Only a week!

I arrived in Kabul about a week ago. Only a week! Feels like so much longer.

Kabul is about what you think it is in a lot of ways -- really poor, lots and lots of obviously bombed out and destroyed buildings and rubble, women gliding around in burqas, men wearing turbans and vests over their shalwar kameez, really dusty, really hot, and a little bit dangerous. But it is not at all what you expect in a lot of other ways. I guess I mean that life here is not so different from life anywhere else. I mean, I get up, "shower", have breakfast, come to work (we have to have a driver because we are prohibited from taking taxis for security reasons), work, have meetings, have lunch (in the separate room for ladies), work some more, go home, maybe go to a "restaurant" or to yoga or salsa dancing, go to bed. Our compounds do have guards posted at the gates, and there usually is barbed wire lining the top of a high wall, but it's not too scary.

I don't wear a chador most of the time, at least not in Kabul. If/when I go to the outskirts into more rural areas, I will have to wear it. I am fully covered otherwise, though -- ankle length pants/skirt, and long sleeve below-the-knee shirts. I am going to the bazaar this weekend to get a shalwar kameez and matching chador so that I look a bit more like folks around here.

I am slowly picking up some Dari (the Persian they speak here). I haven't gotten sick yet (inch'allah, i won't!). I like the food in general although it is super super greasy. I am not over the poverty. I am not used to the pasthun women begging with their children in the street, knocking on the car windows as you try to make your way through the impossible traffic (no traffic rules as far as I can tell -- no lanes, no restrictions on turns, no stop signs -- everyone just fights it out). I hope I don't "get used to it," I hope I don't stop being moved and saddened by their reality and my inability to change it for them. I am also not over the whole I can't go out walking alone thing. So prohibitive! But it is too dangerous for a woman, especially an American woman, to be out in the streets unaccompanied. Ah, well.

Nassim is having a party for her birthday over at her place. I'm going over with Jackson and Cristi.

below is a photo of me and Jackson and Cristi from the party:


I guess that's it. Not too exciting, which I think is good! Hopefully I will never have exciting news to report!

Just another day in Kabul...

Nothing really new or interesting to report, but I know y'all like to hear from me, so I'm writing anyway. This week has been good, although I am still not quite adjusted to the time here. I keep waking up in the middle of the night and it takes me an hour to fall back asleep. This morning I woke up at 4:00 am, so I guess it's getting better.

This week my evenings have been pretty full. I went out to dinner with Miho and Cristi and Anne and her boyfriend at a Croatian "restaurant" on Sunday night. You arrive at this place that is not very obvious, and walk through a tall metal gate into a concrete "yard" and up some sort of crumbly concrete stairs to the restaurant. The interior is lit by candle light only (no electricity) and its concrete walls are decorated with one or two old posters of Croatia. It was interesting.

Monday night was Yoga night. A similar experience of dilapidated, dusty steps leading up to some random room with a bunch of expats doing yoga. Last night I went to dinner at a couple's house -- Bill and Judie -- who are just awesome. They first came to Afghanistan in the 60s with the Peace Corps. They are a total Peace Corps couple. Really good people. I had a nice time.

Today I have no plans. I am at work, so I won't write long. I am heading out to the Ministry of Health to attend a conference on one of MSH's programs. Should be interesting.

My project is finalized -- I am going to be conducting interviews/focus groups with women in Kabul's two Ob hospitals to discover why the women who do go go, and with women in the community who don't go to discover why not and what could be done to convince them to go. Only 18% of women birth in facilities, and so many women bleed out and die because their midwives are not capable of dealing with the complications. It is one of the leading causes of preventable death for women here. Should be an interesting project.

Okay. I am off to the Ministry. My phone wasn't working the past couple of days, but I got a new Afghan phone yesterday (with Arabic characters!) and am reliably reachable from now on. When you call me, I am not charged a dime!

Okay. I hope you are all wonderful. I love you and will be in touch again soon.

Roshan Wireless Telephones

Well, I dished out the money for a SIM card and now I have a mobile phone. My number is 079 23 4442. I'm not entirely clear on the numbers you have to dial first, i.e. 011 - country code - my phone number (including the 0 or not?), but I am sure you can figure it out on the web. Probably best to call during lunchtime for you guys, which is around bed-time for me. 12 -2 ish.

Yay!

I am really liking it here. I am so psyched to be involved in any way with what people are doing here. It's amazing.

Tonight I am going out to dinner with Miho and a couple of other women from the office. I am still very tired, but I am eager to make friends.

The office is in the bombed out part of town, from the civil war, not the Taliban war. There are mountains all around the city, dotted with all of these little cinderblock dwellings that so many Afghans call home. You see people on bikes with their veils blowing behind them in the wind, and women in full burqa like ghosts gliding on the dusty streets. It's very very poor. Traffic is totally disordered, cyclists and pedestrians and taxis and a mish-mash of cars (some with steering wheels on the right and some on the left) all pushing against each other trying to beat out the competition. I tried taking some pictures discreetly out the window of the car on my way home today, but I was too discreet and they didn't come out with anything but the interior of the car at funky angles. Oh, well.







Okay. I am going to my room to rest and freshen before dinner. Love to everyone.