First full day in Kabul went better than expected. The extra Benadryl I took last night meant I woke up with my alarm (!) but also gave me a slight headache. Nothing an aspirin and some excellent coffee couldn't fix.
I ran into Noor K on the way down from breakfast and we greeted each other warmly. FOCUS are just the nicest freaking people. Turns out FOCUS was on the last day of their annual board meeting, so were going to be spending all day in the Serena. So I chatted with him for a bit, then went to eat breakfast with Mirza. While we were eating, the rest of the FOCUS crew showed up. We met several of the board members and promised to come by their meeting in the evening if they were still there. (Makes sense, we are their biggest donor.)
We also ran into the CEO of Roshan, the telecommunications company that the Network owns, and the single largest taxpayer in Afghanistan (they contribute something like 7% of the government's annual tax revenue, which is just stupefying.) I started to narrate the wild goose chase that followed trying to get to the AKDN office (different from the AKF office) but realized it was actually quite uninteresting, even at the time. At any rate, around 9 we met up with our colleagues and headed off to the embassy for the morning's meeting with AID.
Karim, the Roshan CEO, and Aly, HH's ambassador to Afghanistan, had both mentioned since we got here that they refuse to go to the compound. It's easy to see why. They treat you're a prisoner entering prison. They had dogs sniff our cars twice and checked our ID's at least four times, including at two different guard houses within the compound, before we even got to the entrance of the embassy itself. Then they take your passport and any electronic device you're carrying and you can't go anywhere without an escort. We had to double-check to make sure it was okay to GO ACROSS THE STREET from the embassy building to the side of the street that AID is on. Bah.
Anyway, the meeting went rather better than I expected. They had some substantive questions and pushed us on a few issues, but the enthusiasm for this to work is clearly there, which was a surprise.
Had lunch with Aman and this guy Adam, who helps run the hospital reconstruction that AKF and AKHS are doing up north. Then spent the afternoon starting a meeting note, trying to get connected to the internet, and going on a grand tour of the whole AKF "office" (four separate buildings within a walled compound) with Akhtar, the AKFA CEO, and Mirza.
When we got back to the hotel, we went straight down to the FOCUS meeting room. It turned out to be a good idea. Mirza gave some extemporaneous remarks and, given that they sprung (sprang? sprung) the request on him without warning, he did well. I also spoke a bit about the donor atmosphere and how I think FOCUS would grow, and considering that they sprang that on me, as well, I was pleased to hear myself giving a cogent and helpful answer. We left after that and then, a couple of hours later as we were eating dinner, Ruby came over and thanked me for one of the comments I'd made. Apparently it played right into one of the things that she was trying to get the board to approve! Nice to feel useful.
Anyway, now I'm exhausted and I haven't even been able to write about the most interesting thing that's happened in the past week. Namely, my discovery of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. Most interesting and most frustrating. HPMOR lends itself to the title of this post. It's a serial that I discovered when 85 chapters were already complete and published (online, for free, at hpmor.com). So after gorging on it for a few days I'm now panicking because it may be months before the next chapter. This must be how people in 19th-century England felt with Dickens, or the French with Hugo. Except they were used to it and I'm freaking the fuck out.
More on it later.
I ran into Noor K on the way down from breakfast and we greeted each other warmly. FOCUS are just the nicest freaking people. Turns out FOCUS was on the last day of their annual board meeting, so were going to be spending all day in the Serena. So I chatted with him for a bit, then went to eat breakfast with Mirza. While we were eating, the rest of the FOCUS crew showed up. We met several of the board members and promised to come by their meeting in the evening if they were still there. (Makes sense, we are their biggest donor.)
We also ran into the CEO of Roshan, the telecommunications company that the Network owns, and the single largest taxpayer in Afghanistan (they contribute something like 7% of the government's annual tax revenue, which is just stupefying.) I started to narrate the wild goose chase that followed trying to get to the AKDN office (different from the AKF office) but realized it was actually quite uninteresting, even at the time. At any rate, around 9 we met up with our colleagues and headed off to the embassy for the morning's meeting with AID.
Karim, the Roshan CEO, and Aly, HH's ambassador to Afghanistan, had both mentioned since we got here that they refuse to go to the compound. It's easy to see why. They treat you're a prisoner entering prison. They had dogs sniff our cars twice and checked our ID's at least four times, including at two different guard houses within the compound, before we even got to the entrance of the embassy itself. Then they take your passport and any electronic device you're carrying and you can't go anywhere without an escort. We had to double-check to make sure it was okay to GO ACROSS THE STREET from the embassy building to the side of the street that AID is on. Bah.
Anyway, the meeting went rather better than I expected. They had some substantive questions and pushed us on a few issues, but the enthusiasm for this to work is clearly there, which was a surprise.
Had lunch with Aman and this guy Adam, who helps run the hospital reconstruction that AKF and AKHS are doing up north. Then spent the afternoon starting a meeting note, trying to get connected to the internet, and going on a grand tour of the whole AKF "office" (four separate buildings within a walled compound) with Akhtar, the AKFA CEO, and Mirza.
When we got back to the hotel, we went straight down to the FOCUS meeting room. It turned out to be a good idea. Mirza gave some extemporaneous remarks and, given that they sprung (sprang? sprung) the request on him without warning, he did well. I also spoke a bit about the donor atmosphere and how I think FOCUS would grow, and considering that they sprang that on me, as well, I was pleased to hear myself giving a cogent and helpful answer. We left after that and then, a couple of hours later as we were eating dinner, Ruby came over and thanked me for one of the comments I'd made. Apparently it played right into one of the things that she was trying to get the board to approve! Nice to feel useful.
Anyway, now I'm exhausted and I haven't even been able to write about the most interesting thing that's happened in the past week. Namely, my discovery of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. Most interesting and most frustrating. HPMOR lends itself to the title of this post. It's a serial that I discovered when 85 chapters were already complete and published (online, for free, at hpmor.com). So after gorging on it for a few days I'm now panicking because it may be months before the next chapter. This must be how people in 19th-century England felt with Dickens, or the French with Hugo. Except they were used to it and I'm freaking the fuck out.
More on it later.
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