Working in Afghanistan

Moving web journal

2008-10-05T18:10:00.001Z

Please join me at a new site for my journals...www.parsajournal.com. Thanks! Marnie
mgustav@mac.com

A Friend of mine talks about security here...

2008-04-21T11:05:00.000Z

A West High graduate, Jason met Kelli at Montana State University in Bozeman. Kelli is from Spokane, Wash. They both served in the Air Force and wound up in Boston. Before starting a family, they said, they wanted to volunteer overseas. They considered the Peace Corps but ended up in Afghanistan. Now visiting family and friends around the country, they're considering job options and where to live. Their families supported their decision to go to Afghanistan but worried about security in a country still thick with foreign fighters.

"We were talking to them on Skype (an Internet telephone program)," said Debbie Reinhardt, Jason's mother. "Jason said, 'Just a minute. Hold on.' He was gone for a few minutes. He came back and said, 'Oh, there was a car bombing.' After that I said, 'Just don't tell us any more. You've told us enough scary stories.' "

Jason and Kelli say security in the country is worsening, but infrastructure and daily life have improved. American forces have opened schools and clinics, and the Kabul airport went from rubble to operable in the year they were in Afghanistan.

"The newscasters want to show on the evening news just scenes of poppy and battle, but there are lots of clinics and schools that the military is funding," Jason said. "The Afghans want as much help as we can give so they can get back on their feet, and then we can go home and they can go on living their lives."

Copyright © The Billings Gazette, a division of Lee Enterprises.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Something to think about

Recently a friend of mine was asking me some questions about living in Afghanistan and our motivation for moving here to help the poor. Those are always interesting questions. One of the questions he asked was, “How do you reconcile the fact that statistically your chances of dying in Afghanistan are significantly higher than in the U.S.?”
The question itself represents a fundamental misunderstanding of what is happening here in Afghanistan and has likely been influenced by the media and a constant stream of negative news about the Afghan people. I don’t really blame people like my friend. We all tend to be the victims of the information that we are fed. The situation is further complicated by the fact that U.S. involvement in Iraq is frequently lumped in with that of Afghanistan.
Unfortunately, it is seldom communicated that the climate and mood of these two countries is drastically different. For one thing, Afghanistan is not having a religious war or a civil war. There is no Shiite vs. Sunni Muslim battle here. There is no Kurdish minority opposing both the Shiites and Sunnis. In Afghanistan, about 90% of the population is Sunni, with only a small 5% minority in Bamyan Province that are of the Shiite faith. Though there may have been religious-based conflict in the past, this is no longer the case. What affects the U.S. viewing public the most is the news of an occasional terrorist bombing of one type or another somewhere in Afghanistan. Living here in Kabul, we don’t hear of these bombings from the news media.
We often hear them from our house. Many of our expatriate staff members have been in the close vicinity of a bombing over the last three years. Many have also found themselves having passed by a particular location that a half hour later was the scene of a suicide attack. These kinds of things can make you stop and think. In the U.S., few of us have ever had any close connection with acts of terror unless we happened to be in New York City in September of 2001 or in Oklahoma City a few years ago. Hearing about suicide bombings from places like Afghanistan makes us angry and prone to generalizations based on fear.
The truth of the matter, however, is that the Afghan people are not in a religious or civil war, and in fact, are tired of war. They want better jobs, better housing, better education and health, and a hope for the future. They WANT what we have to offer. In general, this extends to the farthest reaches of this rugged and remote country. The “enemy” here tends to be small groups of radicalized religious zealots who easily blend into most villages. Some are from the remote mountains of the border with Pakistan, and some come from organizations such as Al Qaeda. In a city of 3.5 million people such as Kabul, this amounts to only a handful of people.
However, the very nature of terror is that a small number of people can potentially exhibit some emotional control over thousands or millions. The nature of our mission here is to overcome evil with good. We have no intention of doing pitched battle with the Taliban. I’d just as soon not ever come in direct contact with anyone with the Taliban agenda. But I will continue to come in contact with thousands of Afghans who are looking to improve their crop yield, receive better maternal care and find an adequate educational facility so their children can have better opportunities than they had, or simply improve their lives. Yesterday, there were two suicide bombings in Kabul. I don’t know of any foreign aid workers who jumped on the next plane out of town. That’s not in our nature.
In the end, I answered my friend that I reconciled his question by simply not agreeing with it. I really don’t think that statistically my chances of dying in Afghanistan are significantly higher than in the U.S. Consider these statistics:

1) U.S. Homicides in 2004 – 17,357 – that’s 47 per day!
2) U.S. traffic fatalities in 2006 – 43,300 – that’s 118 per day!
3) Suspected cases of medical malpractice fatalities yearly – 120,000 – that’s 329 per day!
4) U.S. smoking-related fatalities in 2006 – 438,000 – that’s 1,200 per day!
5) U.S. cardio-vascular disease related fatalities in 2006 – 876,000 – that’s 2,400 per day (or one every 37 seconds)!
6) By comparison, in 2006 there were 2,943 terror related deaths in the entire country. This includes both Afghans and foreigners (a very small percentage) killed. That’s just 8 fatalities per day (on average).

Of course, no matter how you look at the numbers, the thought that someone is actually “targeting” you for death is a bit disconcerting. But am I MORE likely to die over here than in the U.S.? I don’t think so. Is it likely that I might die somewhere this year? Well, maybe so. But that’s a matter that all of us have to deal with internally and between us and God. So my return question to my friend was simply this: “Regardless of where you may live, are you personally ready to die today?”

Our Work in Orphanages

2008-03-07T08:13:00.005Z

Marnie Gustavson:
A Friend to Afghan Women and Children
by Colin Hume

I sat behind her, a middle-aged American woman, in a conference room at the Ministry of Martyred and Disabled in Kabul, Afghanistan. I was amazed at the poise and confidence with which she addressed the Afghan officials and leaders of several important international organizations who were sitting before her. This remarkable meeting had been coordinated by Physiotherapy and Rehabilitation Support for Afghanistan (PARSA), for which Marnie Gustavson serves as executive director. The importance of the day’s topic, conditions in the government-run orphanages across the country, was not lost on any of the attending Afghans and internationals. Gustavson’s focus was on the living conditions in the national orphanages where more than 8,000 children live. She was trying to get the children the care they deserve. And she was putting her professional reputation on the line.

A social worker and Seattle native, Marnie Gustavson has been working in Afghanistan since 2003, following the fall of the Taliban, and living there with her husband, Dr. Norman Gustavson, since 2004. After starting an educational and well-being program in the large Alluhoddin orphanage in Kabul the previous fall, Gustavson and her Afghan staff members found conditions so upsetting that they began a movement to overhaul the inner-workings of government-run orphanages.

This day’s meeting was presided over by the deputy minister of Martyred and Disabled. In attendance were leaders of at least five other domestic and international organizations that work with orphans, including Save the Children and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). The meeting came about in response to the circulation of a report Gustavson had written which detailed what she and her PARSA staff members had found in their six months of working in Alluhoddin. The conditions described in the report were distressing: inadequate access to hygienic facilities and medical treatment, allegations of abuse by staff members, and a lack of night-time supervisors in girls’ dorms were just a few. Once circulated, the report and the conditions described in it could no longer be ignored by Afghan officials.

The report achieved exactly what Gustavson wanted: A hearing before the ministry. After officially welcoming the meeting attendees in English, her colleague Mahbouba Seraj presented the findings of the report in Dari. Seraj is the once-exiled granddaughter of King Habibullah, a progressive Afghan king who reigned at the turn of the century, and her presence lent weight to the findings. Finally, Gustavson and Seraj acknowledged that the report was unofficial, but that the findings warranted further investigation by the ministry. They asked that a committee comprising domestic and international representatives already working in the country’s orphanages be formed to preside over an official investigation into government-run homes for children across the country. And they wanted continued oversight by this same committee to ensure long-lasting systemic changes.

After listening to supporting statements by other representatives in attendance, the presiding minister acknowledged the report. He agreed to the recommendations and promised to form a committee. He then went on the defensive and began attacking the allegations that had been made, calling into question the integrity of Gustavson’s organization. He stated that as PARSA had not been given permission to write a report, the problems documented had no concrete basis.

After listening for 15 minutes, Gustavson interjected. She stood up and stated that the meeting had begun to turn in the wrong direction. She was unwilling to defend the work of her organization or the veracity of the report, as it would shift the meeting’s focus. She thanked the deputy minister for agreeing to the formation of a committee to undertake an official investigation into the conditions of the government-run orphanages. She stated that she expected the minister to abide by his word and with that, walked out of the meeting.

As I followed Gustavson out of the conference room, accompanied by her husband and Mahbouba Seraj, I looked back to see the stunned faces of the deputy minister and other Afghan officials. Though not diplomatic, Gustavson had certainly made her point. As we found out later, the report she had circulated almost got her expelled from Afghanistan for the stir it raised. I had never felt more proud of my mother. It was the spring of 2007 and I had just arrived in Kabul for a month-long visit with her and my stepfather.

Gustavson’s love of Afghanistan stems from the four years she spent there as a child from 1964 to 1968, during the “Golden Years” of relative calm in that historically turbulent country. Her father, looking for adventure, had packed up his wife, three daughters and cat, and accepted a teaching position there. “As a child, Afghanistan was wonderful, mostly because there was such a sense of community and relationship with Afghans and other internationals,” she recalls. “We made our own entertainment, and I enjoyed a wonderful childhood of adventure and learning in an amazing culture. I still enjoy living here because of the sense of close relationship with people that we don’t have in our own culture.” The experience shaped each member of the family in lasting ways. Exposure to the lives of the truly poor and vulnerable at such a young age clearly left an impression on the 9-year-old Gustavson, who has since spent much of her adult life as a social worker in Seattle.

Married with two children by age 25, Gustavson began her social work career in her early thirties in Seattle, becoming the executive director of the “youth at risk” program Steps Ahead at Rainier Beach High School. In 1991, she cofounded Washington Works, an organization that specialized in helping welfare mothers transition back into the workforce. In 1996 she cofounded Creative Economic Opportunities, which focused on helping the most “hard-to-serve” people, including addicts, the mentally ill, teenage mothers and the developmentally disabled integrate into their communities and find employment.

It was not until the Taliban regime fell that Gustavson fixed her attention on Afghanistan. The living conditions of women and their children are especially important to her. Since returning to Afghanistan she has worked for a number of organizations, including Refugee Women in Development and Equal Access Radio. At the helm of PARSA, she directs work on issues such as the development of economic capacities for widows, education for women, as well as physiotherapy and rehabilitation of war wounds.

In a report on the conditions of the Alluhoddin orphanage as of this fall, Gustavson had this to say: “….we made a difference in Alluhoddin ... you wouldn’t recognize the place ... kids are clean, have uniforms, TV in every room, kitchen brand-new ... some toilets work ... “
People always ask my mother why she has chosen such a difficult place to work. Her response is, “In spite of how hard it is in Afghanistan ... I believe in the Afghan people and their ability to make their country right ... and my work reflects that. Most people just go around the Afghan government. I challenge them because I want Afghans to run this country well ... and I believe they will do it ... and last week that man I walked out on invited us back to work in the orphanages ... we are now good working partners.”

For more information about PARSA, visit www.afghanistan-parsa.org.

Colin Francis Hume has volunteered in Russia, Ethiopia and Afghanistan and has been a wildlife researcher for various government agencies in the U.S. He is also a top-ranked snowboard instructor

Honoring an Afghan Leader- by Mahbouba

2007-06-06T14:51:00.000Z

Afghan woman radio head shot dead

Daughters and relatives of Ms Zaki weep by her coffin

A female owner of a radio station in Afghanistan has been shot dead.

(Mahbouba)
I met her a month ago in Jabal-Seraj ( north of Kabul in the Shamali plains, Parwan Province) a very beautiful area of Afghanistan, green and gorgeous. She was an amazing lady she had so much light and beauty about her, strong , kind and full of laughter and energy. I first heard her radio station broadcasting great programs in the Kohband District of Kapisa Province, the name of her radio station is "Radio Peace" a great station, with wonderful programs. She is originally from Badakshan Province, she came to Jabal-Seraj and got married there. She has 7 children. All of her life all she has done is work for the women and the people of this country, getting their voices and concerns out to the community and authority, all she ever has done was to love Afghanistan and like so many other courageous women of this country she loses her life for it. It is so unnecessary it is such a waste and it is so so SAD. I don't know what to do about this yet, but I know one thing : we should do everything in our power as the women of this country and the world to stop this. The people who have done this should be brought to justice, we can't be indifferent about this, they are killing all of us, anyone who wants to do something for the good of these people gets punished by losing their lives. This is not acceptable this is wrong, we should not let Zakia's death go unnoticed and her Shahadat in vein. We need these women, Afghanistan needs them, we should not allow some ignorant thugs whoever they are kill them, just because they can, and because there is no justice in this corrupt system and they know they can get away with it. I am so sad and so angry.... My heart is breaking , all I can do at the moment is to pray...... Mahbouba Seraj
From BBC News.....

Zakia Zaki was shot seven times, including in the chest and head, as she slept with her 20-month-old son at her home north of Kabul, officials say.

The governor of Parvan province, where the attack took place, told the BBC he did not know who killed her. No one has admitted carrying out the attack.

Her murder came just days after a woman newsreader was killed for reasons which were described as "family-related".

'Act of terror'

The Parvan governor, Abdul Jabbar Taqwa, visited the scene of the killing in the town of Jabal as Siraj, about 70km (40 miles) north of the capital.

Ms Zaki (centre) was a rare female voice in Afghanistan

He said the attackers were three men armed with pistols and rifles, who broke into Ms Zaki's house and got into the bedroom.

An older son, aged three, was with her at the time of the attack, but none of her six children was injured.

The Interior Ministry condemned what it called "this act of terror" and said it was trying to track down the perpetrators.

Zakia Zaki, was 35 years old and worked as a reporter and a schoolteacher.

She was one of the few female journalists in the country to speak out during the Taleban's rule.

She had also headed the US-funded station, Radio Peace, since it opened after the fall of the Taleban in 2001.

The BBC's Charles Haviland in Kabul says that at times Ms Zaki criticised the former mujahideen, some of who have been implicated in war crimes.

Observers say that the motive behind the murder is far from clear, and a massive police operation is now underway to identify and arrest the killers.

'Freedom of expression'

Zakia Zaki started her radio career eight years ago. At the time Parvan province was one of the few areas in the country to be controlled by anti-Taleban forces.

New hopes of Afghan media

The Independent Association of Afghan Journalists has condemned the murder, describing it as an example of how difficult the working environment has become for journalists and especially for women.

"She believed in freedom of expression, that's why she was killed," the association's head Rahimullah Samander told Reuters.

The group said she had received threats in the past but had no personal enemies.

The killing comes six days after the shooting dead of another Afghan woman working in journalism, a 22-year-old newsreader from a private television station, Shakiba Sanga Amaj.

According to senior police sources in Kabul, her father has blamed two male relatives and one person has been arrested.

Jabal Seraj- The mountain of light-and a waiting palace

2007-04-24T13:24:00.000Z

Mahbouba and I stopped before lunch to interview the local "Wali" or governor of the city. We were ushered into a narrow cool room and Mahbouba introduced herself. The Wali asked about her family and she described herself as King Habibullah's granddaughter and King Amanuallahs' niece...we rarely get into this in our work but our experience when we do is that we usually recieve a very warm welcome-and stories about her family. This gentleman launched into a detailed story and I was left on my own to translate for myself. The jist of the discussion was that King Habibullah built a beautiful palace in Jabal Seraj (which was intact when I was a child as I remember it). The war came and it was destroyed but he never let anyone do anything to the palace grounds as he has been waiting for the family to return to Jabal Seraj. He courteously welcomed her and asked if she would like to see it. The Wali's father lived to 106 and was able to tell his son many stories about Afghanistan and this royal family which was displaced in the 1930's.Mahbouba did not know this and it was such a treat to see her delight as she encountered this dear man and his appreciation for the contribution her family made to Afghanistan. Here are pictures of our tour.

Back on the road- North of Kabul-Jabal Seraj

2007-04-22T13:41:00.000Z

Mahbouba and I are working with Equal Access Radio this week to finish up an evaluation and monitoring project we started a year and one half ago....Radio is an excellent tool to access the provinces and from our survey we are discovering that the Afghan communities are very engaged in the programming and interested in giving us feedback. This is Radio Peace at Jabal Seraj, North of Kabul. They say that they have an audience of 1,000,000 in three provinces. Their comments: The programming training people in their rights is going well with one exception-the country doesn't quite have the infrastructure to support these rights. An example given is that Afghans are now entitled to an required to have ID cards....should take twenty minutes -at the most 2 hours....The call-in radio shows are full of callers complaining about it taking a month to two months-and bribes to get what is their right and obligation as a citizen. (See closet of letters from readers) This station is doing a great job of setting up conversations between the citizens and elected political leaders. The journalist describes being "set up" by a group of religious leaders and sent to jail for a year for an unpopular article...but he is back and undeterred....this country is full of people with these stories of perseverance and wisdom as democracy begins to take shape.

Ghor Province....

2007-03-21T16:35:00.000Z

On Survey in October we flew to Lal Sarjangal...an ancient world and where the Minaret of Jam resides...

Our Afghan women parliamentarians...

2007-03-21T16:25:00.000Z

Mahbouba and I have come to love these remarkable women...

Update March 2007

2007-03-21T14:21:00.000Z

I have been working here in Afghanistan now for two years. I stopped writing during my nine month contract with UNIFEM conducting a leadership training. The work was too difficult and too high profile and I didn't feel that I could be candid enough to provide an authentic journal. Mahbouba and I did not resign our contract in October. She left for short trip to the US and I completed our survey with Equal Access Radio. Pictures here are from my work in Bamyan Province. I am delighted with our new course of work which is to focus on the small NGO PARSA and to be very selective about what projects we work on. I have come back online with this journal because it is a delight to write about my journey again.

"Afghan World View" by Norm Gustavson, Ph.D.

2006-12-22T21:16:00.000Z

“If It's Worth Owning, it’s worth building a wall around”
and other aspects of Afghan world view

Preface: Rereading the text I find myself apologetic for writing a rather dry, analytical piece. My intention is reasonable: to aid my colleagues in the development community to better understand why so many well planned trainings or “capacity building” workshops with Afghans are such dismal failures. The view I have created here, while I believe it can be very useful, is far from complete and neglects many of the strong, positive features of Afghan culture and society. It does not give the reader a sense of the elderly professor who patiently works to help my Dari along, or the little boys in the neighborhood who run up to say “How are you? What’s your name?” all in one breathe in their best English. It does not capture the girls herding their sheep and goats through the early morning streets to find bits of green and edible garbage which is all the access the young goatherds have to fodder in the city. It doe not convey the earnestness of the offer “Chai mekuri?” (Drink tea with me?) by almost any shopkeeper or neighbor with whom you share more than a polite greeting. There is a friendly openness that is still the most automatic response of most Afghans I meet, a true generosity offered to the guest. This deeply felt ethic, the “Pashtoon Wahli” is a powerful and positive aspect of the culture to be appreciated working in Afghanistan, or wherever you encounter Afghans.

Afghanistan: History from an Anthropological Perspective

But this analysis is really directed at something else. One of the first things that I noticed about the human geography of Afghanistan, especially as I began to travel outside of Kabul, was the walls. From individual farm sites isolated by miles from their nearest neighbor to the agglomerations of compounds on an extended family holding, to villages, towns and even the largest cities. Virtually everything owned has a great wall of mud slabs, adobe brick or stone enclosing it. Not just the houses but each cultivated plot of land is enclosed by a five to eight foot earthen wall. There must be more to this than keeping the roaming sheep and goats from eating the crops? What sort of view of the world must exist to produce such extraordinary and ubiquitous earthworks?

Afghanistan is, one might say, a nation by default. It has a colorful and imperial past, but these empires, like the last one, the great Mogul empire that lasted through the better part of three centuries only to fall before the British colonization of India in the middle of the 18th century, can hardly be called a nation state in modern terms. It was a vast feudal empire held together by the sword and tribute money in a complex confederation of feudal lords and tribal chieftains. This type of empire building is referred to in the literature on the development of civilization as “predatory expansion”. Predatory expansion, the forceful taking and holding of other people’s lands, requires a level of social and technical development that can support a warrior class. It marks a point in social and technical development when the production of, in almost all cases, cereal crops, i.e., food stuffs that can be stored and transported, allows for the existence of an army of conquest and occupation rather than just raiding parties and local vendettas. In the anthropological scheme of things this level of military organization is based on a tribal level of social integration: inherited rights and at least an incipient ruling elite within the kin based tribal structure. The level of social integration we see as the predecessor of the Nation of Afghanistan, right up to last king, Zahir Shah, is much like our view of feudal Europe. Like feudal Europe the vast majority of the population are subsistence farmers essentially tied to the land with wealthy land owners controlling access to the most valuable of local resources and access to sources of wealth beyond their immediate territory. Unlike the development of European peasantry (Russian serfs included) Afghanistan and much of central Asia has stayed at a kin based level of social organization with an effective “kingship” imposed on the underlying tribal system instead of forming a true ruling class (or caste) as in Europe.

My point is that the social order and cultural views of peasants, as studied in Europe and Central America, can provide useful insights into the dynamics of Afghan society today for those of us attempting to “develop” this war ravaged human ecosystem.

In the 1940s F.G. Bailey wrote about the last vestige of European peasantry as it still existed in Spain and parts of Italy. His book is called “Gifts and Poison”. What Bailey saw in his decades of study were village scale social networks. Farming villages always struggling on the fringes of a larger market economy. Because of their perpetual subjugation to the market and near subsistence level of production the “world view” of peasants, Bailey argued, is always one of distrust, attempting to stay “one up” on ones neighbors, or currying the favor of the wealthy. The society he describes is one in which rumor and innuendo are the basis of political action and family alliance. Societies where all generosity is suspect for potential hidden gains and where apparent gifts may be subtle poison. Distrust might be said, in such a society, to grow with physical and social distance. But the social dynamic of distrust is really more like the concentric waves extending from the point where a pebble is dropped in the water. In a tight competition even ones closest relatives cannot be trusted. This seems quite close to the dynamic which led Durrani to have his rival cousin’s eyes put out and held captive in a remote fortress in order to gain the throne in the mid 19th century (still no name or flag for the country as a whole).

In the 60’s and 70’s Robert Redfield gained notoriety with his analysis of Mesoamerican peasantry. He delineated a definition of “peasantry” as always having a marginalized relationship with a market economy (or other higher level of social structure not based on local production and barter). “Peasants” and other, similar groupings of people, find themselves struggling on the brink of survival and unable to accumulate the kind of surpluses necessary to risk a change in the current order of things. They cannot risk shifting toward single (or few) crop farming that might bring full participation in a money economy, and freedom from oppressive ties to large land owners or tribal chiefs, because crop failure would mean overwhelming indebtedness, persecution and probable starvation. Peasants and others with similar forms of social and economic networks are always in a state of indebtedness, servitude, or tribal obligation. There is always the perception of being “one down”, or at risk of it, in such a social system. Redfield described a belief system in which there is the perception that the world has a very limited set of opportunities or courses of action; that wealth, or livelihood, is something carved from limited access to a limited resource base. He called this orientation the “Idea of Limited Good” and made it the cornerstone of his interpretation of the way peasant level societies behave. Peasant type social systems are marked by the appearance of close family ties, fluid allegiances, distrust and outright treachery beyond the coalition of the moment. For the insider there may well be great generosity between friends and relatives but too, always the specter of betrayal to gain a larger piece of a limited pie. Peasants tend to be conservative and cannot afford to take risks with new methods of farming or crops, much less ideas or the social order of things. They tend to be religious and place their faith in luck, or god, or the power of witches and the evil eye, but not so much in their own power to break the cycle of economic dependency that often dominates their lives.

Afghanistan is the land between the Southern reach of the Russian Bear, the Westward expansion of the British “Raj” and the Eastern boundary lands of old Persia. It is an ethnically diverse land bitterly divided by tribal rivalry, ethnic and religious hatreds (“the Muslims hate the Sikhs, the Sikhs hate the Hindus, the Sunnis hate the Shia and we don’t like anybody very much”). This is an agrarian society carved out of tiny mountain valleys and dry plains where a scratching a livelihood from the high desert and narrow river bottoms is a hard proposition at best. But Ariana lies squarely across the “silk road”, the legendary trade route from Cathay to Arabia and Byzantium. The wealth of the greatest civilizations of East and West has passed back and forth across these barren lands for more than a millennium. And in a way the “silk road” was the “market economy”, the access to an unlimited good, that created the marginalized and peasant like social fabric that still permeates Afghanistan today. Tribal chiefs were bandit chiefs who made their living robbing the treasure caravans and ransoming caravan drivers who balked at paying tribute to cross tribal lands. Rank and wealth arose out of a subsistence, agrarian base and chieftainships evolved toward a class of noble houses, but always along tribal and family lines. Almost any adult Afghan can name the four branches of the royal family, cousins all. One line dominated the royal household for two hundred years until Nadir Shah took the throne in 1929 and ended with the reign of his son Zahir Shah in 1975.

The honor code of generosity to guests, the “Pashtun Wahli” is a sort of semi codified ethic that calls for the ultimate protection and succor of guest, once they are viewed as such or while they are viewed as such, but the overriding ethos is much the same as that of Redfield and Bailey’s peasants: rumor, factionalisms, shifting allegiances and fundamental distrust are what literally put walls around all that Afghan’s value.

Afghanistan and the Role of Women

Tribal and peasant societies with agricultural and herding economies can be found all across the developing world, from Southeast Asia, to Central America; Africa to India. They share many features in common in their social structures and social attitudes, but there are, of course, many differences as well. One of the most striking areas of difference can be seen in the different roles that women play across the strata of social organization.

The Neolithic revolution, the domestication of plants and animals which led mankind permanently away from nomadic hunting and gathering to sedentary farming, also led from simple and quite egalitarian roles for men and women as hunters and gatherers, respectively, to hierarchical social formulations. For most of humankind in the last twelve thousand years or so women may be seen as primarily a mode of exchange between men; essentially property. But even if we accept this feature of “primitive economics” the roles of women; their value and authority in these societies varies widely. In many, women control significant wealth separate from their husband’s or have considerable influence in the life of the community outside their domestic sphere. In Afghanistan traditional cultural values, including the practice of bride price, or payment by the family of the groom to the father of the bride, and strong taboos against contact between males and females outside the family compound appear to have had an unfortunate and restrictive synchrony with Islamic views on the role of women. The Afghan woman is cloistered inside the walls of her compound. Even in the cities few women are seen on the streets and then usually covered from head to toe with a “chadori” (burqua). I call them the blue ghosts of Afghanistan. The public world is a world of men, with few exceptions even today. Women leave their natal homes to live with their husband’s extended family often by the age of 12 or 14 and not infrequently much younger, essentially being raised like Cinderella in the domicile of their mother in law. Inside the walled compound there is a very real “pecking order” between the wives of the brothers who form the extended family, and the mother in law is the law indeed. Domestic violence is common and not restricted to men beating their wives. The greatest perpetrator is often the household matriarch and not infrequently senior wives of senior brothers. In this highly age ranked social structure anyone in a higher status may well use corporal punishment to enforce their will on anyone lower (younger) male or female. Marriage preference is for the cross cousin: mother’s brother’s daughter or father’s sister’s son, though any first cousin will do nicely. For economic reasons a more distant and older male relative may be the designated groom and the betrothed couple often do not meet before their wedding. A woman who consorts with someone of her own choosing is at risk of severe punishment even death at the hand of her own father or brothers, the stigma of sexual pollution is so great. In fact, in my view, the social regulation of interaction between men and women is more restrictive and harsher in Afghan culture than anywhere else in the world today.

Past Attempts at Modernization

King Amanuallah tried to ban “purdah”, the cloistering of women even within a household, and the wearing of the chadori in the 1920’s and was quickly sent into exile. The “communist” social revolution of the 1970’s led to violent protest, a series of coups in the government and the disastrous interventions of the Russian army. This was not a struggle against a foreign oppressor, but an ideological struggle of conservative and traditional Afghan culture against change and modernization. Once the communists, in all their guises, were thrown out or eliminated the tribal factions in the form of the Mujahaddin commanders went to work to wrest the biggest piece of the pie for themselves and to assert the authority of their tribe and ethnic group. Thus Kabul, essentially intact at the end of the Russian war, was razed to rubble by the cannon and rockets of Heckmatyar, Dostum, Khalily,and Ahmad Shah Masoud in a few short years.

The Social Impact of Two Decades of War
In two decades of war and civil war the physical infrastructure of Afghanistan was laid to ruin. Interestingly, what was preserved was the social and cultural infrastructure (at least in much greater part). Tribal and family allegiances as well as the basic social hierarchy in village life: the patrilineal and patriarchal family structure; the old mans council of the village “Shura”; the pervasive and conservative devotion to Islam; even the government bureaucracy which had never been shut down in all the years of fighting, maintained a traditional status quo. According to Jason Elliot, in his book “An Unexpected Light”, it was this environment of prolonged (physical) instability and horrific conflict that gave ascendancy to the Mullah’s of Afghanistan who historically had no great political role in Afghan communities. It is rather clear that it was this climate of ideological conservatism and harkening back to the core values of the past that allowed the Taliban to come to power, not their military prowess or political acumen. Even today, with all the additional horrors and injustices heaped on Afghanistan by the Taliban, the Afghan “on the street” sees this as a period of lawful order and relative freedom from open warfare across much of Afghanistan South of the Salang pass and the Panjshir. Last year an elderly gentleman who manages the UNHCR efforts out of Jalalabad told me: “at least in those (Taliban) years you knew you were safe. No one was going to rob you and you could walk the streets at night. You can’t say that any more”. Recently, riding home from Shar-e-Nau (Kabul city center) in a cab, the driver went on at length about how the crazy, aggressive driving that we were dealing with much less the rows of carts crowding off the sidewalk and into the street would not be there if the Taliban were running things. There was no anti-foreigner element in what he said, just frustration at the present lack of law and order.

Afghans and their Cultural Relationship to Change and Learning

The French anthropologist Claude Levi Strauss called up a simple dichotomy between what he called the “hot” societies of North America, Western Europe, Soviet Russia and even Communist China, and the traditional or “cold” societies of the developing world. The West is oriented fundamentally by a belief in “progress”; where the only constant is change itself, and where god, sexual divisions of labor and even family roles are moribund. Traditional societies are… traditional. There is little to divide the past and the eternal present. “Cold” cultures look to the authority of tradition for the “Truth”, while “hot” cultures see no Truth with a capitol T, but relative truth based on ethical and moral rules continually being influenced by evolving technologies and concomitant shifts in our conceptualization of the world around us.

Traditional cultures tend to use rote learning styles or recitation and a codified body of knowledge rather than participatory learning styles that emphasize innovative problem solving and experimentation. Traditional vocational skills are passed by example from parent to child. “Why do we do it this way?” “Because we always have!”

Some Implications for Education and Training programs designed for Afghans

In such a traditional milieu analytical thinking and creativity are not adaptive. Rote learning and regurgitation of the known “Truth” and known methods is adaptive. Bright children here as in the West learn faster, and remember more accurately. But what they recall is more of a fixed constellation of known “Truth” rather than facts to support inquiry inside a world view of change.

Now, let us introduce the new “facts” of democracy, social equality, gender equity, a focus on creativity rather than re-creation, on analytical deconstruction instead of traditional reaffirmation, on group synergy and cooperation as opposed to insular loyalty and mistrust of the “outsider”... The lack of appreciation of these different sets of beliefs and values; the profoundly different ways in which development experts interact with their world and Afghans interact with theirs is a staggering barrier to present efforts at “development”.

But what is the answer?

I am drawn to take a page from the work of the American social psychologist Robert Bandura and his notion of “internal vs. external locus of control”. First studying school children in several Caribbean countries Bandura came to see these children as often behaving as if they had little or no sense that they had any real impact on what was going on in the world around them. In one experiment children were set up to play a game in which they were to try to throw balls into a basket. The children got to set their own distance from the basket. The children who had scored low on a questionnaire designed to get at “locus of control” would either stand virtually on top of the basket or improbably far away. In the first case, putting the balls in the basket gave no real satisfaction, no “win”, and in the second, no win was possible. The children’s efforts can be seen as completely avoiding risk or relying on pure luck. Both answers are revealing of an attitude that the child has little control over his or her environment and must minimize risk or rely on outside influences: luck, witchcraft, god…

So Bandura set himself a problem. How do you move people from an external locus of control to a more internal one? The answer: initially by making risk less risky. By setting up situations where real and valued gains can overcome the conservative tendency to stick with the known. Immediacy and delay of reward (or consequences) is another important factor. Children who initially would opt for a lesser but immediate pay off learned to delay gratification for a larger reward by making the payoff for delay relatively high and manipulating greater and greater delay while slowly diminishing the exaggerated payoff to a more realistic (real word) level of payoff. Cooperation and trust can be developed in much the same way.

So how can we relate Bandura’s experimental findings to the larger issues on the ground in Afghanistan? The National Development Program (NPD) and the mechanism of Community Development Councils (CDCs), with their existing development funds for projects, could form the nexus of a widespread effort to empower local initiative and entrepreneurship. This model of development offers a relatively secure (safe) environment for innovation. The basic resources needed are already provided for by the NDP’s community development fund, a pool of money allocated to all CDC’s based on the local census). Using this model, political “capacity building” of democratic structures would be a natural outcome of the CDC process. At the same time such local development project would offer tangible and sustainable rewards (results). The process is one of support for cooperative action and community organization that emphasized local but dispersed, decision making instead of reliance on traditional authority.

At the same time it is important that development workers, as change agents, listen and learn just where the communities in which they work are operating on different issues. Development workers can then plan activities that respect where the community values lie and at the level of technical expertise that exists in a given community. Development efforts that are based on realistic levels of change and that do not demand shifts that are not feasible in the current worldview of the people served. Will Afghanistan ever be a “hot” culture with a relativistic ethical code or Western style democracy? Not for a long time to come, but neither do the people of Afghanistan need to cling to the past as a fixed constellation of Truth. There is a way from then to now, the past to the future.

Observations and recommendations from training experiences in Afghanistan that reflect the worldview described:

My wife, Marnie, has added a series of observations here from her many training sessions both in Kabul and in the Provinces over the last year and a half. Here are some examples and tactical training suggestions based on her experience in the field.

“As a result of the world view described and the current state of education programs, which reinforce the traditional outlook, I have attempted to develop programs that achieve the following objectives:

• To increase the participants sense of power over life circumstance-(internal versus external locus of control).

• To construct learning environments and projects in which the participants experience success however small it may be.

• To incorporate into all trainings a component in which the group is introduced to the idea of “world view” (paradigm’s) are is taken through a process in which the participants attempt to describe the Afghan world as an outsider, rather than as one of the ‘fish’ swimming in it’s ‘water’. I challenge the participants to explore this concept in relationship to the Afghan world view, how it dictates their relationships. I then give the participants the opportunity other possible views that will allow for change but maintain what they value most. This one idea of being able to examine ones own basic presupositional view of the world and to step outside it, even for a moment, to consider other possibilities, provides a strong platform for creative inquiry and exploration. I find the participants surprisingly capable of understanding this, although they may eventually tire of the conversation and ask for a “step-by-step” solution.

Training components that are proving successful:

• Trainer’s that work with participants over the long-term (minimum of a year)
• Close relationships are highly valued by Afghans. Given access to a good relationship with a trainer or consultants, most Afghans will demonstrate a high tolerance for incisive and critical conversations, new ideas and mentoring. He/she may participate in small working groups of trusted friends or relatives. By initiating such work in a “trusted” environment a trainer can increase participant’s willingness to engage in innovative and interactive educational methods. Training programs that make use of international consultants who are here for a short time, will generally not have the impact intended except Afghans who have been raised in other countries with Western educational methods.

• Interactive methodology, one-on-one consulting and small working groups
• In most training, technical and soft skills, participants have difficulty transferring their knowledge into practical application. Workshops or trainings that rely solely on didactic delivery for the transfer of ideas or “facts” tend to be preferred by the Afghan trainees, but have little or no lasting impact. Trainings that have follow up components and/or focus more on a consulting or mentoring approaches seem to penetrate the ethos of a “concrete” or fixed reality that deters Afghans from fully appreciating (or taking on) the training material being offered to them. A one-on-one approach also allows the trainer to identify learning assets and deficits and to more accurately provide a learning experience of incremental success that encourages risk taking and change.

• Training exercises that involve some tangible “pay-off” that facilitates the learning process
• Strategically, the idea is to develop training tools and training materials that contain an inherent payoff for creativity and cooperation. To accomplish this end consultants and trainers might set up exercises, or learning situations, that provide opportunities for incremental risk taking with high payoff (an increased probability of success for moderate risk)

• In addition to tactics that might be borrowed from the work of Bandura and other social psychologists who have worked on increasing “internal locus of control”, other “game” models like “the prisoners dilemma” might be used to enhance trust.

• Increasing trust and risk taking behavior in Afghan trainees, through well constructed training programs, can, it is proposed here, facilitate the integration of ideas “outside the box” of the current Afghan world view and thus help to foster positive social and technical change.

Notes On working with Afghan Women leaders (Parliamentarians and Provincial Council):

Democracy and Afghan leadership
Upon examining training gaps, based on our interviews, it appears that a historical Afghan interpretation of what Afghan leaders provide has a large influence over the activities of the Afghan women leaders. Historically, reigning Afghan leaders qualify for this role by being affluent enough to provide goods, services and to intervene in matters of mediation. Afghan leaders have traditionally competed with each other for power. Because of this, the women we interviewed expressed concern about their own lack of connections and money. As women few of them have this access.

At this point in the new Afghan democracy “law making”, “policy making” and “oversight”-the backbone of their job description-are activities viewed as relatively unproductive, especially in the current chaotic political environment. In fact, given Afghan’s experience of law in the post-Taliban reconstruction, “law making” as an activity is met with great skepticism by parliamentarians and constituents a like. Given there is relatively little integrity to the governance structures that enforce the law, why spend so much time making them?

Activities currently being conducted by the parliamentarians are congruent with a perception that leadership entails securing economic advantage for their constituents, by entertaining groups of people from the provinces and approaching ministries and international donors to seek money, services, roads, clinics and schools.

We did not encounter in any of our interviews a woman who had a comprehensive understanding of the role of a parliamentarian in a democratic society; the necessity for coordinating with other governance bodies (provincial councils and ministries) in order to influence change; or the need to work with constituents so that they understand that they have an important role in the reconstruction of Afghanistan; or the necessity of having a healthy civil society implementing programs and services all over the country.

Recommendations for program development:
A bridge between the economic needs of Afghan communities and the need to build a democratic government and society can be found. Developing practical program models that results in tangible outcomes would go a long way toward creating a productive learning environment for Afghan leaders. Most of these leaders simply have no reality that they can draw upon to demonstrate that democracy can work. For issues that relate to economic development the CDC model of programming in which the community Council can apply for funds after certain requirements have been satisfied could be adapted to programs for parliamentarians and provincial council members.

An application procedure for funding that models a democratic lobbying effort could provide an interim training step. Provincial Council Members or parliamentarians could access funding for their provinces as they facilitate consensus building, set up oversight structures, and enlist community investment. Afghan leaders who can manage this process will develop confidence in democratic principles as well as stature as leaders in the eyes of their constituents. This is only an example of how training programs can be set up to require democratic organizing principles to be achieved and at the same time have the participants experience producing a tangible outcome in their role as parliamentarian or provincial council member.

We are working with Afghan leaders who are being required to be leaders at the same time as they are learning what leadership and democracy is. They are citizens of a country that defies change. Our first parliamentarians are not only leaders but teachers who have to educate their constituents to democracy. With their countrymen experiencing such hardship, the concept of “lawfulness” and “due process” are a hard sell. Training programs that take this fact into account and provide follow up support to conceptual trainings –resulting in tangible outcomes for the parliamentarians effort could provide some momentum toward social change in this country.

Survey: Village near Bandi-Amir lake

2006-02-24T13:49:00.000Z

Close to one of the most beautiful lakes in the world...Bandiamir and it is being declared a historical world treasure, we found a poor village and as usual we were welcomed sweetly. This village had a husband/wife team who were being trained to assist the villagers with health issues but we had the opportunity to see a number of medical problems as they were sure that Mahbouba was a doctor. In this village we were told that to have a mother die was certain death for the infant as there was no way to feed the baby. Woman do not wet-nurse as their work load is too heavy to accomodate two infants and they have had no luck with cows milk demonstrated by a poor three year old that they showed us who apparently had not thrived on cow's milk. A humorous moment, as an elder jolly woman told Mahbouba about a birth helper who lost the new born during the birth-apparently only to find the baby in the voluminous drawers of the mother later. She said to us "Send us someone competent enough to find the baby in the pants of a woman...and we will be happy". She was quite amused at herself as Mahbouba endeavored to translate this to me for survey purposes.

Survey: A morning off at Shahr-i-Zohak (Red City)

2006-02-24T13:17:00.000Z

Mahbouba, Dr. Sami and I decided to take a well-deserved Friday morning off to climb up to the ruins of Shahr-i-Zohak. I remember seeing this stunning city carved out of red rock when I was a girl. When I saw it I knew somehow I had to return to Afghanistan when I was an adult and show my children this remarkable sight. I since then have only seen such beauty in the red rocks of Sedona. Climbing up the loose rock was challenging and about 2/3rds of the way, straight up (Afghans do not seem to use switchbacks on their paths-only for vehicles) I looked down and unexpectedly experienced vertigo and the intense desire to get back off the mountain immediately-especially as our path was lined with red rocks, the sign for "danger-unexploded land mines". Mahbouba was having as much difficulty as I was and we decided to press on to the top as we would never forgive ourselves for the opportunity to see this. Dr. Sami was obnoxious as any surefooted, macho, 26 year old Afghan male can be. He teased us relentlessly. It was on our way down that I could see the differences in cultures as Dr. Sami and Mahbouba, after weeks of needling each other and arguing, found comfort in each others chatter and laughter, whereas I grumpily declined Dr. Samis assistance and told them to shut up as I could not concentrate. I found relief in following our silent and sure-footed guide quickly down the mountain leaving them behind to enjoy a short truce as they kept each other company during the descent.

Nancy Hatch Dupree has written some of the most detailed descriptions of ancient places in Afghanistan. She says of Shahr-i-Zohak.

"This mass of impressive ruins was once the principal fortress protecting the entrance to the City of Bamiyan during the reigns of the Shansabani Kings in the 12–13th centuries A.D. The natural defenses afforded by the cliff had been recognized from much earlier times, as might well be expected. Archaeologists have found evidence that man had built defensive works here as early as the end of the B.C. era, and, when the Hephthalite Huns fought for possession and power within these mountains in the 6th century A.D., there was a considerable complex here. The present remains, however, are those of the fortress which withstood the advance of a Mongol army led by Genghis Khan’s favorite grandson in 1221. The resistance was stout and determined and during the melee on the plain at its foot, the young commander fell mortally wounded. In revenge Genghis Khan vowed to destroy the valley, which he did, most thoroughly.
Today’s visitors enter the fortress via the very pathway used by the original defenders and one can easily envision the passage of mounted cavalry, with all the attendant sounds, smells and confusion. On the way are attractively decorated towers for guards on duty. These towers had no doorways but were entered by ladders which were pulled up later to make the tower totally secure. There the soldiers stood on wooden platforms laid on heavy supporting beams, and shot their arrows through loopholes.
...city-fortress of glowing magenta, atop such cliffs, must of necessity have inspired romantics with tales of legendary kings and heroes. So it is not surprising to learn from the inhabitants of Bamiyan that this was actually, in fact, the royal abode of Zohak. A wilder occupant for this fairyland city could hardly be found.

Zohak first appears in the Shahnama as a noble prince of Arabia, a devoted son well-beloved by his people. He became, however, possessed of the Devil who induced him to usurp his father’s throne whereupon the Devil appeared disguised as a loyal subject who asked to kiss the new king on the shoulders in token of his complete submission. No sooner had he done so, and vanished, than two black serpents thrust their heads out from where the kisses had been placed. Attempts to cut them off only resulted in their immediate return and their increased demand for human brains, the only food they would accept.
At the same time that Zohak was being seduced by the Devil, civil war broke out in Iran and Zohak marched in as the champion of one faction and was enthroned as the emperor of Iran. For a thousand years his rule brought terror and chaos to the land, but then the hero Fraidun was born. After many escapades, Fraidun finally succeeded in taking Zohak prisoner whereupon he took the dragon-king to a far off mountain peak and left him there to die. The Shahnama ends the tale here but, typically, Afghan legend goes on to elaborate by saying that, deprived of their daily meal of brains, the serpents turned on Zohak, bit into his scalp and fed upon his brains until he died."

Survey: Shibar Pass Bamiyan

2006-02-24T07:26:00.000Z

I don't think there is a province Mahbouba and I have been to that we don't think is beautiful but Bamiyan is one of our favorite places. The second week of our survey took place in Bamiyan. This is a relatively well-to-do village close to the Shibar pass. Bamiyan is primarily Hazara, and shiites (minority muslim sect). This is the valley where the Taliban blew up the ancient Buddhas. Martin Ewan writes in "Afghanistan" ..."In 200 AD...Bhuddhism flourished and in its Mahayana form, spread through out Afghanistan and along the Silk Road to Central Asia and China. Most spectacularily, two huge images of Buddha were found in Bamian,carved into the cliff face at the margin of the valley. These probably date from the third and fifth centureis AD, and the number of monastic cells carved into the cliffs around them show that this was a major Bhuddhist center. Hsuan Tsang, who visited Bamiyan in the course of his journey in the seventh century found 'several dozen monasteries and several thousand monks still in the area."

At the hotel where we were staying, a team of Japanese working for UNESCO were setting development perimeters for the incredible places found in Bamiyan such as Bandi-amir lake and the valley of Bamiyan so that this area can be preserved. Very heartening although difficult for the residents, a population that caught the brunt of the war no matter who was fighting who...as Hazaras are traditionally picked on by everyone.

We traded our difficult and whiney driver, Myroweis, in Badakshan for my regular driver, a character and amputee, Wahid. He and I have worked together every since I started coming to Afghanistan and I was looking forward to one less difficulty with him managing our logistics. Unfortunately for me, he discovered in the prior week that my husband was paying his driver $100 a month more than I was paying him. This sent him into a deep depression, and he felt that life was terribly unjust. The result was that the "all terrain" vehicle that he brought for us to use from Kabul (expecting top dollar) was the oldest, smelliest, rickety "town ace" van he could find. Mahbouba and I drove from airport to hotel with noses in our knees because they set the seats so that the maximum number of people can get into the van. In a high dudgeon, I sent the vehicle and driver home and secured another vehicle and driver. Since we were expecting to travel in snow it was a safety issue as much as anything. Wahid moped around the hotel as he was so unpleasant I stopped taking him out. My final straw was when I asked him to buy and arrange for the preparation of lunch (through the hotel) he stumped ino our room and told Mahbouba, my colleague and his superior to do it. I really have loved and appreciated this man but it was the final straw in a difficult work setting and the end of his job when we got back to Kabul.

Pictures below are from a village up near the Shibar pass...we go over it from Kabul. We say a donkey giving birth on the plains...breathtakingly beautiful mountains.

Survey: Onar and Waksher, Badakshan

2006-01-28T06:27:00.000Z

We headed east to Baharak to find remote villages to survey. Baharak is an ancient village that has been a place that traders stop on the way north and south for as long as anyone can remember. It feels like dropping into another time and place. Badakshan's war stopped when the Russians left so the province-as impoverished as it is-has been recovering for over eight years now, economy supported by opium production.

We spent the night with Myroweis's family in a little pastoral farm compound with cow,calf and chickens next door. The father is a laboratory technician. This was a progressive family although extremely devout muslims and I had the chance to experience the daily rythym of life in the country for a family. Mom had ten kids, with two sets of twins. She was a couple years younger than I, and we discovered on birth control which is unusual and shows how forward thinking and considerate the father was. In the evenings we would be treated to a delicious meal prepared by mom and daughters in an outdoor kitchen. Mahbouba and I would eat with the men and then quickly retire to spend time with the women. Guests in Afghanistan are pampered and spoiled. Our hostess and daughters and neighbors daughters would help us wash and then tuck us into our "Tushaks" covered by heavy quilts. Then the best part of their day began while they talked to us about our lives and opinions and problems. We could have as many as 20 sitting around us listening to Mahbouba. It was the one time I was grateful not to be too fluent in farsi as after along day on survey it was difficult to entertain. Mahbouba was indefatigable, thank god, and we learned so much from our night time chats.

Morning would come with tea, naan, and local honey...a delicious breakfast and we would wake to the same audience and more questions. Afghans do not have the same concept of privacy that we do in the west and it all seemed very normal to them to be intimately involved in all aspects of their guests comfort.

Our survey took us to two villages that were on the road toward the "Wakkan Corridor" near the Chinese border. I am so sorry I wasn't able to get pictures of Onar. When I visit these villages I am struck by how we as westerners define wealth in terms of money and possessions. So a village like this is impoverished by our definition. But these issues are so much more complex. This little village is perched on a mountain between mountains and is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. The people greeted us at the base of the hill near the river and i was struck by a sense of peace and community like I never experience in my own country. Compounds were piled high with mounds of straw in preparation for winter. The herds could be seen on the hills up above the village although I suspect they will all be moved in when snow arrives. In the golden afternoon harvest sun, the village was honey colored and earthtoned as it was built of the adobe mud. Villagers were sweet and welcoming. We were escorted to the house of one of the elders, entry way by mounds of dried manure that will be fuel in winter. I sank into the pillows offered and thought I could stay for a week.

We interviewed the women who were self-effacing and humble. They told us that they were a backward and uneducated people. No one was able to go to school. Five women in a community of 60 families died from childbirth in the last year. Mahbouba and I had them name them and tell us about them so that we could make sure they hadn't picked a number. Whereas I was struck by the loss and the harshness of their life, there is nothing pathetic about the Afghan people. In these conversations I can only admire and enjoy their company. There is a richness to their lives that they cannot recognize given they have experienced nothing else. I so hope that progress can come to them to alleviate the hardship and tragedy without them losing their sweetness. This is the Afghanistan that I want people to know about. You cannot find this in Kabul-one has to be willing to travel and so few expats who are in charge of development projects are able or willing to.

Mahbouba, as always was a treat to them. No matter how cranky and discouraged she is when she starts talking with the women all is forgotten. She usually has a toothless "Bibi" who sits by her holding her hand while she interviews. They all feel special when she is finished and it will be along time before they forget her.

The next day we traveled an arduous three hours straight up the mountains to Waksher village by donkey. Traumatic for me. I made a quite a name for myself by walking the entire way up and refusing to ride the donkey assigned me. The donkey owner kept up a steady stream of abuse the entire trip to the point that when we went back down I told him that his language made me blush and I would give him "baksheesh" if he would not hit the donkeys on the way down. He indignantly told me that Afghans know how to care for their animals. Which did not endear him to me. The only thing this skinny little mean man had going for him in my book is his willingness to carry Mahbouba's purse which he did so with a flourish.

This also was not Dr. Sami's best day as he insisted on fasting- apparently travelers are able to break their Ramazan fast as Allah insists that under no circumstances should fasting be done in such a way that the devote be under such stress as to be unkind to others. Dr. Sami whined and complained all the way up the mountain- when I drank out of the stream he asked me if I didn't feel sorry for him because of his fast-an astonshing concept to me as I was under the impression that it was his choice. A full day of Afghan style melodrama from him wore me out more than the hike. On the way back down he hopped on his donkey and took off with the donkey owner-leaving Mahbouba and I to pick our way alone down a treacherous slope. I caught up with him and inflicted a good dose of guilt provoking imprecations on him. He, of course, was unmoved. When I pointed out the place that supposedly a sheep was eaten by a wolf the last evening and asked him "what if that happened to us and you were a mile down the hill?!!!" He replied unrepententedly "If I was with you what could I have done against a wolf?" I finally quit reasoning with him and told him always to be within my eyesight which unfortunately also put me within hearing range of his whining. These were the moments that tested us.

We were sore and tired and so grateful to be back in our friends home in Baharak that night.

Survey: Badakshan Province

2006-01-25T14:54:00.000Z

We toured the hospital in Faizabad and no where could the condition for pregnant women get more stark. 14 women had been admitted the night before we came and 3 had died. Dr. Hajira took us to see a 4th woman who died within an hour of our visit. (second picture) It had taken two days to get her out of the mountains after her birth and she didn't make it. Dr. Hajira wanted us to witness her condition. I appreciated that. I struggle with how much pain and dispair I can tolerate to see in this impoverished country. But when I allow myself to simply be a witness- not require myself to respond I come to appreciate the profoundity of simply being willing to see and hear. For poor and desparate people in difficultly it is soothing to be seen instead of ignored and looked through.

It is hard to remember the days when contraception was controversial. Afghan women with no access to medical care-particularily in the provinces-are resigned to death by pregnancy. They can have up to 20 pregnancies in their lifetime-poor nutrition taking a toll on their bodies. And as many experiences here I am struck by the beauty of the people, the immediacy of life and death that is living here for the Afghan people.

Mahbouba forgets herself (and me) when she visits Afghan women. She loves them, kisses them, commiserates, and tells them how beautiful they are.

Survey: Maternity Waiting Homes

2005-12-30T07:21:00.000Z

Mahbouba and I just completed a survey in three provinces that examines the feasibility of what is called a "maternity waiting home" (MHW) for mothers who are 'at risk" of dying in childbirth. Medical care for women is still developing here. But the issue of infant/mother mortality is that the families have so little access to the care. The MWH's would be essentially birthing centers next to a hospital where women could stay for a period of time leading up to birth for care by midwives as well as post natal care as well. We did this survey for the arm of John Hopkins University here in Kabul (JHPIEGO). With that explanation given if you have a professional interest in the outcome of the survey please e-mail me. On these pages I am going to describe my experience of the work we did.

Our three provinces to visit were Badakshan, which has one of the highest mortality rates in the world, Bamiyan and Jawzjan. Mahbouba and I are a consulting and training team, and we love working in the provinces. We specialize in women's programming. We "subcontract" with agencies so we are not bound to the often cumbersome security regulations other agencies have and we are old enough as women to earn respect among Afghan men. That said, I have only participated in one other survey in Afghanistan, one that my anthropologist husband organized so this was my first time to direct a survey. Dr. Patricia Omidian, also anthropologist, designed and supervised which was great. But we the actuality of conducting a survey in Afghanistan was one of my most challenging experiences here as well a humbling learning experience. Learning experiences here tend to humble me.

Attached to our team was 26 year old Afghan physician, Dr. Sami Wardak, who would survey groups of men giving Mahbouba and I the opportunity to focus on the women.

We made all of our own arrangements for Badakshan securing the services of young Myroweis, a driver that both of us had used before in Badakshan. Mahbouba, Sami and I arrived in Faizabad on October 22 with an ambitious agenda for interviews. It also happened to be and the 3rd week of Ramazan where Afghans fast all day. Mahbouba, an Afghan American is recently returned to Afghanistan and she was fasting for the first time in a long time. Dr. Sami is a good Pushtun boy, and Myroweis a good Tajik boy have always fasted during Ramazan. The Koran was consulted and Mahbouba determined that it was ok for traveler's to break fast during Ramazan, but not ok to carry on the fast to the point one might be un-Islamic, mean or irritable. This was a daily point of discussion and contention throughout our travel in Badakshan.

Our young men were not used to fending for themselves food-wise and would often wait until 4:45 to figure out what the food would be which would initate a series of heated discussions, and un-Islamic behavior-and a scattered and unproductive effort to find edible food. I learned, in self-defence, to make organizing the meal to break the fast at 5:15 pm, my highest priority.

To add to our survey dynamic, a local warlord set up a rocket launcher on top of a hill overlooking Faizabad, and sent nightly rockets into the area of town where we were staying. After eight days-the stress of managing the survey-trying to figure out where to spend the night-the lack of bathing facilities-and the ongoing unproductive and contentious discussion my Afghan companions conducted in Dari, convinced me to abandon my "collaborate and empower" management style that I perfected in the States and adopt a non-benevolent-in fact -malevolent dictatorship management approach.