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.