Resipiscent

I can't remember how long ago, but once upon a time I signed up to the "Wordsmith" listserve, and 'word of the day' emails have been entertaining me ever since. Sometimes, I give them a brief glance and a heartless delete, but other times the word is a veritable oracle that seems to either encapsulate the spirit of my day or week, or foreshadow the future. Today's word was "resipiscent" which means "having returned to a saner mind". I trust this will be prophetic.

A day after King’s accident, Tariq brought me home another German Shepherd puppy, and I quickly dubbed him Che. He is a wild, playful, mischievous ball of energy…he would make a good revolutionary. I was also hoping he would be good medicine for King and thus the other reference to old Guevera, who was a doctor as well as a comrade. Though a little reluctant at first (my attention was focused on King), I’ve fallen in love with Che and his antics. He has turned out to be very good medicine for me! I have been feeling isolated here, and pining for Okanagan Lake and Kelowna sunshine. There are quite a few expatriates here in Kabul but they are tucked away in various compounds in the city and it can be difficult to meet people if one doesn’t make a very concerted effort. I have made an executive decision that I am going to say “no” to working weekends…I’ve been in Kabul for six months now and often work one or both weekend days. I need to spend my weekend time getting out there and meeting people. To get into the spirit of this new and liberating decision, I went to the Ganjina market (no, it does not sell “ganja”, “gangina” means ‘place for finding treasures' in Dari) which has a collection of used English books for sale and various boutique fashion shops catering to expatriates). Nothing like a little retail therapy… then Tariq and I went to Fat Man’s, an American run hamburger joint. It was bliss to eat a nice, sanitary, juicy hamburger with fries, coleslaw and Diet Coke. Something about that wonderful combination of grease and cola snapped me out of the blues that have pervaded my week and has given me back my life force (it’s pretty sad, but it’s true.). We also took a little trip to see Tariq's old high school, Laysay Etabar Khan, a stone building surrounded by high brick and barbed wire walls. Some of the windows were broken or missing. It was a very cool moment to see this part of Tariq's history, and he regaled me with naughty tales from the past.

An update on work at MEDA and our project training women in business and farming is in order. It’s been a challenge. Setting up the Country Office in Afghanistan has required a lot of effort, and although it is led by the Country Manager here, it has involved a lot of effort from the entire program management team (which includes me). In the field, our efforts have been focused on mobilizing our women clients into groups, assisting them with the installation of demonstration gardens, providing them with quality farming supplies, and now we are consulting with them on potential investment in underground vegetable storage facilities. These simple, non-electrified storage facilities will be critical in helping the farmers to store their potatoes, carrots and other hardy vegetables into the winter, where they can then bring them to market at double to quadruple the prices they could achieve at harvest time. The facilities are not cheap – the cost to build will be about $5000 USD. MEDA’s proposed financing model is to provide 1/3 grant funds; the prospective owner(s) will have to come up with the remaining 2/3rds in a combination of credit and cash.

Since the day I landed in Afghanistan, I feel like I have been on a 90 degree learning curve. Working to meet the critical livelihood and income needs of a rural community, in a very recently post-conflict area, with seriously marginalized and illiterate women is no easy task. We face a fine balance of trying to meet the objectives of the communities as well as the objectives of our funder (CIDA), and everyone in our program management team has a different understanding of what this means. Some of our communities have been critical of our efforts, while others have been very receptive; overall, the effective mobilization, consultation and ongoing work with the community has been the weakest aspect of our program. Our Afghan partner - Afghan Womens' Business Council - is responsible for this aspect of the program, and we have had to invest a lot of time in developing their capacity to implement their responsibilities. I have been so close to the practical aspects of project management and implementation that I haven’t taken much time to look at the big picture. My readings in community development and value chain development have told me that “poverty is systemic”. I can say that I now have a greater understanding of what that means: that when villagers are in debt, do not have capital, face stringent cultural barriers to social participation, are entangled in rigid social and gender hierarchies, and cannot read or write…it is hard for them to improve their living conditions. One thing I have been working on is to organize our women clients into savings and credit groups (a methodology that has had tremendous success in India) and it is truly humbling to watch women faithfully save 10-20 Afghanis (roughly equivalent to 20 to 40 cents) per week. As a group and with proper procedures, women can build up a lockbox full of money that they can loan to each other in case of emergency or need.

My favorite spiritual writer, Pema Chodron, often talks about having a “precious human birth”…every day I am confronted with the realization that by being born Canadian I was lucky to have a precious human birth… to go to school, to choose a profession, to have all my health needs attended to, to play sports, to read freely. Sadly, this doesn't seem to have done much for my character. I look around me and I see generous, resilient, relaxed, laughing Afghans all around me that live on $50 USD a month. I had a major reality check yesterday when I realized that two of our guards have to bike for one and a half hours to get to and from our office at all hours of the morning and night on dusty, unpaved roads in a city without electricity to light the way. And not a word of complaint. I look at myself and see a sniveling, moody, spoiled homesick brat and want to smack myself and say “toughen up!!! Appreciate what you have!!” (this must be a very satisfying reflection for all those of you who have probably thought that and wanted to say that to me out loud…). All I can pray is that my experience in Afghanistan polishes my character and helps to mature me into a better person…and that I can give generously of what is most needed and desired by Afghan people. I have to trust that what this is will become clearer and clearer to me the longer I am here.