Strange, but it works.

Yesterday Dr. Rafik, who supervises the three community centers here in southern Afghanistan, picked us up with his driver in a little pick-up truck just after breakfast. We drove south out of Kabul past the former king's palace which was badly bombed during the fight over Kabul after the Russians left. The queen's palace sits about a quarter of a mile behind it; it is also uninhabitable.

Then we are out of the city. Rather like the foothills around Yucaipa CA but most trees are orchards of apricot and apple trees. Very dusty. Occasional herds of goats and sheep. The road is paved until we get to a military checkpoint which we skip by turning right up the side of the mountain, taking the "high road" to Lalander. The occasional villages are collections of walls built up close on both sides of the road. Dr. Rafik explained that this road was constructed by Hekmatyr's troops to supply his army during the fight for Kabul. You might want to google his name and read about him; he's still active in Afghanistan's ongoing political drama.

Then we are driving up the Lalander valley. On our right is the mountain, which shows signs of being quarried for rock. Most of the traffic we encounter are large trucks, some carrying rock, others loads of wood headed for Kabul. On the left is the valley with terraces where water flow is directed. The water is coming from mountain melt. Once in a while you see a couple of men sitting cross-legged on the terrace wall, having a cup of tea perhaps.

The clinic at Lalander was built by a PRT (Provisional Reconstruction Team) from Poland but was never made operational. Morningstar took over that task a few years ago. This clinic is open three days a week, Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. We meet the midwife who has a couple of women in burkas with four children in her office. The women cover themselves when our cameras come out and even then turn away from the camera. There are posters on the wall with pictures of contraceptive choices, child in utero, woman's body with interior cutaways. There is a birthing room, but many of the births take place in homes.

We also meet the vaccinator who has a large blue refrigerated chest of vaccines, descriptions of the various required vaccines with samples attached written in Dari. He explains how he keeps track of each patient, who also has a shot record. All this information is regulated by the Health Ministry and regular reports are sent in. He gives a shot to a small child still in diapers who cries just like babies all over the world when subjected to such indignity. The vaccinator explains the maps on the wall which show the routes he takes regularly to take vaccines to outlying areas on his bicycle.

There is also a lab at Lalander with one of three "lab-in-a-box" kits granted by the US military. Much can be determined right on site without having to send samples or people to Kabul.

We drive next to Tangi Saidan which we had passed above on our high road. This is the model community center, a walled compound with separate buildings housing an education center, a communications center, a medical clinic and a guest house.

The education center has several large classrooms. In one, a group of 20-25 young men are being trained as vaccinators for an oral polio vaccination campaign which is being organized for early in October. They travel in teams of two with a loudspeaker to call out their purpose as the enter the village; one team member administers the two drops of vaccine to children under 5, the other keeps records. This is all part of a government effort to lower the mortality rate of children under 5. The young men gather quite eagerly around us foreigners while Dr. Rafik has the trainer explain how the system works. I think they were hoping I would give them one of the colored pencils I had in my hand, but they were for the children next door!

Then we go across the hall where a young woman has a class of 9 girls learning English. Dr. Rafik explains that more children will be coming later as they are let out of school. Brian asks the teacher to continue with the lesson so we can observe. She reads what is written on the entire page which is supposed to be giving her directions on what to do (review the days of the week, ask the students to spell a list of words, ask the students to write out the following sentences) and then asks a student to stand up who then reads back the entire page. It was rather like watching the teaching of the Koran to young boys in the movie "Osama". All rote, no actual involvement of the brain or the hands. This area needs work! We visit the library which also needs some help. There are lots of books in English on health, including a Physician's Desk Reference. Very little in Dari, perhaps 50 books total on children's level.

The communications center has an office for the manager, a young man; a large room with with two sections - one has about 15-30 computers on which students learn basic Office software, the other smaller section has internet access where internet skills are taught and access to the internet is available for those already knowledgeable. Fees are charged for these classes and the internet access, which are agreed upon in meetings with the local shura. Finally there is a radio station room at the rear, manned by another young man who explains how he works out the schedule for the two hours of FM programming six days a week. At our request he plays a CD of Afghani music with rebab, the traditional Afghani guitar. This however entails turning on the generator which generally is not done until time for the computer classes to start.

We also visit the medical clinic which is very similar in layout to the one at Lalander. We meet the midwife and she allows us to interview her for Brian's camera about her education and her work. The woman visiting her has donned her burka but also allows me to interview her. We meet the doctor who has practiced in this area for 10 years, coming six days a week from Kabul. He explains much about the procedures he uses for reporting to the Ministry of Health and tells us that the maternity mortality and infant mortality in this area are both well below the national averages, which are the highest in the world.

We finally visit the guest house: bathrooms with showers, bedrooms with 3-5 twin beds in each, a kitchen which serves Afghani food, not western food, and a dining/living room area. Very nice. Tea is set out for us, but we decide to move ahead because we've been invited to eat lunch at the home of one of Tangi Saidan's vaccinators who in this case is hosting us in his role as malik of the village.

It is quite a drive to his home, located in an area called white castle. (I will edit this after I check with Dr. Rafik.) After we are allowed to drive into the compound having beeped our horn to signal our arrival, we are greeted and escorted into the guest room, off to one side of the main house. We slip our shoes off in the entryway and enter. It is perhaps 12 X 20, with deep red toshaks on three sides. A beautiful oriental carpet is on the floor. Large windows with big ledges line one wall. A television stands on the fourth wall. I am a bit concerned about getting down on the cushions, but I've brought an extra scarf to put over my legs to maintain modesty. (It was a bit tough getting up afterwards but I managed not to embarrass myself or my host!)

A procession of people enter: our host (about 50 and dignified), his son (very tall and handsome, perhaps 25 or so), a little boy (perhaps 3 and cute as a button) and a young man, never identified but who acts in the role of a servant and doesn't partake of the meal. The servant brings around a silver pitcher and wide bowl, pours water over our hands into the bowl. They all help to bring in a tablecloth which is unrolled to reveal three slabs of nan, trays with large plates of seasoned rice, bowls of stewed beef with onions, and a salad of tomato, radish, onions and of course, cilantro. The platters, bowls and bread are arranged so each pair of us has one of each to share. We learned by observing that we could pick up the food with pieces of bread, or spoon the beef mixture and salad onto the rice and use large spoons or bread to pick it up. Our hosts used bread mostly, but the rest of us used spoons. But oh, was it good! I'm partial to onions anyway, but the rice was excellent, seasoned with the onion paste that I've learned how to make from my Kabuli pilau recipe. The beef also was very succulent, not greasy at all. The salad very tart. A well-balanced meal! The son served us each a cup of doh (sp?), a sort of salted watered down yoghurt. I don't usually do milk products, but it was quite tasty. Dr. Rafik put a bunch of the salad in it at the end of the meal to finish. Hmmm...

Next, plates of apples were brought with knives. Brian kindly took charge of our knife and we devoured two, leaving the parings right on the tablecloth. The apples were from his own orchard. Quite tart, good crisp texture. Not quite a honeycrisp but close!

Then the dishes were taken away and the tablecloth rolled up and removed. Again the servant comes by with the pitcher of water and small towels to dry our hands. Out came tea with small bowls of wrapped toffees and sugared almonds. Dr. Rafik explained that the water in this area was hard but very good so we would never have such good tea anywhere else. It was good as were the almonds. According to Dr. Rafik again, the almonds indicated our status as respected guests. Otherwise we might have been served another candy which sticks in your mouth!

And finally came the talk. Much of it was between the host, Dr. Rafik, and his driver. But eventually we were included and we talked about the Taliban, the elections, Afghanistan's past and future. The son never said a word. We were invited to return, to spend a night, all part of the famous pashtunwali. We never saw a female or talked about them.

Well, I'll spare you all the details about the journey home but we made it safely, stopping once to get some air put in a tire. All women we saw in the villages, however, were clad in burkas. We entered Kabul again during rush hour, once again hordes of people, cars driving quite chaotically.

We leave for the north later this morning. Internet access will be limited there so I won't be able to post as frequently. I also won't be able to keep up with the Twins (I was streaming the game live while blogging this morning - lost the 5th straight game, 10 - 1!)

Day Two

Spent the morning on the computer. Besides the blog and checking my email, I had to check the Twins scores. Folks, fellow Minnesotans, how could you let the Twins get swept by Detroit? Sounds like Mauer was out for the entire series. It's hard to check the Twins website because the pages take so long to load. I finally found a page with just the standings and bookmarked it so I can get the results more quickly.

Also spent some time making sure I had the clothes I need for our trip north which is much more conservative than Kabul. Debbie is loaning me this delicious long black coat with some embroidery on it which makes it make my Pakistani scarf perfectly.

Mae Dawn came over to help make plans for all the things we want to do when we come back from the north. Visit the orphanage, visit the U of Kabul, find some playgrounds to take pictures of for our project, get my shopping done for Masouda, perhaps visit the ISK, the K-12 school for internationals to investigate teaching music. It will be a very busy week.

Late yesterday afternoon, Brian and I went to sit in on a class at the Institute for Leadership Development which has just started up in Kabul. Students were arriving late because of a big traffic tie-up. A huge machine was working on the road so all traffic going one direction was diverted to another street. The police there were very busy keeping traffic moving.

It was the beginning class of a new semester. Only one woman in the class; apparently there had been five last semester. They were using a John Maxwell book Developing the Leader Within You. They were discussing a chapter on Positive Change.



Lively discussion. Very friendly people all of them. The men all wanted to shake my hand, so very progressive. These are the leaders of Afghanistan in the days to come. Several doctors in the group. One mullah, as we learned later.

At the break, the director of the school invited us to his home where his wife and two children fed us dinner, including a hot fudge sundae cake for dessert. Very western food, but very Afghani home, all sitting on toshaks, with a tablecloth spread on the floor in front of us. When she served us dessert, she switched to a more decorative tablecloth. I am going to have to do some serious physical rehab if I'm to be sitting on toshaks a lot! Expect to run into that today as we have lunch in a locals home at one of the communities we visit.

Also joining us for supper was a young Afghani man currently working for the UN. He is a graduate of ILD at the University of Herat and had just spent two years in the US getting a Master's Degree in Diplomacy. Next year he is going back to study at Notre Dame to get some additional law studies to add to his law degree obtained here in Afghanistan. Very open, honest frank discussion about the future of Afghanistan and its citizens. With people like that in the leadership pipeline, there is great hope for the future.

Settling In

Yesterday I was so tired that it's amazing I managed to write a coherent blog at all. Much better today, although I woke at 4 am and just decided to get on with my day so I journaled, checked my email - so much faster at that time of the morning! - did my obligatory crossword puzzle and sudoku plus some reading all before breakfast. My low carb diet is sure gone right out of the window. Breakfast was french toast and nan (Afghani bread). Supper last night was leftovers because the cook was not well, but consisted of leftover spaghetti from Saturday night, potatoes in tomato sauce from Sunday noon, rice, and macaroni in tomato sauce. Covered the carbs as though they were the entire food group spectrum. Fresh fruit though, tashakkor.

One would not know we're in a war zone. I can hear birds singing, some children playing next door who sound like children all over the world, a rooster who crows hourly from about 1:30 am on (reminds me of San Bernardino). The streets are full of people just going about their business. No real sidewalks on the main thoroughfares so people walk on the roads, along with the occasional herd of sheep. In the more commercial areas there are sidewalks or dirt paths. There is a new effort to deal with trash so big metal containers have been placed strategically along the streets. It is not as obvious who is to collect them and how often, so they are surrounded by mounds of trash that no longer fits in. In some places you see quite a few police in their blue-gray uniforms. Only at the City Center Mall yesterday did I see one with a visible weapon.

The shops seem to be arranged in groups by trade: one street will have various medical offices and pharmacies, another tailors and fabric stores. The appliance store we were at yesterday was surrounded by sports stores. Apparently an Afghani won a bronze medal at the last Summer Olympics and became an instant national hero. Bodybuilding is very big here.

Then there are the food stores. The produce shops look like our farmer's markets, but even in the barrios of East LA one doesn't see meat hanging out in the open. You might see the chickens in cages in the barrios though! I asked whether they eat rabbit but apparently they are sometimes pets.

The University of Kabul is right on our way home. Yesterday noon when we came by there were hundreds of students out on the street walking, waiting for buses. There are quite a few medical clinics and hospitals along our journey too, some quite good apparently.

Late this afternoon we are going to sit in on the Institute for Leadership Development class for U of Kabul students and have the opportunity to meet the director.

Tomorrow we leave after breakfast with Dr. Rafik to visit the community centers at Lalander and Tangi Saidan, and may have the opportunity to eat lunch with a local family.

Ken just stopped by with a wad of 500 Af notes for me. They're worth just over $11 each. Ooh, now I can go shopping!

Well, I think I'm going to try to get a nap in before lunch as the afternoon is pretty booked and I've been up a long time.

Arrival

It's 2:30 in the afternoon here in Kabul. Yes, we arrived safely - almost 24 hours ago. First impressions: lots of traffic, lots of men hanging about, trying to sell phone cards, etc., dust everywhere. We were picked up at the airport but had to walk quite a ways to get to an area where regular people are allowed to park. Police all around the airport but didn't see any guns. Ken and Debbie, the managers of the guest house came along with the driver Zamir. We stopped at a western market on the way to the guest house which had just about everything you might need - General Mills cereals! - chunky peanut butter, chips and dips. But no popcorn so it was good I brought 6 pounds along.

The weather was lovely, just amazingly beautiful, about 75 or 80 degrees. But very dry, which at first was very welcome after the humidity of Dubai (my camera lens misted over so I could hardly take pictures). By last night though, I was feeling my entire skin surface start to shrink. I'll probably look like a raisin when I get home.

The guest house here is not as fancy as the one in Dubai. But the people are just as nice. There are quite a few Afghanis on staff, a cook, a cleaner, drivers, guards and of course Akram who works in the office. He kindly lent me this laptop so I could keep up my blog and check email.

This morning after breakfast we went downtown to buy a vaccuum cleaner for a couple in north Afghanistan(that was the main reason we stopped at the western market yesterday, but what they had wasn't satisfactory.) Nice appliance store - not so many floor samples as we're used to, but quite a variety of products available. Kabul has electricity most of the time now, with only occasional outages, so the products are coming too. Next we walked to the City Center Mall. Big contrast. Once inside (there were guards outside and in, and saw my first armed guard) you might have thought you were in Dubai. Three stories of shops and another five stories of hotel, with a huge open stairwell that let you see all the way up. There are escalators there, but they weren't working, the only ones in Kabul apparently. Shops selling electronics, jewelry, videos, clothes. I stopped into one store to check prices on a lovely silk dress outfit - $472 US.

The big news is that we have decided to go to north Afghanistan on Wednesday, returning here on Sunday. The community center there is one that was started up by another group and came under the auspices of Morningstar a couple of years ago. They have many programs up and running there but Brian has never had a chance to visit. Life is more conservative up there and they use solar power for everything. Also no indoor plumbing. Hey, why not; it'll be just like summer camp!

In Transit

I'm sitting here in a lovely guest house in Dubai at 9:30 pm Dubai time. I think that's about 12:30 pm on Friday back in Minnesota. The flight from Minneapolis to Atlanta was uneventful although exceedingly crowded. A Somali woman and I helped each other make the transfer to the E concourse from the A - ooh, I love those trams! Brian arrived about half an hour after I did, coming from North Carolina.

The Dubai flight was more efficient in boarding and I was seated next to another Somali woman who had started in Seattle and was making a connection here in Dubai to Somalia (I think.) What a long trek. Being an overseas flight, each seat had its own video screen to watch movies, play games or keep track of the trip. In the cycle of screens for the travel info, data was given in English with American measurements, then metric, a series of maps at three different resolutions, all of this first in English, then in Arabic. They also include a figure of the plane with a directional arrow pointing the way to Mecca and the distance from there. The flight was 14 hours with some turbulence and too much food.

The airport in Dubai is huge. Lots of English signs. I find I can read much of the Arabic, although I have no idea necessarily what it means or if I'm pronouncing it correctly. At least I have gotten to the point where the letters mean the sounds to me - I don't translate them into English letters although I do study Dari (Farsi) in both the transliterated and Dari versions. Dari doesn't have a lot of vowels, I imagine Arabic is the same. You just have to learn them. There are symbols that are used when teaching children or foreigners which tell what the vowel sound is, whether there is a glottal or a double consonant, etc. They are not used in standard written Dari however.

I found myself wondering when I would see men in flowing robes while walking through the airport. And finally, there they were, a bunch of them all dressed in white, very uniform. I soon realized that these were the employees coming on to man the passport control booths. There were a few women working there too, all dressed in flowing black. Reminded me of Spy vs. Spy in the old Mad Magazine comics of my brother Tom's. Dubai is pretty liberal so most westerners hadn't made any adjustment to their dress. I did notice some lovely ladies with a sort of white pillbox affair with veils draping down the sides. Very fashionable, I thought. When I saw the second one and her dress was exactly the same as the first, tunic, long skirt with front slit, I realized they must be airline employees.

We exchanged $100 US into $361 dirhams so we could pay for the taxi and the guest house. The taxi driver was from Egypt, was a bit concerned he wouldn't be able to find the place, but did just fine. The guest house is lovely, secure courtyard, lovely rooms. My room is on the 2nd level and I'm in a sitting room which has computers, couches and lots of bookshelves. I could stay here for days! My room has three twin beds and its own bathroom. We'll have breakfast in the morning, then head off to the airport about 9:15 am (just after midnight for you Minnesotans) to catch our noon flight to Kabul.

Ooh, one final note: when I logged on to my blog tonight, all the commands at the top are in Arabic! It took a while to find the place where I could sign in and post.

Final Preparations

Well, tomorrow is the big day and this prep has not been without its own drama. I ordered my Afghanistan visa through a service (which shall remain nameless) and somehow, some way, my passport with its new visa got sent to an address in Colorado Springs where a Morningstar associate "used" to live. When I finally saw the tracking receipt on Tuesday morning stating that the parcel had been "Left on Porch" in "Colorado Springs", my faith (and patience) was sorely tested. However, the Morningstar staff rallied, sent someone to the residence and retrieved the package, and overnighted it to me. Whew!

Had a lovely day at Redeemer on Sunday being blessed by everyone. Spent the last couple of days buying the final necessities: new crossword puzzle and suduko books, kleenex, new batteries for the travel alarm, compressions bags for those lovely blankets made by the Coon Rapids VBS kids. Lunch yesterday with friends at Khyber Pass Restaurant in St. Paul, then back again today to get orders from Masouda and Emel for things to shop for. I am so NOT a shopper, it's really nice to have someone give me a reason to get out and about and see what is available. They also gave me a list of places to visit on their behalf. I need to learn how to be a good photographer too.

I just checked in for my flight and got my boarding pass. My brother Jim is kindly taking me to the airport. Lift-off is scheduled for 3:30 pm for a 2-1/2 hour flight to Atlanta where I will meet Brian for the overnight flight of 14 hours to Dubai. We'll stay there at a guest house called "The Edge of the Woods" (sounds like Minnesota!) and fly to Kabul at noon the next day, arriving about 3:00 pm Kabul time. Afghanistan is ahead of Minnesota by 10-1/2 hours.

Remembering

All through the weekend of September 11, I kept listening in vain for anyone to acknowledge what Afghanistan might be remembering at this time. Two days before 9/11, on September 9, 2001, two Al-Qaeda terrorists disguised as television journalists, with Belgian passports and claiming to be Moroccan, managed to gain an interview with General Ahmed Shah Massoud, the Lion of Panshir, head of the Northern Alliance, and assassinated him by setting off bombs hidden in their cameras. He had been extremely wary of meeting with them - assassination attempts were frequent. But he decided to take the opportunity to try to explain himself and the Northern Alliance to the Arab audience.

According to many sources, Massoud represented Afghanistan's best hope for a moderate leader, but he was disliked by the Pakistanis who controlled the flow of US and Saudi money to the Afghanistan mujahedin. According to Steve Coll, author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, Massoud had warned the CIA about the dangers of the Taliban, Pakistani intelligence and their Arab voulunteers for many years. See chapter 19: "We're Keeping These Stingers". Yet because of the US commitment to trusting Pakistan, Massoud's warnings were not taken seriously in the necessary quarters.

Hindsight has the luxury of 20/20 vision. It seems to me that the US has missed some momentous opportunities to have created a better outcome in Central Asia than the chaos of the past two decades. And it is frightening that Al-Qaeda more astutely recognized the value of Massoud in Afghanistan's future. As hard as it is for we navel-gazing Americans to admit it, our tragedy was merely the 2nd act of the September 2001 debacle. More horrific perhaps, but no more consequential.

I find myself wondering where I was in 1997 when the Taliban were taking over Afghanistan. Busy with my life in southern California, working as a chaplain at the LA County Jail, doing good. But why didn't I pay any attention to the fact the Afghanis were leaving the country in droves to flee the Taliban. Wasn't it in the news? Certainly many Americans were aware as I've learned from my reading over that past two years.

Now that I do know, I feel a responsibility to be involved, to be there. It may feel like I've missed the boat, but I'm trusting that while I was doing my thing, being there in the LA County Jail in 1997, now my thing is to "be there" in Afghanistan.

I remember an occasion while I was working as a chaplain at the Saskatoon Correctional Centre in the late 80's when I met a recently released inmate for coffee in downtown Saskatoon. Midway through our conversation, he blurted out "I can't understand why I feel so calm when I'm around you." The guards on the semi-secure unit told me how much my presence in the unit on Saturday nights, playing cards, kept the unit calm. I can only hope that my presence in Afghanistan, whichever form it takes over the next decade, helps someone, anyone, to feel calm.

Moving

Finally got the word last week to book my ticket to Afghanistan! Planning to depart Sep 23 and come back Oct 10. Now comes all the work of planning what to take.

I've been off-line for awhile. My house finally sold to a lovely family who couldn't wait to get in. They were mowing lawns, trimming hedges, cleaning gutters all while we were packing up my stuff. Put most of my things into storage and moved my office and bedroom to my brother Jim's home in Prior Lake. People keep asking if I'm sad about leaving the house. Not that I am known for being in touch with my feelings, but my primary feeling has been one of relief! I lived there from July 2002 to August 2010 - the longest I've lived in any one place since I left my parents' home.

I will miss living in Mounds View. Having been part of the Streets & Utilities Task Force and then sitting on the Streets & Utilities Committee for two years, I felt a close connection to the community. I'm still teaching up there one day a week, so will get to visit my Caribou Coffee baristas and my favorite hairdresser Nicole at Cost Cutters!

Kabul in Winter

Just finished reading Ann Jones' Kabul in Winter, published in 2006. Tough book to read, not because she doesn't write well because she does. There are several other books I have started but not finished because they were so negative, but this one I couldn't let go of because Ann is so much like me - same age, many of the same passions. There are three sections, In the Streets, In the Prisons and In the Schools. Having spent so many years working in jails and prisons here in the US, I found the Prisons sections fascinating but frightening. And the section on Schools was downright discouraging.

I've read quite a few books by American women living in the Afghan culture. This is the first one that made me question my ability to have any useful function in Afghanistan. Not that I'm getting cold feet yet. But if I thought that going there would enable me to get away from the materialistic culture of the US, it seems that so many of the worst sort of Americans are over there now, milking the aid environment in the worst possible ways.

Signing On

I found my round tuit! Now I can finally start the blog that I've been thinking about for well over a year. I plan to share some of the steps of my journey to this place and also to post as I continue in my forays.

My interest in Afghanistan began two years ago in July 2008 while listening to Dan Batchelder talk about Morningstar Development's work building community centers in various areas in Afghanistan. Something in me said "This would be something worth doing." As I was saddled with a huge house, it didn't seem as though going to Afghanistan was something I could look forward to for a long time. But in February 2009, I was struck by the realization that if I "lost" the house, I could be free to go. It was necessary to let go of that American Dream of home ownership in order to realize the next dream. And now, I have a definite date of August 17, 2010, when I will no longer be a home owner! Next stop - Afghanistan!