breakin' out of focus

Another attack this morning, this time more coordinated, but it was against the US base in Bagram, so not even inside Kabul. Still, after a week and a half of calm visit, things have picked up a little bit. But I went out last night for the first time, with some AKF people, a couple of people from IFES, and a guy named Robert, who used to work for CHF in Sudan as a Program Manager or something and with whom I corresponded occasionally but never spoke to or met. He was very nice and quite charitably mentioned some offhanded whatever about how I'd helped them on proposals or something. I may have done so somewhat but it was nice of him to give the impression that my role was less admin/logistical at CHF than it was. And Silja, who used to run CHF's enormous Pakistan program, works for IFES so of course all those people knew her. Small freaking world. It was a really nice time, excellent to have a steak (not rice and chicken or ground beef!) and a couple of beers (alcohol!) with some native English speakers. The steak wasn't half bad, either. The place we went is less than 100m from the front door of the guest house, so I just walked home with another guy who's staying there. Kind of wish I'd gotten a lift as the street was quite muddy and now my shoes are dirty, haha. I've decided once and for all that I'm going to get a shoeshine in the Dubai airport. It will be my first ever, haha.

This morning I went over to FMFB to meet with the head of microfinance over there, Karim. We chatted for about an hour and a half, just a general overview of where they're coming from and where they're going. And then we talked a bit about Afghanistan in general, and what he thinks really needs to happen in order for security and stability to come. I won't go into too much detail here but it was a very interesting conversation. There was a story in the NYT yesterday that he took issue with in particular.

Anyway, now I'm back at the FOCUS office. Everyone is meeting about the DIPECHO project, which is also being extended but with have I have nothing to do. But Alix just forwarded me approximately 18 million emails from my work accounts, which I still can't access, so I'm just going through those bit by bit. That's enough work for now. This afternoon we'll do the programmatic work shop, insh'allah.