current obsessions

Reminder to self.

Strive to perceive the nobility in every human being - rich or poor, man or woman, old or young, city dweller or villager, worker or employer, irrespective of ethnicity or religion.

~ 'Abdu'l-Baha

dodgey deals

So next week i will be leaving Mazar for a week of work in Kabul (which has become NY to me now that im living in the provinces) followed by 10 days of vacation...which means i have to settle my hotel bill before i take off. I realised a few days ago that i didnt have enough cash for one a month stay in the hotel, and this is quite disconcerting seeing as though none of the local banks in Mazar have ATMs, which means there is no way for me to access my international bank account out here ie. i have no access to money!!!

After racking my brain and trying to come up with a solution to the problem, one of my mates back in Kabul said he would help me out by utilizing the oldest means of money transfer in the world....after i became momentarily concerned, he explained that there were local money traders in the Bazaar that could help. He would simply have to go visit some guy in the Bazaar in Kabul and give him an amount of cash, this guy would then call his 'counterpart' in Mazar and tell him to hand over the same exact amount in cash to me...as simple as that! The whole transaction was completed in about 10 minutes...

The funniest thing however, was that i felt like i was in some kind of mafioso film or something...or engaged in something highly illicit...see, i asked my driver to take me to the Bazaar and, even though i had no idea things would turn out the way they did, something told me to take the driver with me. He's an old Afghan man (about 60) dressed in local attire and i thought it would probably be better to be walking around with him rather than on my own. So he parked the car and came with me. We walked into the Bazaar and all i saw was an abundance of fabric shops, so i called the guy on the phone (money exchange guy) to ask for directions and he appeared out of nowhere and said 'follow me'. He led us down a flight of stairs into a basement area and a whole other world opened up to us...in this dark dingy area, with dim lighting, we followed this man whose name we didnt even know for a few mins until we arrived at a tiny little shack of an office. (suffice it to say i was the only woman down there and i dont think many women have walked those concrete floors in the past) We all sat down on some old couches and he started counting hundred dollar bills, in the meanwhile telling me about an office that he has in Tehran and asking me to help him with visa problems (obviously he detected that my accent was Iranian and obviously he had no idea that i had never stepped foot on iranian soil)...without going into too much detail about my Western upbringing and about my life, i explained that i had been away from Iran for a long time and had no connections with the place...soon enough he handed over the money and we were out of there...Thank God i had the driver with me!

Only in Afghanistan.

Burka-less radio

Yesterday i had one of those days that truly reminded me of why im so lucky to be here! I am in Kunduz at the moment and in this city we work with a few local NGOs who implement projects for us. One of these NGOs happens to be be a free women's radio that is producing and broadcasting roundtables on the radio that bring together judges, lawyers and police to talk about the judicial process and to basically inform people of what their rights are and how they can access the justice system. They have a particular focus on the rights of women (ie. looking at forced marriages, child marriages, divorce and inheritance laws etc.) and conduct a lot of role plays on the air and take calls from listeners to answer their specific questions. The project has been running for about 3 months now and its been a great success.

A recent broadcast of one of their shows

Recently we were approach by another radio station in the next province over who also wanted to work with us on a similar project. So yesterday i brought the 2 directors of the 2 radio stations together to meet with me so we could plan for the more experienced one to go and train up the new one and help them get a similar project started...and also to build a bit of a regional network and encourage resource and information sharing, and a spirit of cooperation.

It was an incredible meeting....the women were so excited about getting another such radio program started, they wanted to start immediately, and they planned so that the new radio station would air its first show in about 10 days! All the way through i kept thinking to myself if i can be a tiny, tiny part in making something like this a reality, then it makes everything else worthwhile!

The other interesting thing about the meeting was that one of the ladies arrived and told me she had some news to share with me...when i asked her what it was, she said she had decided yesterday to not wear a burka anymore in the streets (she still wears a hijab on her head and a long overcoat over her clothes, but has removed the burka). She was very excited about sharing her decision with me and felt very happy with the choice she had made. I congratulated her for her courage and asked her what her husband thought. He said that it was her decision but told her to be careful, to not lose the respect of people over something like a burka...which i thought was an interesting response, and when i discussed it with her further she told me that that was the exact problem, that many women in Afghanistan dont want to wear the burka, and many of their husbands support that, but they are all just too scared to go against the grain for fear of what people might think or say. She said, thats why she needed to be courageous and take this first step...so that she can be an example for other women...The inspiring thing about all this is that she is a member of the provincial council in her province, and as such, has a lot of influence...it will be interesting to see the response...

When this same news was shared with the other lady in the meeting, from the other radio station (who i noticed had a burka tucked away in her bag, which she had obviously been wearing outside and had taken off once she stepped into our building), she also encouraged the bold act but said that she had also decided to remove her burka a few months back but after a while she realised that the families of all the girls that worked at the radio station started pulling their girls out of the organisation and saying that the director was burka-less and thus a bad sort and that they shouldn't be associating with such a woman. She said that what was intended by her symbolic act of removing her burka had been lost on the people around her and was only creating problems for the work they were trying to do on the radio, which would reach thousands of women across the province...so she put the burka back on.

All i could think was that these were incredibly brave women and i was incredibly honoured to be a small part of their lives in some way.

lollypop

Today as i was driving to a lunch meeting, i noticed a group of young school girls walking home from school (due to a shortage of teachers and facilities, children go to school in shifts and only receive 3 hours of schooling a day - so, one group receives 3 hours in the morning, another group attends for 3 hours at midday, and another group 3 hours in the afternoon). There was about 4 of them and they looked like they were about 10 years old (they were extremely adorbale in their black 'uniforms' and little white hijabs...much like the picture included). One of them had a small lolly pop that she was enjoying as they walked down the street...except, every time she took a lick of her lolly pop, she also gave a lick to all 3 other girls....every single time. It was beautiful. Its something that continues to warm my heart about the afghans...they have so little, but are always so generous and giving.

Something for those of you who have Iranian parents but grew up in the West...

There are a few things that continue to amuse me about living in Afghanistan...

Like the fact that the bathroom in my office building, that is, my place of work, has a pair of 'sarpai' (you know, the ethnic looking 'dampai' that Iranians keep in the bathroom) at the door, so your socks dont get wet.

Or the fact that that there is an 'aftabeh' in every single bathroom you enter in this country - even in government ministries and professional offices. (please see picture to the left :p)

or the fact that every time i have a meeting for work, or enter an office, or visit a government ministry, i am served chai in a sini (trey) - as though im sitting in someone's living room for a 'mehmooni'!

Ok, clearly the chai doesnt look anything like that, its like 1000 times more ghetto than that, but u get the point.....

Legendary

So today i watched the first hour or so of the Will Smith movie 'I am legend' (yeah i know...but it was on tv and i was bored.) and i gotta say, i really related to Will Smith's character...i mean, sometimes in Afghanistan, i feel just like him!! Except he gets out and about more than i do! ha.

Mum, relax...im kidding!! :)

But yesterday, was one such day...i was sitting outside in the yard of my guesthouse reading a book. Its a walled in yard, of course. We have 2 story, barbed wire walls that keep us hidden from the street. It was a gorgeous sunny day so i folded up my sleeves a little to get some sun on my arms (and of course, im wearing long pants and all that jazz...covered up, coz im in afghanistan...so only part of my arms were exposed). After about 10 minutes i realised that some guys were standing on the roof watching me...dont know how they got there, but suffice it to say, id had enough of reading in the sun! :)

Back! and chronicling from the North

So I am back in Afghanistan! Im not sure how it happened, but it did :) Ive come back for another year, this time working for GTZ (aid corporation of the German government) on a rule of law project, which is exciting because it’s the type of work I really wanted to do….and working for a governmental organisation has its perks, like access to all the military camps in the country (they have the best supermarkets in those camps)!! Haha.

I must say, working with the Germans, especially after working with the French for most of last year, has been very interesting…lets just say, they are meticulous, and suckers for process and rules and regulations….much unlike the French and their ‘lassez-faire’ approach :) I don’t know what it is with me and immersions into European culture…in Afghanistan.

Anyway, I am based in the North of the country this year – and although there are times when I miss the Kabul social life and my mates up there, im really enjoying this new experience of the country. The GTZ Rule of Law project is expanding and has opened up 2 new offices in the North, one in Mazar-e-Sharif (affectionately referred to as Mazar) and one in Kunduz. I am responsible for getting both up and running and implementing projects in both areas, as well as a third area called Takhar province. All these 3 provinces are next to each other and beautiful areas. There are 2 Afghan support staff hired for each office (well in Kunduz there is currently only one, but we are searching for a second) and I am the only international up here. I pretty much split my time between the 2 offices at the moment, so my job currently entails A LOT of travel. My 'base' is technically Mazar...lovely city, in the shadow of the shrine of Imam Ali...

These Northern provinces are also home to the German troops in Afghanistan and for that reason, many German development projects are implemented here…so up this way, and in Kunduz in particular, there is a HUGE population of Germans….we even have a German restaurant/guesthouse in Kunduz with great schnitzel and all that sausage-ey stuff the Germans love! Ha. Its kind of trippy, to be honest.

Few impressions thus far:

The first question Afghans still ask me is, are you married? (coming from both men and women)

The majority of the Germans in Kunduz are middle aged beer drinking men…I think most of them are surprised by this young coke-cola drinking Iranian-Australian.

Germans are much more comfortable with, and considerate about, speaking English than the French!

I really want to promote my driver up here to program officer…he may be 60+, he may not be able to speak English, and he may not have a law degree, but the man takes initiative…he’s absolutely lovely!

The military camps are a world within themselves.

Blogger wont let me post pics right now...or maybe its the useless internet connection im using...in any case, go here and then here for pics of my first month back in the desert.