Day to day living -- corrected
I have to correct my earlier entry about electrical power. While I periodically noticed that our compound was operating on city power, as it turns out the amount of time we are on power and the few times I observed the indicator, were simply coincidence. The reality is that Kabul is able to provide electrical power to its residents for only an hour or so a day. Most of the time people operate on generators. Part of this is because Kabul generates its power from a water reservoir which is currently quite low because of drought. Desperate for energy, the Minister of Energy and Water, Ismail Khan, signed an agreement with Iran last month to provide power to Kabul. You can read more about this at www.southasianmedia.net (Tuesday, June 27, 2006). This is a troubling sign in that it will be viewed that the international community is failing in the rebuilding of Afghanistan's infrastructure, especially something as basic as providing power for even one-half of each day.
Within our small apartments in our compound, we have kitchens stocked with the basics -- dishes, pans and glasses. We periodically shop for food or send our Afghan support staff out to the local market so that we can prepare our meals as we like. Dinner is usually a "family affair" where we eat together either at our compound or at a restaurant.
Friday night I tried my hand at cooking a pasta dinner for my colleagues. I prepared sauce with canned tomato paste, fresh eggplant, canned mushrooms, onions and garlic. As a side dish I prepared canned asparagus. One of my colleagues prepared a fresh salad with tomatoes and cucumbers. Using canned products reduces the need for the attention to germs that using fresh produce requires. Although the sauce turned out too salty for my taste, overall the dinner was good. To cook we use bottled water and for washing we use well water. (Drinking the well water would most likely make us sick.) Now that I've had a hand at cooking, I may try to prepare a meal for my colleagues more often. They cook at well. Last night we had a bar-b-que and included colleagues from the UK Embassy and one of the Afghan government ministries.
It's good that the seven of us living and working together get along so well. Although we each have our own bedrooms and bathrooms, we spend most of our waking hours together when we are not out at meetings or working in the government offices.
It's a challenge for me to spend so much time each day at the ministry to which I'm assigned. Most people do not speak English and it is not very clean. I guess the best way to sum things up is that it's awkward. Trying to advise is the ways of western government and media is challenging at best. There simply are not the resources nor experience among many of the staff to carry out the type of media relations and community outreach programs that are typical in more developed countries.
Currently I am developing a new public affairs structure for one of the ministries, as well as working on a public information campaign aimed at farmers. Once the structure is approved I will then begin working on the processes to accomplish the minister's priorities -- more effective media relations and more community outreach. This may seem elemental to us, but this is a government that for the last 30 years was run either Soviet-style in which people are told only what the government wants them to know, or in a dictitorial manner in which people were told virtually nothing. This means unteaching the ways of the old and teaching the ways of the new.
So how do you do that in villages in which most people do not have TV or read, and few have radio? Typically Afghans get their information through word of mouth, so the answer probably lies in reaching them through other people. It is the type of grassroots outeach I experienced working for the school district in Texas. You communicate in gathering places -- temples, schools, coffee shops and marketplaces.
Speaking of Texas, I attended a roundtable with reporters at one of the ministries the other day and an Afghan police officer who was participating in the event came up to me to introduce himself. I commented on his good English and he said "that's because I used to live in Plano, Texas!" My first instinct was to tell him he was "pulling my leg," but then I wondered how many Afghan police officers would know of Plano, TX, unless they'd been there. To prove his claim he produced his valid Texas drivers license!!! Turns out he had been a police officer in Plano for some 25 years, and after the overthrow of the Taliban decided to come back to his ancestral home. He's been here ever since.
This country is full of surprises!
Within our small apartments in our compound, we have kitchens stocked with the basics -- dishes, pans and glasses. We periodically shop for food or send our Afghan support staff out to the local market so that we can prepare our meals as we like. Dinner is usually a "family affair" where we eat together either at our compound or at a restaurant.
Friday night I tried my hand at cooking a pasta dinner for my colleagues. I prepared sauce with canned tomato paste, fresh eggplant, canned mushrooms, onions and garlic. As a side dish I prepared canned asparagus. One of my colleagues prepared a fresh salad with tomatoes and cucumbers. Using canned products reduces the need for the attention to germs that using fresh produce requires. Although the sauce turned out too salty for my taste, overall the dinner was good. To cook we use bottled water and for washing we use well water. (Drinking the well water would most likely make us sick.) Now that I've had a hand at cooking, I may try to prepare a meal for my colleagues more often. They cook at well. Last night we had a bar-b-que and included colleagues from the UK Embassy and one of the Afghan government ministries.
It's good that the seven of us living and working together get along so well. Although we each have our own bedrooms and bathrooms, we spend most of our waking hours together when we are not out at meetings or working in the government offices.
It's a challenge for me to spend so much time each day at the ministry to which I'm assigned. Most people do not speak English and it is not very clean. I guess the best way to sum things up is that it's awkward. Trying to advise is the ways of western government and media is challenging at best. There simply are not the resources nor experience among many of the staff to carry out the type of media relations and community outreach programs that are typical in more developed countries.
Currently I am developing a new public affairs structure for one of the ministries, as well as working on a public information campaign aimed at farmers. Once the structure is approved I will then begin working on the processes to accomplish the minister's priorities -- more effective media relations and more community outreach. This may seem elemental to us, but this is a government that for the last 30 years was run either Soviet-style in which people are told only what the government wants them to know, or in a dictitorial manner in which people were told virtually nothing. This means unteaching the ways of the old and teaching the ways of the new.
So how do you do that in villages in which most people do not have TV or read, and few have radio? Typically Afghans get their information through word of mouth, so the answer probably lies in reaching them through other people. It is the type of grassroots outeach I experienced working for the school district in Texas. You communicate in gathering places -- temples, schools, coffee shops and marketplaces.
Speaking of Texas, I attended a roundtable with reporters at one of the ministries the other day and an Afghan police officer who was participating in the event came up to me to introduce himself. I commented on his good English and he said "that's because I used to live in Plano, Texas!" My first instinct was to tell him he was "pulling my leg," but then I wondered how many Afghan police officers would know of Plano, TX, unless they'd been there. To prove his claim he produced his valid Texas drivers license!!! Turns out he had been a police officer in Plano for some 25 years, and after the overthrow of the Taliban decided to come back to his ancestral home. He's been here ever since.
This country is full of surprises!
posted by Pam | 11:27 AM
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