Afghan Hospitality

This morning the car arrived very early to pick up me and Miho. I was confused because I had understood that we were going to be having dinner -- when we said 8 o'clock, I assumed we meant 8:00 pm. But no, Miho was correct, they asked that we arrive at 8:00 am. Bright and early we are welcomed warmly into the family house of our friends from yesterday. We climbed the stairs to our hosts' upstairs apartments. The home is decorated in traditional Afghan style, with minimalist empty walls and only elaborate Afghan carpets and kilms on the floor. We are immediately escorted into the hosting room and invited to sit down and enjoy some chai and chocolat -- tea and sweets. Miho and I accept with gratitude and begin the familiar process of sitting and drinking tea and being watched and not able to speak much in return. Rather, that is my routine. Miho has been here in Kabul for the past 3 years now, and her Dari is quite good. She is able to translate for me those things that gestures and facial expressions are not able to communicate. I understand that the girls want me to take them to the zoo and shopping. I explain that I would love to take them shopping but that I cannot use the company cars for such expeditions with so many guests, and further that I will need to arrange for the car in advance. They are leaving for Pakistan the following day and today is our final chance to pass time together. They are disappointed but understanding.

After some time, we are invited to meet the elders of the family -- grandmother and grandfather (modar and padar kalaam). Grandfather is an extremely gracious man, eager to engage with me and express his gratitude to the United States for intervening and defeating the Taleban. He tells me how bad things were during Taleban rule, how terrible everything was, and how grateful he is that the U.S. ended it all. I understand him perfectly, even though he speaks in rapid Dari and does not gesture like I do. I understand him because of the depth of feeling with which he communicates his memories, his gratitude, his relief, his appreciation, his warm welcome and pleasure at having me in his home. I am overcome. Here even more than in other countries, I as a U.S. American citizen represent for the people here the government of the United States, and I am thereby entitled to the feelings of both gratitude and anger, awe and disdain, envy and rejection that our presence and reputation evokes. His warm and free affection for me fills me with a desire to reciprocate, to share my love for his country, and more than anything, to express my own apologetic gratitude for such kindness and hospitality knowing I have done nothing to deserve this.

Grandmother expresses her pleasure with much quieter dignity. She smiles and nods. She takes my hand and pats it. She gestures for a photo together. We take several, pausing after each one to look at the digital preview on the tiny camera screen. She does not know what to say to me, but she is happy that I am sitting beside her in her home on the other side of the world from my own.

After some time, Miho and I decide that we should mention that we are going to have to leave soon. "But we thought you were staying for dinner!" I think they meant lunch. They have been planning an elaborate meal with those things that I mentioned yesterday that I enjoy so much -- ausak and mantu. They are disappointed to hear that we will need to be leaving earlier than anticipated. Apparently they had wanted us to arrive early only to pass the day together, and were planning a full table for the afternoon meal. They rush to accomodate our needs and soon everyone is in the kitchen together, preparing the ausak.

First, we must prepare the "pasta" dough. I wish I knew what the ingredients were for everything, but unfortunately, specific grains and vegetables and herbs and spices are not the most common words in daily conversation and I have not picked up the Dari for them. This description is therefore embarrassingly limited.

We prepare the dough -- rolling it, kneading it, rolling it, flattening it in that special flattening machine until it is about 3mm thin and ready to be sliced into long, thin noodles. These they will use in a different dish later on.The sister who wore the burqa yesterday is also in charge of flattening. Her hennaed palms and fingers work the dough and the machine with familiar and habitual agility. For the ausak, we take the flattened dough and cut it into little circles with a cup. Then we take these little circles and fill them with greens -- dill, I think, and a type of onion, and other herbs that I have not yet identified. Once they are filled, we fold the little circles over and press the edges between our fingertips with a bit of water to close off these tasty little pockets. They will be cooked in oil and smothered in some yummy meaty red sauce and yogurt sauce. I am thrilled at this authentically Afghan female experience. Minus, of course, the poverty and the subtle relief of being inside one's own house rather than outside in the oppressive public where women must be cautious about showing their bodies, faces, hair or talking too freely with people who are not related.

We finish preparing the meal and spend some time taking photos of each other. Everyone wants to have multiple pictures taken of themselves -- they are thrilled to see what they look like on camera. I encourage them to smile. I say, "with teeth!" and they laugh freely. The brother comes in and poses with a serious face that could easily pass for displeasure. Finally enough of them exhaust their desire to be photographed to convince the rest that it's enough. We adjourn once again to the sitting room where the children spread a tablecloth and begin to set the delicious meal. As is customary, the guests are served first, then the elder men, then the male children, the female children, and then the women. Actually, the women usually eat what is left over after everyone else has been served and eaten their fill. During the meal they are scarce, in the kitchen mostly but sometimes gliding in unobtrusively to refill tea, refill plates, and neaten the table. I am always extremely uncomfortable with this. As a western woman I am given a more masculine status, and I feel the distance keenly. I wonder how long it would take me to figure out how best to deal with that. Perhaps I will discover it in the future.

The meal was wonderful and then it was time for our car to return. We said our good-byes with many a besyar tashakur, bamane khuda, huda hofez, tashakur on our part and a chorus of "I love you my sister I miss you you my friend forever I love you" on theirs. I wrote my email on a card for them and explained that it was something they could use to reach me from a computer. I also gave them my phone number, but really I knew I would likely never see them or hear from them again. Somehow our separate lives in such dramatically different worlds led us to each other for a brief and meaningful encounter wherein we were able to connect to one another as women, as people, and I was both extremely happy and sad at once to realize it.

The Women's Park: A New Perspective on Women in Burqas

On the north side of the city, there is a women's park. What is it, exactly? Well... that. A park for women only, where women go with their families, they go with their wares, they shed their burqas and buy and sell clothes, medicines, trinkets, accessories, and foods. It's a space where women can feel free as they can't in many other places, even in their own homes where men and male visitors are regular.

I had been wanting to go since I heard about it, and so had my friend Miho, so we made plans to head over after work today. We had just walked in and were beginning to appraise the situation (actually not too much to speak of -- a little bit of brownish grass, some pebbled walkways, a few shaded benches, and a play area for children), when I heard a voice behind us asking, "Excuse me, do you speak English?" I turned around to see a group of young women, faces shining and eager to practice their English with a real American. They also wanted to know if we spoke German or French. No, I'm a lame American. I only speak English and Spanish, and cam cam Farsi. They wanted to take photos with us (see above) right away. They asked us to come and meet their sister and to sit with them.

My Dari was not quite as good as their English, so once again, our verbal communication was limited. This, time, though, our companions were so pleased with us (and, I daresay, my smiling ignorance) that they quickly decided that "I love you" and "You my sister now." We sat and "talked" under the shade and I took their photos.

I was able to gather that they are Afghans living in Pakistan, as refugees not yet returned home after the fall of the Taleban. One of the girls, with a beauty far more mature than her age, has been living in Germany, and wants to be a model. Living far away from her native Afghanistan where women and children go hungry and malnourished for want of food, she already exhibits symptoms of a poor body image in the making, pinching her belly and complaining of "getting fat" and needing to "diet." These are English words that she nows. I hate to think what these discussions sound like in German, when she is not limited by lack of vocabulary. She's 8 years old. Beautiful, isn't she?

We continue talking and as it becomes later and it is nearing time for us to leave, they press us with extremely enthusiastic sincerity to join them for dinner the following day. Once again, Miho and I decline as politely as possible, but they are insistent and actually plead with us to join them. "please, come, dinner, my house" and "i love, you, my house." The young model clasps her hands in the kind of sweet supplication that children are able to convey. They take my arm and snuggle close, unwilling to accept that we will not see each other again. They force bracelets on my wrists, despite my protests. Of course, we end by accepting their invitation. They are thrilled! Admittedly, their genuine pleasure is infectious, and I, too, am smiling broadly at my good fortune in meeting such kind and welcoming women. I look forward to breaking bread and sharing an authentic meal with them -- I have had such few opportunities to experience the culture in these kind of meaningful ways.

Our agreement secured, we are free to leave and we walk outside together. Miho crosses the street with the children to buy some treats, and I pause to take a photo:

When I turn back around, I turn just in time to get a final glimpse of one of my companions' faces before she lets the curtain that is her burqa drop down to her knees. I am shocked and dismayed at my reaction. In that moment, it is as if she has drawn an invisibility cloak over herself. She is depersonalized. She fades into the background, camouflaged as one of the silent blue figures that drift along as "extras" or even, yes, "props" on the Taleban-era Afghanistan set.

I thought that I was so open, so in touch with the plight of these oppressed women, an knowledgable and knowing advocate. I heard myself passionately educating my friends and colleagues about Afghan women, what its like for them, how easily people form mistaken opinions about them. And I never knew. And I never knew I didn't know until that moment. I, too have been guilty of depersonalizing these women. It is worse for the hypocrisy. I had just passed two hours talking and laughing and holding hands with this woman, and in a moment, I no longer saw her, I didn't even know how to look for her. Yes, this is what fundamentalists want, this is the very function of the burqa, and I have given in to it.

Tomorrow I will see her again, unveiled in the comfort of her home. I wish I knew how to make myself see her now.

Above: Her sister, who does not wear the veil and is ok with being photographed. She is beneath the burqa, turning away in the background. And yet I manage to smile even after such a revelation about my personal failings...

FGD Semi-Urban Site: Shakardara

The first day of our semi-urban site did not go as planned. It all started off wrong. Everything.

Our cars were an hour late. Our female moderator threatened not to come.

(background on that: Challenge #One: Trained moderators are extremely difficult to come by here. There is, not surprisingly after so many years of war and oppression, a very real lack of trained Afghan staff who are qualified to do the kind of work the NGOs are looking for. Because there are so many NGOs, those few who are capable are already very busy and hard to come by. I spent several days and several meetings trying to identify moderators for our FGDs. Finally, the Research Coordinator at PSI made a recommendation for a male-female couple who, we were told, had experience moderating FGDs. Challenge #Two: On the day of the training, which I had designed entirely in English, we discovered that our moderators did not, in fact, speak English. On the day of the field tests, we discovered that, Challenge #Three, there was no way these people had real experience with FGDs before. The male moderator was both especially committed (he spent time at home working on rewriting the questions!) and especially lacking in skill. Because the male groups were the most important groups for our study, we had to find a new moderator at the last moment. The day before our first study site, a man from one of our grantee organizations, Dr. Ihsan, agreed to act as the moderator, despite an extremely busy schedule. We informed the original moderator that we would not be able to use his services. The day of the study, however, he showed up. When we told him again that, Thank you, but we have a different moderator, the female moderator (who has a harsh personality) said that if he did not go, she would not go. I'm not sure how we convinced her, perhaps it was an empty threat and when she realized we were going ahead, she thought better of it. Regardless, she came.)

We arrived to the clinic there to discover that no one was expecting us. This despite a confirmation the previous day that all was set and we would arrive to a staff who had been briefed, prepared to help us conduct our study without a hitch.

"I'm sorry, who are you?" It was going to be impossible to assemble complete groups this day. We did our best with the women's groups, and were able to recruit small groups of women who had delivered at the clinic. The men's groups were another story. We were extremely fortunate to have our new male moderator, Dr. Ihsan -- he was well-connected in that community and, working his connections and the respect he and his organization have earned there, he was able to set up the discussions for the next day. We would not be able to recruit from the waiting rooms as hoped, but were guaranteed to have full groups and spacious rooms at a home out in the community for the following day.

As he busied himself tending to the arrangements for us, we were invited in to share lunch with the folks from Sanayee Development Foundation, one of the civil organizations that works out in the community. We politely declined, not wanting to take advantage, but accepted some dogh -- a drink made of sour yoghurt, cucumber, and pepper. As a muslim country, Afghans don't drink alcohol -- this drink serves a similar purpose, it seems. People joke about how relaxed and sleepy you get after having too much dogh. If you joke about feeling tired after drinking a glass, you are guaranteed to get a laugh and win some points for really knowing the culture. Drunk on our dogh, we ended up accepting a bit of lunch.

On the way back to the city that afternoon, I spent a little more time talking with our moderator, who was very polite, very kind, and very informative. It was he who first told me that all of the land we pass on our way out of Kabul was once lush and green with fields and fields of grapes and fruit trees. Looking out at the dry, dusty earth and the demarcated plots of mines I felt a clutch in my chest imagining what it must be like for him, who knew the beauty and fertility this land used to be. The Taliban burned these fields, burned the villages, killed many of the remaining few villagers that had not fled north prior to the invasion of that evil regime. The air must have been thick with the smell of smoldering grapes, gunpowder, and violence. After this devastation, even the rain was afraid to return to the region, and now, after eight years of drought, little remains to remind us of what it must have looked like then.

As he looked out of the windows toward the past with me, he was reminded of his boyhood in fields like these. He smiled the smile that I have only seen Afghans give as he recollected the days he passed chasing small birds through the vineyards, the grass, with the sound of bullets zipping past his ears. He remembers that he didn't even consider it extraordinary, that he didn't then recognize the dissonance of such childish playful innocence and such adult violence and evil. There is no clever or poignant adjective or allegory to really characterize that smile, the one that accompanies such tragic memories, tragic histories, tragic todays; or if there is, I am just not clever enough to think of it.

We dropped him off with effusive thanks and I wished it were not inappropriate to give hugs. He would not be able to accompany us the next day, but he would be sure to send a well-respected and qualified colleague.

The following day, Day 2 at Shakardara was just lovely. Mr. Shirzai from SDF performed wonderfully at the male FGDs, and I had a wonderful time with the women. Instead of conducting the discussions at the clinic, the efforts of SDF the previous day paid off tenfold -- all of the men and women had been recruited ahead of time, and were waiting for us in small but comfortable rooms at Malalay House out in the village. Little girls gave me beautiful flowers -- fresh picked lavender and a bunch of other sweet smelling blooms that I didn't recognize. The women smiled at me continuously and sent their children over to me to sit with me and be touched by me. I was told that they thought I was cute and that I seemed very kind. It never ceases to amaze me how far a wide, ignorant smile carries me in foreign countries. That and my jilted, toddler-level language skills: "Thank you, thank you so much, thank you. Flowers, no? Flowers? Flowers are beautiful. Beautiful? Yes? Girl is beautiful." I'm sure this is a large part of what endears me to them.


After we finished, the men were still in their groups, so we were escorted by the senior women in the village to a garden owned by one of the community leaders. "Very safe and beautiful" we were told. And indeed it was. It was an enclosed garden with rows and rows of fruit trees -- apples, especially -- and flowers and plants and the famous fat-tailed sheep.




A blanket was laid for us beneath a large mulberry tree, and we wandered in and out of the trees, picking fruit, picking flowers, and breathing the fresh air. The women I was with wanted to share some mulberries with me, so two of them took up a large sheet and held it underneath while another shook the branches above with a force that surprised me. Large berries, white and purples, rained down into the sheet for our enjoyment. We sat in the shade of green trees, eating their luscious, decadent fruits, laughing and talking until our male colleagues came to fetch us.

I thought, this is what it was like before the wars began. This is the joy of being Afghan, the joy of living in this land, the joy that has sustained these people through so much and that encourages them to continue, to work, rebuild, and move forward with a gratitude that I am embarrassed to admit I too often fail to feel myself.

Project Overview

Our first official study site was in a district called Shakardara. Wait. How much have I told you about my study? I spent the first two weeks here designing the study and designing the training for the field team, but now that I think of it, I feel like maybe I haven't shared that much with you about that.

Okay. So first things first. Below find a brief overview of the study:

Where a Pregnant Woman Delivers in Afghanistan: Important Factors in the Decision-Making Process
 
Project Overview

A qualitative study relating to the decision-making process regarding place of delivery for pregnant women in Afghanistan.  This will be a pilot study, designed to provide initial guidance to interested parties and to inform further research.

Main Question(s)

What factors should NGOs and other organizations consider when designing culturally appropriate birthing services in Afghanistan?  What are some ways that NGOs and other organizations might increase demand for facility-based delivery in Afghanistan?

1a.       Among those families wherein women deliver in health facilities, what are the considerations that lead them to choose facility-based delivery?
2a.       Among those families wherein women do not deliver in health facilities and who have access to such facilities, why do they deliver at home?
2b.       Among those families wherein women do not deliver in health facilities and who have access to such facilities, what services and factors would be necessary in order for them to consider delivery in the facility?
 
Methods

Prepare FGD guide.

Develop questions ( 8 – 12 questions per FGD) based on preliminary guidance from knowledgeable individuals among REACH staff and in local NGOs.

Send the guiding questions to English-speaking REACH staff for review and revision.

Translate the guiding questions into Dari.

Send the guiding questions to Dari-speaking REACH staff for review and revision.

Field test the questions.  One site that is easily accessible is sufficient.

Revise the questions based on field test results.

Identify and train Dari-speaking moderators.

Identify two sites at which to conduct the qualitative research, one urban/semi-urban and one rural.

Identify and recruit participants (maximum 10 participants per group) for focus group discussions (FGDs) on-site in designated waiting areas at times when desired groups are generally available (determined through consultation with clinic/hospital staff): 

Research will be conducted using six FGDs per site, for a total of twelve FGDs. 
            
Each site will have two sets of FGDs – one set including members of families wherein women deliver in health facilities (HFs), and one set including members of families wherein women do not deliver in health facilities and who have access to such facilities.

Each of the two sets will be further divided into three distinct FGDs – one composed of women’s husbands, one composed of women’s mothers-in-law, and one composed of the women themselves.

See diagram below. 

                                                            --Husbands 

                                                          /
                   ----Deliver in HFs-------Mothers-in-law 
                 /                                       \   
                /                                          --Women 
RURAL  
                \                                          --Husbands
                  \                                       /
                    Do not deliver in HFs----Mothers-in-law 
                                                           \   
                                                             --Women    

                      
                                                            --Husbands 
                                                          /                  
                   ----Deliver in HFs-------Mothers-in-law                 
                 /                                       \   
                /                                          --Women                
URBAN                                                                  
                \                                          --Husbands
                  \                                       /                   
                   Do not deliver in HFs----Mothers-in-law                
                                                          \   
                                                             --Women   

Clarifications:

·         “families wherein women do/do not deliver in health facilities” should include families in which a woman has delivered a child within the past 18 months.

·         It is not necessary to limit the participants by requiring that the husbands, mothers-in-law, and women are all in the same family.  However, this information should be documented and noted. 

Conduct FGDs in Dari employing an Afghan moderator who has a similar profile to the participants in the group.  Men should be interviewed by a man, and women should be interviewed by a woman. 

The FGDs will include the moderator and a note-taker.  The note-taker should also be Afghan to minimize bias that may be introduced by the presence of the expatriate, and to allow for detailed note-taking in the event that participants express unwillingness to be tape-recorded.  Notes taken by a non-Dari speaker are limited to physical and interpersonal observation. 

The FGDs will be conducted over 2 days.  At least two and not more than four FGDs will be conducted on a given day.  Each FGD should last approximately one hour. 

Sunday –          FGDs with husbands of women who do/do not deliver in health facilities (1 morning, 1 afternoon)
Simulataneous FGDs with mothers-in-law of women who do/do not deliver in health facilities.

Monday –        FGDs with women who do/do not deliver in health facilities. (1 morning, 1 afternoon)

Transcribe the audio recordings of the FGDs, and translate the transcriptions from Dari into English.

Resources Required

Human resources:
·         2 project managers.
·         2 moderators—1 male and 1 female.
·         2 note-takers/transcribers/translators—1 male and 1 female.

Technical resources:
·         4 audio recorders.
·         15 audio cassettes, with at least 90 minutes per cassette.
·         Camera.
·         Batteries

Other resources:
·         Pens.
·         Notepads.
·         Tea/biscuits

Limitations

Afghanistan is a very heterogenous country.  Customs, beliefs, and needs will vary greatly across the country, depending on ethnicity and religion along with a range of other variables.  This is of particular importance in the rural areas, as variation between rural areas can be much greater than variation between urban areas.

For the most reliable results, FGDs should be conducted in an environment that provides the greatest degree of comfort possible for the participants.  Our FGDs will be conducted in the presence of female expatriates.  Foreign presence in the FGDs is likely to affect the results – common experience demonstrates that foreign presence stifles freedom of discussion among participants, and may also lead participants to answer as they believe they are “supposed to.”  It is not clear how the presence of a female expatriate in a group of male participants will affect the results; however, given the gender norms of Afghan society, it is reasonable to expect that the discussion will be impacted.

Our methods require two different translation and interpretation processes, one at the beginning to translate the guiding questions from English into Dari, and one at the conclusion of the study to translate the discussion transcriptions from Dari back into English.  It is well documented that translations decrease the reliability of the results.