skateistan

skateistan grand opening on thursday!

[i was proud to be there, along with the ambassadors of denmark + germany + the head of afghanistan's olympic committee]

[we all appreciated this visual juxtaposition]

so many talented skateboarders! it was such fun to see them demonstrate their moves.

[germany's ambassador to afghanistan -- an ardent supporter!]

[a friend, tamara, in her media role!]

[talking strategy!]

holding pattern

things seem a little calmer today + hoping that will hold.



skateistan has the grand opening of its skate park this afternoon. security is assessing whether we will be able to attend, + hopefully the answer will be 'yes.'

i would much prefer to post more photos of cuties on skateboards rather than of me stewing on lockdown - fingers crossed . . .

u.n. guesthouse

[u.n. guesthouse]

it has been a terrible morning. we awoke to news that a u.n. guesthouse in kabul had been bombed + the people inside taken hostage. there is an ongoing gun battle + at least 5 people have been killed.

[gunshot in the front door of a hasher, living nearby]

i am at work + things are quiet + seemingly safe here, but this is not a good sign. things have been escalating in kabul over the past few days with the demonstrations, + now this. the taliban has taken credit for the attack + it is definitely tied in with the elections happening here next week.

[view from the hasher's house]

i am supposed to leave on monday + will try to hang tight until then. a v. sad + stressful situation.

driving ms. lazy

kabul's really making its mark in my dreamlife . . .



last nite's installation concerned a local speedwalking competition for internationals in which i was a participant.

all of our guards/escorts were along the sidelines in case of trouble . . .



v. quickly, people started cheating by getting their drivers to pull up their cars to give them rides.

even i was guilty of this! my favorite driver pulled up in a really dramatic way, laughing his head off, + proceeded to tear-ass around the other cars (much as he really does) in order to get me to the finish line first.

huh?

and just in time for halloween: a short film, AFGHAN SUFI HORROR made by a friend, aman mojadidi, as part of an art show he had in kabul . . . as my internet access is so poor, i can't actually watch this except in 5-second fragments, but it looks awesome!

the chinatown connection

peaceful protests again today throughout the city.


apparently, yesterday's demonstration that i was told had to do with banking instead involved water management!

afghanistan's mountains accumulate a lot of snow in the wintertime, + the melting of this snow fills the kabul river basin. this good, clean water flows through streams, rivers, + other bodies throughout afghanistan (which does not have adequate facilities to deliver it -- hence the huge issues here with water contamination). it also provides neighboring countries (iran, pakistan, tajikistan, uzbekistan, turkmenistan), with a great deal of what constitutes their water supply. afghanistan receives no benefit for this.

discussions about water management always make film nerds like me think of roman polanski's chinatown, in which there was sneaky business going on with dam-rigging, well poisoning, + other aqua-intimidation tactics. in afghanistan, there is some of the same, but perhaps for more community-oriented purposes (although there is always the issue of palimpsest--story within story--that one has to consider here).



from what i can gather from afghan colleagues, a member of parliament has called for afghanistan to immediately block (dam?) all mountain water flowing out of the country to other nearby countries. the reason: by cutting off the water supply, it is hoped that this will force these countries to stop collaborating with the taliban by secretly (or not so secretly) furnishing them with arms and other tools to be used in their insurgency operations in afghanistan. the protesters are making their support of this proposal known by gathering at parliament.

the simultaneous demonstrations happening here this week: one, against nato/isaf/u.s. forces for the alleged quran destruction and the other, against the neighboring countries in the region, indicate to me just how confused + fragmented things must feel to people here. depending on whom you talk to, the enemy is the u.s., the enemy is iran, the enemy is taliban, etc., etc., etc.

it is good that the people are demonstrating their will, and, by + large, it sounds like the protests have been peaceful. it will be interesting to see if anything comes of this water ban proposal, which sounds like it has the grain of a good idea (dams) but would be nearly impossible to implement in a timely manner, when urgency would seem the critical factor.

demonstrations

[student kicking the burning effigy of barack obama during a recent demonstration in nangarhar province. it is alleged that a quran was burned by nato/u.s. forces during an operation in wardak province.]

we are on lockdown today (half of us are on campus + the other half at home) because of demonstrations v. near us.

they began at kabul university this morning over the incident of the alleged burning of a quran in maidan wardak province by nato/u.s. soldiers + now have moved to habibia high school, just down the street from the university. we have had reports that the afghan police fired shots -- my friends at home heard a ton of gunshots.

there is actually ANOTHER protest going on (unrelated) in kabul today -- near the serena hotel -- having to do with banking.

i had heard that the kabul university demonstrations were peaceful, so i do not know what has led to the police firing shots -- it does not sound like anyone has been injured. we are warned that anti-american sentiment is running high + thus we have to stay put.

quake!

earthquake in kabul (6.2) last night!

i awoke to a shaking bed + the neighborhood dogs chorusing their objections!

they're back . . .

the stomach gremlins!



i seem to have gotten myself mixed up with h. pylori again after a two-week respite. my stock is too weak for afghanistan-level contagion.

and the bacteria in my stomach really are like gremlins - they get all worked up into a rage but can be calmed by small amounts of food. gruesome!

i guess that answers my question about the donkeys . . .

a runoff will take place on november 7 . . . looks like john kerry, who returned to kabul from pakistan earlier this week instead of heading back home, had a lot to do with convincing karzai not to challenge the findings of the electoral complaints commission.

let us hope for the best for the afghans--the ones whom i know are still not so motivated even to vote . . .

library tourist reporting . . .

two more kabul library visits today! interestingly, at both places, we ended up getting into discussions about the taliban. i think that they are much on everyone's minds as we hear news of more incursions and with the present uncertainty of afghanistan's governmental foundations--the uncertainty creating a wedge that can be exploited . . .



first up: the academy of sciences. unlike so many places, the academy of sciences' library was neither bombed nor looted during the civil wars. the academy has an eclectic collection that dates back about 100 years and includes some extremely significant and fragile manuscripts. despite the name, the academy of sciences holds books and periodicals on other subjects -- high points are the archeological and literature materials.



both of these gentlemen recall wearing turbans and growing long beards during the taliban era. their female colleague in the library was not allowed to work when the taliban were in power, but the academy mailed paychecks to her home, anyway -- at least until the end of the first year, when the money ran out. she returned to work when the taliban fell.



and next: the ministry of women's affairs. predictably, this ministry did not even exist when there was a taliban government. the library is run by two women who work hard to keep things going, despite the fact that they have not had electricity there in over a week. they serve the staff of the ministry as well as students who come there to do research on women's issues.



this is the poetess after whom the library is called whose name i failed to catch (i am at a loss for not speaking dari or pashto on these visits - v. rarely do the librarians speak english. my pal, royce, translates). the ministry is in the process of setting up libraries in several provinces, all of which will be named after prominent afghan female cultural figures.



time and again, we enter these libraries--often unannounced--and are greeted warmly with tea and sweets. the staff take a tremendous amount of time discussing the collections with us; showing us around; and relating many disheartening stories about abysmal salaries, ruined collections, fickle government policies, discontinued training programs, and the lack of what
most would consider basic functional library tools (electricity, desks, computers, internet).



and yet i hear the other side from library colleagues here: of tremendous sums of money having been put toward the city's collections, to little avail. this seems some to have to do with corrupt intermediaries who ciphon funds for other purposes but probably more specifically with various fiefdoms that exist here. there is v. little coordination amongst funders (so efforts are often duplicated, to confusing effect) or amongst local heritage institutions, or even departments within institutions (as is the case with kabul university). when one initiative ends, there is very little follow-through to assure continuation of services (for example, internet access) or even preservation of data (so many stories of massive loss of critical information -- lists of holdings, translations, etc.).



it feels like a terrible puzzle, trying to determine how best to help--and how not to perpetuate more of the same . . .

thank you, new york times

do not delay in checking out the new york times' wonderful article and stunning archival photo essay on afghanistan between the 1930s and 1970s, when the country was considered "the paris of central asia."

v. sad to think that most of the afghans i know here weren't even alive for this . . .

a friend, bahar jalali, is soon to be coming out with a book (uc press, 2010) based on her dissertation that will further help us to understand how much afghanistan has changed in the past 35-odd years. her work centers on the period of 1963-1973. bahar's mom was married in the early 70s, in afghanistan, in a miniskirt. a far cry from afghan weddings these days . . .

my question is this:

will the dear donkeys of afghanistan again be called upon to carry ballot boxes up treacherous northern mountains?



esp. with the snows coming soon?

karzai: no!

u.n. electoral complaints commission/west: yes!

independent elections commission/afghans: leaning toward no . . . "not all the findings of the investigation may be implemented"

sky god

overmuch transport-van-riding today!


shopping errands + the like.



goats + big hineyed-sheep consuming roadsight garbage are part of the daily landscape - giant hands, not as much . . .



"if you're holding onto that sky god, i'll nose him out, ten lengths every time." -- whiling away the remainder of the day with tim reiterman's raven, on jim jones + the people's temple.



dhl boxes = packing for home soon!


xoxo

runoffal

it looks likely that an abdullah/karzai election runoff will occur.



the afghans whom i know do not seem to be particularly heartened by this news, feeling that even a runoff is unlikely to really change anything here. life goes on.



on the streets, things have been obviously tense. traffic has been horrific. there are lot more heavy-duty military folks around, scaring everyone at checkpoints by brandishing killer weapons.



a lot of important people from elsewhere have been arriving over the past few days, expecting an election announcement. apparently, john kerry in town yesterday, meeting with general mccrystal, although he was not spotted out on the town at latmo or otherwise.

not in bamiyan/band-i-amir this weekend, as planned, but perhaps it's better to stick close to home for now . . .

lady drivers

i loved this so much, i wanted to post it in its entirety! original article was in the los angeles times.




In Afghanistan, more women are driving

As more Afghan women obtain driver's licenses, they continue to face resistance from their male-dominated Muslim society.

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan - Karima Yousafzai jumps behind the wheel of her 1994 Toyota Corolla and heads into traffic, deftly negotiating around wannabe motocross champions, oblivious pushcart peddlers, a roadside herd of sheep and several contenders for the crazy-driver-of-the-year award. She takes little notice of the looks directed her way.

"I've stopped caring about the stares men give you," the 43-year-old university professor says. "I just ignore them."

A female driver in Afghanistan is something of a rare bird.

In the first six months of the fiscal year that began April 1, the number of driving permits issued to women in the Kabul area was up fourfold. That sounds great until you consider that officials issued just 180 licenses to women in the last 18 months, compared with 27,985 for men.

Men own the roads of Afghanistan, and many of them want it to stay that way. They say it is un-Islamic and culturally offensive for women to get behind the wheel.

Yousafzai, who teaches the Koran for a living, disagrees. The holy book makes no mention of internal combustion engines, automatic transmissions or driving restrictions on women, she says.

"When men say women aren't capable of driving, my response is, 'I'll challenge you any time,' " says Yousafzai, wearing a head scarf and dark glasses.

Afghanistan, a male-dominated Muslim society, has often discouraged women from participating in public life. That includes driving, especially from 1996 to 2001, when the fundamentalist Taliban government all but outlawed it. It is "against Afghan traditions and has a negative impact on the environment," the Taliban declared in May 2001.

After the Taliban was ousted at the end of that year, President Hamid Karzai pledged to respect women's rights. There was an initial jump in the number of female drivers, but tradition dies hard, and Karzai's promise has faltered.

Men commonly contend that women shouldn't be subjected to the unpredictable Afghan traffic and that their security could be compromised, given all the violence.

"Imagine if a woman had an accident," says Abdul Habib, a 20-year-old student, strolling with two male friends. "Hundreds of men would gather around and curse at her. Then I'm sure she would cry.

"After that she'd probably call her brother or husband for help," he adds, to the amusement of his friends.

Freshta Nahad, 21, a Kabul University economics student, sees little humor in such jibes. "If men obeyed the law," she says, "we wouldn't have so many problems."

"Security's a problem all over Afghanistan," says Fatima Maisjadi, 17, a carpet weaver who has driven a few times off-road with her family. "Why blame it on women?"

At the Mamozai Driving Academy in the basement of a Kabul shopping center, founder and instructor Summer Gul Khan runs students through a tutorial in a grubby room with road sign posters and disemboweled car parts.

"Carburetor, drive shaft, engine block," says the instructor, tapping each component with a stick.

Mamozai was the country's first private school to offer driving classes to women, nearly a decade ago. During its first two years, under Taliban rule, there were just two female students. Both worked for charity organizations and would remove their burkas while in the classroom, then dive back under the all-encompassing garment before driving, peering through the small eye-slit to see the road.

Now 20% of his several thousand students each year are women, Khan says, although few of them drive regularly after getting their licenses.

"Their families aren't comfortable letting them," he says. "Maybe they'll only do it in emergencies, or for short trips."

Khan, who charges $70 for the course, thinks Afghan women and men are equally suited to driving. The problem is that society doesn't offer women much encouragement or opportunity to practice, so they often lack confidence. Many of the men who bad-mouth them are illiterate and feel threatened by women's (slowly) rising status, fearing that they will take away their driving jobs one day, he says.

Policeman Mohammad Usman Nawabi, 53, says women are better at driving than men because they drive defensively.

"Some of these guys seem to think they're doing loop-the-loops in an airplane," he says.

During Soviet occupation, women were encouraged to drive, at least in Kabul, the capital. Safer Ali, 70, a snack cart owner, says that in subsequent years, the main cities filled up with conservative migrants from the countryside who bridled at even limited freedoms for women.

Zubaida Akbar, 19, a student and government employee, has been driving for less than a month. She doesn't have a license. "Getting a license isn't easy," she says. "You either have to know someone or pay money."

She started driving anyway, she says, because it was such a hassle to have a male relative drive her every evening to her visual arts classes.

"These roads are terrible," she notes, negotiating a 5-inch pothole.

"As you can see, I'm still learning to park," she says as a three-point turn morphs into at least a five-point.

She'd learn a lot more quickly if male drivers would stop doing stupid things that tear at her confidence, she says. Many Afghans are afflicted with road rage these days, which mirrors the stress and violence in their everyday lives.

When they see her at the wheel, some men race past her, then slam on their brakes in some version of "chicken."

"Sometimes I give them the finger," she says, a gesture she learned from foreign friends. "Of course, I should just try and ignore them, but we're all human."

Akbar says she nonetheless worries that if she gets into an accident, or if a soldier or policeman stops her on a lonely road and sexually harasses her, she'll be blamed.

"They automatically say it's the woman's fault, even when it's not," she says, heading around a traffic circle twice after getting some bad directions from her cousin. "Women here are defined by men. We don't even know who we are sometimes because they make all the decisions for us."

At the same time, the independence and self-esteem that come with driving are mostly worth the aggravation, women say.

"It's made me so proud," says Yousafzai, who two years ago had long arguments with her husband and father before they relented and allowed her to drive. "I was over-the-moon happy when I got my license, and I still am now."

youth culture

if you don't already, you should know about skateistan, afghanistan's first skate school!



brave young ladies in hijab rockin it on skateboards, yeah!



speaking of rockin, skateistan is planning a fall concert in kabul for which they have invited guns n' roses to headline, can you imagine?



a new york benefit is in the works, too. know any artists who might be willing to put one of their drawings on a skateboard for auctioning? how about galleries/artspaces willing to host?

and i can't believe i've neglected thus far to direct you to our wonderful school newspaper, written + edited by students, the auaf free press. the top story this week: the staggering cost of afghan weddings. check it, if you please!

happy birthday sarah zibell

monday was my birthday, + i was treated v. kindly by my kabuli buddies.



laila arranged for a cake from the serena hotel + a morning birthday party for me in the university cafeteria, which drew quite the crowd of cake fanciers!

then, there was a lunch at the lovely sufi restaurant, which got me all nostalgic for austin as there was something in the feel of it, the beautiful old house with light streaming in, hardwood floor friendliness of it, that reminded me, finally, of homeplace.

[with hamayoun + laila at sufi]

we had a lot of fun despite the presence of a blustery group of male poets who kept leering at laila, raising her ire. we discussed the performance of music for a long while. laila is a beautiful singer but cannot really perform outside of her home as it's just not considered proper.

she told me that a lot of the girls who audition for the afghan star television series do so not from afghanistan but by sending tapes from germany, the u.k., the u.s., etc. laila admires the girls who are performing on the show and finds them v. v. v. brave. i completely concur.

one former contestant, herat's farida turana, has turned her eye to politics, leveraging her tv fame to win a seat on kabul's provincial council (similar to a state legislature). turana, quoted in time:

"when i competed for afghan star, i wanted to prove that a woman from herat could sing. now that i have been elected to the provincial council, i will prove to people that a lady who can sing can be in politics as well." indeed!

my evening was spent at the charming gandemack lodge with friends . . .

[bahar + dana]

[david, penny, denise, fiona, hera
just out of the frame: ben, serwat]

[denise with gandemack's daily specials. first up: luxus leper pate!]

[chris, mike, justin, jane.
caveat: not all of these wine glasses were mine, please!]



[still hiding in restaurant bathrooms,
taking moody photos of myself @ 37 years]

and more on the election . . .

yesterday, when we visited the undp's "elect" office, everyone was running out for an important press conference at the iec . . . this seems to have been at least part of the reason (don't think this has hit the international news much yet):

ELECTION UPDATE:

It would seem the titled LN ECC Commissioner resigned yesterday; as a strong advocate of President Karzai he is going on (national as a minimum) TV this afternoon to announce “his rationale” behind his resignation.

Barakzai will announce he resigned on account of the fact he believes the international community has “hijacked” the Presidential electoral process.

Concerns are this may lead to the ECC becoming the focal point for pro-Karzai supporters/associated demonstrations of anger at outside interference.

In the next couple of days an official announcement must take place – SRSG Kai Aide met with Pres. Karzai yesterday and informed him of the result of the audit, and there are now increasing reports on international press. If this void starts to grow then discontent could be hijacked by the different factions.

Developments may mean we have to restrict movement at very short notice to mission essential only, depending on destination.

media monitoring project afghanistan

it was an extreme pleasure today to visit the headquarters of the media monitoring project afghanistan. an initiative of the independent election commission, this group has been doing off-air taping of radio and television broadcasts throughout afghanistan since june.



mmpa records several hours of presidential and provincial electoral content from around 20 independent and state-owned broadcasters each day and then indexes that material based on the candidate being covered; whether the reporting was negative, positive, or neutral; the topics addressed; etc.

through this labor, the organization is constructing an comprehensive audio/visual archive not only documenting the contentious afghan presidential election but also a particular slice in time in the development of independent media across the nation.



mmpa boasts that it is leading one of the only quantitative data-gathering projects in afghanistan that does not have an obvious military aim. the group produces weekly reports for the independent election commission (for distribution to the media) detailing trends in coverage, public opinion, etc. based on analysis of the footage.

material is recorded throughout the country and sent on a weekly basis via truck from the provinces to kabul. surprisingly, all of the tapes have shown up and nothing has been lost, even though the couriers put themselves at great risk when traveling certain routes.



as you can see, there is no media monitoring going on in helmand province. as one person remarked, "that is no surprise, considering there was no real election in helmand."

the amazing media monitoring project afghanistan archive may be coming to acku, and i am helping them determine how best to digitize and index the 12-16,000 hours of content, which is a source of great excitement to me.



so much here is unclear! i read a badly translated version of afghanistan's first copyright law (2008) in an attempt to assess today the perspective the state takes on the rights of libraries and archives to acquire, preserve, make accessible audio/visual content so that i could recommend a suitable course of action to acku. egads!