Frida's Notebook

Tagged

I've been tagged three times in two days, by the lovely Meg, Gem and Susannah, to share eight facts about myself that I haven't already shared here. I feel as though I've bared my very soul here, but there must be eight things that have have slipped under the radar...

1. When I was a wee girl my parents were missionaries in Papua New Guinea. I spent a year as a pre-schooler in Wewak, one day scaring my mother half to death when she came out on the veranda to find me exclaiming in delight at the sight of a huge boa constrictor snake.

2. I'm godmother to two extremely special boys - the first is Archie, the son of my super-cool and totally alive cousin Marc (18 months ago when he was diagnosed with Grade 4 Glioblastoma Multiforme brain cancer he was told he had a 3% chance of living until now...) and the second is Atticus, the son of my friend, super-talented movie director and full-time mother Reina. I look forward so much to being part of their lives as they grow. One day I expect them to take care of their wrinkly, wayward godmother, so I plan to put in the investment now!

3. I love "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and like to take Buffy as an inspiration for fantasies of myself kicking evil ass all over Afghanistan and the world.

4. I grew up on a dairy farm and I love cheese but I can't stand milk. No allergies, no lactose intolerance, just cannot stand the smell or the taste of it. I drink my coffee with soymilk and take my cereal with yoghurt. I've no argument with icecream, mind you, nor any other dairy product. Just milk. Who knows what repressed memory from those early days in the cowshed may be behind this very random and irrational distaste, but I do not take milk. No, never.

5. On that theme, I'm a fussy eater. Most people who travel as much as I do become pretty flexible about their eating. It helps to avoid starving, especially some where like Ghor where the only veggies in the market this week were tomatoes, onions and potatoes. But I am not flexible. I don't eat meat if I can avoid it (except seafood - an uncommon sight in the Hindu Kush), I insist on soymilk for my morning coffee, I eat only sugarfree cereals and try to avoid white bread, pasta and rice. It's madness in this country, but it makes me feel better so I ship food up from Herat (boxes of fruit and vegetables) and even placed an order with Organic Kingdom to have a box of organic brown rice, quinoa and flax seeds delivered to me via the APO address of the military base this week (I am slightly shame-faced about this indulgence and feel I must point out it is the first time in 18 months).

6. I like to go to bed early and wake up with the sun.

7. I'm (not so) secretly vain about my hair. It's naturally a shiny dark brown and it goes curly on humid days (i.e. never in Ghor).

8. I used to be a bit of a fitness nut - I taught step aerobics at the local gym, ran with a Marathon club every Sunday, did 21km races for fun and trained with my fabulously fit and smart friend Wendie six days a week. Here in Afghanistan the opportunity to run almost never arises but instead I've discovered yoga which takes care of my body, mind and spirit, can be done anywhere anytime and requires no equipment making it perfect for a modern gypsy.

And the bonus number 9. I dream of being a marine biologist, I love scuba diving and sea turtles and I go on annual pilgramages to dive spots where I have a chance of being in the water with a manta ray or a whale shark. One day I will volunteer on a marine preservation project for a summer.

I tag MJ, HiK, Daffa, Margaret, Mahima, Mandi, Asma, and Pumukl

PS: If you follow the Buffy link you'll get to a totally cool (read: very silly and time-wasting) "Which Buffy character are you?" personality quiz.

The radio interview

My bunker - where I can hide if my boss doesn't like this interview

So this morning I got up and listened to the recording of my Radio New Zealand interview.

Here's how it went:

Me (live):"No! Don't say that!"
Me (recorded): "Sweetheart, I said this days ago, it's all on the record now and anyway - your parents have already heard this - no going back"
Me (live): "It's okay, you didn't say the incredibly stupid thing that it sounded like you were just about to say, carry on."
Me (live): "Oh, wait... No! What are you thinking? Don't say that!"

You get the picture.

But overall, I'm happy. The guy from the spokeperson's office at work had asked me to avoid criticism of the Government of Afghanistan (fine by me, they have enough knockers without me joining that party) and to avoid commenting on the overall success of the strategy in Afghanistan (again - fine by me - I'd only say something stupid and ill-informed anyway).

I think I stayed within the lines on that count, and I was happy that the interview sounded to me like someone talking about a place and people that she cared about. I was a little worried that this would come off too much "all about Me".

PS: Of course in the interview I use my real name and we talk about who I work for. These are not highly guarded secrets, but to avoid detection by the all-seeing eye that is Google, I'm going to continue avoiding using both here on the blog. I'd be grateful if you did too - Google can even see your comments. Mwahahaha (that's an evil laugh - eminating from Google)

I don't know how well the link I inserted above will work - if it doesn't then go directly to the Radio NZ podcast page, it should be there for a week from now.

Does anyone know how to put an actual podcast up here? So that it stays here even after it is removed from the RNZ site? I've seen it done elsewhere, with embedded players and everything - but I'm not too smart about that kind of stuff. Tips gratefully accepted.

Abductions in Afghanistan

Here in Ghor the risk is not great but in less secure areas of Afghanistan in recent weeks there have been a number of high profile abductions of foreigners by anti-government elements, i.e. the Taleban.  At a very personal level the idea of being abducted by the Taleban is terrifying - that's why I choose not to think about it. I live and work in a relatively secure part of the country, I follow my employer's safety procedures especially when traveling, and then I don't think about it . When, during a conversation with a friend working in Herat this week, I did find myself contemplating the possibility of abduction I found it provoked in me such a terrible sense of dread that I knew why I don't usually let my mind go there.

But these abductions are not simply a means of terrorising foreign humanitarian workers and journalists in Afghanistan. They are highly charged acts of 'political warfare'. The Taleban use the abductees to negotiate for the release of Taleban who have been arrested and detained by the Government or international military forces and/or for the withdrawal of those international military forces from Afghanistan.

This is extremely difficult for the Government of Afghanistan. In order to maintain good relations with and support from their international allies, they find themselves in the position of having to negotiate with the very group that is trying to remove them from their democratically elected position of power in Afghanistan.

It often appears, from where I am sitting, that President Karzai is placed under extreme pressure from the home nations of the abductees to make significant concessions to the Taleban in exchange for their safe release. Different countries take very different approaches, of course, depending on a number of factors, not least of which is the political strength or vulnerability of the government at home - election cycles have a noticeable impact.

In past months we have watched the high profile negotiations concerning abducted Italian and French citizens along with their Afghan companions. This week Germany and South Korea are facing the same nightmare. Here is an interesting editorial from an Afghan newspaper about the impact these negotiations have on Afghanistan's battle to defeat the insurgency and establish a stable and secure environment for future development.

Editorial: Simple steps to avoid abduction and political dilemmas
July 25 - Foreign nationals must avoid road trips to insecure areas and should avoid making their trip details public in order to be safe in the future. (Kabul Weekly)

The recent wave of abductions of Afghan citizens and foreigners in Afghanistan presents a huge challenge for security forces and the Afghan government. Last week, the Taliban abducted two German citizens along with five of their Afghan co-workers, and in a separate incident, 23 South Koreans.

Usually, the Taliban demand that the victims’ native governments withdraw their troops, or an exchange for Taliban prisoners held by the government or international forces. While there have been many abduction cases in the last five years, demands to release Taliban commanders have grown since a prisoner exchange made in April for the Italian journalist Daniel Mastrogiacomo.

Mastrogiacomo was kidnapped in Helmand along with two Afghan reporters who were beheaded. The deal was made to satisfy the government of Romani Prodi, which at the time was near collapse. The deal was a coup for Prodi, but President Karzai emerged looking weak. Thousands of foreign citizens live across the provinces, where they are employed by various Afghan and international organizations.

Many of them conduct work-related travel and abductions have proven an effective tactic in showing that Afghanistan is unstable. Furthermore, the Taliban are able to make demands on the Afghan government and its international allies. If we examine the situation closely, we observe that Taliban prisoners were captured mainly as a result of costly combat and search operations in which Afghan forces and international soldiers are losing their lives.

The Taliban, without spending any money or sacrificing very much, simply abduct several foreign citizens and demand the release of their prisoners. Foreign governments often force Kabul to accept the Taliban’s demands. The Mastrogiacomo case marked a turning point in that Kabul freed high-level Taliban prisoners. Now, with the presence of a Korean delegation in Afghanistan, Seoul could try to force the Afghan government to accept some or all of the Taliban’s demands.

There are reports that South Korea is ready to withdraw its 200 soldiers from Afghanistan earlier than scheduled. But these types of deals encourage the Taliban to carry out more abduction, and at the same time, they create additional obstacles for Afghanistan and the international community in the fight against terrorism. The government should not give in to Taliban demands again.

Otherwise, abducted citizens will be killed and their governments will be forced to cut support to Afghanistan because of domestic pressures. There are solutions, but they require close cooperation by Afghan security forces and civilian organizations. The dangerous areas of the country that are off limits are more or less known. There have been fewer cases of abduction in the relatively secure areas of the country. Foreigners should keep two things in mind:
1- They must avoid road trips to insecure areas. Instead, foreigners should fly to their destinations on private airlines or by military flights. The costs are higher, but the cost of a life is more,
2- If travel to insecure areas is unavoidable, foreign citizens should have a well-planned security detail and should avoid making their trip details public.

Otherwise, the wave of abductions will continue and foreign governments will be pressured to withdraw support to Afghanistan or cut assistance the outcome of this is critical for Afghanistan because once again the country could be dragged into another crisis, the consequences of which will be dangerous not only for the region, but for the world.

On a cheerier note, I was interviewed this week about my life and work in Afghanistan by Radio New Zealand, the national public broadcaster in New Zealand. The interview will be played Friday morning, New Zealand time, but they generally post pod-casts on their website once the interview has aired, so I'll put a link here as soon as I get one. I enjoyed talking to the interviewer, who I admire as a broadcaster, but I was experiencing some nerves and the pressure of the moment, so I don't remember too well what we talked about. So I'm looking forward to hearing it myself!

A stroll around Chagcharan

One of the things I love about living here is that it is safe enough to go for walks. I take one of the security guards with me and head out after work. Which is exactly what I did today. So...

...come for a walk with me (but first check out my cute red sofa in the background, I like it way too much)

A typical home in this neighbourhood.

This is how they are made.

And that's my house. The white building in the walled compound. If you squint then you might be able to see the wrecked Russian planes in the background. They are right outside our front gate, and right in front of the runway. Always a reassuring sight at an airstrip.

This guy was willing to interrupt his evening nap to pose for me.

Then, when I got home I bribed the wild kittens to hang out with me by giving them tuna.

Life is good.

Making friends

I don't have a photo to prove it yet but tonight the kittens came to eat their tuna while I was sitting watching. Sitting, watching and writing in my journal about it, to be precise. I am way too excited about this. It may be a sign of early onset madness from the isolation here in Ghor.

They seemed to grow accustomed to my presence pretty fast. The first time I twitched they all arched and ran. The next time only the scaredy cats did. Two of the tougher kitties held their ground, glancing up and me and then obviously deciding I wasn't so scary after all.

As I sat watching them fight over the food a little toad came hopping past my feet. I think he is the same toad I rescued from the steps in front of our office on Thursday. I was worried that someone would step on him, so I popped him down in the "garden". I say garden but there are no plants, just dry, dusty earth that the cleaner keeps watering. I figured the little toad would enjoy the moisture. Anyway - this guy tonight was either him or his twin brother.

So there I was, watching the kittens and trying to see if I could recognise any distinguishing marks on my toad when I suddenly realised I might be shut up in a compound with no human company (having ruled out fraternising with the guards after my friend B told me her Afghan colleague chastised her for shaking hands with her security guards - "It is not good to give the guards hand everyday Miss B") but it's not all bad.

I may be locked up in this compound with no folks for company, but there is plenty of life here. There are kittens and toads and lots of flying insects. No need to feel lonely at all.

I thought I was inflexible

This morning I finally got up and did some yoga after seven (yes, that is a whole week, ouch) days of sulking because my custom-made accommodation is to small to stand on a yoga mat with outstretched arms without hitting a wall or a large item of bedroom furniture.

I mean, they were building these units from scratch in a compound with so much space that if I was really motivated (and didn't mind making a spectacle of myself in front of the security guards and radio operators who are here 24 hours) I could work up a decent sweat just power walking around it. So why did they make them so teeny?

I don't know and after brooding about it for a week I finally decided I would simply have to roll out my mat and make the best of it. Actually - after all that whining - it wasn't so bad. There isn't much room from some of the floor based asanas but I made it through the standing sequence without banging my hand on the wardrobe more than five or six times.

I'm setting on my bed right now, wallowing in the amazing luxury of having an internet connection in my home, and as I glance up around my compact but otherwise very comfy room I notice that there is a space on the wall where I could do handstands (no way I'm trying those unsupported yet). In my old room it was windows all around and I was limited to headstands. So I better stop complaining and just get practicing.

Of course when you should be doing something it is often more appealing to hunt about on the internet for amusing or inspiring websites and blogs about that something. So here is the funniest yoga blog I found today:

Yogabeans - www.yogabeans.com - "your internet source for plastic figures demonstrating ashtanga yoga".

As well as being laugh-out-loud funny I also found yogabeans sequence demonstrations (modeled by Spiderman, Flash, the Green Lantern and a fabulous Playmobil Pirate amongst others) inspiring. Some of those plastic dudes even make me look flexible!

Friday morning thoughts in Ghor

Dinner party Ghor-style, originally uploaded by frida world.

After the whirlwind of preparing for and then opening our new office here in Ghor, this morning I'm enjoying my first day off in two weeks.

People here have been waiting for our office to open for more than a year, so as soon as the doors were opened we had a constant stream of visitors and petitioners. They ranged from the Hazara families living in the IDP camp up the road to some of the most notorious and powerful commanders in the province. Each has an idea of what we should be able to do for them and in some cases they are right.

As well as the meetings all day, my Afghan counterpart and I have been invited as honoured guests to several social events in the evenings. This photo is from a dinner hosted by the merchants of the town and I was pleased to find two female members of the Provincial Council to sit with since I was otherwise the only woman in a group of more than 200 guests.

I think I might have mentioned in a previous post that a family of rats seemed to have set up house on my sofa while it was sitting outside waiting for my room to be completed. I washed it off and moved it in and wondered about the rat family I had rendered homeless. Well it turns out that it was not a rat, but rather a cat family. So I'm setting about the long, slow process of convincing mother cat and her four kittens to trust me enough to come play from time to time. Hey - there's not much to do outside of work up here and this seems a healthy and sociable way to pass my evenings.

I'm also reading Karen Armstrong's "Muhammad: Prophet for our Time" and finding it to be a much easier read than I had expected. Reading about the circumstances in Mecca leading up to the Prophet Muhammad's first revelations made me think of Afghanistan today. The ongoing conflicts, entrenched tribal values and suffering of the weak, poor and disenfranchised groups within Meccan society all resonate with the challenges facing Afghanistan in the 21st century.

I was especially struck by the translation in this book of the first revelation that came to the Prophet Muhammad after the two year period of silence that ended his initial period of revelations. Here it is:

By the morning hours
By the night when it is still
Your lord has not abandoned you
and does not hate you

What is after will be better
than what came before
To you the lord will be giving
You will be content

Did he not find you orphaned
and give you shelter
Find you lost
and guide you
Find you in hunger
and provide for you

As for the orphan-
do not oppress him
And one who asks for help-
do not turn him away
And the grace of you lord-
proclaim.

A prophet for our times, indeed.

Ali's story

His name is Ali son of Mohammad Ali. He is 10 years old. About 7 or 8 years ago he lost his hearing after being ill. He has never been to school, he has never learned to read or write and he has never learned any sign language.

As I sat in his tent and watched him interact with children and adults alike using simple but expressive signals I got the impression that he is a bright, sociable  boy. But like the rest of his community and so many other children in Afghanistan he is missing out on his education.

I am visiting his camp because he belongs to a community of Hazara families who are living in tents in Chagcharan. They are displaced people. They tell me that they were forced from their land in 2002 by a powerful local tribe.

I am already familiar with this land dispute and as far as I can tell this Hazara group have the legal documents to prove their ownership of the land in question as well as a land court ruling in their favour for the return of the land.

I'm putting together a file on their case that I can use to lobby the responsible government agencies but in the meantime I wanted to conduct an immediate humanitarian and human rights assessment of their living conditions in this camp. My first priority are the children, and I ask about their health, their education and their nutrition.

Even in this tent filled with beautiful children and women Ali captures my attention. I ask about him and as soon as I hear his story the cogs in my brain start to turn. His mother and the elders of this community are asking me if there is anyway I can help them find someone to help Ali Jan learn to read and write. It is a tough call in this remote province but a good friend of mine works in the area of  education for children with disabilities so I'll see whether there is any way we can make a connection for Ali.

Forgiving my inner grump

I didn't say this very explicitly in my main post today - but here is the truth. I lost my cool twice yesterday. I was angry with the people managing the construction because things had been done in ways that didn't make any sense to me and that seemed to have created big problems for us to resolve now. I raised my voice and spoke in anger.

Then I felt terrible, I sat in my office and cried tears of frustration and anger at myself. So much for "ahimsa" and speaking no violent words. Eventually I washed my face with bottled water and went out to apologise to everyone who had been there when I got angry.

They forgave me, they told me that they understand that I come from a very different kind of country where things "are much more developed" and that they understand I must be frustrated by things here in Afghanistan. This made me feel even worse. They told me that they understand how hard it must be for me as a woman in charge when all the others are Afghan men. This is not really the problem, but I know that it is part of what I am reacting to.

These men know me. We have been working together for 10 months and, as they reminded me, they know that I am not usually loud, angry or disrespectful. They were quick to forgive me and appear not to hold any grudge. It is harder for me to forgive myself.

So I was struck when I followed a link from Tiny Noise's blog to the "Free Will Astrology" site and read this:

Declare amnesty for the part of you that you don’t love very well. Forgive that poor sucker. Hold its hand and take it out to dinner and a movie. Tactfully offer it a chance to make amends for the dumb things it has done. And then do a dramatic reading of this proclamation by the playwright Theodore Rubin: "I must learn to love the fool in me--the one who feels too much, talks too much, takes too many chances, wins sometimes and loses often, lacks self-control, loves and hates, hurts and gets hurt, promises and breaks promises, laughs and cries. It alone protects me against that utterly self-controlled, masterful tyrant whom I also harbor and who would rob me of human aliveness, humility, and dignity but for my fool."

Okay, I'll give it a try. But that won't be an excuse for future outbursts of angryness, just a way to move on from this one.

What I'm up to

In case you were wondering, I haven't walked away - not yet. But I have moved. Yesterday I moved to a new duty station. We are opening a new office in Ghor province and I'll be based here for at least three months. From Kabul to Herat to Chaghcharan, Ghor - I seem to be heading further and further away from the big city and out into the reality of the rest of Afghanistan. I'm happy about that.

I've written about Ghor here many times. It has been a province that has captured my heart from the first time I came here. So when they were looking for a volunteer to come up here and support the new office (and when everyone else was looking in another direction to avoid being selected) I volunteered.

This will be my new home - apparently it will be finished by Friday and I'll be able to move in. They are building four little self contained units. I'll have my own wee kitchenette, bathroom and dining room as well as my bedroom. A welcome change from the guesthouses I've lived in for most of the year and a helf I've been in Afghanistan. My colleague, the Security Manager for our new office, will be in another of the units and the remaining two will be for our other colleagues when they visit from the head office in Kabul or the regional office in Herat.

The engineers and carpenters are working hard on getting the job finished - here is the head carpenter installing a kitchen sink. He and I have been trying to figure out together where to put the washing machine (yippe, a washing machine, a new luxury for me) and realised that the engineers who designed the accommodation units must have been men because they have put the plumbing for the washing machine in front of the cook top so that I would have to lean over the washing machine when I'm cooking.

The guys who were putting together my bed thought it was strange that I was given such a big bed for one person. I can see how excessive it must seem, but I am not complaining.  Check out the real mattress, a huge improvement on the foam slabs I've been sleeping on for 18 months, yippee! I guess the supply section felt there should be some advantages for the girl who volunteered to move to Ghor.

In the meantime we are frantically working on getting the office ready for business - this posting obviously means that the internet is connected, one big tick on the "to do" list. Another requirement before our big boss arrives on Saturday morning for the opening ceremony is to have the compound compliant with our security guidelines. I suspect that this will need repairing...

I'm not very good at this - I don't really like mess and chaos very much. Not for the first time I wonder why I do what I do given the personality I have. I could have a nice, neat, controllable life in New Zealand without sudden moves to remote provinces with last minute construction hiccups and dust everywhere. But really I know why - partly it is because the pay off, when it comes, is worth it. Those days when I know that I've made some kind of contribution in a setting where people are not getting anything like their fair deal in life. Partly it is because I don't believe we can be sure of nice and neat and in control no matter where we are. I could live in New Zealand and pretend I'm in control of my life, or I could live here and look the reality that I'm not in control in the eyes, make friends with it.  Get a tiny taste of what life is like for most people in the world, who live without the "buffer" of money and infrastructure.

So I get overwhelmed by the chaos and then I recover. I like to think that my "breaking point" is moving further out each time as I learn little by little to let go of my expectations and relax into things.

But the putting up buildings is only the first and in many ways the least important step in the work that we have to do here. Ghor is a remote province that has been largely neglected by the central government and the international community. The population suffer from extremely harsh winters and then equally devastating droughts in the summer.

There a some significant exceptions to the general neglect and the people of Ghor have worked hard to make the most of those opportunities when they arise. I have always had a sense of possibility in Ghor, it is a relatively secure province with a population who are crying out for some assistance to develop their infrastructure and basic services. I hope that our office can make ameaningful contribution to this effort and I look forward to expanding my work beyond my usual human rights mandate into the broader development effort.

Links:

For more on Ghor province - read here

For more on Chaghcharan town - read here