Leaving Home, Coming Home

I’m stretched out, surprisingly comfortably, in my seat on Gulf Air Flight 5613 currently cruising over Iraq at 41,000 feet…right now, I’m feeling very happy about the altitude! We land in about an hour, in Muscat, Oman. Two more flight legs, 10 more hours, and we should be in Kabul. I’ve had my leprechaun-sized airline coffee, and the time seems right to catch up with all of you on the last four blissful weeks of vacation. It’s been a wild romp from East Coast to West Coast, US and Canada, and so delightful to catch up with all my wonderful friends and family and North American culture in general. Time jetted by at the speed of this plane, it seems, and my only regret is that I didn’t have sufficient time to connect with everyone I wanted to (including everyone in Calgary – I promise I’ll make that one of my very first stops next time!). It was a highlight to see everyone thriving, wet and gloomy summer notwithstanding…kids growing up, new houses, new jobs, new school programs beginning, old programs having come to a satisfied close, new loves and new plans. I forget who it was that penned the phrase, ‘in this moment are life and food for future years’…whoever it was, I share their sentiment exactly. I know this vacation will sustain me through the months ahead. Judging by my waistline, I may have taken this quote a bit too seriously…

So here I am, returning to Afghanistan, heart and mind replenished (too bad my visa account isn’t, but that’s the price to pay for a month’s worth of hamburgers, lattes and shopping malls). I’m returning on assignment with a venture called Zardozi (in Dari, that means ‘gold thread’) that has received funding to research hand-embroidery trade routes across northern Afghanistan, and lay the groundwork for a female sales-agent system to link women embroidery producers to better market opportunities and higher incomes. I fly to Mazar-e-Sharif tomorrow morning to begin work, and will be touring through Mazar, Kunduz, Taloqan and neighboring villages for the next week and a half. The assignment is three weeks long and will take me to the start date of my next contract with a Canadian NGO called Peace Dividend Trust. I will be their new Advocacy and Business Consultant, working to increase local procurement and enhance local employment opportunities for Afghans. Typically, buyers in Afghanistan lack good information about and access to local businesses. Part of what I’ll be doing will be to engage and enlist the commitment and support of institutional buyers to purchase items ‘made in Afghanistan’ from local businesses. On the other side, I will be working with local businesses across various sectors – from couture to carpets to construction – to ensure that they have the capacity to respond competitively to procurement opportunities and perform satisfactorily on the local procurement contracts they win. I’m confident that this business exposure will be excellent for my future career steps in Canada.

As I write, Tariq is snoozing at a rather uncomfortable angle, his Gulf Air-issue earphones rakishly eskew. I had drummed up enough excitement about Shrek 3 (which I enjoyed) for him to start it up on his TV screen, but sadly he doesn’t seem to have made it past the scene of Shrek 3 waking up to find himself a king for a day. I know that he’s keen to return to check on his fleet of racing pigeons, his now-tattered tissue paper fighting kite (has to be seen to be believed), his family clan, and even his English classes. We both miss our puppy Che and I can’t wait to see how much he’s grown over the last month!

We aren’t returning to the same house, as that was provided as part of my previous contract. We’ll be temporarily staying in a tiny 5’x 6’ room on the roof of our grandfather’s two-level house. We’ll probably need to stay there until we find a safe and affordable alternative with the amenities we (read: I) need. In the meantime, it’s bucket and stool bathing. My plan is to avail myself of the Serena Hotel’s facilities from time to time, and use their gym while I’m at it. I’ll need it to burn off all the McDonalds and Starbucks I’ve gleefully indulged in this last month!