What Do You Think?

Today was another enlightening day in the office. I finally got the opportunity to ask Esman and Hasat what they thought about the United States’ presence in their country, and how that affected their lives. Their views were not exactly what I had expected.

They both talked about the fact that they had known little but war and conflict during their entire lives. Esman told of his family’s trek from Kabul to Herat, which his family believed to be the safest place in the country at the time – safe from roaming bandits and tribal lords and lawless people. The trip across the country, which might be the size of Texas, took seven days on a bus. The bus continued to be held up by different groups of highway robbers, who held the people on the bus hostage until the passengers coughed up enough money to satisfy the robbers, who then let the bus continue. That was about 15 or 16 years ago.

They were both on the cusp of “teenhood” when the Taliban took over after the civil war here and after the Russians left. They both tell stories regarding what people were allowed and not allowed to do. Girls were not allowed to go to school. If a man’s hair was too long, Taliban representatives cut the hair by force. Televisions were banned. Anything that might represent the20th century was not tolerated. So both these young men have little to compare as far as what life might be like except to look at what their lives have been like for the past five years or so.

They told a story about a cartoon showing three people sitting around a table. The moderator asks the people what they think about the food shortage in the rest of the world. The first person (whose nationality I can’t remember) says something (see, this is why I can’t tell a joke). The second person, a European, says that he knows nothing of a food shortage. The third person, an American, says, “The rest of the world?” The idea is, of course, that America is myopic about what is going on outside our borders. They both thought that Americans tend to look inward rather than outward; however, both appreciated the American’s efforts over the time our country has been in this one.

They both thought that while the military force was helpful, it would have been better to come in and spend some of our military money on infrastructure instead. Why? In some of the more rural provinces, electricity is unknown. So is running water. So is the idea of paved roads. They both thought that with those kinds of life improvements, people here would have been able to see Americans make a difference. They also would have been able to become more mobile and travel to a city and see things that do not exist in a rural village. The young men both thought that even television would be a help, so that people in the villages could see what some of the rest of the world is like. When the American military leaves, it leaves. We will have some presence here, but the main thrust of what we have offered over the past now almost eleven years will be gone. Had we put time and money toward roads or power-generating dams, those would be our country’s legacy, Hasat and Esman believe.

Both Hasat and Esman also thought that our country needed to educate more of our soldiers and contractors about their culture, which, as I explained to them, would be fine, except for two things: 1) some of the things we need to know about their culture are far beyond anything an American could understand; and 2) regardless of any education or training, “cowboys” exist – and I am talking about people such as the soldiers who are currently in trouble for urinating on the bodies of some dead Afghans and taking pictures of themselves doing it. What kind of behavior is that, other than that which engenders bad will and anger?

Both Esman and Hasat are aware that some things that happen in their country are beyond the pale – things such as a woman being lashed 80 times for committing adultery. Talk about your scarlet letter! They explained some of those things to me: The Koran does provide for lashing in the event that people are caught committing adultery. Here, however, is the catch. The lashing is for BOTH the woman and the man, but the punishment is traditionally exacted on only the woman. Further, in order to accuse a person of adultery, the act itself must be witnessed, actually witnessed, and testified to by four separate people, and those four must testify to exactly the same thing. And if a person accuses without such evidence, the accuser must suffer the lashing.

I told them that this was a very clear example of something that could be drummed into someone over and over, but that it would still be incomprehensible to someone in the United States, because adultery is not a crime and is punished only in the lives affected by the act. I also asked them if it could be possible that the proscription was kind of like the question asked in the New Testament: How many times should I forgive someone who wrongs me? Not seven times seven. Seventy times seven. That has been explained to me as not literally 490 times to forgive, but instead an admonishment that we are to forgive because we are forgiven, and so we shouldn’t be keeping count of forgiveness; we must find forgiveness in our hearts always.

I wondered, then, if the Prophet had been saying to leave it alone. The likelihood of finding the required evidence to accuse someone of adultery was so cumbersome, I wondered if the Prophet was just saying, “Hey, don’t you have better things to do?”

They both had heard of the Hebrew punishment for adultery, which was stoning, but I told them of Jesus’ protecting the woman who was to be stoned by standing in front of her and telling the crowd that the one among them without sin could cast the first stone. And then, of course, the stoning party broke up. Esman and Hasat were unaware of that story.

They also told me that when the Americans arrived, and for a while afterward, the soldiers would search, or frisk, women. That was unforgivable to the family of the woman, and when something like that happened, some of the woman’s family would go join the insurgents or the Taliban in order to avenge the family’s honor.

I told them that we Americans certainly couldn’t understand that, just as much as I couldn’t understand why a movie, insulting as it seems to have been (I didn’t see it because it was blocked in Afghanistan), or a cartoon, as insulting as some seem to have been (I haven’t seen the cartoons, either), would incite people to kill other people or to riot or act mob-like, and generally behave in a way that is vastly disproportionate to the insult. I also can’t understand the same kind of reaction when copies of the Koran were burned early last year by accident. They agreed that such behavior is uncalled for, and then told me of another provision in the Koran that says if a person kills an innocent person, he kills the world, and if a person saves a person’s life, he saves the world. This means, of course, that there is no room for killing someone who has caused no harm.

We all agreed that extremists in both religions, and in both countries, hurt the abilities of people to come together and work together. They thought that Americans could make a huge difference in the lives of people in Afghanistan if they came to the cities and taught English, for example, or went to villages and provided medical care, because most people in villages would rarely, if ever, see a doctor.

We also all agreed that what we are doing – working together for the betterment of the justice system, so that the law is fair and so that people can count on the justice system working for them – is important for the continuing stability of the country. We also think our working together is excellent evidence that when our differences are reduced to our discussing them person to person, we can see each other as human beings, with different ideas, different cultures, different faiths, but connected by our common goal to live together peacefully on the planet.

I have learned so much from these special young men. I hope my working with them is as enlightening for them as it is for me.

More About Women

Back to my conversation with Esman.

After we discussed the deficiencies of the local custom for choosing spouses, and for keeping the sexes separate, he asked a very important question. He asked me why, since the divorce rate in America is around 50%, I think that the way Americans choose spouses and treat women is any better. I admit I had to think a while on that one.

After all, in America, women have had the right to vote for fewer than 100 years, and astonishingly few women exercise that obligation each voting cycle (of course, I believe that the percentage of people who register AND vote is embarrassingly small – everyone should register and vote!). Women still call each other out about whether they should stay home with the kids or go back to work. During my adult life, women have been given more opportunities to work in different types of jobs, whereas when I was in high school, women held typical “girl” jobs: secretary, nurse, teacher (especially elementary), and the like; however, women are still paid less than men for the same work. The number of women in America who are abused or killed by their boyfriends or husbands is astoundingly large. When it finally got down to it, all I could tell Esman is that in the United States, we get to choose the men we want to divorce (50% of us, anyway) rather than having someone else do it for us. And we get to enjoy the company of men all during our lives rather than just when we are preparing for marriage.

He kind of grinned at me, so I knew that I have a lot more thinking to do on this topic!

I really enjoy working with someone who is willing to share his ideas and thoughts with me so that I know more about this culture than I did when I got here, and I think it’s wonderful that he wants to know what I think. We have our conversations in conjunction with cases we are working on, and then talk about how those cases might be different in the United States. As many of you know, I am pretty straightforward and direct in what I have to say, and sometimes, my wry sense of humor comes through loud and clear. Every now and then, Esman looks shocked at what I say and then begins laughing. Then, ever the polite young man, he says, “I am not laughing at you or what you are saying. I am laughing because of the way you say it!” And I tell him that I think I shock him. He just laughs. All in all, I am going to have to look hard at the things I take for granted as being the accepted way to do things – such as finding a husband – and think about why we do those things the way we do.

Yesterday was my day off, and I did the usual – cleaned room (as opposed to cleaned house), wrote some, finished a couple of projects, did some work, and then watched a movie I had never heard of: Lead the Way, with Antonio Banderas. It was spectacular. The story, based on a real person and a real program, centered around a ballroom dance instructor who gets involved with some high school misfits in New York and teaches them how to dance. The movie tells the stories of some of these kids and how they live. I kept thinking that it is a miracle that anyone ever makes it out of such abject poverty and horrible living conditions.

On Thursday night, the spandex soldiers gave their last pizza party. They are leaving the camp, and they wanted to give us one more treat. I ate the cheese pizza and then had a couple of chunks of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, which I will probably never grate again. I am going to eat it in chunks instead. Then they did the Nutella pizza again, and this time, put sliced bananas on top; they also served fresh pineapple that had been cut and frozen. It was wonderful.

My supervisor goes on leave in a few days, and I will be here with another justice adviser who is just returning from leave. Although I met him in Kabul before he went home, I don’t really know him, so this is going to be a new person and a new experience. I expect to spend some time observing more classrooms and then observing some of the people I work with as they mentor prosecutors, defense lawyers, and judges as they work with new laws. It ought to be interesting.

Huge is on leave, too, and another security person will be here in his stead. I will probably meet him tomorrow – and all I have to say is that he’d better be, well, huge!

All in all, it’s been a good couple of days, and I’m looking forward to going to church tomorrow night. I still think it’s kind of funny that the time difference allows me to go to Broadway Presbyterian every Sunday. It’s really as if I am not gone at all – except that I am not playing keyboards, but am instead listening to someone else play them!

Until Sunday.

The Difference Between Men and Women (Probably Rated R)

I’ve been trying to figure out how to broach the subject that Esman and I have been discussing over the past few days. It is, gulp, the relation of men, women, and sex, and I will be bringing some highlights of our discussion to you over the next few posts.

The reason we began talking about it is because some of the cases he is translating from Dari to English, and then I am correcting and editing, have to do with adultery, initiated (attempted) adultery, violence against women, and “running away.” I struggle to understand the way the law works, and why it works the way it does, and he is kind enough to explain it to me. Many of the cases we delve into have to do with actual laws that do their best to do what we in America would call “legislate morality.” In Afghanistan, it is a crime punishable by time in prison to have sexual relations outside of marriage. It is a crime punishable by time in prison to be in a situation that MIGHT be interpreted as attempting to commit adultery, such as a man’s being in a woman’s house without any supervision. It is a crime to force a woman into a marriage that she does not want to enter; however, such a thing happens routinely, and no one is punished for it. It is not a crime, however, for a woman to leave her home – either her father’s home or her husband’s - and yet my friend Rhonda, who is a prison guard in a smaller region, says that most of the women in her prison are there for running away – and their children are there with them.

As we discuss these cases and the plight of women in this country, the common denominator seems to be the religion’s, and therefore the society’s, view of women and sex.

Here, women have few opportunities, but they seem to vary according to the great divides, just as in America – economic standing and level of education. For instance, women generally do not drive cars, but the woman with whom I work drives a car. Neither Esman’s nor Hasat’s wives drive cars. In rural areas, women go out of the house only when necessary, and it is often necessary for them to work in the fields alongside men. Here, I have seen women everywhere I have gone, although not alone. However, Esman says that women here do go places alone, such as shopping and to school.

When women do go out, they must be covered up lest some man look at them in an inappropriate way, which, I believe, is in a way that appreciates their beauty. By the same token, it is not a good thing for women to “show” even their clothed bodies if those clothes are form-fitting, lest they are “sharing” a view with someone not their husbands, thus the justification of the cultural and not religious requirement of a burka that covers even a woman’s face. So while a woman’s body and face may not be bad things, for a man to look upon them is.

A woman may not be alone with a man anywhere unless that man is her husband or someone in her family who is considered an appropriate chaperone. Many women have not been to school and are uneducated, but I think Herat has a lot of educated women. Of the group of uneducated women, many are promised in marriage by their families without their permission or approval, which is both illegal and not what the religion requires (the religion gives the girl the opportunity to accept or not accept the arranged marriage), but what culture demands. I have read cases about women who are abused, both verbally and physically, by their husbands and their mothers-in-law, and I have read cases about women who are sold to men by their fathers and some who are kept from their rightful inheritances by their brothers. It is not uncommon for a woman to set herself afire or to ingest rat poison after a violent exchange (to be fair, Esman says that self-immolation is a common method of suicide regardless, that he knows of a woman who set herself afire because her fiancé could not afford to hold their wedding in a large hall).

Generally, women are held to a very strict standard regarding their lives, and I think that is both cultural and religious. I think it’s fair to say that being a man in this society is more beneficial than being a woman.

Because sex outside of marriage is both a crime and a violation of religious law, and because families can promise their daughters in marriage to a man the family likes, but the girl has not met or does not know well, girls in their teens may be promised and then married to men in their 50s. When they are experiencing what we in the United States know as a heavy-duty crush in high school, and their parents promise them to another man, many girls run away with their crushes to be married. Unfortunately, however, they rarely marry – they simply run away together, and then are found, and both are charged with crimes, maybe of adultery or attempted adultery. What is worse, to decide upon the appropriate charge, girls are subjected to “medical exams” to determine whether they are still virgins. If they are not virgins, they are charged with adultery. If they are still virgins, they are charged with attempted adultery. The boys are charged with either adultery, attempted adultery, kidnapping, or “de-flowering” a woman, among other possibilities. And of course, there is no test to determine whether a male is a virgin.

I asked Esman if the medical community here, and therefore the legal community, was aware that a woman’s virginity might not be able to be determined by a medical exam. He simply shook his head and told me that no matter how much medical information the law enforcement community has regarding the fact that not every young woman has a hymen, the test is still done, and the test is the determining factor.

And more: When the girl returns from her running away episode, even if she has been charged with nothing, if she has been found to have been kidnapped or raped, her reputation is ruined, and no one will marry her.

Running away carries such a stigma that should a girl run away with a boy, her family will protest that she has been kidnapped so as to save as much of their reputation as possible. And if a girl is found to have sexual intercourse with a boy, the girl’s family will say that she was deceived by the boy – that he lured her to sex with the promise of marriage. And that is illegal.

I wonder about where these rules come from, and Esman and I have talked about the fact that young people here are not allowed to touch, to kiss, to hold hands, or to express any kind of physical sexual desire; therefore, when young kids feel those stirrings, those natural stirrings, they know that they must get married in order to act out on them – even if the only thing they want to do is kiss the object of their desire.

Esman explained to me that not all these rules come from religion, although some do. Some, like the addition of a burka, come from local culture. In the instance of a family’s arranging a marriage, for example, most of the young people Esman knows have arranged their own marriages – not by proposing or dating or anything like that. They have made their desires known to their families, and their families have taken the lead. If a girl expresses to her mother her own desire to marry a specific man, her mother, in consultation with her husband, will arrange for a surreptitious notification to the boy’s parents. If the boy is interested, his parents will then approach the girl’s family. If the boy is not interested, the girl is allowed to save face and no one is the wiser. If the boy expresses the desire, his parents are in touch with the girl’s parents, and, if the girl approves, the engagement is made known at the appropriate time.

Should the couple become engaged, the families will arrange for a nekah, what would be like our engagement party, but what is actually a wedding without the hoopla. The families will have a party with a mullah present, and in front of all the witnesses at the party, both the fiancé and the fiancée will say three times to the other that they accept each other in marriage. The mullah then blesses the engagement, and after that, the boy may spend time with the girl at her family’s home, even going so far as to spend the night. Some families even build a room for the boy to, in essence, move in during the engagement, as the engaged couple is permitted to have physical contact – short of sexual intercourse. Esman says that most people who get to this point in the engagement will have a marriage ceremony, although he has known a few people who have ended the engagement without going through with the wedding ceremony.

Sometime after the “engagement party,” maybe up to two years after their new relationship involving physical contact, the couple is actually married in a ceremony that I have described before as a “big deal,” where the groom pays for the entire shebang, and everybody and his brother attend, even people who are friends of friends of the couple but who do not themselves know the couple.

These kinds of relationships, though, from what I can determine from my conversations with Esman, happen in more educated, more well-to-do families, and are not the norm in small villages outside cities, where more girls have no say in selecting their future husbands.

I will tell you more as I delve further into the next part of our discussions.

I Find a Party

This has been a really good day. I got to go to class again, seeing the students and discussing the rights of suspects to remain silent and to be represented by a lawyer – and if the suspect cannot afford a lawyer, one will be appointed to him/her. And these are the rights of suspects in Afghanistan.

I got really tickled at the officers’ discussions. Their comments sounded very much like comments I hear at home, only from a much more varied group: “If we tell the defendants of their rights, they won’t confess!” “Why do the defendants have so many rights?” “If the suspects confess, why do we have to do anything else in the case? Isn’t the confession enough?” “Why does a suspect have to have a lawyer? Can’t his brother defend him?”

In Afghanistan, until this point, it has not been unusual for a defendant to be convicted only on his confession, and that the confession was often beaten out of him/her, ergo the need for a law that says that defendants will not be tortured in order to get a confession. In the previous kind of legal system, most officers would not even look for evidence. Now, however, the laws are changing, and the system is responding to the needs of the people for a justice system that offers fairness to all involved. Now, officers are looking for and collecting evidence. They are interviewing witnesses. Lawyers are finding the laws to support their clients’ positions, whether the client be a defendant or a governmental entity such as the city or the country. Judges are considering the cases from a legal standpoint. All of this means Afghan society wins.

Then, after we had discussed these issues, one of the students told a story that tells that the court system simply must be fair and impartial. A man who was a deaf mute had been accused of beating his mother, and he was told, although I’m not sure how, that he had a right to a lawyer. His brother volunteered to defend him and interpret for the court. The suspect began signing, and the interpreter brother said that the defendant brother had confessed and had indeed beaten their mother. After a few minutes, a very astute and fair-minded prosecutor noticed that the signs were different; the defendant made lots of signs, while the brother said very few words. The prosecutor stopped the proceedings and demanded another interpreter. It turned out that the defendant did not confess at all; the defendant was trying to tell the court that he was innocent, and that his brother was the one who was beating the mother, and the deaf mute brother as well!

I thanked the students for their stories and discussion, and told them that we have the same issues in America, and that we all have to follow our rules: police officers have rules and they must follow them; lawyers have rules and they must follow them; and judges have rules and must follow them – and if we all follow our rules, the people who should be convicted will be convicted according to the rules, which keeps them convicted.

I was relieved that they seemed happy to see me and not at all holding bad feelings about our previous discussion regarding the film that has caused so much upheaval all across this part of the world and regarding our right to free speech.

Then something else happened.

I got to go to the American Consulate in Herat tonight! The consul was hosting a reception for staff members, and we were invited. We were not locked down, and so we went! It was a blast – except that we had to climb seven flights of stairs to get to the rooftop. I felt as if we had escaped, and that the world really did exist outside our walls. How much fun!

I saw some of the people I have met before – Rob, the guy who had my job a few years ago and now works at the consulate; Mary, who participates in the Rule of Law program; and Dave, who is the representative in a different province; most important, I met a Green Bay Packers fan who was still reeling from the disastrous call last night. I say disastrous, but I don’t really know, because I, of course, could not see the game OR the call. I have been looking for it on line, and I know it will be there somewhere, but I haven’t found it yet. I got really tickled at him because he was saying that when the game is over, it’s over, and he just forgets it and goes on, but he couldn’t stop talking about it, and in fact, was going downstairs to watch a replay of the game. I had to giggle, but did so to myself. After all, I had just met him and he isn’t used to my sense of humor.

Rob, the man I had met previously and who was at the reception, told a great football story: A die-hard Broncos fan, he wanted desperately to go to the Super Bowl in 1998, when the Broncos played the Packers in San Diego. He had dreams about going. He dreamed that he found a ticket outside the stadium, and he got to go to the game. He called his father and told him that he was going to the game to buy a ticket and watch the game. His father told him that to make the trip was foolish. He had not been employed for too long, and the trip was going to be an expense that he really couldn’t afford, his father told him, but Rob wanted to go. The dreams came more often, and in every dream, someone approached him at the stadium and offered him a ticket. So rather than paying attention to his realistic, solid father, Rob followed his dreams, got in the car and drove from Denver to San Diego.

I’m not sure whether he stayed someplace or drove all night, but he began his ticket quest on Game Day at 7 a.m. He waited and waited, and finally, about an hour before the game began, a man approached him and said he had a ticket to spare. I cannot tell the cost of the ticket, because that is his story to tell (and it is atypical and funny), but I can tell you that Rob made out like a bandit, he saw the game, saw the Broncos win, drove home, called his dad and told him the story, and says that he has the Super Bowl ticket framed. He said that paying attention to his dream was one of the best things he ever did.

At the party, I also talked with a young man who works for the State Department, and who is well-educated about the situation in this part of the world. I didn’t get to talk to him long, but he has met the Secretary of State, and I am hoping that he will remember to call me should she be in this part of the country any time soon. I know that lots of people don’t like Hilary Clinton, but I think she is brave, smart, powerful woman. What I like about her is her ability to land on her feet when things don’t turn out the way she expects. I like to hope that I would be able to do the same.

Anyway! I was also thrilled that I got to go to the party! I have missed being at parties! I was on the roof of the American consulate in Herat, as the sun was just beginning to go down, looking out over this very ancient city, and I felt as if I were in another world. All too soon, Huge and Ferocious came to tell us that it was time to leave; we didn’t want to be driving through the city after dark.

All in all, though, it was a lovely party, and all of a sudden, I felt normal again – talking to people, being around people, laughing, having a good time. It was a very nice end to a very good day.

And I wonder what tomorrow will bring.

Prayers

Just as church was ready to start via Skype tonight, the spandex soldiers had another outdoor cookout – this time with pasta and roasted tomatoes and Parmagiano Reggiano cheese. I think I am going to get fatter. Everyone told me I would LOSE WEIGHT when I came here, but apparently, they lied. I can still get into my clothes, but I know I am NOT losing weight.

I ate a few bites outside on the patio and then came in to attend Broadway Presbyterian. I can’t tell you how comforting it is to hear the church service that I have been listening to for the past 25+ years almost every Sunday. I find that over here, my weeks are divided as they are at home: Sunday is church, and Wednesday is court and choir practice. I look forward to Sundays, and then I remember a few days later that it is the middle of the week, and that someone will be going to jail and then the choir will practice.

Tomorrow, I hope to go back to class – the one I talked with about free speech. I will probably be able to tell their feelings about me when I walk in the room. Here’s hoping for good feelings! I will be observing a new teacher – not new to the classroom, but new to me. This is another young man with whom I work, but I haven’t spent as much time around him as the two young men I have been blathering about, as I don’t share an office with him. We do occasionally eat breakfast together, and as far as I can tell, he is just as nice and polite as all the other Afghans I work with. He is very quiet, and so I will be interested in how he comes across in the classroom. My job, then, will be to do an assessment of his technique and give him some feedback. I will take a translator with me so that I can understand the topic, especially if I have to speak. And you know I love speaking!

A man was here from Kabul to take inventory of the company’s things, and he remembered seeing me at the other camp. He even remembered that they fixed my iPhone! He then apologized if he made enough noise to wake us up. Julie and I told him we hadn’t heard a thing. He said he got up at 4:00, and Julie asked him if he couldn’t get back to sleep. “Oh, no,” he said, “I got up that early to pray.” I have to tell you, as far as I’m concerned, that is dedicated faith. I am afraid that if I got up that early to pray, I would be asking the Lord to let me go back to sleep.

All joking aside, I do think about that. I am in a country where the people who practice the majority faith take time to pray five times every day – and these are not say-at-your-desk-and-be-quiet prayers; they take time and effort and require some movement. I think I need to find out more about daily prayers and how the faithful accomplish that. I have heard the call to prayer a few times in the evening. The sound is beautiful; it’s as if someone is chanting – kind of like a Gregorian chant, but with more movement in the melody. And hearing it in the evening when the sun is going down is also soothing. It’s as if someone is saying, “Day is done, take time, give thanks.” Some of the other people who have been in the Mideast say that in some places the call is put over a loudspeaker and is very loud and irritating. Fortunately, the call I hear is ethereal, far away, and calming.

And now, the call I hear is for me to get to bed because, as I have said before, 6:30 will come earlier than I would like! But I will say my prayers before I go to sleep.

My Best Friend, Technology

The last thing I wrote about was being grateful for being over here and having technology in my corner. Remember that? Guess what! Right now, I have no internet, no television, no texting, no Skype, and my phone doesn’t have much of a signal. I am isolated! I remember getting an e-mail a few days ago telling me that we would have sporadic internet on September 22, but I haven’t had any trouble today until after I got off work and was trying to talk to Max before he left for the wedding I won’t be able to go to in Wichita.

Fortunately, we still have power, and so I am able to listen to music. My cute little speakers are really quite good. Right now, I am listening to Frank Sinatra live at the Sands. I think it is sometime in the mid-1960s. He just said that to build a new hotel costs about $25 per square foot. Here’s the cool thing – Count Basie’s orchestra is playing for Mr. Sinatra, and he is doing his own little stand-up routine. He just said he was 50. That was a long time ago! I remember when Lorraine and I went to see him in Kansas City. We paid $50 per ticket, and people thought we were loony to pay that much. Isn’t that something? I wouldn’t have traded it for anything in the world. And Frank and Lorraine are birthday twins. It was a fun evening.

Back to Afghanistan, where Frank Sinatra never played, and I am beginning to believe no one else did, either!

The days are getting much shorter – although we won’t go through the short day shock when Daylight Savings Time ends. There is no Daylight Savings Time! The nights are getting cooler, as well. I go to sleep with the air conditioner on because my little room gets stuffy during the day, and I wake up freezing. And something tells me that I am going to need a coat long before I will be home to pick one up.

I have no idea what went on at my office today. I was involved in a project that took all day, and fortunately I had begun on Friday; otherwise, I wouldn’t have finished. As it was, I was pushing 5:00 to send everything that needed to be sent. I just had a horrible thought – what if the internet had been sporadic when I was sending e-mails every five minutes or so? That would not have been good. I do know that both my little guys were in today – the class that one of them was teaching ended on Thursday. They were laughing about something, but of course, I had no idea what. I am quite sure they were not laughing at me, however, because the first day they were conversing in their language, Esman told me that it was bad for Muslims to speak behind people’s backs – that was a mortal sin – so they would not be saying bad things about me that I couldn’t understand. They are both so nice that they wouldn’t do that anyway.

I really like working with both of them; they are both so young and yet seem so much older than their years. I think that probably has something to do with the fact that they are responsible for not just themselves, not just themselves and their wives and children, but their wives, their children, and everyone else who is in their household. And of course, because they don’t drink, haven’t chased girls, and as far as I know, don’t play sports with other guys, they ARE much older than American men of the same age. They could, I guess, come in tomorrow and surprise me, but I don’t think so!

Sometime soon, we are going to move our operation to a different location, but we don’t know when. My understanding is that our little rooms are going to be picked up and refurbished and then plopped down in another camp somewhere close to here, but I have no idea where. The interesting part is that we will be living at a hotel downtown while all this is going on. I keep expecting to hear that I will have to pick up everything and have it ready to go in about 15 minutes, but so far, that hasn’t happened. I’m kind of ready for the hotel, because we are still locked down – which means that the hotel probably isn’t going to happen any time soon. We still haven’t had any incidents like what is going on in Pakistan (or what I think is going on in Pakistan – no connection to the outside world tonight!). I feel very lucky.

For the first time in my life, I will vote via absentee ballot this year! I got the ballot today, and will mark it and send it in tomorrow – except maybe not, because I forgot that tomorrow is Sunday. It’s so interesting to have Friday off and work on Saturday and Sunday. I lose all track of time. I’m sure of today’s date only because of Trisha’s wedding. She’s been working on it for a year and I know she will be a lovely bride, and I know they will be very happy. But that’s how I remember that today is Saturday.

I will close for tonight, and read a little before I fall asleep. It’s been a long time since I have read before falling asleep. I confess to enjoying Two and a Half Men much too much to read. And the bad news is that right after that silly television show, The Big Bang Theory lures me in. I try to forget that it’s on, but when Sheldon starts in on some of his schtick, I can’t resist. Maybe this year will break me of that habit!

Friday again

Today is Friday, my day off. How in the world does my one day off go so quickly? I had some work that I had to do so that I could make sure that I get my work done tomorrow. I headed to the gym and stayed there for a while, walked an extra mile and lifted a few weights, cleaned my little room, and then, a treat, watched Stalag 17, one of my favorite movies. Then I came back to my little room (notice how I keep calling it “little?” ) and hit the computer to pay bills and finish a couple of projects. By now, it’s 8:30, and I will be in bed around 10.

I haven’t told you about my DFAC (remember that one?). Tonight was a good example of bad food. We had a choice of barbecued lamb chops that looked like little briquettes, barbecued mixed sausage grill that looked like a bunch of different kinds of sausages that had been cooked with the lamb and then tossed in some barbecue sauce, and barbecued ribs, which I will never eat because everything gets all over me and sticks in my teeth. We had steamed baby carrots that were still dripping water, fried potato cubes, rice, dal, vegetable curry, and a variety of some kinds of salads that were left over from lunch. I ate rice, a few of the carrots, and some cole slaw. The cole slaw here is very good. Fortunately for me, dessert was not appealing today. Over the past few days, they have served these brownie-type chocolate things that I cannot resist, and I have eaten one each time they are offered. Tonight, though, I was safe – some kind of fried pie sprinkled with powdered sugar.

At lunch, we had a choice of some kind of fish (not a chance) and Salisbury steaks that sat in some kind of broth for way too long. We could have broccoli, but it was frozen and cooked to smooshiness. If none of that appealed, we could have the sweet little guy at the sandwich bar put together a sandwich for us – on wheat, white, or tortilla – with tuna salad, egg salad, ham or turkey, with traditional accoutrements – tomato, lettuce, cucumbers, cheese, chopped onion, and, I think, bacon bits – real ones. He even has a couple of Panini presses so that we can have a hot sandwich if we so choose. But the best part of lunch was that they had put out a tub of Jello with fruit cocktail! I loved it! I haven’t had Jello for a really long time; I will tell you that my perfect lunch was a ham sandwich, cole slaw (the same slaw that I ate later for dinner), and a big bowl of Jello! So much for a sophisticated palate!

Breakfast in the DFAC is pretty standard except for one item – every day, one of the breakfast choices is baked beans. I can’t figure that one out, except that maybe it’s just some cultural thing that I don’t know and have not heard about. And people eat them! I don’t know about you, but my taste buds in the morning do not crave baked beans. We often have French toast or pancakes, and the cooks will fix eggs to order. I ordered scrambled eggs for a couple of days, but I noticed that the color of the egg yolks is different – more orangey than yellow. They almost look neon! I wonder if it is the way the chicken is fed? Regardless, I feel weird eating orange eggs, so I have limited my breakfast to a piece or two of toast with peanut butter and honey and then a cup of hot tea. It tastes good every day – and no one cooks it before I get it!

Although I am complaining, I do want to acknowledge the people who prepare the food and serve it up. They are, without fail, polite and nice, and they try to please – even the guy who takes my dirty plate and tray after I have scraped both into the trash can. When someone orders something special, they take the order, prepare the food, and then bring it to the person in the dining room. They are always ready with a smile, even early in the morning, and they are willing to help if anything goes wrong. Those people make mealtime very pleasant, in spite of the food.

The men who do the laundry are the same way. I think they do up to 30 loads of laundry every day, but they are polite and eager to please, and they get the laundry done the day I deliver it to them. AND they fold the clothes very nicely. I have only one little niggle in the back of my mind: I am one of probably five to six women in camp. I wonder, since their religion keeps males and females totally separate, what goes through their minds when they are washing and folding my underwear? I’m not going to ask.

Well, I have bored you enough for today. Tomorrow is approaching quickly, and I think I would like to read before I go to sleep. Tomorrow I will tell you more about what is happening in my little acre of this huge country, where I know little of what goes on outside the walls that let nothing in, other than what I can glean from either the BBC or NBC news on television and the NY Times and the Washington Post on line. Thank goodness for the internet. Enjoy your weekend.

A Day Off?

Tonight, the spandex soldiers cooked pizza for the entire camp again, and so I have no time to write about my day - except to tell you that because of my big mouth, I will be working tomorrow, editing others' writing trying to tell the story of the work the people here are doing. It shouldn't take too terribly long, but I want to get started so that I can make sure I get it done.

I left the party early to get a jump on the project, but I heard a knock on my door, and Julie was there with a piece of Nutella pizza. She thought I should have a piece of it, and she was right. I will be attempting to make one of those when I get home. I seem to recall having a big jar of Nutella in the pantry.

By this time in the week, I am really tired. Working six days per week is very stressful, and I will be glad to get a few hours of extra sleep tomorrow morning. This getting up at 6:30 is for the birds.

We are still on lockdown, although we have not experienced any incidents. I am hoping that this ends sometime soon because we missed a graduation today. I had looked forward to being there, but we will, I hope, be able to get to the next one.

In the meantime, thank you for thinking about me and for reading what I have to say, and sending me your words of encouragement. I hope that your tomorrow is good and that your weekend brings you rest and a fresh look at the days ahead.

Today is Wednesday

For what seems to be the eighth day in a row, we are locked down because of other people’s deciding that their right to free speech is more important than anything else. I wish people would understand that free speech is not always without consequence. We have had no trouble in our camp, but it is better to be safe than sorry, so I sat last night and watched Invictus, with Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman, which is the story of South Africa’s winning the Rugby World Cup after Nelson Mandela had been elected president. He believed that the entire country, black and white alike, would unite behind a winning team – and the end of the movie showed that Mandela was right.

I have to admit that while I am not really afraid, I have become acutely aware that the idea of safety is precious, and something that we in the Midwest generally take for granted. Even when the Twin Towers fell, we in the rural Midwest were somewhat removed, as our generally homogenous surroundings gave, and continue to give, us the feeling of safety. Here, a Kevlar vest has the same effect. And both are illusory.

I have had some good days at work, writing and editing reports and meeting with all the staff to plan our next project. We have two classes going right now, one of which ends tomorrow. Assuming we will not be locked down tomorrow, we will go to graduation. I am really looking forward to that. Hasat has been teaching, and I like to see him with his students. He is a very earnest teacher. Speaking of Hasat, he questioned me as to why I didn’t use his real name. I told him that writers often use false names so that their characters’ identities will be kept secret. He told me that he had told his friends that I was going to write about him, and he wanted them to know who he was!

Life is settling in here, and I looked at the calendar today to find that I have been gone from Sedalia for one month today. One month down, eleven to go. Betsy Wiley has sent me messages reminding me of how lucky I am to have technology at my disposal. A message is transmitted from her to me in fractions of a second. I can talk via Skype and hear Max’s voice instantly. Emily and I text a conversation several times a day. Cindy and I do yoga together via her recording on Facebook. Without these modern-day technological miracles upon which we have come to not only rely, but also to take for granted, I think I would be home by now. I like what I am doing, and I hope that I have a chance to make a difference, but being in a completely foreign environment takes a lot of stamina and determination. I cannot imagine what it would be like to emigrate to a foreign country with no means of support – either emotional or physical.

I met today with Rob, who used to have my job and now has a different job. He has been in Afghanistan for four years, and looks to be working here for maybe two more. He seems like a good sort, and I am inclined to like him because Esman does. In fact, when we found out he was coming to see us, Esman got busy and cleaned the office. My desk is pretty clean – of course it is because I haven’t been here for very long – but Esman’s desk has stuff all over it, and the stuff on the desk is dusty because dust is everywhere. By the time I got back from lunch, Esman’s desk was spic and span, and I think he even cleaned the bathroom.

I told him there is nothing better than seeing a man with cleaning implements in his hands – unless it is seeing a man working in the kitchen. I then told him that Max and I clean the house together and cook together, and that Max does the laundry and ironing. He looked at me in surprise and told me that I probably wouldn’t find any men in Afghanistan who would do those things. I told him that not many men in America would, either. I just happened to find the right one.

He confided in me that he does some cleaning at his house because he likes it to be tidy, and that he washes his car. When his wife asks to help, he tells her not to, because he wants it done right; I responded by telling him that is how she gets out of doing it – just like most men get out of whatever household chores they don’t want to do. They first volunteer to do it, then do it incorrectly, and then know that they will never have to do it again. He thought that was hilarious.

While we were waiting for Rob, Esman told me about being Rob’s interpreter a few years ago on a trip to a place that I will never go because it is in the middle of nowhere. And they got there via helicopter. Simply being here is testing my bravery – and I don’t need a further test that would require flying around all these mountains in a helicopter, thank you. If I ever change my mind, I will let you know, but if I were you, I wouldn’t count on it.

Well, I will finish for tonight. Before I sign off, though, I want to give a plug to my friend Mark Morris, who has co-authored a six-part story in the Kansas City Star – Killer Love. This is a soap opera that you won’t want to miss. All the segments through number four are on line at www.kansascity.com, and I can hardly wait to read number five tomorrow. I get them before you because they are posted a little after I get to work, so when I take a hot tea break mid-morning, I get my fix. I was hooked after the first two paragraphs!

I ask that if you are the praying kind, please say prayers for common sense to rule and tempers to cool here in this part of the world. Also pray for understanding for us all so that we can find a bridge for the chasm that divides us, and pray for the safety of those who choose not to participate in the rampant, reckless, and destructive violence that seems so attractive to others. And I will sleep well again tonight, remembering that the Lord is my shepherd . . .

Gone With The Wind

My hair was blown about again today, but I figured, what difference does it make? It is so long and bushy that no matter what I do to it, it looks long and bushy and blown, and the guys I work with don’t care what I look like. As far as they can tell, I am older than their mothers, and who cares what women who are older than Mother look like? So I will stop worrying about my hair other than whether it is clean.

That is just one of the niceties of our lives that I am giving up – a regular visit to a hair stylist. Others are my cup of French Vanilla Café in the morning, a comfy chair in which to sit as I read or watch television, ANY chair in which to read or watch television, Top Chef, Kathie Lee and Hoda (my secret and shameful vice), the smell of the clothes when they come out of the dryer – or after Max has folded them – a magnifying make-up mirror, a mattress that is more than four inches thick, a bathtub, people to talk to during the day, and so much more. I won’t even mention pork tenderloin, salmon on a cedar plank on the grill, a bottle of Paraduxx (to Susan and Gary, who were kind enough to share), a bottle of much less exquisite Menage a Trois or Apothic Red, and on and on.

But my life is somewhat different now. I miss those things, and I miss my family and friends, but I have met some people who have touched my heart, though I didn’t really expect to meet anyone who would touch my heart. I knew I would make friends and acquaintances, I would have a shared experience with a group of people, some of whom I might stay in touch with, but I wasn’t expecting to meet young people whose lives will turn on what happens both now and in 2014, when the Americans and allied troops will be gone from this country.

I confess that I am worried about what their lives will be like. Today, I talked with Esman about his family. At 29, he is the oldest boy of ten children (he has an older sister, and he seems wiser than his age), and his youngest sibling is five years old. His mother is 48. He and his wife and son live with his mother and father and the remaining children, and I think I figured that to be 13 people. Hasat and his wife and baby live with his mother as well; his father died when he was young. He wasn’t in the office today, and I can’t really remember, but I think they may also share that home with some grandparents. This is all custom here, and even if these men wanted to have a home of their own with their own wives and children, they would be looked upon badly if they left their parents’ houses.

I, of course, kept thinking about how Max’s mother and I would have gotten along had we lived in the same household. I particularly remembered one day – maybe someone’s birthday, maybe the Fourth of July – when she asked me to tend the corn on the cob that she wanted to cook. Well, corn on the cob goes into boiling water and stays there about long enough to take two or three big breaths, and then it’s done. So I looked, and the corn was in the cold water on the stove, and the burner was on. I took out the corn and waited for the water to come to a boil. I went over to talk to Vida or something, and then I went back to check on the water. Barbara had put the corn back in the pot. I took it out. I watched her put it back. After one more trip around the merry-go-round, I decided if she wanted to serve corn that was tough as a boot, okay. It wasn’t mine, and I didn’t have to eat any of it.

It was much better that Max and I should have our own home.

In the office, we also talked about how each of these young men has only one wife and each wants to keep it that way. I assured them that their wives have the same desire. While each of them has one or two distant relatives with more than one wife, most of their relatives and the other people they know do not have more than one wife, nor do they plan to. I wondered how long it would take before their society and culture would look at marriage as more monogamous, and they both thought it would come in another generation or so.

I am also curious about how arranged marriages work. I know that Esman knew his wife prior to their marriage. He had met her at some family function, because she is a very distant relative to his father. In fact, Esman advised his parents that he was interested in his now-wife, and told them they should start the marriage process. I haven’t found out about Hasat’s marriage yet, but I think you know you can count on me to have the story sometime soon.

We also, for some reason, and I can’t remember what, talked again about religion, and I was again surprised that Muslims know one of our Old Testament stories - the story of Abraham and the sacrifice God called him to make.

For those of you who don’t remember the story, Abraham and Sara had waited for a son for years, but she could not have a child. Sara told Abraham to take another wife, and so he married Hagar, and she had a son named Ismael (this is where Islam is born). Later, Sara became pregnant at some advanced age, and had a son, Isaac. Then Sara told Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away, which he did. After Isaac was older, God told Abraham that he wanted Abraham to make a sacrifice to God. God told Abraham not to worry about the sacrificial lamb, that God would provide the lamb, but to take his son Isaac with him to the altar for the sacrifice. After Abraham had arrived at the designated place and built an altar, God surprised him and told him that Isaac was the sacrifice. Abraham, a dutiful servant, prepared to kill his child, and as he was about to do so, God stopped him and told him that it was a test, that he really shouldn’t kill Isaac, that God would provide the sacrifice, which was a ram caught in a bush, and that God loved Abraham for his faith.

I always hated that story because it is so horrible – that God would put Abraham through such heartache as a test. That always seemed mean to me. I just figured that this was something I never would understand, and so I just stopped trying.

Well, Muslims have the same story, except that Abraham is to murder Ishmael instead, and Abraham knows about what is required from him prior to his going to the place for the altar. He dreams about it, and dismisses the dream, and then dreams about it again, and finally God comes to him and tells him that , yes, he is to sacrifice his son Ishmael. The story has the same ending – God stops Abraham from murdering his child, provides a ram for sacrifice, and praises Abraham for his faith. I wonder how many more stories our religions share?

We also talked about the pilgrimage and the celebration following that, but I want to talk with Esman again to make sure that I have it right. I will let you know about that after we have another conversation.

I began talking about this to tell you about how much I like these young men and how their lives have opened my eyes to something that is different from what I am used to, but I am something different from what they are used to, and we get along well. Whatever I take from this experience, I can tell you that they will be a very good part of it. I know what I will return home to, but I wonder what their world will be like after I, and others like me, are gone. I can only hope.

Free Speech

Today, I know why I am here.

I was excited to be able to observe another of our national employees as he taught a class on the penal code. This is the same class that I have observed and “taught” twice now. They seem to be a congenial group – except for the chatterers that I told you about the last time I stood up in front of them. Our teacher is very natural. He knows his stuff and explains it easily, and he connects with his students. Of course, I know this not because I can understand anything he says: I see how he says it and how the students respond to him and to the information. I can tell by his voice inflection when he asks a question, and the students all chime in together to answer the question. It is a gratifying scene for one who constantly attempts to engage a mostly unwilling audience of about 12 people, 8 or 9 of whom do not want to be in that classroom!

Anyway, his subject today was the part of the penal code in Afghanistan that deals with what we in America call “attempt” and Afghans call “initiation.” In America, each crime has elements, all of which must be proved in order for a person to be convicted of that particular crime. In Afghanistan, each crime has three necessary elements, and as far as I can tell, there is little, if any, distinction between things such as first degree or second degree murder, or manslaughter. If a person kills another person, and the three elements are present, that person is guilty of murder, period, unless he is excused for a couple of possible reasons (Because I looked at that section of the penal code a few days ago and can’t remember details, I won’t elucidate further; if, however, you would like to know more, I will re-educate myself and let you know). One of the big "initiation" crimes in Afghanistan is initiation of adultery - putting oneself in a position of committing adultery but for some reason not going through with it.

So after the teacher finished, he asked if I would like to say a few words, and do you know any lawyer who DOESN’T want to say a few words?

I told the class about our criminal code that requires all elements of each crime to be proved, blah, blah, blah, and then told them about the different terms: “attempt” and “initiation.” As an illustration, I picked an unfortunate topic. For those of you who have read The Ransom of Red Chief, by O. Henry, you will know what I am talking about when I told the class that a funny story in the United States illustrated an attempted kidnapping. I then told them the basis of the story, which, for you who have not read it, and if you have not, you should, is that the kidnapped kid is so horrible that the kidnapers pay the child’s parents to take him back.

The humor of that situation was completely lost on my students, who told me that if the kidnapped child is that bad, in Afghanistan, the kidnapers just do things such as cut off the child’s fingers. I realized quickly that I had gone down the wrong path.

So I closed and, as usual, asked for questions.

The two men who sit to my right are older – one is 61, and the other is probably my age. One of them asked whether in America we had prejudice in our crimes, as my interpreter put it, between white and black people. I explained that though we believe in justice for all, studies show that the American prison population is overwhelmingly black and poor – but our jobs, theirs as police and mine as judge, are to make sure that the system works the same for everyone. Then he asked whether it was a crime for some groups to insult other groups.

I knew exactly where we were headed, and I prayed quickly for wisdom, the right words, and an interpreter who would repeat only what I said and nothing more. I then talked about hate crimes, and gave them the examples of Matthew Shepard’s murder in Wyoming which happened because he was gay, and the dragging death of Mr. Byrd in Texas because he was black. The interpreter, before telling the class what I had said, asked if those cases had actually happened. He was stunned by both examples. Then, the interpreter, who is the young man who is dying to get married, went on: “Perhaps in Missouri, there are lots of different people in different tribes, like lots of people with different religions, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, like that, and one tribe insults the other tribe. Is that a crime?”

I said that insulting someone was not a crime. I, waiting for what was coming, explained that if someone said something to me that made me afraid, that could be considered a crime of assault, but if I were not afraid, it would just be an insult. I explained that I get insulted quite a lot, but that I just have to ignore it and go on.

The older student pushed it. Is that because of the right to free speech? I explained that free speech does not mean free from consequences. I told them that the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, many years ago, said that we do have free speech, but we do not have the right to yell “Fire!” in a crowded theater because it was likely that someone would be hurt in what follows. I explained that our free speech is censored by the government in things such as what we watch on television, or in movies, where we have a ratings system. But generally, people will say what they think, and that sometimes that is bad, and sometimes that is good, and that they have a right to do so.

At this point, one of the younger men said something a little impatiently, and my interpreter looked at me and said that the “bottom line” was what had happened with the film. I got the idea that maybe my interpreter wasn’t telling me exactly what was being said because he didn’t want to deal with the political issue (as an aside, he told me later that all the Afghans want to talk about political issues, and I told him that I had talked to this group twice before and we didn’t talk at all about politics).

I nodded and told them that I thought the film was a bad idea, but that it did not represent me or my government. I told them that our government stands for the idea that all people can practice the religion they choose without fear, and that no one can force another person to practice any religion. I told them that bad people exist everywhere, and that religion is not a dividing factor. For instance, I told them, a couple of years ago, a man claiming to be a Christian walked into a church and shot a doctor in the head. That was wrong. The interpreter was stunned by that example as well as by the others, and he told the group. I don’t think they had heard that story.

The next question was whether the man, or the group, who made the film would be punished. I then explained that right now, the man who was supposed to be the director of the film either had been questioned or was being questioned, and there exists a possibility that he might have violated his probation by posting the video. If that is the case, he will be punished. If he were to be punished for the deaths of the people in Libya, we would have to be able to prove that his actions caused those deaths, and we would have to prove all the elements of that crime. I told them that I had read in the New York Times that it was possible that the people who killed the Ambassador, the other State Department employee, and the contractors were not connected to the protest about the film at all, but were instead people who had joined the crowd in order to carry out an attack.

I was looking at all of them to see how they were taking what I said. Most of them were somewhat inscrutable, but I got the idea that this was thin ice and I was treading on it. I tried one more thing. I told them that I was here because I believe that most people are good at heart, and that I am good at heart and a good person, and I am hoping that I can do something here that will help us come together. At that point they nodded, and one of them said that he knew I was a good person. I told them that I didn’t have anything else to say, but that I hoped my explanation would help them understand a little more about the difference in our cultures when it came to speech. And then I took a chance.

I thanked them for asking me to talk about it. I told them that maybe talking about it was the best thing. And then I said, “I need to know. Are we all right? Is everything okay?” And they all smiled and nodded and made noises as if they were assenting. My interpreter confirmed that we were all right.

I sat down because my knees were weak. And the older man, the one who started the whole thing, smiled at me.

Lazy Day, Lazy Writer

I went to bed early last night, and didn’t post anything for you to read, so right now, I am going to catch you up on some of the things that have been going on that I haven’t yet written about.

First, the spandex soldiers and their command threw a pizza party last Thursday. We actually have an outdoor oven and wood to burn in it, so they burned wood for about an hour and a half before they even made the first pizza. And then they didn’t make pizza. They made flatbread, and we had salami, spicy pepperoni, and sweet, thin-sliced ham to eat with it, along with a couple of kinds of cheeses – Pecorino Romano, and ricotta salata. I had never heard of ricotta salata until last year, when Giada DeLaurentiis talked about it on one of her shows. I tried after that to find it, but could not, even in Kansas City at the Italian Market in the City Market area. Who knew I would have to come to Afghanistan to try out a different Italian cheese? Our camp is close to the Italian base, and so these kinds of foodstuffs can be found there – if one looks hard enough. With the Romano, we had fig jam that had been made by the commander’s mother.

Then they started the pizzas. They first made a Margherita pizza – or what they called Margherita. In America, when I think I am getting a Margherita pizza, I am ready to taste olive oil, thin-sliced Roma tomatoes, and homemade mozzarella with torn basil leaves on some flatbread. They served a cheese pizza – tomato sauce, arguably much better than Pizza Hut’s, with little dabs of mozzarella sprinkled all over. It was yummy. After that came the loaded pizzas with mushrooms and sausage and the remaining pepperoni, and some other kinds of pizzas that I didn’t stay around to try. By that time, I was stuffed. It was a very nice evening; the wind, which had been blustery all day, had calmed down, and the air was warm, and it felt just like a Friday night at home in mid-September, the kind of night where a long-sleeved t-shirt is just right – except that I wasn’t at home, and it was Thursday night.

The next pleasant incident occurred a couple of days ago, when a young man stopped me to ask who I am. I told him, and it turns out that he is from Sedalia. Missouri. He had been with the Sheriff’s department and came here a few years ago. Kevin also told me that another Sedalian, another former deputy, is also here in Afghanistan, although right now, I can’t remember in which province. Kevin is on guard duty. I saw him again at dinner, and he was sitting next to a man from Jefferson City, and another from Festus. It felt good to see a home-town boy and more Missouians!

The wind here has been overwhelming at times. I wonder why I bother to style my hair, or use hairspray. The wind takes over as a brush every time I walk outside my door. Last evening, when I walked to the gym, I felt as if my hair was standing on end, and the reason was – it was standing on end, thanks to sustained gusts of wind. I hear, though, that the wind is better than the winter. I am not looking forward to finding out which is better – or worse.

As far as I can tell, the morale of our local national employees has not been affected by the violence that has taken place across the Middle East. Fortunately, nothing untoward has happened in this area, for which I am grateful, but I heard today that a demonstration was expected in Kabul. And my class wanted to know whether insulting a group is a crime in the United States. But more about that later.

For now, things are hunky-dory in Afghanistan, and I hope that tensions ease quickly.

TGIF

I was lazy last night and didn’t write a blog post. Actually, nothing much happened yesterday, and I decided to write something else.

Real Simple has a life lessons contest each year, requiring a themed essay. Each year, I promise myself that I am going to enter that contest, and each year, I let myself down and don’t do it. So this year, working some during each night over the last week, I wrote a 1500-word essay on the decision I have made that I most regret. I worked and worked and was not happy with anything that came out of my fingers. Furthermore, the words were hard to find. When I write to you, the words just rush out, finding their ways to the screen; what happened last night was nothing like that. I searched for words, tried them this way and that, but they just didn’t come out right. Now I know how some of my students feel when they complain about assignments.

Specifically, I understand what the feel like when I pick their topics for them, because it finally occurred to me that one of the reasons I couldn’t get the words to come out right is because I don’t truly regret any of my decisions and therefore could not become impassioned about what I was writing. I sometimes wish I might have done something a little differently, but as far as regrets, I feel pretty fortunate that my life has turned out the way it has so far. As I have grown older, I can look back to see that, given enough time, what has happened in my life has been for the best, one way or another. That makes me feel very blessed. And the things that I wish I had done differently are things that I continue to try to work on to make right.

So even while I sit here, in a country far from home with bathrooms that are just not right, I think that I am here for a reason, although right now, today, I have no idea what that reason is. Maybe later I will figure it out.

Oh, and though I wasn’t happy with the way the essay turned out, I sent it in anyway, and while I was at it, I told the editors about my blog and invited them to read it. I wonder if they will?

It’s Friday, and my day off, so I cleaned my little room, did my time and a little extra on the treadmill, lifted a few weights because I had the gym to myself, and just pretty much did very little after that. I did listen to the news all day, and I want to tell you that I am safe and sound in the compound. I think I heard that the embassy in Kabul had some demonstrators, but nothing is happening in Herat. And we are not to travel except for necessities for a day or so – but who wants to go anywhere now? Certainly not I!

Tomorrow, my cute little colleague is going to bring me a SIM card for my two-card phone so that I can take and make personal phone calls. This is great news for me, because though Skype works fine most of the time, many times I am on my lunch hour or finished with work, and Max and Emily and my mother aren’t home. It will be nice to be able to call them on their cell phones to touch base. Also, I won’t have to rely on the internet connection all the time. It can be quite spotty.

Because of that spotty service, I was reminded today about how lucky we are to live in the United States. I am grateful to have been born there, and to have been offered the opportunities that I now have. I am glad we have telephone service (even though AT&T and I often are at odds and I think they often times participate in highway robbery!), our internet service (ditto Charter), our public utilities, our opportunity for a free public education (which could be better, but at least it is available, though teachers are grossly underpaid), our roadways and infrastructure (which need updating and repairs, but still offer us the opportunity to get from one place to the other), our public transportation (we need more), our fire protection and police protection (who need to be paid more), the services we have available to care for the elderly and incapacitated among us (“the least of those”), and the armed forces who keep us safe in these times of turmoil (who also don’t make enough money for their time and trouble). Oh, and our bathrooms.

9/12

Today is my 59th birthday. I don’t feel one day older, much less one year older, but older I am. And I never thought I would be spending ANY birthday in a place called Afghanistan, but here I am. I suppose the lesson is that we should try not to expect anything. Things have a way of working out unexpectedly.

For instance, today, I thought I would be sitting at my desk, editing and re-writing reports, but instead, my team leader asked at breakfast whether I wanted to go to a Prosecutor’s Association meeting instead. Well, let’s see. I could sit at a desk, or I could put on my body armor and ride in an armored truck to see the wandering goats and sheep, the motorcycles and the covered motorcycles (called “toc tocs,” I have discovered), the pedestrians who occasionally wander through traffic as though there are walkways and traffic cops to guide them, the dirty watermelons and potatoes – well, you get the idea. I chose what would probably be a boring meeting – equal to a seminar about the commercial code (the UCC, for those in the know, and if you are not in the know, trust me, you don’t care) – over life at a desk. And boy, was it worth it in more ways than one!

We climbed into the truck, this time driven by an older man, and Huge, rather than Ferocious, was the security guy. We followed a different route to the hall, and saw more of the open air strip shopping centers, more people wading through traffic, and more dirty watermelons, but no parades of goats or sheep. The driver was not quite sure of himself sometimes, because rather than just bluster his way down the thoroughfare, he actually paid attention to the people he might hit if he were not careful.

We arrived at the meeting, which was held at the same hall I had visited last week, or the week before. The days are running together now. This was the beautiful hall with a curved glass wall, marble floors, and open windows instead of air conditioning. Unbeknownst to me, we had previously been in only a small room in the building; the room we visited today was huge and had red theater seating, and all the seats were full. We still had no air conditioning, but the very tall windows were open, the overhead fans whirred loudly, producing a nice breeze, and the wind started blowing more steadily; really, except for my hot flashes, the temperature was pretty comfortable.

Not surprisingly, most of the people in the room were men, and most of them were in western dress: suit and tie. A couple of hold-outs wore the traditional male Afghan dress, and a couple of reprobates showed up in jeans and t-shirts. The provincial governor attended, and he, too, was dressed in western style, in a very nice gray suit and dark tie. He looked very gubernatorial, and with his silver hair and glasses, could have come from any of our United States.

The women, few though they were, wore traditional dress, although most wore black gowns over skinny jeans and very sophisticated, simply embroidered head coverings. A few wore the head coverings that look more like burkhas, those that actually reach the floor. Their faces are visible, though. Unfortunately, in the style department, those wraps fail a very important test: Does this (dress, pair of pants, skirt, full body wrap) make me look fat? When these young ladies, and they were all young, draped themselves with the coverings, they also covered their huge, full, cross-body bags, which made each and every one of them look as if she had some sort of weird growth on the side of her body.

The women who were at the podium, however, and there were three of them, were dressed much more nattily. One had on a subtle gold and tan print suit with a long skirt, heels, and matching head cover; another wore basic black and wore an animal print head cover; and Maria Bashir, the head prosecutor, one of Time’s most powerful women of 2011, wore a beautiful black long jacket with accents of different colors, making her look both traditional and yet progressive, stylish, and smart. Okay, enough of the fashion show.

Though we are in country that has many connections to the 13th century, the room today was filled with gadgets from the 21st century, including a computer and power point screen that were never used, media out the wazoo, and microphones everywhere. In a nod to combining centuries, all the guests in the room, including me, were served room-temperature bottled water by manservants carrying trays. None of this “Go grab your own water out of the ice chest and be quick about it!” that we see at our lawyer meetings!

The meeting was to start at 9:00 a.m., but (and apologies to Jim and his family), the governor was on Buckley time and didn’t show up until about 9:40.

Then the real show began, and I didn’t understand a word of it. I don’t think that made any difference, though, because I loved the ceremony of it all. Additionally, one of the nationals who works in our office, a woman, was there, and, feeling sorry for me, dragged a young man over to me and told him to interpret for me. He didn’t know what to do, and to his credit, he struck up a quiet conversation and tried to clue me in on what was happening.

First, a mullah gave the invocation, which he actually sang. It sounded similar to a Jewish prayer sung by a cantor. Then someone from Mrs. Bashir’s office spoke and welcomed my colleague and me in very good English. Then the governor spoke and left. Then someone from the Attorney General’s office spoke. Then someone else spoke. And finally, a rustle in the audience indicated that Mrs. Bashir was ready to speak. I have no idea what she said, but everyone in the room was listening to her, so it must have been good. After that, we broke for tea.

I have never been a coffee drinker, and so when I attend most functions that have a morning break, I look around for hot water and a tea bag, or I take out my tin of French Vanilla Café to puzzled looks – and then there’s the messy part about getting rid of the tea bag and the sugar paper, and the stir stick. But today, I was in the majority. In fact, I don’t think coffee was even available. I had hot tea that had already been steeped, and THEN I had the most wonderful shortbread cookies. I ate two of them, and had to convince myself that a third would be either rude or ridiculous. The men sitting around the table, however, gestured and encouraged me to take as many as I wanted. Sometimes, language is no barrier at all.

After the break, I went up to Huge, who was standing by the wall with his AK-47, and asked if he knew where I could find the ladies’ room. He said he would take me, and we walked to the end of the hall, where there were two doors. He gestured, and I walked toward the door on the right, although neither indicated a gender. He said, “I don’t know if there’s a toilet. Maybe there is.” I wasn’t sure I had heard him right, and so I walked in, closed the door, and headed for a stall. I heard men talking, and I looked up and saw that the dividing wall ended about five feet over my head, and that both rooms were contained in the same space. I was beginning to feel uncomfortable with the situation, but at least I had chosen the correct door.

I am not going to go into excruciating detail here, but I looked in the stall and quickly left that stall and went to the other one; they were the same. In each stall was a hole in the beautiful marble floor. Above it was a tank and a chain flush mechanism. It was obvious that when this hall was built, obviously not in any century close to this one (!), no one expected a woman to ever go there. I stared and thought quickly. I was wearing trousers. I left and told Huge, “I am going to wait until all these people are seated, and then I am going to have to come back.” And I did just that. When I left the room, my clothes were fine. Huge said to me, “You’ve never been to Europe, have you?” I’m thinking I may not ever go.

Again, I will not go into picturesque detail here, but those of you who know me know that camping is simply out for a variety of reasons. This bathroom situation is one of the reasons. Some brilliant person invented toilets for a reason, and because they have been around for a long time, I think they should be everywhere, including in the bathrooms in 21st-century Afghanistan.

I will brag on Huge, though, who stood by the door, looking as if, I’m sure, he was daring anyone to come close.

After the meeting was over, after Huge held my scarf and my purse and my camera while I put my body armor back on, we hopped back in the truck to head back to our compound. This time, we passed a famous landmark: the Big Blue Mosque. That is its name. In fact, when I was trying to put together a list of resources and their addresses, I found out that in Herat, places do not have addresses. So when I asked where Legal Aid would pick up a package, my national colleagues told me to write, “By the Big Blue Mosque.” I thought they were kidding, but they were not.

Eventually, we arrived at the compound, after seeing not goats and sheep, but cows and horses, instead, being led through traffic by their owners. The desk was waiting for me, and I had chores to do. But I reveled in my experiences, and thought that they couldn’t have come on a better day than my 59th birthday, when I first was able to, and then HAD to, try something new.

Thanks to the people at the meeting who were kind and generous and accepting, and thanks to Huge for going with us, and for keeping us safe, and for standing by the door as Ferocious (and Max) had to do. I got a photo of Mrs. Bashir that I will share if I can figure out how, and I also have a photo of me in my gear. I look quite fetching, though lumpy.

Some comments on today’s happenings: I am safe, though many in the Middle East are not; as much as I castigated the men who convinced a young teen to take his own life in an attempt to kill others, I have the same disdainful feelings for one in our country who would make an incendiary film for his own purposes regardless of the danger to others, and for those who would react to the film in such an outrageous and vengeful manner. Today, I experienced a totally different reaction from those who are different from me, who do not speak my language – literal or figurative, and who do not look upon me as an equal because of my gender. I experienced openness and warmth, and I wish that those were the prevalent reactions between our people. I wish we could find a way to peace.

9/11

I began the day remembering where I was 11 years ago, when the planes hit the Twin Towers. And things went uphill from there. September 11, 2012, was a beautiful day in Afghanistan, where the sun was shining and the air was brisk but not chilly, freakishly like September 11, 2001, in Sedalia, Missouri. I ate breakfast and then went to work, where I enjoyed a productive day of doing whatever I could to be useful. My office mates were, as ever, cheerful and in good humor, and we chatted about what the day would hold for each of us. Esman’s wife and little son are visiting her parents, and he is alone. I told him that I didn’t feel bad for him because Max would be alone for much longer than he would!

One of my tasks was to write on certificates of completion the names of the people who had attended a seminar on gender justice that the company had sponsored. I loved trying to say the names of the people – I wrote their names in English, and then another of our staff, one of the teachers, wrote their names in Dari. I didn’t get to see the finished certificates before they made their way to the graduation ceremony.

I would have liked to have seen the faces of the people who want to effect the idea of gender equality in a country where that concept either doesn’t exist, or is very well hidden. And yet, when I remember speaking to the 18 men I spoke to yesterday, I have to give them credit. Though I’m sure they are not used to seeing a woman in the front of the room, giving a lecture, they (most of them, anyway) gave me their undivided attention, and they looked at me, not over me or through me, when I was speaking to them.

I need to listen to my own lecture to them – change takes a long time, and it happens one person at a time.

I am trying to effect a little change of my own here, but not having much luck. One staff member who is 24 and, just like the others, is really cute, is anxious to get married. At lunch, we were all teasing him because he wants to find the right girl and get married as soon as he can. I was trying to tell him to take his time, and he said if he did that, there would be no girls to marry! We, the three Americans, were trying to give him advice about finding a girl to marry. I told him that women wanted to marry men and not boys, so he can take his time to mature, develop a plan for life, and decide what he wants. “In other words,” Ron said to him, “you need to get some money!”

I said that women like to have an idea that they will have a secure future. “In other words,” Ron said, “Get some money!”

No matter what advice I had, Ron reduced it to getting money, and finally, I acceded and said that an IRA is a good thing for a man to have when he is getting ready to ask for the hand of a woman in marriage. He didn’t know what an IRA is. You can guess what Ron said. “Money!”

The young man said he wants to be a millionaire, and then asked if we had any idea of how he could get there. Of course we all told him that if we knew that, we would have done it already.

During this conversation, we found out that Afghan weddings are really big deals. Esman was saying that everyone in the bride’s family invites all his or her friends regardless of whether the friends know the bride and groom. And the groom has to pay for everything, including, he said, LOTS of jewelry for his betrothed, as well as gifts for all who will attend the wedding. He said that a normal wedding would have hundreds of guests, who might come from far away to attend. I am hoping that he and I can continue this conversation because I really enjoy hearing about the differences in our lives and customs. Someday I want to know them ALL!

All in all, disregarding the day's history, this has been a good day. I don’t know when, if ever, I will feel normal about being here and trying to do work here, but at least today I didn’t feel like a fish out of water. And tonight, some of the boys around here put together a cookout in honor of 9/11. We had steaks and baked potatoes and taquitos, and salad (but why bother with that?), and best of all, a really good cake with icing. I had been to the gym, and so I thought, “Why not?” and sat and ate a steak that I cut with a plastic knife.

So in the stillness of a quietly lit evening, on the day of infamy for my generation, many of us sat and did what Americans do on lovely evenings at the end of summer: we sat outside, eating supper together, and talking about nothing. Regardless of what happened those 11 years ago, regardless that it will be impossible to forget that day, regardless of what those people thought they were taking from us that day, we recover and are still strong enough to be here to try to help the country that harbored those people to establish a rule of law – so that the citizens of this country who want to reject that kind of tyranny will have a method to do so. I am glad to be a part of something positive that came from such a heartbreaking day.

And tomorrow is the 12th.

9/10

It was nice to try to go to bed early last night. It seems that no matter how hard I try, by the time I am through writing about my day and talking with Max and Mother and Emily (all at different times!), it is after 11. 6:30 a.m. comes quickly after that! And I am STILL making it to work on time. And Nicci, I am eating breakfast every day.

Yesterday and today, I got to talk to my two cute little office mates, both progressive, smart young men with young families. I think both of them are close to Emily’s age – maybe one, I will call him Esman, is a couple of years older. Because yesterday was Sunday and because I was going to get to “go to church” via Skype that night, we talked about our respective religions. I had no idea that I knew so little about Islam, but I know very little about Islam. As Esman explained to me, the Koran talks about Jesus, and in order to be a Muslim, a person must believe in Jesus, not as the son of God, but as a prophet. They told me that God can’t have any relatives because He is God alone. And by the way, these men's English is very good, so I didn't misunderstand their conversation!

In keeping with my ideas about how Muslims view women, Esman told me that the Koran also tells of Mary’s virgin birth, and that because Mary was ridiculed and ostracized during her pregnancy, because no one believed that she was still a virgin, Jesus spoke when he was a baby to tell all around him that his mother was still pure. Esman told me that his mullah said that it isn’t really important to believe that the Baby Jesus talked, but that the Baby Jesus carried the truth of God’s power. Contrary to our Christian belief, Muslims believe that Mary kept her purity all her life, and that she never married.

They also believe that Jesus was not killed, but was taken to heaven by God and that someone else was killed instead. They also believe that that Jesus is coming back to earth someday. And that will be, as they called it, “Doomsday,” when we will have to answer for our iniquities.

Esman and Hasat were also telling me about the Muslim calendar, which is in the year 1390, I think, and their calendar is measured beginning when Mohammed, their prophet, left Mecca for Medina. Get this: He left with his friends under cover of darkness, on camels, heading out to save his life after being told about a threat. Doesn’t that sound familiar?

We also talked about sins. According to the Koran, these two young men told me, we commit two types of sins: those against God, which we have to take care of with God; and those against our fellow humans, which we are obligated to take care of with those against whom we have sinned. If we do not go to a person we have wronged and ask forgiveness, God will not forgive us, either.

We talked of angels, Abraham, Moses, our instructions about how to live life, and about why religions believe that they are the only true religion. Esman told me of his talking to an educated mullah – some are not educated – about why each religion believes it is “the one.” The mullah began with the idea that things happened in order of time. For instance, the Bible came before the Koran, and so to believe in Christianity with the Bible as inspired by God made perfect sense; however, when Mohammed was born and the Koran written, it was time for the people to follow Mohammed’s teachings. Esman pressed him, though, and asked how anyone who had been born in the United States, who saw radical Islam in action, could ever believe that it was a good religion. Eventually, he and the mullah came to terms with the idea that we all believe in the same God, and, the mullah said, belief in God is essential.

We also tried to figure out what the “seven skies” are. Apparently, the Koran talks about seven skies, and no one really can say what that means. The same mullah was talking about the seven skies not as real skies, but as an embodiment of the vastness of the universe – that we as humans have been to the moon, but not even to the edge of our solar system, so maybe those “skies” refer to the infinity we cannot comprehend in the universe, and therefore God, that surrounds us.

Hasat was a not quite as progressive in his thoughts, but was still accepting of not only me as a Christian, but with the idea that we are human and in this world together, to make it a better place for all of us here, regardless of what happens in the afterlife – although our descriptions of an afterlife, a heaven, were pretty much the same.

Isn’t all that interesting? I am hoping that as our relationship grows, we will be able to discuss the role of women in their lives. Esman’s mother had ten children, and Hasat is an only child. I can hardly wait to talk about their mothers and their wives and their households. I already know that Esman’s baby is 2½, and Hasat’s baby is brand new, but I want to know more. They were teasing each other about Hasat’s going to Esman’s house to eat dinner, and I told them that if I had a house, I would invite both their families to dinner. I could promise good food, but I would not cook a goat. I’ve heard that goat is good, but I am NOT going to try it here, and I certainly am not going to try to cook it at home, even for such vaunted guests. They thought that was funny.

So today, I got to talk to my students again, this time about discrimination. The Afghan Constitution has an article that guarantees equality for all people. They were discussing how though the Constitution talks about equality, that doesn’t always hold true. I got to talk to them about Plessy v. Ferguson, which said that in the United States, things such as schools could be segregated by race as long as they were “separate but equal,” and then about Brown v. Board of Education, which, some years later, completely annihilated the “separate but equal” doctrine. I told them how, even after that decision, the President of the United States had to force the governor of Arkansas to allow black students to go to a formerly all-white school.

I talked about how in the United States, the Equal Rights Amendment would not be passed or ratified. And I talked about the Bakke case, which was being decided when I went to law school in 1978. That was the case that gave rise to the idea of reverse discrimination, when a white male was turned away from medical school in favor of a person who was qualified but a minority. And then I talked about my experience, six years later, when I was told by the Personnel department at Yellow Freight (it wasn’t even called HR then) that while it would be a good idea for Yellow Freight to have a woman lawyer SOMETIME, that time wasn’t then.

Very astutely, they questioned how the situations could be so different – a white man getting passed over in favor of a woman, and then a woman turned away in favor of a man. That was when I talked about how no one likes change, and that as a result, real and lasting change takes a long time, and that it is important that we do our jobs well, that we are the agents of change in our societies to try to make them better places. I also told them that it is difficult to strike a fair balance, but that we have to keep trying to find that balance so everything is as fair as possible for as many people as possible.

One man wanted to know whether I thought the US Constitution was better than theirs. I told him the truth – that they had many of the same provisions, but because when our Supreme Court makes decisions regarding the Constitution, those cases are written down, and we can read them and try to make sense of them. In Afghanistan, there is no case management system that provides for recording written decisions on questions of Constitutional law, so it is more difficult to understand what the law is. That is one of the things that my company is trying to help establish – a case management system that will record cases’ results and make sure that those convicted are released at the appropriate time – so no one gets lost in prison.

All in all, they were receptive and a good audience – except for three of them, who weren’t there last time, and who behaved like some of my students in class, and many of my defendants in court – whispering, snickering, and things such as that. I guess every crowd has some.

After work today, I went to the gym to do my two miles. I found a place to lie – on a bench, and not on the Filthy McNasty floor – so I could do some leg lifts, but I am still too embarrassed to lift weights among all these behemoths who are very muscular. I don’t want to give them anything to laugh about after I leave – or worse, while I’m still there!

Then I started planning my Thanksgiving trip home. We have to apply for leave and give trip plans 60 days in advance. That is NEXT WEEK! The good news is that I will not need to take any luggage home because I will be sending winter clothes back. I am going to be on a plane for a long time, and this time, I think I will go through Paris. I expect by the time I come home for good, I will have flown through all of Europe’s major airports. I haven’t been to the cities, but I will have been at their airports!

Tomorrow is Arlen Joy’s birthday, and although I know he probably doesn’t know about my blog, if any reader sees him, please tell him to have a good birthday. It’s also the infamous 9/11, and so I don’t think we will be doing much. I am and will be safe, but it won’t hurt if some of you decide to send up a prayer for not only me, but also for the other, really brave people here who want to be an instrument of good in their country, and those in uniform, and those in civilian clothing, who are here trying to help them achieve it.