High quality hardwoods now

Recently, after 35 years in business, Helena Hardwoods acquired it's very own website, http://helenahardwoods-mt.com/.  Check it out and let me know what you think.

Spring/Early Summer 2012

Summer in Bishkek

(Click on the photo above for more pics.)


In June 2010 we landed in Bishkek for the first time amid a recent revolution and unrest in the south.  Coming from rural Afghanistan, Bishkek in June seemed like Paris—parks, trees, and cafes.  Two years later, Bishkek seems a little less like Paris-- a little grubbier around the edges and with a lot more shashlik and vodka.  Still, the parks are green, ping pong tables are up everywhere, fountains are spraying, and the Bishkekans love of fireworks light up the sky regularly.  Back in March we celebrated Nau Roz (spring equinox/new year) with our last ski trip of the season and since then the temps have been rising up to the 90s last week.  Zoe’s been keeping us on our toes with her first solids (endlessly entertaining), first family vacation (Cyprus), and first backpacking trip (she thought the mountains and rivers were okay but preferred the pot grips and whiskey).  She’s not crawling yet but loves help standing up and is constantly pulling herself up and going into plank position to avoid being sat down.  Chad is always reminding her that it’s a high chair and car seat not a high stand or car stand.  Chad has delved into the Bishkek sport scene and came out refereeing an American football game and taking 2^nd place in a local mountain bike race.  We’ve relocated the ultimate frisbee scene, still run by the Turkmans, and have been making frequent trips to our local foothill (Turtle Mountain) for bikes and runs.  MSRC, the Mountain Societies Research Center, which Chad has devoted himself to since we arrived, continues to grow and develop, http://msrc.ucentralasia.org/.  (I contributed by taking the photo for the homepage.)  I’m continuing to work on climate change adaptation and natural resource programming in rural communities with the Aga Khan Foundation.  The Ski Afghanistan book is now available for download, www.akdn.org/Content/1122, although the hard copies are still mainly only available in Kabul.  We’d like to think it’s an interesting book even if you never plan to ski Afghanistan so check it out if you have a chance.  On the home front, we’re still on the 7^th floor of our old Soviet era apartment building where views of the 15,000 ft peaks of the Ala Too range from our balcony are regularly awesome (and the floor regularly covered with baby paraphernalia).  

We’re very much looking forward to a trip to Montana and the east coast in August and hope to see you then.

MSO to KG

It’s been six weeks since we left Montana and we’ve managed to (mainly) keep the train on the rails.  We packed up and flew out of Missoula during the January snowstorm that dumped a couple feet of snow in town, complicating our last minute errands but lending an extra air of adventure to our departure.  We landed in Colorado to celebrate Ethel Ashley’s 90^th birthday (happy birthday Grammie!).  In Denver, we managed to get us and all our luggage on the shuttle bus and made it half way to the car rental before realizing that we’d left the car seat base back at baggage claim.  Rookie move.  Following wonderful family festivities in Colorado we loaded the rental car back up (and I mean loaded) and returned to the airport where a really nice woman decided not to charge us for our extra baggage.  This was awesome given that we had 96 (more or less) bags.  Zoe turned three months somewhere between Chicago and Istanbul.  (And now she’s already four months.  How does this happen?)  In Istanbul we had to keep a tight rein on her after we realized that the adoring and rambunctious Turks were apt to take off with Zoe if we didn’t stop them (ok, well one did but only briefly).  After many hours of travel we landed in Bishkek just in time for a two hour wait in line for our visas on arrival.  The line had nine people.  Back at our apartment baby jet lag set in; brutal.  We were worried that Zoe had become a grumpy baby but luckily once she figured out that night was now day and day was now night she cheered right up. 

We’ve settled into Bishkek.  Zoe and I take a lot of walks in the park on icy treacherous sidewalks, the roof leaks whenever the temp gets above freezing (a bucket is catching the drips), and we get out to the mountains every weekend.  Friends here have been really good to us, throwingwelcome Zoe parties and providing us great support.  And we have a car.  It’s kind of like magic, which probably sounds crazy unless you’ve lived in Bishkek for over a year without a car.  In which case the simple ability to turn the key and drive out of town seems pretty miraculous.  That said, we haven’t been pulled over yet which is likely to be a somewhat less magical experience.  Chad is getting it done at UCA, we hired a sweet nanny for Zoe who speaks Kyrgyz to her, and I begin work back at AKF in another week.  Some other Bishkek highlights are that we can now find spinach, locally roasted coffee, and decent hamburger (all at different shops) on a regular basis.  Check out the slideshow for some pics.  If you don’t enjoy pics of other people’s kids, realize we’ve completely become those people.  We miss you all a ton and are eagerly awaiting your next visit to Kyrgyzstan.

Introducing Zoe

Wow, we have a daughter and she’s a gem.  We’re totally enamoured of course.  Today she turns six weeks (!) and already it’s hard to imagine life without her.  She smiles and talks like a pirate (aaarrh).  She loves going for walks and playing with anyone who will have her.  She’s already been exploring some of Missoula’s fine establishments including Charlie’s where the clientele were quite taken with her.  Just after her one month birthday (see cupcake celebration with her great cousins) we went sledding for the first time.  She slept through the event, like she does through many, but I like to imagine she enjoyed it.  With new snow today, we hope to do some cross-country skiing soon. 

Laurie and Zoe are in Montana and Chad returns from Kyrgyzstan on Christmas Eve.  We’ll be here together until mid-January when we travel back to Bishkek where we’ll arrive on her three month birthday.  Although it’s tough to be apart for these few weeks we make good use of skype and look forward to being all together again.

She, and we, have been blessed with lots of friends and family and well wishes, love, and support from all directions.  Thank you!  

Kyrgyzstan

Since I wrote last we moved from a collection of villages where a car passing was an event to a city of a million people and seemingly that many cars (and horns).  For the first while we were perpetual deer-in-the-headlights but now we’re practically local, at least when it comes to dodging the cars on our walk to work.  Rural Afghanistan is different from urban Kyrgyzstan in almost every way.  Kyrgyzstan, it turns out, has pretty much more of everything than Afghanistan, except people and donkeys (where Afg has a significant lead).  And there’s not a war in Kyrgyzstan, although a coup and ethnic clashes in 2010 brought very tough conflict and a new (hopefully improved) government to the country.

We’ve gone from living in a mud house surrounded by wheat and potato fields to living in a 7^th story apartment.  Luckily we have a great view of the 15,000 foot mountains south of town.  We can also see the parliament building, national museum, and national stadium.  From our apartment we hear the call to prayers, church bells, and, amazingly, a lone donkey, which, like any donkey, hee-haws at any time day or night.  Here in Bishkek public life is abundant (a plus) but it’s more than a short walk to the mountains (a minus).  There are incredible mountains here, the Tien Shan, Pamir Alai, and dozens of smaller ranges.  92-96% of the country (depending who is counting) is mountainous and Kyrgyzstan has been called the ‘Switzerland of Central Asia.’  All these mountains just aren’t quite on our doorstep like they were in Bamyan.  We do, however, have a mini amusement park right across the street and the Kyrgyz are incredibly undeterred from riding roller coasters even in the cold and dark of winter.  Walking home from work tonight through the park it was 15 degrees F and snowing and although the rides were shut down, the music played, girls talked and laughed, and couples sat on frozen benches.

Bishkek has an impressive amount of infrastructure including a 17-story building.  There’s not quite the maintenance and public safety ethic to keep up with it however so there’s lots of treacherous icy steps and sidewalks, uncovered drainage holes that appear mid-stride, and elevators that make you want to assume some sort of safety position when they jerk into motion.  Outside Bishkek, there’s even more derelict infrastructure, crumbling concrete, bent rusty rebar, rigged and re-rigged electrical wires and poles, cracking bridges.  Anything metal (including irrigation pumps and pipes) got sold to the Chinese for recycling in the destitute years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.  But the concrete is all still here.  Concrete walls, houses, roads, canals, and more walls.  I wish we could trade in all the gray concrete in this country for a few more irrigation pumps.  And do away with some of the sagging electrical grid in favor of local renewable power generation.

-----

A week later.  We just celebrated the Women’s Day holiday (a big occasion here) with three days of skiing in the Ala Too range above the Suusamyr Valley, an incredibly beautiful place.  We got up high, had lunch and tea breaks in the sun, and got back to the lodge one night in a snowstorm in the dark after a long tour.  On these days it’s easy to forget about all that concrete.  Now back in Bishkek spring has suddenly arrived—birds chirping, green grass sprouting along the sidewalks, and snow gone from all but the darkest shadows.  I’m continuing my work on climate change adaptation in rural mountain communities and Chad is laying the foundation for the University of Central Asia’s new Mountain Societies Research Center.  We have good colleagues and are slowly making some new friends (although none that can remotely compare to you!).  We’re studying Russian, a language with more grammar than any American should have to learn.  Even a person’s name can change in certain tenses.  For example, Chad becomes “Chada” when something is for him (dlya Chada).  At least I get some humor out of lessons like that.  We’ve got a spare room in our apartment so if you find yourself looking for an adventure, book your ticket and come visit yurt-filled summer pastures, glaciers and peaks galore, the second largest alpine lake in the world, and a people whose national drink is fermented mare’s milk.

Fall in Afghanistan

I wrote the other day that I've never lived in a place that I both loved so deeply and wanted to escape. And that luckily, it's more love, for the beauty of the place and the character of the people. 

I live in a place where it is inappropriate for a woman to walk alone outside her village.  Where doing so puts her at risk of harassment and accusations.  But where inside the village, three girls pack themselves onto a donkey, girls and boys shepherd together, women drag cows around by ropes, harvest wheat, potato, and alfalfa, skin trees, learn to read and write.

I live in a place where families are affectionate and loving with children.  Kids cuddle up to weathered men in beards and turbans during meetings.  Toddlers are often the center of attention.  Women nurse in front of me.  Babies are wrapped in layer after layer to keep them warm and comforted, their eyes painted with kol, and special necklaces put around their necks for good fortune.

When I visit a village for the first time, men may ignore me entirely during the initial greeting but will then welcome me to the house, give us tea and bread and yogurt, look me in the eye, ask and answer questions, and when it’s time to go, insist that we stay the night.  One man has twice dug carrots and Jerusalem artichokes from his garden as a send off gift.  Even during Ramadan, as a traveler I was offered sheep milk with sugar in every village.

In one village where over half the population have left for cities or other countries, an elder told me that money is like a miracle, like it has magical powers.  He explains how with money you can fly through the sky.  Pretty miraculous when you think about it.  In another village, sharecroppers explain how they live there at the whim of the landowners and that at any time they could end up like a kite cut from its string.

When I returned after being away for two months, the news coming out of the country had been particularly bad and I flew into the dusty smog of Kabul with some sense of dread and pessimism.  And the news hasn’t really improved, fraudulent elections, kidnappings, corruption, Karzai crying on tv about the state of the country, the terrible impacts of war.  But I also arrived to good friends, a sweet new healthy baby in my adopted family, Eid celebrations, the news that my friend Freshta is very likely to have the chance to go to university in the US, and the life of this place that just keeps going in the face of everything.  My pessimism was replaced with awe for all that this place is and bits of hope that come from everyday interactions, smiles, perseverance, and integrity. 

It’s fall time, harvest is everywhere.  Piles of wheat and alfalfa being processed for storage.  Donkeys and cows walking circle after circle after circle to compress the fodder or begin the process of wheat threshing.  Kids wander around with fat-tailed sheep trying to get them as fat as possible to survive long winter months which people say are still long and cold even though they get less than half the snow that they used to.  I am as impressed as ever at the way people get by in this beautiful but tough landscape with extraordinarily limited external resources. Wheat for bread, sheep for milk, wool, and selling, mud for houses, and prayer for Allah. These are the staples.

I live along the Helmand river (a canoe would be amazing here).  The Koh-e-Baba mountains in the north hold the occasional clouds and already have their first snow.  There was a hint of a rainbow today after an unseasonal thunderstorm.  I work with wonderful people, colleagues and people in rural villages alike.  People depend on pastures and are excited about the possibility of support to work towards restoration and sustainable management.  I drink from the well, bathe from a bucket, share a two latrines with a couple other women and twenty men.  We live together, eat bread and rice, beans and potatoes, sheep, and drink tea.

Late Spring Update

Afghanistan is a country at war with large issues of poverty, growing land degradation, and weak governance. The country has seen little stability in the past three decades and war continues to impact people every day. The decades of conflict have resulted in dramatic drops in human, social, and economic indicators through the country. Afghanistan currently ranks 181 out of 182 countries on the human development index, far lower than any of its neighbors. Communities experience repeated conflict-induced displacement and destruction of homes and fields. War has led many of those who are able, including large numbers of educated people, to leave. It is estimated that most Afghans are suffering from some level of stress disorder as a result of the trauma and loss of war. Using any measure of poverty, Afghans rank among the poorest in the world. Life expectancy is 43 years old, infant mortality is 129 per 1000 live births, 31% are food-insecure, literacy is 28%, and 42% live below the cost of basic needs poverty line. The country has poor health, education, and nutritional status; weak social protection systems; and vast gender inequalities. There is a high vulnerability to external shocks such as drought and even the death of a family member.

All of this raises a number of questions like in a place where almost everyone is poor, what is poverty? What can accomplish poverty alleviation and development? What does peace-building look like?

Reading through the Afghanistan national development strategy today, I came across these quotes from Afghans defining poverty.

The poor are the ones with an empty stomach; the poor are the ones who do not have enough milk to make yogurt; the poor can’t plan the future and can’t foresee what will happen tomorrow. One man in Bamyan province said, the poor are the ones who can be sick today and be dead the next day.

In Afghanistan eating means growing your food for most of the population.  In Bamyan, bread and dairy products account for the majority of food. In late spring, the wheat is getting tall and gaining seed heads. Working together, groups of women are out weeding fields, bringing the weeds home in overflowing baskets balanced on their heads to feed precious sheep and cows. Men are out moving more dirt onto the potato mounds. The cash crop. One group woke me up at 4:30 this morning smacking their shovels around, the tool of choice here. It was hard to complain.

Yesterday, walking through the fields to my office, groups of people working all over, I came across a boy lying on his back, perfecting still, tucked in the furrow between two rows of potatoes, looking at the sky.

Ski Bamiyan

We've been having an incredible time skiing the Koh-e-Baba and working with communities and aspiring tour guides on the potential for future ski tourism here.  Spring is now in full swing now, lots of ploughing and planting, and budding leaves, but still good snow in the mountains.  Check out some Bamiyan ski photos in the slide show (FYI- if you click on the pics to the right they should get bigger).  I'm also continuing with UNEP and Chad has taken another consultancy with AKF developing curriculum for the new Sustainable Land Management Institute, a cooperative effort between NGOs and Bamiyan University.  The problem with this other work is it's getting in the way of skiing, something I know you can appreciate.  Photos include lots of skiing, community mapping to identify place names, explaining skiing to communities, kids trying skiing, researching routes (GPS, lots of notes), a big avalanche that closed a local road for 3 weeks (and that people dug out with shovels), kids and their sleds (kids love sledding, called yakh molak, and we've joined in a few times), skis that we had made here in the bazaar by local carpenters, the New Year ski competition which attracted 200-300 folks along with the one Afghan family that has skied consistently for the last 40 years, a pair of this family's skis from the 60s, migrating geese, and a 3-day ski trip to some great terrain including small but impressive glaciers.  We're planning a few more multi-day trips for the spring that we hope will include donkey support.  We loaded up donkeys with skis for the first time last week to head back to snow (spring melt at lower elevations now), which was great.  We've had some good publicity from Afg radio and TV as well as German radio and print, and last week, the UK Guardian.  Get your calendars out for your 2011 Bamiyan ski vacation.  Or maybe 2015.

Bamiyan Winter

Winter in Bamiyan has brought snow, then mud, then snow, leaking roofs (more mud in the mud house), great days in the mountains, and some transitions for us.  After a year and a half with CRS (including nine months in Afg), Chad left the organization.  Despite great appreciation for the programs and his colleagues, the management-heavy job was not a good fit for him.  We made the decision in early November to give CRS plenty of time to plan ahead.  February 15 was Chad’s last day at CRS as well as the last day of my contract with the UN Environment Program (UNEP).  The next day we moved across town from the CRS house to an Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) house and began a joint consultancy working with the AKF tourism program.  The aim of the consultancy is to develop winter tourism opportunities and to train members of the newly established Bamiyan Tourism Association. 

As one of the most peaceful areas of the country, there is hope that reviving tourism here can bring further stability and economic opportunity in the coming years.  As we’ve begun to meet with people in remote mountain villages, it’s been amazing to hear them recount stories of tourists visiting these places over 30 years ago before the Russian invasion and subsequent years of conflict.  In a country that has so many needs and continued instability, we’ve questioned the appropriateness of promoting tourism.  In a discussion with a friend who is the regional public health advisor, I mentioned that this work is “not exactly saving lives.”  His encouraging response was that even the development of tourism is about saving lives since anything that promotes stability and opportunity here does just that.

As we explore Bamiyan through our new work, we’re increasingly impressed with the mountains and the people.  The mountains have incredible hiking, climbing, skiing, and snowshoeing terrain and are beautiful and accessible.  And the people living in these mountain villages are industrious, largely self-sufficient, kind, and welcoming.  From where the winter road access finishes, we’ve traveled (primarily on skis) 30 minutes to two hours to reach snowed-in villages. When we arrive we’re offered tea and lots of curious looks.  Yesterday, as we tried to leave the village to head deeper into the mountains, we were turned back by an adamant group of elders explaining to us in mime (really great) and Dari that the avalanche danger was too high for us to go further.  We decided not to argue with them.  Avalanches riddled the valley coming all the way down to the village and last month they’d lost eight sheep, two donkeys, and a cow in an avalanche right next to a house.  We’re quickly learning the snow and avalanche conditions here and we continue to be cautious. 

UNEP asked me to extend my contract so I’m continuing to work part-time with them researching aspects of local natural resource management traditions, land tenure arrangements, and options for a future inhabited protected area (IUCN Category V) in the Koh-e-Baba.  We both really enjoy our colleagues at AKF and UNEP and, although it was sad to say goodbye to CRS folks, we now have fun running into them almost every day.  Having now worked with three organizations here in small-town Bamiyan, we know a fair number of people who we see in the neighborhood and bazaar; we’re starting to feel just a little bit local. 

Check out some Bamiyan winter highlights in the pics here including: our airport coffee shop, sledding in our neighborhood, a community school room, CRS farewell, our new office, visiting the Red City, a community meeting on the mosque roof, shoveling snow off of mud roofs, old Russian weaponry, skiing, and more.

We miss you and can’t wait to be in Montana in June.

Christmas and New Year Letter to You

To our really wonderful friends and family,

Two thousand nine has been yet another big year for the Dear/Ashley duo.  We made it through our first year of marriage, sadly moved away from a beautiful island nation, and moved to a nation at war wand that ranks 181 out of 182 countries on the Human Development Index (at least we’re ahead of Somalia).  

We’re often amazed at our everyday life, the people we meet and the stories we hear.  It can also be pretty amusing.  Chad was recently asked some interesting questions at work including, “When was Jesus born?  Is this disputed by different Christian factions?  Why isn’t Christmas your new year?”  “Why then is your new year January 1?” (Keep in mind that these questions are from people who operate on two calendars:  one the Persian solar calendar when new year is the spring equinox, the other the Islamic lunar calendar when new year is the holy month of Muharram).   Needless to say, these questions forced Chad to repeatedly reference Wikipedia. 

In a way, it seems like our year began when we arrived in Afghanistan.  Pre- and post-Afghanistan has been a big landmark in the year and in our lives.  But the beginning of 2009 was also memorable.  It included an ultimate frisbee tournament in Bali where we played for East Timor in its first tourney appearance; a visit to Timor by Laurie’s folks who managed to climb the country’s tallest peak, snorkel at the eastern tip of the island, volunteer at an orphanage and much more; beautiful days snorkeling, scuba diving, and hiking around Timor; and sad goodbyes to great people, stunning sunsets, and a fascinating tropical island.  We left Timor for Missoula and celebrated Chad’s birthday for 39 hours en route (24 hours plus the 15 hour time difference) between Singapore, Japan, Seattle, and finally Missoula where we had lemon cake. 

In Missoula, we spent a blissful few weeks in May and June where we got to ski in the mountains, float rivers, see wonderful friends, and have a BBQ almost every night.  On the way to Afg we visited DC and Pennsylvania (firsts for Laurie).  Highlights included the Einstein Memorial in DC, Little League baseball in Penn, and seeing Chad’s family from nieces and nephews to great uncle Chick.  From DC we flew to Dubai and then to Kabul where we spent a few (metaphorical) shell-shocked days before traveling to Ghor, Hirat, and Bamiyan.  Bamiyan has been an incredible place to land.  The 17,000 ft Koh-e-Baba mountains are out our front door.  Hiking and skiing there have been some of our best days in Afg.  It’s amazing to come upon a lake tucked into these dry mountains or hear prayers from a rural mosque as we ski through a village.

Some other notable events this year:  Laurie was hit by a motorcycle while riding her beloved bike, Avi, along the beach road in Dili and survived the hospital visit afterwards.  Before leaving Timor, Laurie gifted Avi to a sweet friend, Maud, saying a heartfelt goodbye to a great bike and friend she’d had since she moved to Missoula in 1995 (aww...).  She reveled in friends and mountains in Montana, became a natural resource consultant and worked five jobs for five international organizations learning a ton along the way.  And finally, along with Chad, Laurie skied Afghanistan.  Chad surfed Bali and Brennan’s wave and survived the resulting knee surgery (conducted in Dubai).  He acquired two chickens for our household, managed a field office of 40 Afghans, and oversaw the implementation of agriculture, natural resource management, and women’s empowerment programs.  And finally, along with Laurie, Chad skied Afghanistan.

During our stay in Afg we’ve also had amazing opportunities to visit Nepal and Turkey where Chad won a rickshaw race in Kathmandu and we backpacked the Mediterranean coast of Turkey.

Afghanistan is a place where we are constantly reminded of the joy and sorrow of humanity.  This year has brought us incredible joy, some tragedy, and many stunning moments along the way.  You all have been an important part of it.  We miss you and are wishing you a happy New Year on the 1^st of January because, according to Wikipedia, in 153BC, some guys in Rome decided that’s when it was going to be.

Love,

Laurie and Chad

PS Photos in the slideshow from our 2009 world tour include Timor Leste, Indonesia, Montana, DC, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Turkey.

Turkiye

For an extended Thanksgiving/Eid holiday, we slipped away to Turkey (Turkiye, as in Turchia) for a few days in Istanbul and nine days hiking in the south along the Mediterranean coast. The country has incredible and evident history all over and illustrates the meeting of Europe and Asia. In Istanbul we saw the sites: the Bacilla Cistern, Aya Sophya, Blue Mosque, Galata Tower, the Grand Bazaar, and more. All inspiring places. Along the coast we hiked a route called the Lycian Way (Likya Yolu in Turkish). We used a guidebook to follow the route through villages and stretches of remote coast. The book included landmarks like, old camel farm, lighthouse, orange orchard, carob trees, ancient ruins, and more ancient ruins. It was a beautiful and fascinating walk through historic and modern Turkish life and landscape. The first fall rains had recently started and all along the route whole families were out collecting mushrooms in the forests. Along the way we were gifted apples, tangerines (amazing), a lemon, and kind hospitality. The tangerines were so good and we walked through so many orchards that I eventually broke down and picked a few myself. Orange and tangerine peels were a common site all over the place. I really wanted to pick a pomegranate but the season was nearly finished so they weren’t as plentiful. We usually ate dinner at a café along the route, which always included beer (something sorely lacking in Bamyan!). And spent 5 of our 8 nights in B&B type places escaping the somewhat wet weather and the 5 o’clock darkness. For breakfast, Turks eat tomatoes, cucumbers, cheese, bread, boiled egg, and tea and we regularly partook. So we weren’t exactly roughing it. ;) It was a great trip.

Update

Some great things about Bamiyan: it’s stunningly beautiful; there are glaciers and new snow in the mountains; there is no shortage of donkeys (one braying now); people catch fish from the creeks with the most basic stick, line, and hook set-up; the only election-related violence was a group of women at a polling station who, in their eagerness to vote, broke down the gate and “trampled” an elections observer before the polls opened; we can go on great hikes (soon skiing) from our house; we have two chickens (recently got the first egg!); we can walk to work; we have naan and chai every day; and in the right light, some of the plants, birds, butterflies, trees, wheat and potato fields, mountains, and streams remind us of Montana.

It’s getting cold here now, nights down to 13F (-11C). We heat our house by burning wood and coal in bukaris, cylindrical tin tanks with a mud seal around the top (see photo). To heat water, there’s a second tin cylinder that sits atop the first that we fill with water. The fire below, and the stovepipe running through, heats water pretty quickly. We also have a greenhouse set up on the south side of the house, which is where all the windows are (Bamiyan people know how to plan for the cold). In full sun, which is most days, it gets downright tropical in there. We’ve had a few snowstorms and can’t wait for a few more, ski season is right around the corner.

I recently completed a consultancy with the Aga Khan Foundation and just started work with UNEP (UN Environment Program). My new work involves planning and research in preparation for the proposed Shah Foladi protected area. This area is proposed as a category 5 protected area which means a place dedicated to safeguarding ongoing traditional use (grazing, plant harvesting for fuel, food, and medicine) in a sustainable manner. My new job means that instead of walking to work through alleyways of leaking latrines, I walk through recently harvested wheat and potato fields, some now greening with winter wheat and all surrounded by impressive mountains. Gorgeous.

We continue to meet good people and are regularly awed at the inspiration and heartbreak. Part of it is our eyes are more open in a new place but it's also the hard lives people live here and the ability of people in tough situations to smile. Recently we brought food to a colleague whose mother had died, the pain in their house was so strong, sobbing, somber faces, and people trying to comfort each other. And last week I had lunch with another colleague whose sister had the chance to study for a year in the US because her mother stood up to her uncles that didn't want her to go.

A few photos here include: the Buddhas and views from the cliffs, Chad’s all staff volleyball game in our front yard (greenhouse in background, the women and I were appropriately watching), hiking around Bamiyan, donkey’s carrying shrubs out of the mountains for fuel, wheat and potato harvest, and our work.

Next week we’re taking a holiday during the Muslim Eid and the American Thanksgiving to… Turkey. ;) We’re going to explore Istanbul and hike along the Mediterranean coast for a few days all the while feeling thankful for having all of you in our lives. Best of wishes and happy Thanksgiving.

Quick Update and Photos

Some of recent Afg photos from Ghor, Bamiyan, Band-i-Amir, work, and play. The last few in the series are us exploring the Koh-e-Baba, the incredible mountains just south of where we live. Check them out.

Here in Bamiyan I’m working with the Aga Khan Foundation doing an assessment of ecological conditions and tenure/management arrangements in high elevation common property pasture lands. I get to spend a lot of time in the field marching around with donkeys; it’s wonderful. Chad is continuing his work on soil and water conservation among other projects at CRS. Most of the wheat and potatoes (the vast majority of the ag land here) have been harvested and the leaves on the poplars along the creeks and canals are starting to turn. There’s been some new snow in the mountains and we’ve got skiing on our minds.

Elections

You’ve probably been hearing a bit about the Afghan elections that are going on now as I write. For live updates on election coverage check out http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8209279.stm. This is the second ever Afghan presidential election and the feeling about this chance to cast a vote for the country’s leader seems to be a mix of pride, fear, and apathy depending on a person’s politics and location. There’s been a lot of news coverage but what I haven’t heard much about is how an average Afghan may be thinking about voting. In much of the country, voting today may mean risking losing a finger, being targeted on your way to and from or at the polling station, or being targeted in the future for being known to have participated in a government initiative. It’s hard to imagine facing this decision. Some people (many?) are already disillusioned with government because of its lack of ability to increase security and its, at times, actual perpetuation of violence, intimidation, or corruption. Yet generally it seems people think Karzai will win again. I have not experienced a feeling of inspiration among the people I’ve talked with about the election but I could certainly be missing or misreading people’s sentiments. There have been some big turnouts at campaign events (in part because food, transportation, and pay may be provided) and long lines at some of the polling stations today. In a conversation with an Afghan in Kabul the other day, one of the safer places in the country, I asked how people felt about going to the polls. This was a few days ago, the morning after the explosion near ISAF and the US Embassy but before the more recent explosions. He said some people were too scared to vote but some people would still be voting, including him.

I think it’s exciting that Karzai has some legitimate challengers in Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani and they’ve pushed the debate in a positive direction. If Karzai doesn’t win 50%, the election will go into a run-off scheduled for October. This is a tricky situation where a change in leadership may be positive but the process of making that change could be pretty tumultuous and difficult in the short term. Unifying this country is a huge task.

For the elections we’re holed up in Bamiyan where things are generally relaxed and people are going to the polls. The only Taliban related activity is that last week the Taliban “governor” here was arrested and is now in jail in Kabul. (The Taliban maintain a government-like structure that parallels the actual government.) We are laying low for a few days but plan for a return to normal movement tomorrow. Hopefully that’s the case not just for us but for the country too. Some photos here from my few days in Bamiyan before laying low—my second Afghan run (check out my running clothes, ha! and my running partner is in the blue) and an evening walk around Bamiyan center a couple evenings ago where wheat harvesting is full-on. Much of the green contrasting with the wheat is the potatoes that will be harvested in October.

One Year

After a few small miracles (worthy stories in and of themselves) and two days en route, I make it from Ghor to Bamiyan on July 30 in time to celebrate our one year anniversary on the 31^st. Bamiyan is beautiful and we celebrated with a trip to Band-e-Amir Park, a stunning area of sparkling blue lakes and a series of travertine dams. On a Friday, the Islamic weekend, the place was full of picnicking Afghans. In a culture that often seems restrictive, the festive groups swimming and picnicking were great to see. We hiked around the lakes and found a picnic spot for ourselves where we napped in a patch of grass and mint. After the dusty trip back to Bamiyan center (in a van with Chad’s colleagues and a stop for tea on the way), we cleaned up and went out to dinner at the Silk Road Hotel. The next day we walked around Bamiyan and hiked up Shar-e-gholghola ruins, the “City of Screams” where inhabitants made a last stand against Ghengis Khan. The site dates back 1,800 years to when Buddhism arrived in Bamiyan. This year has been a full one. We feel lucky to have celebrated it together in a beautiful place and we love that this era for us started during a multiday celebration on the banks of the Missouri and Clark Fork Rivers.

Work Part I (Laurie in Ghor)

Currently I’m working on a six-week contract with a watershed restoration program in Ghor. The focus of the program is improving water access and security to villages for rangeland, agriculture, and domestic use. We work with rural villages on soil conservation, irrigation, water supply, and water related health/hygiene. My role is to work with the program on collecting baseline data and establishing a monitoring and evaluation system for the program. The data and monitoring should then allow the program to measure its impacts and refine/adjust the specific activities and strategies to be most appropriate and effective. Right now the health/hygiene baseline team (6 women) is on a 7-day trip completing household surveys and focus group discussions with women. They’ve just been trained in the data collection and have hit the ground running doing a great job. Especially given that for a woman to go into the field, she has to bring her moharam (escort-husband, brother, or child) and any kid she can’t leave behind. It turns out that getting 6 female staff, 6 moharams, 4 kids, and a field supervisor into remote Afghanistan is no small task. In addition to all the normal logistics (transportation, where to stay the night, how to feed everyone, organizing our data collection tools and equipment, etc), there are frequent security checks and subsequent adjustments to the field plan. All in all it’s quite a production. And it’s really wonderful to see these women out doing research. They are very positive and in a country where women’s movements are often limited, I’m impressed with their willingness to take off into the province to learn about the experiences of women and water. The agriculture team is also out now, holding focus group discussions (FGDs in the org lingo) with farmers who have participated in soil/water conservation activities to understand how rangeland production has changed. Back at the office for now and with a break from the logistics, I’m putting the pieces in place to continue to monitor the program activities and progress. This means designing “tools,” surveys, FGDs, and reporting formats, that will be used by the teams to continue to measure and understand the on-the-ground changes resulting from program’s activities. I work with a great group of people, see a few photos in the slideshow. In a few more weeks I’ll finish up and hope to be in Bamiyan before the elections.

Some Great Things About Afghanistan

Some great things about Afghanistan: the seats in cars are covered with homemade carpets, as are the motorcycle seats; it’s clear and sunny pretty much every day (outside of the dusty haze of Kabul and Hirat); when translated from the Persian to the Roman alphabet, any given word can be spelled about a dozen different ways; high elevation, low humidity, and even less electricity equals stunning star gazing and moonshine (not the alcoholic kind, this is Afghanistan); big sky country… really big; lots of snow in the mountains in July; lots of tea and yogurt; fresh local vegetables galore and good fruit from Pakistan and Iran; everyone wears pajamas and lots of other flowing garb; mud bricks are a dime a dozen; we work with a man who is responsible for planting more trees than probably anyone else in the country; before airplanes land in Bamiyan they have to do a pass to clear all the people and livestock off the runway; Chad's office window looks out towards two 18,000 ft. snow-covered peaks; frisbee in Kabul; carpet mouse pads; enthusiastic musicians and beautiful traditional instruments called tabla and rabab; a big greenhouse out the back door; lots of smiles.

Just to follow this up with some of the obvious not-so-great things about Afghanistan… A few people have asked about our security situation here and I’m going to give you an inappropriately brief report. First, we’ve both recovered from a serious bout of GI issues after a full round of antibiotics. This has vastly improved our personal security. Next, we live and work in some of the safest parts of the country (arguably safer than many highways and cities in the US), we’ve been very well taken care of through security briefings informed by a solid network of local and international knowledge, and we use informed caution regarding our movements. Regarding the overall situation in Afghanistan I feel inadequately experienced to pass along a briefing. It takes a lot of effort to understand the history and current political situation here; it is vast. However if you’re interested in doing some reading a few good options are: Decent into Chaos by Ahmed Rashid and Ghost Wars by Steve Coll. Overall the most dangerous thing we’ve done is land on gravel runways in small planes which, despite the confidence of the pilots, seems like a small miracle every time. Now go back up and read the first paragraph again.

Photos, Etc

Finally some of our first photos. Photos include, roughly in this order, the Kabul cityscape, the flight from Kabul to Chagcharan (snow), watershed restoration sites in Ghor province (including a mapping exercise with a local shura--community leadership), a CRS staff party to celebrate the everyone’s hard work (it was a great party fueled by plenty of food, tea, and dancing, these guys were unstoppable, as was Chad), a visit to a cash-for-work project (designed to assist vulnerable communities most affected by the long drought through supporting them to do community selected projects), a hike to see the Kuchi camels, and the sites of Hirat including the glass shop, Friday mosque, rolling shrine, citadel, and mausoleum of Gowhar Shad.

We’re now back in Kabul for a few days (still snow on the mountains you can see from town, very nice). Today Chad attended an NRM workshop and I joined an NGO security meeting focused on the background and current situation of the conflicts/war that was insightful. If you’ve done any reading on Kabul, the city likely fits those images, crammed narrow streets at times with 3 ft drop-offs into drainage ditches on either side, bakeries full of giant flat breads, lots of burkas and turbans, great bikes with lots of accessories (horns, flaps, spoke decoration, etc), dust and wind that at times makes you wish you were wearing a burka, big mountains surrounding the city, lots of fortified walls, unmarked compounds, herds of sheep in the streets, and the occasional UN vehicle… definitely a lot to see.

On Saturday Chad will head to Bamiyan and I’ll return to Ghor for about a month for a short-term contract working with the watershed restoration project there (yea). Hopefully I’ll get to join Chad in Bamiyan by late July/early August. Chad learned today that a half marathon is being planned in Bamiyan for late summer and people have said I can run in Bamiyan on trails just above town, I can’t wait. ;)

The Constitution of Afghanistan Year 1382 (2004) Preamble

I have a bit of a fascination with Constitution Preambles and when I looked this one up today, I thought it was worth sharing. This current constitution is based largely on the 1964 Afghan constitution. The current version was drafted by a 9 member commission appointed by Karzai and reworked after a public consultation process. In December 2003, a Loya Jirga of 502 delegates vigorously debated the document. On January 4, 2004, the Loya Jirga ratified the Constitution by consensus in spite of complaints about the process.

Preamble

We the people of Afghanistan:

With firm faith in God Almighty and relying on His lawful mercy, and believing in the sacred religion of Islam,

Realizing the injustice and shortcoming of the past, and the numerous troubles imposed on our country,

While acknowledging the sacrifices and the historic struggles, rightful Jehad and just resistance of all people of Afghanistan and respecting the high position of the martyrs for freedom of the country,

With the understanding that Afghanistan is a single and united country and belongs to all ethnicities residing in this country,

Observing the United Nations Charter and respecting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

For strengthening national unity, safeguarding independence, national sovereignty, and territorial integrity of the country,

For establishing a government based on people’s will and democracy,

For creation of a civil society free of oppression, atrocity, discrimination, and violence and based on the rule of law, social justice, protection of human rights, and dignity and ensuring the fundamental rights and freedoms of the people,

For strengthening the political, social, economic, and defensive institutions of the country,

For ensuring a prosperous life and sound environment for all those residing in this land,

Finally for regaining Afghanistan’s deserving place in the international community,

have adopted this constitution in accordance with historical, cultural, and social requirements of the era, through our elected representatives in the Loya Jirga dated 14 Jaddi 1382 in the city of Kabul.