Friend Tim in LaPêche wonders about a BBC report of rock and roll in Kabul

- first I've heard of it ..

The locale Babur Gardens is spectacular - an Agha Khan rehabilitation of the park surrounding the burial ground of Babur the great grandson of Tamerlane the biggest butcher in ancient history.

Nonetheless I will see lots of music this fall at the French Cultural Centre - upcoming world percussion show by the Afghanistan National Institute of Music and a "Rock Show" featuring a melange of Afghan and foreign artists.

The "Cultch" is a great venue and once again accessible - the new employer has a more liberal "client centred" security policy ....

I am cognizant of my World Vision training to "always wear one's runners and be prepared to flee the scene."

nostalgies

Well another delightful haze hanging low this AM after another night of goodbye whiskeys at the Golden Key in Wazir. Folks remarked that its a good thing I don't leave regularly - the subtext of course was jealousy and other self esteem issues ...

A little nostalgiz packing up to leave RAMPUP ... will miss the great penthouse view and drinkie perch ... but i am pretty good at striking camp and moving on ... not too many attachments ... hmmm .... certain friends can be called upon to speak up about continuing to reinforce the attachments to home ... mmmmhmmmm ...

Had a dream last night in which my dear friend Kerstin's husband Fritz looked real healthy despite his imminent brain tumour surgery - a bit a of humourous caricature making a face at me thru a car window - she looked pleased ...

Coffee is ready ... chance to draw a few favoured colleagues away from their desks for a last short chat ...

inching forward with open arms

The revolution is inching forward here - big funeral on nearby swimming pool hill today for the assassinated ex President Rabani - it will put a damper on peace talks with the Taliban ... meanwhile their recruiting tactics are moving into the 20th century much faster than the Karzai government ...one of my employees came back from a trip to the family home in Jalalabad (big prosperous town by the Pakistan border) with a new phone which had Taliban promotional material on it.

But to the American’s credit it must be noted that with the repeal of “don’t ask don’t tell” army recruiters are going into gay and lesbian centres – maybe not with open minds but with contracts to sign.

Imagine …

Brain food

Great kimchi recently at the Korean restaurant - low profile family living room type place and good bulgogi and the like and on my way out a large Styrofoam container was slipped into my hand. I generally snack/graze from noon on and this was a delightful addition to the selection in my little bar fridge which is basically full of yogurt, juice and fruit.

Last of the "Chinese miso" today ... my daughter usually blesses me with a large tub of the real thing from Japan but we were too busy on my day of departure from Toronto in late August ... stuff must be good for the brain as mine has been busy with only ten days left on this job and then seven weeks at UNHabitat and then a big break which needs to be anticipated with some good ticking

Have been structuring an "offer" to counter the anticipated one from UNHabitat for fulltime one year starting in feb 2012 - I want to work at most 1/2 time here next year - ... the big guy at USAID likes the project and is looking for something innovative and a concept paper for "the next project" starting 2013 ...

plus the project management needs some regularly adjustments from Dr Gillies ...

thinking seriously about spending winter 2012/13 in LaPêche - fortunately i still have a year to come to my senses.

Code Black

The bad guys certainly traumatized a whack of people earlier this week in Kabul . My first warning came at 1325 on Tuesday in the form of a "Security SMS" which usually means a sentence of unintelligible ACRONYMS - but this one was easily interpreted as "International security forces and insurgents shooting in vicinity of US Embassy." Well Nobody has shot in the vicinity of the US Embassy for a quite while - although I and many others have done some shooters there. Anyway I was just about to start final interviews for a new staff member - it’s energizing to talk to talented outsiders about the company business and how they might help us do it better. It was a pretty absorbing coupla hours with the two shortlisted candidates - until we were interrupted at the end of the second interview and told we were being moved back to the guest house due to a highly elevated security threat.

The definition for "Security Code BLACK" includes "anticipated possibility of evacuation from the country" in the DAI Security Guide. That won't be necessary as long as 100,000 foreign troops are stationed here to keep the peace. But a coupla code blacks probably help spike the risk graph and with it the insurance premiums and therefore the Cost of Doing Business stays ridiculously high ...... as do the profits. Al Quaida has broken the American economy as they intended too - and it only took ten years.

"almost to the top" - a perfect kabul nite poem

Today was better than an ordinary Kabul day - the national staff was pretty chilled after five days EiD off.

But it is REAL nice tonight - and the air is perfect.

The airport tower lights are très cool about 5k north of us

Telecom hill - behind us to the south - sports lots of light action

And Russian swimming pool hill to the south east ... i lived on the other side in 2006 and we would walk up the hill to ... see things ..

It’s probably still safe because there are now houses almost to the top.

"heightened alert" ... but not "up to code."

There is a "heightened alert" - not sure what colour that would be - this weekend in our local neighbourhoods of Wazir and Taimani. Lots of intel about plans for a compound attack. I am the warden at RAMPUP East Guest House #2 for tomorrow AM's “compound attack” drill. Got my pots and pans ready to run through the house rousing people from their rooms and shepherding them onto the roof. Once counted they will be ferried across to Guest House #1 on the newly constructed inter guesthouse bridge.

The bridge is a tasteful thing - artistic bamboo designed to "not draw attention to the compound." It has a colourful history too. RAMPUP’s engineering and security departments battled for months to have their respective designs selected. In the end the low-cost rapid-deploy option from security was the winner. Lots of bad blood over that one - fortunately we have no engineers in Guest House #2 who might try to upset the drill protocol by refusing to cross the bridge.

It is after all not "up to code."

The tide is turning

In the spring of 2007 USAID’s Social Services Division held a farewell party for its much respected director Dr Jim Sarn. His loyal and creative staff assembled a cover band to play his favourite tunes at the event. With Tom Petty's "Won't back down" we paid tribute to Jim's principled approach to work, but it was U2's "The tide is turning" - accompanied by the International School of Kabul Choir - that really celebrated Dr. Sarn's belief that change was possible.

The tide is about to take a dramatic turn in Afghanistan. This weekend major funding cuts will likely be announced concerning $250M of municipal governance programs - all five could be shut down very soon. The impact of the March2011 Congress mandated reduction of $1.4B in USAID's Afghanistan budget is finally being felt on the ground - even Hillary is rumoured to have received a bit of a bruising in the House last week.

US retreat from the war in Afghanistan is being driven by domestic economics and the rapidly growing political currency of withdrawal. Meanwhile the moral outrage will continue to ebb and flow fueled by royal heists of public funds and civilian collateral damage in the unwinnable guerrilla war. How can we lever the good investments made - in such areas as education and health - without feeling obliged to stick around and "protect" them?

I believe there is still a place in the world for aid - collaborative assistance. But the industry needs to take a resounding swing away from the mega project whose most important yard stick is the “burn rate” of Congressionally allocated funds.

Non verbal SIgns

I finally tracked down my music teacher from 2007 ... cruised music street in old Kabul and met his brother minding the new studio ... demolition is creeping in and history being squeezed out ... I wonder what happened to the guy who made my rabob?

Ustad Mucktar and I have a much stronger common musical language – Hindustani solfege - than we did four years ago ... we are managing with minimal verbal translation. In fact i am forced to listen to the notes much more carefully ... to hear the tune less intellectually ... to find the culturally unique beat

I probably need to adopt that attitude a little more liberally in these troubled times. My expectations of people at work are much too high – tied perhaps unfairly to the excessive price tag of the project I am working on.

And at the end of the day ... well I am responsible to men I will never meet.

Compliance and Creativity

I spent much of the day evaluating bids on a translation “Request for Quotes’. There were fewer bids that expected and each was missing something essential so I had to get creative to be compliant. I thought fondly back to the days of the Ex-Taliban Employee Waivers that I used to prepare for visa applications.

The game here is not that hard to play.



Gotta be careful though not to flash too much colour on the grey landscape.

Tourist Spot Talk

It is helpful to get new perspective - or ancient - from time to time. Had a nice visit with friends at our Embassy recently and there was some invigorating ex-Afghanistan talk. Like good tourism spots ... I promised not to say more than that.

Someday soon they will be talking about Bamyian in the same breath.



Oh yes tourism will spoil the place a little ... It might get crowded again with pilgrims in great humility before the easy to conjure up Buddha. It may be difficult to get a great cliffside view of the valley from the Roof of Bamyian Hotel ... but every room has its charm. And I’m sure Tourism Bamyian has some other great suggstions.

Visitors will be helping to fund and shape the tourism leg of the economic development strategy of Afghanistan’s most compelling province. Bamyian is one of the great crossroads of ancient history only a fraction of which has been uncovered.

Ensure that you make plenty of time to just sit … and stare … and honour …

Less cruising around

I don’t know this nan man. Or any nan men for that matter – no more cruising around the neighbourhood like in the good old days.

Not even in Kabul. I moved here in 2006 for security reasons ... and prowled safely back then.

Nonetheless this nan man had a friendly message. From the beleaguered regional capital of Gardez 80 K south east of Kabul. It was safe to drive on that road back in March – like most recent winters.

What might peace look like Afghanistan?

Expendable "Pet Rocks"

Sometimes we get to see the real Afghanistan. To meet face to face with the "community beneficiaries." Sitting with a group of women in a literacy classroom last fall in Balkh was a helpful reminder of why I am here.

But the pressures to ignore the uncomfortable reality of Afghan women are increasing. USAID's policy is shifting to wider priorities and as a result "Gender issues are going to have to take a back seat ... those pet rocks in our rucksack are wearing us down." The Karzai government is rolling back pro-feminist reforms - including emasculating the safe house system for abused women. And the Taliban ... sly devils that they are ... are circulating rumours that they do not really have a problem with education as long as it is segregated. Of course nothing is official until the horse trading - the rumoured peace talks - actually take place. What we do know is that the violence against schools is unabated - there were more 500 attacks last year killing 170 and injuring three times that many.

Excuse me for a moment.

Share the Road

The narrow and increasingly busy thoroughfares of downtown Kabul are nonetheless exemplary for the courtesy with which folks share the road.

Sometimes we need to take the time to look back in order to notice such things.

Getting to the Park

I have no plans in the works for a trip north to Mazar i Sharif on this mission. Nor has there been a UNAMA style bombing and mob slaughter in the recent news to disturb my moral sensibilities. No - I am just glancing through some photos of my recent history in this country. And stopping at the Blue Mosque ... the Shrine of Hazrat Ali and perhaps the tomb of some relative of the prophet.

It’s magic and spirituality are unambiguous.



I have been lucky in seeking out such places. Pilgrimage sites and retreats. Cold stone floors and warm butter tea in Himalayan monasteries. All night chanting in Tamil Nadu temples. The Christian sanctuary on the river at home in LaPêche.

I like a nice park too - with pigeons dancers and their elegant aeronautics. I think about kicking up my heels – but I have yet to fly.

Going Up

Everything is going up here in Kabul.

The price of precious alcohol. The fecal count in the air. The high rises in Shara i Naw.

And the cost of war.

Like tracking down Bin Laden. He was a very evil man – motivated but not distracted by vanity. Nor fanaticism. We paid a lot to get him. A high price in human lives and tainted relations and exploited fears.

Was it worth?

Ask Obama.

War brings change – or at least revolution is often violent. The loss of life in the current civil disobedience in North Africa and Syria is horrific – but it has set a standard for sacrifice. And transparency.

The cost of war is much less visible in Afghanistan. One has to look well beyond the preppy school boys.

Keeping the Promise ... to the hen ladies

Sometimes in development we do get to stay connected to the change process that we ostensibly work for. Today I visited a 2010 client and saw the dry run of their "keeping the promise" presentation to the funder USAID. The presentation will highlight the significant systemic and programmatic changes they have made in response to my rather critical evaluation of their integrated literacy and microfinance project.

They will demonstrate how they have managed to turn some liabilities into assets. The Community Bank for example was introduced too early and in a too complex lending role. It is being transformed into a deposit mechanism for external capital investment -a seven million dollar Japanese contribution is waiting at the gates.

This may be change we may be able to believe in.

Maybe.

Because it is change rooted in greater reality. And in openness to discussion of new risks - like loan delinquency.

They are ready to make the pitch.

Such discussions about change are helpful to have with ourselves from time to time. Do we believe in the personal change we are trying to make? What is holding us up? A little semi-rigorous analysis goes along way.

Once you have determined that there are no trees within 50 kilometres you can confidently rule out charcoal making as a viable home business. And the widely endorsed Kabul-e platitude that there are “not enough fresh chickens” is enough information to justify unreserved micro lending to hen ladies.

At least in the short term.