Confection

The Culprit Here I was, Saturday morning, minding my own business, when I spotted something gray in my front yard. Thinking it was another cat trying to pop a squat in my marigolds, I ran outside. It was a monkey. I saw the first couple of monkeys two weeks ago. They were walking along the front wall of my yard, not bothering anything. I live in the capital of Ethiopia. I live in the city. I am truly puzzled as to how these primates are making their way into my yard. Moreover, I am pissed off that the little motherfuckers are eating my flowers. I used to like monkeys--buy pyjamas with monkeys on them, subscribe to Monkey Wire news alerts, enjoying looking at them in zoos--but when they start destroying my property by pulling up plants whose seeds my husband brought from China, well, a monkey ass is going to get a hammer thrown at it. It's on.

Ethiopia has the lowest number of cell phone subscribers in Africa. The country where my husband is has the lowest number of internet subscribers. While what is wrong with Liberia might be easily explained by years of war that decimated the infrastructure, Ethiopia (besides a few skirmishes with Eritrea) has not seen the conflict on the scale of say, Sierra Leone. No, the situation in Abyssinia comes down to three letters: ETC. Ethiopia Telecom will not allow competition--all of the telecommunications systems go through the government. This is why it took four months for my employer to take pity on me and give me the "consultant" SIM card (the whole time I was in country there were none available and ETC refused to issue new ones) and why, as I write now, I am on a slow dial-up. The government shut down Skype, blogspot.com, and streaming video seems at least three decades away. Last week the internet, cell phones and land lines shut down for the whole day. My Ethiopian colleagues thought Somalia had invaded. After living in Afghanistan, I believed them. So, as you all know, Somalia did not invade. However, after this post I this blog might be shut down.

Thank you so much! It is great to have a run-down of all the coconut. OK, got to place another order now!

I now have an answer as to why I have been unable to eat since my husband went to West Africa: a peptic ulcer. I awoke Monday with chest pains. Nonetheless, I got ready and (being the Pionerka that I am) went into the office at 8:30. By 10:00, I was doubled over in pain and thought it was a panic attack. My boss instructed one of my Ethiopian counterparts to take me to St. Gabriel’s hospital, less than 2 kilometers from the office and a block from my house. We entered the hospital and explained to the people behind the registration desk that I was having chest pains; they regarded these symptoms with the same urgency they would give an ingrown toenail. I paid my 60 birr registration fee and was instructed to go and wait in the “waiting area” which consists of a narrow hallway leading to the cafeteria with several worn leather seats and which smells of fried fish and bleach. I sat down and turned my attention to one of the overhead TVs, inexplicably tuned to CNN rather than ETV. After 15 minutes Tamrat (my Ethiopian coworker) told me to go to the nurses’ station where they took my blood pressure and weight and again treated my chest pains nonchalantly. I was given a card with the number 22 on it and instructed to return to the waiting area/hallway. For two hours I waited among 50 coughing, sneezing Ethiopians to see the doctor. Finally, when it was my turn, the doctor asked me about my symptoms and listened to my chest. When Tamrat left to ask the office about payment, the doctor decided to ask me a series of personal, probing questions Ethiopians can’t help but ask when confronted with a captive ferangi (white person): Are you a worker or a volunteer? How long have you been married? Do you have children? Why have you been married seven years and do not have children? Where is your husband? What is he doing there? I felt like standing up on his desk and screaming: THIS IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS. FOR YOUR INFORMATION AND FOR THE INFORMATION OF EVERYONE IN THE COUNTRY, I DO NOT HAVE CHILDREN BECAUSE I CANNOT STAND THEM. I WOULD RATHER LOSE A LIMB THAN LACTATE. I AM ONLY ENDURING THIS ON THE OFF CHANCE YOU ARE GOING TO PRESCRIBE ME SOME VALIUM. After what seemed like an eternity, Tamrat returned and explained to the doctor in Amharic that my employer would pay because I didn’t have any cash. The doctor took out a photocopied sheet of paper and wrote, “lab”, “EKG” and “observation”. I told him there was no way in HELL I was going to stay overnight, that I would rather die of a heart attack. He scratched out the last word and sent me on my way. The first thing they wanted to do was the “labs”. I walked into the laboratory which smelled like urine and the technician grabbed two vials. I stood up and walked out. There is not a chance in hell that I would let a public hospital in East Africa stick me with a needle. The next day, I slept in and went to work about 11:00 thinking that the symptoms would pass. By 3:00 I was about to die: pains were coming every five minutes. I rallied my strength and drove myself to a private clinic near my office. The Israeli doctors gave me an exam, diagnosis, prescription and completed insurance forms and sent me on my way in less than an hour. A few days after beginning treatment and I am still hardly able to eat and experience excessive pain when I do. An American co-worker had the dickheaded comment, “well, if you wanted to lose weight this would be the way to do it”. It has been the week for dickheaded comments. So if you, by chance, find yourself in Addis Ababa with a health problem DO NOT go to St. Gabriel’s hospital, especially if you have a potentially life-threatening and time sensitive health problem. Ethiopians are the slowest people in the world and never treat anything as urgent. Consider yourself warned.

I am still looking for a suitable June Gloom replacement. Maybe one of the grapefruits would suffice? When are you going to review banana and coconut?

How Snegurochka might look at two months I just found out that the pregnant cat across from my office gave birth this morning. My little Snegurochka was one of the four. Now I am not really sure what to do. When is the right time to take a kitten away from its mother? Four weeks? Eight weeks? Can I make her food myself or should I buy the hella expensive cat food they import? So many questions. I have never had a brand new cat before!

Thanks for the advice. The owner of Kitty Mama said she will give me Snega when the time is right (I am assuming about six weeks?). The Ethiopians eat raw meat (kitfo) so it's probably alright for the cat too!

Congratulations! I am glad that everything turned out alright. It must have been really scary. I hope that you both stay healthy!

Is that what that is? I looked through the galleries the other day and could not understand why polar bears had such bad grammar!

Whenever I read a story like this, I feel like I have been kicked in the chest. I have been out of Afghanistan now for over four months. Still, I can't tear myself away from the stories--stories so fucking bewildering they make me want to cry. Why would anyone gun down schoolgirls? I think about the time I went to a school opening in the same province where these two little girls were killed. My organization had built a primary school for boys and one for girls and a few colleagues and I were invited for the ceremony. Dozens of little girls lined the walk as we approached the school--handing us flowers, singing and shaking our hands. They were all wearing the traditional green headscarves and maroon dresses with gold trim. After we toured the new school, one of the girls read a poem she had written and the teachers provided us with sugar coated almonds, raisins and green tea even though it was Ramadan and all of the Muslims were fasting--not eating or drinking until sundown. Two months later, a rocket hit the school at night. No one was hurt and there was minimal damage, but it was a warning. I guess things are getting worse. Stories like this also remind me of the Afghans who really meant a lot to me--the civil engineer I worked with who broke down crying when he heard I was leaving for Ethiopia and told me, "I have three daughters. The youngest, she is like you. I always encourage her to be like you." The Afghans who called when the riots happened to make sure I was OK, the friends who offered to take us into hiding. I also think about Sharif, a driver at my work. Sharif did not speak English, but taking me and my husband home one day my husband noticed a Zemfira tape in his car. "Ti gavareesh pa-ruskii?" ("you speak Russian?"), my husband asked, using the informal "you" which always pisses me off. "Da", he replied--a friendship was born. Sharif went to university in Leningrad and finished his degree in history in 1987--two years before the Soviets were run out of Afghanistan by the Mujahadeen. He had five daughters, a real misfortune for an Afghan father. Since I was the only expatriate Sharif could communicate with (the only one who spoke Russian), he often asked me what was going on within the organization--the hirings, firings and other gossip and he told me what was going on in Afghanistan--the corrupt police, the bombings, the rumors. Before my husband and I left Afghanistan for good Sharif invited us over to his house for dinner. He lived in the "unplanned" area of the city where people squatted on public land in mud houses. He lived on the side of TV hill, on the third floor of a lopsided building with no running water and no sewer (wastewater ran down a trench in the center of the dirt road). We met all of his beautiful daughters, including the smallest, Arazu, who was five. Sitting there drinking tea with Sharif and his family, I could tell how much he loved his daughters. They brought out dozens of dishes from their small kitchen in a genuine display of hospitality. After dinner, Sharif's daughters presented me with some jewlery they had made for me and Sharif brought out his photos. The pictures broke my heart. Here was Sharif--twenty years ago with more hair--in Sochi, with his college friends (big Soviet women lounging in bikinis in the background, obviously scandalous for an Afghan). Here was Sharif in Red Square, in front of Lenin's tomb, in his obshezhetye (dorm) with his friends from Pakistan, China and Kenya. Here was Sharif, so full of hope, thinking that the world was ahead of him with no idea what was going to happen a few years down the road. Now he is a driver earning $125 a month and supporting his wife and five girls. When I hear terrible things about Afghanistan, I think about people like Sharif. I think about people who just want to raise their children and celebrate their weddings, to play with their grandchildren and sit around with friends and drink tea. I think about how the bombings have killed the family members of friends. I think about the little girls who sang songs for the foreigners when they got their new school. I think about Sharif sitting in the window of his small, two-room house, holding his little Arazu.

Heya, I generally decry reviews on blogs, but yours insired me to place a long-awaited order! Thanks! Confection

Why is it no matter where I go I get cat-called? I can be wearing anything, any time of the day in any part of the city and men cannot help but yell something at me! Walking back to my office from lunch with my husband a man pulled up next to me in his car and yelled, “sexy!” And last week, wearing sweats with greasy hair going to play Frisbee a man in a minibus taxi pulled in between me and my husband just to holler at me (I was walking with him and three Ethiopian men, but the driver was undeterred): “Hey baby, how are you?” What are these guys thinking? Seriously, is there some myth about white women that I have not heard? Do they think that I am going to talk to them? What gives them the fucking right to walk past me and whisper, “sweet, sweet sister”? What gives them the right to even talk to me at all? I just want to yell “LOOK, I AM WALKING WITH MY HUSBAND, THE ONLY WHITE GUY WITHIN A TEN MILE RADIUS AND I AM WEARING BUSINESS CLOTHES. I AM NOT A PROSTITUTE AND I HAVE NO REASON TO TALK TO YOU. FUCK OFF.” I really need to invest in a tazer.

Does this mean I can buy a coffee plantation? It's official: I am now a resident of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia. Holler!

From the NYT--I knew that the Ethiopian Government was restrictive and authoritarian, but sanctioned rape and torture? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- June 18, 2007 In Ethiopian Desert, Fear and Cries of Army Brutality By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN IN THE OGADEN DESERT, Ethiopia — The rebels march 300 strong across the crunchy earth, young men with dreadlocks and AK-47s slung over their shoulders. This is the Ogaden, a spindle-legged corner of Ethiopia that the urbane officials in Addis Ababa, the capital, would rather outsiders never see. It is the epicenter of a separatist war pitting impoverished nomads against one of the biggest armies in Africa. What goes on here seems to be starkly different from the carefully constructed up-and-coming image that Ethiopia — a country that the United States increasingly relies on to fight militant Islam in the Horn of Africa — tries to project. In village after village, people said they had been brutalized by government troops. They described a widespread and longstanding reign of terror, with Ethiopian soldiers gang-raping women, burning down huts and killing civilians at will. It is the same military that the American government helps train and equip — and provides with prized intelligence. The two nations have been allies for years, but recently they have grown especially close, teaming up last winter to oust an Islamic movement that controlled much of Somalia and rid the region of a potential terrorist threat. The Bush administration, particularly the military, considers Ethiopia its best bet in the volatile Horn — which, with Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea, is fast becoming intensely violent, virulently anti-American and an incubator for terrorism. But an emerging concern for American officials is the way that the Ethiopian military operates inside its own borders, especially in war zones like the Ogaden. Anab, a 40-year-old camel herder who was too frightened, like many others, to give her last name, said soldiers took her to a police station, put her in a cell and twisted her nipples with pliers. She said government security forces routinely rounded up young women under the pretext that they were rebel supporters so they could bring them to jail and rape them. “Me, I am old,” she said, “but they raped me, too.” According to Georgette Gagnon, deputy director for the Africa division of Human Rights Watch, Ethiopia is one of the most repressive countries in Africa. “What the Ethiopian security forces are doing,” she said, “may amount to crimes against humanity.” Human Rights Watch issued a report in 2005 that documented a rampage by government troops against members of the Anuak, a minority tribe in western Ethiopia, in which soldiers ransacked homes, beat villagers to death with iron bars and in one case, according to a witness, tied up a prisoner and ran over him with a military truck. After the report came out, the researcher who wrote it was banned by the Ethiopian government from returning to the country. Similarly, three New York Times journalists who visited the Ogaden to cover this story were imprisoned for five days and had all their equipment confiscated before being released without charges. The violence has been particularly acute against women, villagers said, and many have recently fled. Asma, 19, who now lives in neighboring Somaliland, said she was stuck in an underground cell for more than six months last year, raped and tortured. “They beat me on the feet and breasts,” she said. She was freed only after her father paid the soldiers ransom, she said, though she did not know how much.

Hit the road! Since it is almost time for all Americans to travel for the Memorial Day weekend, I thought it was time to pass on the knowledge I have gained in my travels. On the road: 1. Check your tire pressure and fluids before you hit the road. Take a cell phone and make sure your ipod is charged. 2. Time your trip to avoid rush-hour traffic in urban areas. While this usually means 5:00 pm, take into account lunch traffic and church-goers heading to buffet restaurants on Sundays. 3. When your tank gets to ¼ full, pull over and get more gas. You never know when there is going to be a slow-down on the interstate and you definitely don’t want to be the dumbass who ran out of gas and is stuck on the side of the road. Use your fill up as an opportunity to powder your nose and replenish your supply of Diet Coke, Camel Lights, Rold Gold pretzels and Ephedrine. 4. Only pass in the left-hand lane, even if you are the only one on the road. 5. Use your turn-signals, even when changing lanes. Truckers appreciate this. 6. Truckers also appreciate if you blink your lights to let them know they can pass. 7. Scan stations when you hit college towns. There are usually good college stations out there, or at the very least you can catch some NPR. 8. If you turn off and the next gas station is over a mile away, get back on the interstate and go to the next exit. Trust me. In the air: 1. Before you check in, call the airlines and let them know your seating preference. Ain’t no need being in the middle if you can have the window! 2. If you have a small bladder, take the aisle seat. 3. If you are on a short flight and have only carry-on luggage, be the first one on the plane. This way, you can guarantee that your carry on is in the bin above you and not somewhere in aisle 55, thus ensuring you can jump up as soon as the plane hits the ground, grab your shit and muscle your way to the door. (By the way, all of that blather about people traveling with children boarding first is bullshit. They never check.) 4. If you are on a long-haul flight and have checked bags, be the last one on the plane. This way, if there are extra seats on the back of the plane, you can take a few and stretch out. 5. Order a special meal. Special meals come first, so you can eat, take your Xanax, drink your wine and be ass-out before the rest of the plane has gotten their meals. 6. After meals everyone goes to the bathroom. Be first to avoid the post-meal rush: when you hear the food cart a rumblin’, get up and pee. Having a special meal makes this easier. 7. If you are traveling on an African airline, be sure to confirm your ticket at all stages of the process—when booking, prior to departure, at check-in and at the gate. African airlines sometimes have trouble accounting for their passengers, so these steps are necessary (perhaps Afghan airlines should take a lesson!). 8. Wear shoes that you can slip on and off easily. Danskos are ideal. Crocs might cause an international incident. 9. Be sure to bring your eye mask and earplugs if you plan on sleeping. The airline knows how much you hate screaming babies and will place you directly behind one without fail. 10. Never get behind Russians in the security check if you can avoid it. Russians will NEVER remove any article of clothing without explicitly being told to do so and they always wear lots of spangly, bedazzled items that set off the metal detector. You will know they are Russians because the men are wearing off-white, pointed, fake crocodile shoes and have tucked in shirts. The women have bleached hair, high heels, egregious eye make-up and tight pants. It will take them and their requisite two children at least 15 minutes to be cleared by security, all the time bitching at the security people in Russian and acting like they don't understand what is going on. 11. Getting schnockered before a flight originating outside of the US is perfectly OK and flight attendants are usually more than happy to facilitate this process. However, no more than two drinks before you board in the US. (Haven’t you all seen the TV show “Airline”?) 12. Xanax. Never fly without it.

I would consider that harrassment. Your boss has no right to say things like that to you.

I don't know why, but that old joke always makes me laugh: "A man who walks through the airport turnstile sideways is always going to Bangkok". And it seems like I am always going to Bangkok (rather than "bang cock"), too, and that I always find out that I am going with less than seven days to prepare. Today my boss came and told me, "you can go to the conference next week if you want, HQ agreed to pay the costs." Thailand is my favorite country. I go there at least twice a year whether I plan on it or not. I can drink grass jelly as I get on the sky train, head out to get a Thai massage, eat spicy green coconut curry, jump on a marshrutka and go to the beach, shlep around town with a big Chang in my hand wearing nearly no clothes. I can nearly taste the lemon grass and exhaust now. There are direct flights, the costs are covered, why not?

I think it was wrong for NBC to release the tape. It just gives the signal to other insane people that they can gain notoriety by going on a killing spree. Brian Williams can kiss my butt.

A former coworker today wrote about being "positioned in a remote tangle of the world". How true.

One of the questions I was asked repeatedly before leaving Afghanistan was, “So, are you going home before heading to your new post?” To which I would reply, “I just spent a week in Kazakhstan. That was my break.” Generally, people who don’t know me very well think it is strange that I would take a break from Afghanistan in another Central Asian ‘stan. But this is how it is: I have spent most of my adult life in Kazakhstan and I have family and friends there. Most of what I know and how my adult character has been shaped is due to my time in the former USSR. I can’t bear dirty shoes or wrinkled clothes, bring a gift whenever invited to someone’s house, take my shoes off at the door (and put on slippers) and even last night caught myself sticking a cork under the metal handle of a pot lid. It is more than these habits, though, and this is what sucks about my lifestyle and my line of work: it is the relationships you form with the people you have to leave. I first came to Kazakhstan with the Peace Corps, just out of grad school. After only three days in-country, with quick and intense Russian lessons, I was handed over to the people with whom I would live for the next three months. Hating children, I had requested to live with a couple about my parent’s age with adult sons. Reihan and Syrail came to pick me up at the sanitorium with their daughter-in-law, Ranosha (who spoke a little English). In a rented Lada, they took me away to my new life in a small village near Talgar. What I remember most about that day was watching my future husband walk off with his Russian host family and wondering when I would see him again. The next two months were all about acclimating. I spent eight hours a day in Russian lessons, after which, Stas (another Volunteer in my village) and I would drink fortified wine and watch 18-year-old village boys play soccer with their shirts off. Reihan and Syrail treated me like their own daughter: the taught me pidgin Russian, made sure that I was well fed, and built me a shower in the backyard (they only bathed at a neighbor’s banya once a week and they had no running water). They took me to graduation ceremonies and to visit relatives. Syrail told me about how his father died in World War II before he was born and Reihan told me about her childhood emigrating from China with her 10 brothers and sisters. I was the first American they had ever known and they were anxious to tell me all about their people, the Uighurs. For those of you who don’t know (and most of you don’t), Uighurs are an ethnic group who live in the northwest of China in the area bordering Kazakhstan. Because they are Muslim and seek an autonomous state called East Turkestan, they have been persecuted by the Chinese government, labeled terrorists, forcibly sterilized, tortured, and generally experienced all of the other terrible fates that befall minorities in China. (Some of you might recall that there were some Uighurs held in Guantanamo; the US had no further reason to hold them but knew they would be sentenced to death in China, so they sent them to Bulgaria after their release.) After my initial three months with my new family, I was sent out on my own to live in Siberia. Before I left, Reihan gave me a freshwater pearl necklace which she had gotten from her mother, “I never had a daughter, but if I had, this necklace would have gone to her” she told me, “you are my only daughter.” I wrote letters to Reihan and Syrail (now “Mama” and “Papa” with the accent on the last syllable) and called them, and of course visited when I traveled to the Southern city of Almaty. When they found out I was getting married, they bugged me about having children, even offering to raise a child for me whom I could visit on the weekends. When I finished my two-year stint in the Peace Corps, leaving Mama and Papa was heartbreaking. As we were all crying and hugging goodbye, I took a petal from one of Mama’s rosebushes in the courtyard for safekeeping, somehow hoping that a small charm would bring me back to them. It was almost a year before I came back to work in Western Kazakhstan. Then, luckily, was offered a job in Almaty, only 40 minutes from Mama and Papa’s village. For the next two years, I saw them nearly every weekend. Once, my husband was building a fence around our Almaty yard and Papa and one of his sons came to help. A nosy Kazakh (drunken) neighbor ventured over several times asking questions about me and my husband and what we were doing there. “I was in the military in Belarus, where I met the girls’ mother,” Papa told the neighbor about me, “she is my biological daughter, but her mother moved to America right before she was born.” Nearing the end of my two-years in Almaty, my host father had a heart attack. Mama told me the prognosis was poor; we went to see him in a truly Soviet hospital in Talgar. I remember driving up in the snow in my beige Neva, and walking down the long, dingy hallways. Papa was lounging in the room in a track suit with another patient. He was feeling alright (Mama had not told him what the doctors said) and once assured that he would be OK, I proceeded back down the stairs. On the way down, I heard him tell his roommate, “That was my American daughter”. During my time in Kazakhstan, their first and second grandsons were born. Abdullam and Rabkhat, now six and four, have known me all of their lives. When they found out I was leaving once again, they were upset. When they learned I was going to Afghanistan they were just as anxious as my American Mom and Dad. Luckily, there were direct flights from Kabul to Almaty, so I was able to visit three times during my two years in Afghanistan. The last visit was just a few weeks ago, right before coming to Africa. I took a marshrutka (minibus) from the central bus station in Almaty to the village, bearing gifts for everyone and when I got there, Mama was not around. “Where’s Mama?” I asked frantically. “She’s at the hospital, we will go and see her tonight.” After finishing dinner, and spending time with Abdullam and Rabkhat crawling all over me and vying for attention, my host father broke the news: Mama’s youngest sister, whom I had met several times and visited, had died of a sudden stroke ten days before. Mama had high blood pressure and that is why she was in the hospital. Rustam (the older son) and Papa drove me back to Almaty about 7:00 pm to the hospital. It was a nice place—the Presidential hospital, where Nazerbayev has his own ward—the complete opposite of where Papa had to stay a few years before. Mama was crying and upset when we saw her, putting aside her grief, the first thing she asked me was, “did you eat?” Mama told me again about her sister, about what a good person she was and how she had saved her whole life (her sister was a surgeon at the Veteran’s Hospital) and was just at the point in her life where she could relax (her first grandchild had just been born) when she died. I realized that it was the stress of her sister dying that put Mama in the hospital. I promised to visit a few days later. That next Sunday, Stas (the Volunteer from my village, now an old friend who can’t seem to leave Kazakhstan) and I went to see Mama at the hospital. Anyone familiar with the Soviet system will tell you that the hospital stay is TEN DAYS. No more, no less and most people go to the hospital to relax or recover from a cold. Mama was sharing a room with a Russian war veteran and another talkative old lady. After giving me money to buy candy (Mama knows how much I love sweets) she took us around to introduce me to everyone on her hall. “She doesn’t look like you” the talkative old woman said. Saying goodbye was hard. I knew that I was leaving Asia and I was not sure when I would be back. Even living in Bangkok or Delhi I could fly back to Kazakhstan for a week easily, but my new position in Africa makes visits to Mama and Papa almost untenable. I broke down as soon as we walked out of the hospital. “Come on, let’s go get a beer,” was Stas’ reply. So this is my Uighur family from Kazakhstan. It’s strange how you can form relationships with people who have such different backgrounds, cultures, and languages, but grow to care about them as much as the people you have known your whole lives. It really sucks when you have to leave, but I am sure I will be back.

A fitting beginnging to my last full day in Afghanistan: a window-shaking explosion at 6:45am. I had just gotten out of bed when I heard it; 20 minutes later and still no news on whether it was a rocket or an IED. (Actually, in the end, it was a gunpowder storage shop that exploded on accident.) On a lighter note, something happened that made me laugh until my sides ached yesterday. See, there are these poor kids who hang out by the US Embassy/USAID/ISAF base in Shash Durak trying to sell things. Usually they sell newspapers or copies of the Afghan Scene, or chewing gum. These kids are RELENTLESS, springing into action at the sight of a foreigner, repeating "gum, madam? Gum? Madam, one dollar, gum?" Yesterday, I was running to have a quick beer with my friend Sas who is stuck in the USAID compound when I had to pass ISAF and the throng of kids. One jumped out in front of me with a plastic snake. "Snake, madam?" So today is my last day. Praise to Allah.

Denise, you are one pretty girl! What is up with the one guy's parachuting outfit? He looks like he belongs in Vegas!

The last three days of the month are always my least favorite. I am not sure how this happened, but in my previous office (in the building that was torched during the riots) and in my new office on the third floor of another building, I am right next to the fucking cashier. This means that on the last three working days of every month nearly all of the 700 Afghans working for my organization come in to get paid. So for three solid days, there are at least fifty Afghan men (and sometimes two or three women) crammed into the narrow 3-foot wide hallway in front of my door. They like to stand in front of my office door (which opens outward), essentially blocking anyone from entering or exiting. Often, I try to open the door, only to hit someone, who will then refuse to move. If I have to walk down the hallway to anyone else’s office in the building, the bearded men in their turbans and patus stare at me as if I were naked. Added to this is the smell and the noise. The smell—well, it defies definition. I can best describe it as a mix of sausage pizza, wet dog and used maxi pad. The heat of the summer amplifies the odor. These people like to talk while they are waiting on their monthly pay. They talk loudly and ceaselessly, forcing Schwig, my Cheesehead officemate, to go out at least three times a day to announce, “Bubakshah (excuse me) shutthefuckup. Tashakour (thank you)”. Telling the crowd to quiet down usually works for only a few minutes as there are soon more people cycling in, getting their cash, and leaving. This is another aspect of my life in Afghanistan I don’t want to forget about. The bureaucracy, the virtually non-existent banking system, the lack of faith in the existing banking system, the dearth of running water or perceived importance of bathing; the way the men stare at women who are not in burqas, the way this stare makes me feel. I have mixed feelings about Afghanistan. I hate it, especially on days like today when I cannot fly out to Kazakhstan because of snow, but then there is the guilt of having to leave good people behind. Good people who only want to earn a little money, own a house and watch their children grow up. The guilt of being a person who just can’t relate to their situations and their needs because I have never and will never experience such circumstances. More on that later—got to finish washing clothes.

Last week at a staff meeting, one of the Program Managers was talking about how one of the districts where we work is “full of Talibs”. Well, apparently, the provinces outside of Kabul are not the only place. Consider this warning from the National Defense Service: NDS sources report that HiG (Hizb-I Islami Gulbuddin)are becoming the dominant group within Kabul district. The source reported that the grouping had been conducting a successful recruiting campaign in the districts surrounding Kabul. As a result an increase in attacks is expected with HiG expected to operate in Police Districts 12, 7 and 6 of the capital. TB are traditionally strong in the Dih Sabz area (PD9) which accounts for the concentration of attacks on Jalalabad road. (Recall the Jalalabad Road is the road one has to travel to get liquor, as well as being the road the Coalition uses in and out of Kabul.) For those of you who are unfamiliar with HiG: "Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin (HIG) has long established ties with Osama Bin Ladin. (HIG) founder Gulbuddin Hikmatyar offered to shelter Bin Ladin after the latter fled Sudan in 1996. HIG has staged small attacks in its attempt to force U.S. troops to withdraw from Afghanistan, overthrow the Afghan Transitional Administration (ATA) and establish a fundamentalist state." Gulbuddin Hikmatyar is the one who castrated Najibullah (the President of Afghanistan under the Soviets), shot him and hanged his body in Ariana square. So the Taliban is in Kabul and ready to fight. Not really news, but now people are talking about negiotiating with the Taliban. My organization has been in Afghanistan for a while, so we negotiated with the Taliban to have access to provincial areas pre-2001. Last year, while implementing a shelter program in the East, we also met with Taliban leaders in one district so that supplies could be carried in. I am not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, talking to the Taliban is a necessary evil; we are non-partisan and are working in the interests of the people. On the other hand, I feel like it lends them some legitimacy and reinforces the notion that they are the decision makers. Moreover, this could possibly undermine the fragile Afghan government in areas where their power is waning; having to ask the Talibs for permission to do our work might tip the balance. Anyway, after one month this is NOT MY PROBLEM.

No one ever wants to hear a doctor say the word "larva" when making a diagnosis. It seems I brought a little something back from my two-week trip to Africa. The CDC describes hookworm (ONE of the MANY possible parasites I MIGHT have): These barely visible larvae penetrate the skin (often through bare feet), are carried to the lungs, go through the respiratory tract to the mouth, are swallowed, and eventually reach the small intestine. This journey takes about a week. In the small intestine, the larvae develop into half-inch-long worms, attach themselves to the intestinal wall, and suck blood. The adult worms produce thousands of eggs. These eggs are passed in the feces (stool). If the eggs contaminate soil and conditions are right, they will hatch, molt, and develop into infective larvae again after 5 to 10 days. Fantastic. But one must also consider that the doctor "never sees these things in Afghanistan" and might be wrong about the diagnosis. If I spend only two weeks in the Horn and come back with worms what will happen when I live there for two years?