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no internet at home - my new place - but a quick hello from work.  safe (ish) - busy and wondering

…. moving and I won’t have internet for a bit

Cheers

When you get locked into your room from the outside, is this a compliment or a comment on your bathing routine?

But I’m fine.  As North America was sleeping, Kabul got hit with an explosion. My friend who lives right there and witnessed it is fine, and my other friend who was there looking for a safe apartment for me to live in, is also safe.  A real drag for the people who lost their lives and the families of those folks. It’s never a good day when this happens. The next few days promises to bring lots of attention in the news due to the conference. I’m keeping my head down and writing a progress report, even perhaps from home.

Like a watermelon on a picnic, Friday brings joy - a day free from the office. Watermelons do have seeds to pick at, as does a Friday, I’ll be reading CVs to hire for a couple of important posts.  So after my laundry is done, I’ll curl up next to the fan and read CVs. It’s always a good time, especially when you know you need to track down the next million to pay yourself, the new hires, the admin fees for the trainings, and the financial folks who work on the second floor.  Always a good time in Kabul.

I’m sure all my guy friends will be out on picnics today; eating, drinking, laughing and splashing around in the river. All the women in AFG, will be doing laundry and cleaning house.  Good times, good times.

There are rumors that in the upcoming Kabul Conference, aside from shutting down the city for several days, they will discuss women’s rights.  Let’s hope they act on them for once.

Well minus the good wine. Plenty of jelly and raisins, but what are grapes for?

The staff of 1,200 and soon to be 2,900 I over see and crack the whip on, has just received word that we got them their pay.  It has been seven months and they haven’t received any money from the Ministry of Education for training the teachers (a mandate by the Ministry).  The office has been running around with papers to sign and me writing reports madly.  The money has been deposited, and in a couple of days bags of cash will head out to the hinderlands to be given to the trainers.

It has been a wild start these last few weeks but the best is yet to come. No one has submitted progress reports of implementation report for over a year, so at a meeting with the minister, I got a huge tongue lashing to get these in before we receive the next installment of the next few million !!!

I’ll be in old data gathering mode while crafting justification letters saying why “we” didn’t send in the reports or make the people work without pay.  TAck - oh my strong point, but i’ll say that my staff of 1,200 will be sleeping well tonight knowing that in a few days the truck will pull in and they will get back pay for 7 months.

Tomorrow I will bring sweets to celebrate and give gifts to the gentlemen who did all the running around.  Perhaps some ibuprofen, though they could have used this 2 months ago.

Hassan, in the nicest way, asked me if I needed anything - juice, water, bread?  I said no thanks, but I did want to follow up on an interaction we had yesterday.  His aunt, who is my friend’s mother, asked me for some ibuprofen and “bone medicine.” Not a new request from anyone, and I’m stocked to hilt for just such occasions.

I had given Hassan 2 baggies yesterday.

(Note the labeling of what these tablets are for and how many to take.)

Hassan was to bring these baggies to “madar” (mother) of XXXX, YYYY, ZZZ and these are for a head problem- yak (one) and these are for “grab the parts of the body.”

“Famidi (understand)?”

“Famedam (i understand)?”

No issue at all. He’ll bring them when he heads over to his aunt’s house.

Fine and well. But the box of chocolates come out tonight, when I blow my very limited Dari, to ask him if he had brought them over to his aunt today. I think I must have asked for a Turkish bathhouse maid carrying a bucket of small turtles wearing pig skins in turnip stew.

He shows up about 10 minutes later with 2 rolls of “Double Horse Toilet Tissue.”  What the heck. All those hours of studying and I ask for pink toilet paper. I am a bad bad student.

Note to reader - super soft means - No. 35 grit sand paper.  Hygienic - means because it’s pink you don’t get a true color of what lands on the paper.  Absorbent - means you need the whole roll on a bad day.  Anyone who has traveled outside of North America has witnessed the lying in the marketing department.

So now I have t.p. and no knowledge of the tablets, nor clean water or juice.  I really should have just said I needed water, then I would have gotten that, but you just never know because translations are like a box of chocolate.

No plans of being in the news here or in the states.  I’ve gotten some emails about how AFG is in the news. I’m fine, despite on my one day off, no electricity or internet, which means no fan, no tv, nothing, including nothing to do. That’s the only news worthy thing here.

I’m sure bombs are busting in air down south and in the east. There is an occasional blast here but nothing I have to worry about.  I lead a very low key life. Never take the same route to the office, never go out after work. So there you have it.

I’m fine, but let me tell you about the exciting time I had washing sheets, by hand, in a bucket, one by one on my day off.  Now that is news worthy.

My lettuce is sprouting up.  Oh wait, news, we have a red tomato in the garden !!!  It’s mine for dinner. The apricots are now done, but the grapes are just getting ready and we will have tons.

How many guys does it take to xerox a few dozen binders and submit them to the Ministry of Finance?

If it’s worth several million dollars so that the teacher trainers get paid and the teachers attending the workshops get textbooks, transport and tea for the month long training - it takes an entire office (except for me and my assistant), we were cheering them on and running back and forth to the Ministry getting signatures.