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!

istalif + the troubles

this weekend has been tough, with the indian embassy bombing (right near a friend's office), 3 westerners being kidnapped yesterday in downtown kabul, + today, with a water main (if i'm optimistic)/sewer line (more likely) bursting on the main road leading to our house. the whole street is flooded, traffic is backed up for miles, chaos!

i was supposed to be out shopping for presents for all my little darlings back home this afternoon, but the scene outdoors is not good, so at home i will happily remain.



yesterday, we took a day trip to a lovely village called istalif, known for its ceramics. it was a v. peaceful + beautiful place. we picnicked + bought pottery while our guards tried on hats + rode horses!


i haven't any further infos on the kidnapping yesterday, but it doesn't sound good. 3 westerners (and i thought our security head said american women, but i'm trying to confirm this) were taken from a popular part of downtown kabul after their guard was "disabled." there have been no news reports + we haven't even had a proper security briefing as yet. when i asked our drivers this morning, they knew nothing, which is not particularly comforting.



so, it is clear that we have to be careful. i had been over the moon about a planned trip to bamiyan and band-i-amir this coming week, but it looks like that probably will not happen, for several reasons. perhaps it is for the best, as i have so little time left in kabul that i should probably remain ensconced here.




it is so v. nice to get out, though!

britain did two nice things for afghanistan this week

an academy award submission for havana marking's documentary, afghan star (thanks to bafta)! in the day preceding this announcement, i managed to get in contact with the film's producer. i am hoping to arrange the afghanistan premiere at the american university. our students love cinema, + it's so rare that a film of regional importance has such global attention.



and over 2,000 treasures are back at the kabul museum, thanks to british authorities, who repatriated the smuggled items to afghanistan. they went on exhibit this past tuesday. let us hope that they can maintain security over there so that everything will remain safe!

l. + h. + s.

my afghan co-workers + i have been having some interesting conversations about dating, relationships, marriage, + so on.




l. is a v. independent, intelligent young woman who is really only interested in marrying for love. she has rejected a number of arranged marriage proposals + is constantly receiving telephone calls from sad-sack beaus.

h. married quite young. his main pleasure at work is to goad + advise l. in how to attract a husband (and, of course, to suggest potential matches based on the steady stream of young men who visit our office).

according to h.:

when a boy and girl meet properly, they are surrounded by family + are not allowed to speak to each other directly. thus, the boy must use nonverbal cues to woo the girl: rapidly blinking his eyes to indicate his appreciation for hers, drawing his finger over his eyebrow as a means of expressing his liking of her eyebrow shape. so much is focused on the eyes as that is often the only part of the girl that is not covered in some fashion.

when a family is scoping out a wife for their husband, the women of the family pay a visit to the girl's home. the young lady is usually so terrified of them that she hides + hides until forced to show herself. the visiting women are v. strict in their assessment, looking carefully at how tidy the home is, as that is thought to demonstrate v. much the character of the family. apparently, one of their tricks is to closely observe the ceiling lights: if there is any dust on them, this is an indication of the poor quality of the family + the ladies politely take their leave.

and so on . . .

in the reverse, l. + h. are intensely curious to discuss what they've heard about u.s. customs: living with someone without being married, the prevalence of divorce, how women are still accepted socially even though they have been divorced, unrelated adults co-habitating platonically well into their golden years . . . l. tends to favor these, while h. is rather incredulous.

i am equally flummoxed by the prospect of this 25-year old father of 3 spending a great deal of time grooming a second wife (not l.!) . . . and in such a tremendously up-front manner. i suspect that i will never understand afghan men + of course the feeling is mutual. still, it is good that we try to talk to each other + we can mostly keep it light when discussing each other's customs/traditions/what have you that we may sometimes find unappealing.

never boring!

kids

two stories i received today remind me, if it's not totally clear from the number of them i see begging for food and trying to sell me things, just how horribly rough it is to be an afghan kid (whether you live in kabul or kandahar or calais) . . .

just last night, i headed into a restaurant at about 7:30, and a v. young boy (maybe 3 or 4?) was standing outside by himself, asking for $1. when we came out about 10:30, he was out there alone, still asking for dollars. heartbreaking.

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GIRL KILLED IN RAF LEAFLET DROP IN AFGHANISTAN

LONDON (AFP) – A young Afghan girl died after a box of public information leaflets, dropped by a Royal Air Force plane over Afghanistan, landed on her, a newspaper said Wednesday. The Ministry of Defence said it was investigating the accident which it described as "highly regrettable," The Times said. The drop occurred over a rural area of Afghanistan's southern Helmand province on June 23 as part of an information campaign, the newspaper said. "Sadly one of the boxes failed to fully open and on landing caused serious injuries to an Afghan child," an RAF spokesman said. "The child was treated at the local medical facility in Kandahar where, despite the best efforts of staff, she died as a result of her injuries." Officials said it was not known what type of leaflet was being dropped. The accident comes amid anger in Afghanistan over civilian casualties in the conflict between foreign and Afghan forces and an increasingly bloody Taliban insurgency to secure the war-torn country.

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AFGHAN TEENAGERS CAUGHT ON SCHOOL BUS BOUND FOR BRITAIN

Daily Telegraph (UK), 2 AFG teenagers were caught on a school bus bound for Britain from France. The children, both believed to be about 14, crawled underneath a Travel De Courcey coach parked in a Calais supermarket carpark in a bid to evade border control. The coach had been hired by Exhall Grange School, Coventry, for a week-long trip and was making its way to catch a ferry for the return journey. The teenage stowaways used the coach's exhaust to climb on top of the engine of the coach in an attempt to smuggle themselves in to Britain. But the exhaust cracked as they stepped on it aiming poisonous fumes directly where they were hiding. The schoolchildren on board the bus were the same age as the would-be fellow passengers who could have been killed if they had not been found. Officials believe the Afghan boys may have lived at the recently-cleared controversial camp 'The Jungle' near Calais. Coach driver Dave Kelsey, 58, said he was shocked to find the boys hiding on his coach's engine when he went to investigate. "When I came back to the coach I opened the door and went round the back to open it up", he said. "When I looked inside I saw a yellow t-shirt on top of my engine and slammed the door shut straight away - I was shocked. "When the teenagers realised they had been rumbled one of the boys crawled out and ran off across the carpark while the other lay frozen, terrified on top of the engine."

British soldiers parked nearby helped the coach driver coax out the second boy who escaped and also fled. Mr Kelsey said the journey would have killed the stowaways if they had not been discovered. "If they hadn't have been caught, they would have cooked from the heat of the engine", he said. "Because they had stood on the exhaust to get on the engine, the pipe had cracked and fumes would have escaped and gone straight across the engine. "They must have been desperate, part of me felt sorry for them." The father-of-one said he had experienced stowaways hiding in his coach before. "Previously we have had a coach following another in France and they have spotted legs and rags hanging out from underneath the coach. "It is becoming a regular occurrence - someone is going to die." Managing director of Travel de Courcey, Mike de Courcey, said he would be warning his drivers of potential stowaways. Dan Hodges, spokesperson for Refugee charity, Refugee Action, said that the French government should do more to deal with their immigration problems. "This incident shows the desperate measures some people are prepared to go to escape and secure sanctuary for themselves", he said. "The French cleared the refugee camp last week with relative ease but haven't been able to properly deal with the problem."