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.