Incredible shrinking world

So my life was not terribly expansive to begin with. When not traveling to a field office, I rotated between the office and the guesthouse with occasional excursions to the ooooh grocery store or aaaaah restaurant. And lately there has been some necessary Christmas shopping - where you are followed by small boys asking you to buy a map, or a pack of chewing gum and they keep saying "madame, madame, I am your bodyguard". Not sure if it's amusing for them or if there is a monetary game at play.

Anyway, life is small. It seemed inconceivable that it could get smaller. But it has. The Kabul office is bursting at the seams - a good thing in terms of program growth but bad in that our office can't grow. We needed a temporary solution to the desk deficit. The answer took shape in the form of the Asmara satellite office. The first floor of my guesthouse has a large room which, until last week, contained a rather nice, but lonely pool table. Now, it contains my program's office. Essentially I can wake up, roll down the stairs and be sitting at my desk. And I have to say, I really like this arrangement for a variety of reasons, namely INTERNET! Because we are an office, we are the only guesthouse with internet. So, on second thought, my Kabul world may have closed in but my connection to the outside world has cracked wide open.

(Photo: Rare clear view from the top of the guesthouse over Kabul at sunset)

PLK field trip

The reason for adventurous travels through the Salang Pass was to visit our program office in Pulikhumri (PLK) which oversees operations for projects in Baghlan Province. Because of security concerns, we could only visit project sites within the city limits even though most of our infrastructure, livestock and agriculture projects take place in rural communities.

Still, it was very productive trip and a great break from what has become the monotony of Kabul. While in PLK we visited a spillway project and an old textile factory which will be the future site for a cash-for-work project targeting women. They will be trained to "weave" gabions. What is a gabion? Oh the things I get to learn on this job. A gabion is a wire cage that is used in protection wall construction to protect agriculture land and communities from flooding. Stones and cement are packed into the gabions which reinforce the wall structure. I'm sure I'll find a use for that information someday. Construction trivia pursuit? In the meantime, I'll make use of the information to generate some donor interest stories about improving the lives of women. (Photo: a folded up gabion)

Another interesting thing I learned about is devil's dung. A crop grown in the wild on hill-sides. The resin that oozes out of a cut bulb, hardens, is pulverized, cut with flour and used in very small amounts in Indian cooking (the ingredient is called asafoetida). There are also claims for its medicinal qualities. Recent articles claim it could fight H1N1. We met with several farmers to discuss how the crop is cultivated and what they need to be more successful. Devil's dung has earned its name, because the stench is a wretched cross between sulfur and rancid onions. After sitting in a room for two hours with the odor wafting about, I was nauseated and had to leave. Cooking apparently changes the smell and flavor, so I haven't completely sworn it off - how can you with a daring name like devil's dung. (Photo: resins and seeds)

Salang Pass

This past week was spent in Pulikhumri in Baghlan Province. The drive from Kabul goes through the Salang Pass through the Hindu Kush Mountains, normally takes about 5 hours with good weather and favorable traffic conditions. This trip took 8 hours each way. The pass was filled with snow requiring snow chains and slow driving. On the way over we made good time but shortly after passing through the Salang Pass tunnel (2.6 km of darkness and diesel fumes) we ran into a traffic jam of cars and trucks inching their way along the two-lane mountain road. It was a bright, sunny day but that meant ice and vehicles going up to the pass were having trouble gaining traction.

The return home, we started before dawn which combined with an overcast, snowy day meant fewer cars on the road and less ice. It still took 8 hours, but it was slow and steady and rather pretty too. And even though it was just as dark in the tunnel, with oncoming headlights looking like the dragon eyes in a cave, the air was clearer and we were thankfully able to pass through quickly.

2nd Eid

I am not terribly knowledgeable of Islam admittedly, but this weekend is 2^nd Eid, also known in English as Big Eid. It is the time when Muslims, who can, travel to Mecca for the Hajj – one of five actions to be up held as part of following Islam. It is also a five day weekend. And while for me that means life grinds to a near halt, there is a lot more activity around Kabul – many more people out on the street – most specifically, I have seen more women out and about than normal.

From my new guesthouse room, on the second floor facing the street, I can hear the neighborhood boys playing all day outside on the street. And, like boys everywhere, they are setting off celebratory firecracker. While a normal activity elsewhere, when you live in a city where popping or thudding noises give pause, it seems strange.

The good thing about the Eid weekend coinciding with Thanksgiving Day weekend, is it gave us something to do over the five...long…boring…days. Fortunately I attended both a T-day dinner on Thursday and a second “transitional” dinner on Friday. The latter was Thanksgiving themed food followed by a Christmas-y white-elephant gift exchange (I ended up with a bottle of balsamic vinegar in a red sequined zippered wine bag), a viewing of Charlie Brown Christmas special and The Grinch.

As I write, there are two more days-off to go. There is only so much internet (only available at the office), sleeping, reading, exercising and TV watching a person can handle.

Kabul Thanksgiving

I had been invited to my colleagues’ Cathy & Mike’s Thanksgiving day dinner. And since I had successfully made pumpkin pie from scratch in the Maldives, my ego volunteered me to reproduce said accomplishment for this dinner to feed 14 guests.

As luck would have it, the cultures of the world aligned and the Big Eid holiday coincided with the T-day weekend. Therefore, I had a significant amount of time to accomplish my mission. And if the guests could be trusted – many of whom were non-Americans – the pies were successful. But with any recipe from home, success depended upon a certain amount of creativity and intuition. But three hours of pumpkin cooking, followed by pureeing and draining, a rectangular pan as a second pie plate stand-in, cleaning a suspicious blender, estimating eggs, milk, sugar, pumpkin and pretty much every ingredient, the end product was edible and rather tasty – though strangely colored.

However, the biggest adventure during the pie making was navigating the oven. I have little experience with gas ovens, and no experience with lighting them. I had been warned that this one could be volatile, but still was not prepared for the mini-explosion that occurred when I lit it the first night. No injuries were sustained, and the next morning it lit rather gently. The oven was all bark and no bite because although I converted Fahrenheit degrees to Celsius, I’m pretty sure it didn’t matter since the pies required an extra half hour to bake.

Inauguration Day

It's a ghost town in Kabul. If there were tumble weeds to be had, they would be blowing through the streets. The reason for the empty streets is the inauguration imposed city lock down. Hilary and Holbrooke are in town along with a host of other dignitaries and with the heightened threat of violence this brings, they have put up road blocks and made it a national holiday. This means that our national staff have the day off but the expats were supposed to be able to come to the office. As it turns out, two of us made it through the road block searches before the decision was made for everyone to stay in the guesthouses until the road blocks lifted.

Later that morning the radio room guys told us two that they could walk us back to the guest houses when we were ready. On the walk home, I noticed that the road blocks were gone. However, we were still a) not allowed to return to the office until 2p and b) a group of us walked back to the office. Why walking was preferable to driving, I do not understand. At any rate, being able to walk outside twice in one day - which I've only done a few times since I've been here - was a good but strange experience.

In other news, since returning to Kabul from a great R&R in the states, I have moved into a different guest house. I have a much bigger room, on a second floor and I am living with colleagues - a few permanent and some just passing through. It is a vast improvement.

Kabul odds and ends

As life falls into usual patterns, there seems to be fewer events and observations to write about. Unfortunately, the usual pattern of life in Kabul is not always so pleasant. Within the past week there was work discord, the dramatic UN situation and an earthquake - the second earthquake in one week. And there is the daily waiting game to find out what will happen with the election. But the day-to-day life goes on in its perpetual guesthouse to office rotation.

Interspersed, there are some more enjoyable moments. Last week, I sat down with two of our three female staff while they ate lunch and heard about what it's like to be a woman in Kabul. One had had an arranged marriage - though she was given final say. And she was sure to ask her potential husband if he supported her going to school, working and wearing modern clothes. She was very happy that he did. The other, if I understood correctly, has opted to remain at home unmarried because she wants the freedom to have a job.

Also, on Friday, we received a welcomed break from the tension of Kabul by attending the annual pumpkin carving party hosted by the wildlife conservation society guesthouse. Saturday was one more outing to pick up last minute gifts before I head out on R&R. To say I'm looking forward to it, is a mild understatement. Life is Kabul is inexplicably as complex as it is simple.