fast and furious

I thought that my layover in Dubai was 20 hours but really it's 17, and with transport time and needing to be at the airport two hours early it's really more like 13. So I got to my hotel around 8:15, having made the booking last night based on a search for "hotel dubai 24 hour check-in." The hotel did not have my reservation on file when I arrived. Half an hour later they'd found it, god knows how, but there was no room ready. Also, check-in at this hotel is at 2 PM, so the lady wanted to charge me an extra AED100 (like $30) to go up to my room early. I bitched and she dropped it without saying anything.

It's all good, though, the place is fine: Room comfortable and cool, nice view of lots and lots of cement, big flat screen TV on which I watched "Tintin" the animated movie for about 20 minutes before falling asleep for two hours, bringing my total last night to four and a half or so. I was debating whether to do something adventuresome today like go dune buggying in the desert, but it's expensive and the timing didn't look good. Then I thought about going to see the souks -- the old (although I'm sure much-gussied up for tourists now) markets of Dubai where they sell gold and spices and fabric and stuff. Then I thought, screw that, I'll go to the mall, have lunch, wander around, buy a an iPod charger cable (somehow lost the old one in Dushanbe) and a new book (The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, can't wait to crack it on the plane), and go see "The Fast and the Furious 6." The movie was great, totally worth the price of admission if you're in the mood for bad acting and awesome action movie writing -- verbatim example at the end of the post. There's a big chase scene involving the fastest and most nimble tank ever created by mankind and you think, How are they going to top that? But they do.

Now I'm back in the hotel with about an hour and a half to kill before I have to head to the airport. I'm trying to import pics from my iPhone but something is wrong. If I lose these pics I will be crushed. I think I'll go to the gym and get the juices flowing a little before the long haul back to DC. Almost home.

From "The Fast and the Furious 6":



The crew are trying to catch a bad guy on a mountainous road. The bad guy surprises them by driving not a large military truck but a very fast tank. The crew are freaking out.

TYRESE (driving his car): Guys, we need a plan B!
LUDACRIS (standing on a bridge over the road): Plan B? We need a plan C, D, E, F!
PAUL WALKER (driving his car while making eye contact with Vin Diesel, who is driving his car alongside): No, we do what we do best: improvise.

Then there is a whole shitload of crashing and eventually they harpoon one of the wrecked cars (Tyrese's) to the tank and push it over the edge of a long bridge as an anchor on the tank, which flips over and grinds to a halt. They've caught the bad guy.

TYRESE (who has ended up in Paul Walker's car after his was crushed by the tank and he jumped onto Paul Walker's car's roof and climbed in through the window): Haha, woo!

khorog to dushanbe by road

Last two days:

Woke up extremely early Thursday morning. Nude session in the outdoor hot spring at Garmchashma with the Norwegian ambassador to Central Asia, DJ, and a bunch of local Tajik men and boys. Porridge for breakfast and then back to Khorog, where I went straight to the Mountin Soceites Dev Suport Program (sic) office with His Excellency to talk about Norwegian forestry projects and restoring an old fort out in GBAO. Then to the PE office for a meeting with Jamshed about the project that's closing out and some money issues, then DJ came and we talked about PE's future plans. Then to the Khorog museum, which was a trip down Soviet memory lane, some amazing taxidermy, and a mixture of very strange and very cool dioramas and exhibits. Then lunch at the same cafe as the other day. It was Unity Day here yesterday, the anniversary of the end of the civil war in 1997, so the park was packed.

The helicopter flight was cancelled because of weather and the forecast for this morning was bad (and borne out, we had a lot of rain and a thunderstorm, but I'm getting ahead of myself), so I had no choice but to join DJ, HE the A of N, the Norwegian Deputy Ambassador to Germany, and a senior counsellor to the Norwegian delegation in Kabul on the 15-hour drive back to Dushanbe up and over the mountains. We had several stops along the way to talk about Norway's projects here with PE, including in a village along the Panj where HE put on a suit and we sat a table in front of most of the village while speeches were given, mostly in Russian. They had laid out a big spread of fruit and berries and I took a deep breath and ate two apricots. Generally I shy away from fresh fruit over here but it would have been insulting for me not to eat any. Good news: no ill effects.

It was dark a couple of hours before we reached Darvaz, the midway point (ish) of our journey and the place where we spent the night, in an extremely strange little resort complex that is owned by the big Tajik aluminum company. We were quite late and we had to get up at four this morning, so I had some Sprite and a couple of pieces of watermelon before heading up to my room and falling instantly asleep.

We had breakfast at 5 at the home of PE's regional manager for Darvaz. It was really excellent, samosas and fresh bread and tea and fresh honey, eaten sitting cross-legged on a covered platform next to his house. The setting was beautiful, in a deep and very green valley. DJ took his leave, back to Khorog, and the Norwegians and I piled into one of the Land Cruisers and took off for the final stretch to Dushanbe. It was actually a lovely drive up and over a 3200-meter pass and then down through the mountains onto the plain. We talked pretty much the whole time, about Norway, about the US, about Tajikistan. The Norwegians were (are) all very friendly and relaxed guys, and so it was an easy 7.5 hours, despite the condition of the road and the fact that I was in the middle of the back seat. I'm taller than HE but he's an Excellency so he got the front, and my back-seat-mates are both well over six feet and more than 20 years older than I am. No worries.

We got back to Dushanbe a few hours ago, had lunch, showered and then HE had some meetings with various ministers and the other two and I went for a walk down Rudaki Ave to the monument and park. It absolutely poured rain as we were coming into Dushanbe and then cleared up and is cool and sunny out. I'm writing this instead of doing work so I'd better stop, but I think my next post will be from Dubai. Car leaves here at 3 AM.

EDIT: Map of the route we took from Khorog to Dushanbe is below. The yellow dot is where we stayed in Darvaz.

garmchashma

(Written offline on the evening of 6/26 as I wait for a 3G modem to get me online. It's now just before 10 AM on 6/27 and I"m sitting the office of the General Director of Pamir Energy, where internet is good. Mash'allah.)

Sorry for the multi-day absence. We left for Khorog on Tuesday morning via the helicopter (no prohibition on pics so I have lots more) and on arriving in Khorog unexpectedly found myself without internet. We were not in the office at all and the hotel didn’t even have TV reception. Being without internet when you expect to be is nice, but when it’s in the middle of a work trip it’s kind of anxiety-inducing. I’m late on a couple of kind of important emails that no one else can write, or, if they could write them they don’t know to because I can’t communicate with them. 

That aside, Khorog has been very cool. I spent all day yesterday driving around with a couple of PE engineers, Malohat and Mansoor. Malohat speaks English pretty well so she was my interpreter and guide. We visited a bunch of different substations, saw where the lines cross the river into Afghanistan at Tem, and checked out the two power stations: Khorog HPP and Pamir I HPP. I’d never been inside a hydropower plant before. Khorog HPP was especially cool because they are repairing two of the turbines, so they were turned off and we could see into the pipes and get up close. I imagine that in the States the safety precautions would be a lot higher but we had hard hats. Pamir I is bigger, 28 MW versus 10, so the turbines are vertical and a couple of stories tall rather than just lying on their sides. We also visited PE’s customer service and billing center and the main office, which is right above Khorog HPP. 

In the midst of all that we stopped for lunch in Khorog City Park, which was rehabilitated by AK Trust for Culture a couple of years ago. It was really nice, and the outdoor cafe where we ate was tasty. Lots of people around, kids swimming in a big pond, big poplar trees, groups of teenage girls looking exactly like groups of teenage girls look in the States, swing sets. The works. 

We had dinner at the Serena, which was excruciatingly slow if also very pretty. After a day of being driven around by Mansoor, who seemed to know every third car we passed, I knew at least 3/4 of the people who came to the Serena while we were there. There’s a big crew here for this built environment conference that I didn’t know about and ended up at today by pure coincidence. Focus people, AK Planning and Building people, AKF Pakistan people, and so on. I’ve met a bunch of people on this trip who I’ve corresponded with for years in some cases but never seen face-to-face. That’s been awesome, of course. I ate last night with my PE guides and then they left and I joined the Focus table (plus Hadi of AK Planning and Building) for some socializing. Lots of jokes, it was nice. A few of them were staying at the same hotel as me on the very opposite end of Khorog, so I caught a ride with them. 

This morning after breakfast Karim and Yousef and I walked around the somewhat overgrown but beautiful botanical gardens outside the hotel. Then they headed off to see some Focus stuff and I went down the hill to this conference. It was pretty dry so I won’t expand on it here.

And now I find myself in Garmchashma, which literally means “hot springs,” about an hour and twenty minutes south of Khorog, or upriver. Where I’m from rivers flow east or they flow south, so a river that flows basically due north gets me turned around. I’m here at the invitation of Daler, the General Director of PE, who’s been on a tour of some remote areas with the Norwegian ambassador to Central Asia. There has been some confusion with the logistics -- a common theme since I arrived in Tajikistan -- so I’ve been relegated to a kind of shitty room after being led to a quite nice room in a different building. I don’t mind taking a back seat to His Excellency, but I’m not going to say I wasn’t disappointed at the switch.

Frankly I guess I’d just rather be back in Khorog, where I know people and can communicate. It should be fun to be out here, and I’m glad I accepted Daler’s very last-minute invitation because if I was in Khorog I’d be thinking, Darn, I should have gone to the hot springs. By reputation they’re really nice, although I haven’t been in yet. Maybe later tonight? Maybe tomorrow? I’m at someone else’s mercy (Daler’s) and I don’t know where he is. I’m ashamed and angry with myself for feeling anything but gratitude and adventure for the opportunity to be in a place like this but I think I can just chalk it up to having this work hanging over my head and being unable to do it. I’ve even written out the emails, so it’ll just be a copy-past job: Once Daler arrives with his 3G modem and I can tick a couple of boxes off the list I will relax. Also once I eat. 

We’ll get up early and go back to Khorog in the morning, and then it’s meetings meetings, fly back to Dushanbe at 4 PM, and check back into Serena for one more day of meetings. Unless, of course, everything changes again. Anyway, two more days and then I’m on my way home. 

***12:20 AM***

I’m leaving the above the way it was because it’s the way I felt at the time and I’ve got no reason other than self-embarrassment to whitewash. Daler came a few minutes after I finished writing the post. He was so apologetic, and he’s such an incredibly nice person. And of course I said, No problem, don’t worry about it because (A) it really is fine, a few hours of mild inconvenience is really nothing to complain about and (B) I’m not a douche bag. So we had dinner together, with the Norwegian ambassador and a couple of other Norwegian guys, one from the Almaty office and one from Kabul. And also my co-passengers in the ride from Khorog, one of whom turned out to be former Deputy Minister for Energy in Tajikistan, and a major friend of PE as they were getting off the ground 5-10 years ago. The two Excellencies both speak fluent Russian so they went off into a corner and Daler and I had a chance to catch up.

After dinner was the springs. The Norwegians wanted to wait for the outdoor pool because I guess they’d been in the indoor one earlier in the day. Problem: At night it’s first-come, first-served, and there were some ladies there. No gender mixing, as you might imagine. I didn’t want to wait so I joined Daler and the Deputy Minister in one of the covered pools. It was great, hot but not overwhelming and minerally and peaceful. We did two dips, the first one maybe 15-20 minutes and the second one 8-10, with 30 minutes in between. Very relaxing. 

And now it’s late and I have the 3G modem but it’s really slow, so I’m not sure I’m going to get this up tonight anyway.

monday

More work, some meetings, I'm going to Khorog tomorrow after a bit of drama about whether I'd get as seat on the helicopter or not. Now more work, but in the hotel.

Lunch was Indian food: absolutely delicious and very inexpensive! Chalk one up for Dushanbe's culinary scene.

sunday in dushanbe

Woke up much more on time, about 8, and got right to work on finishing the budget for the proposal. Went to the office around 10:30 to work with MJ for a while on the revised narrative and budget notes, then came back to Serena for lunch with a big Network crew, at the invitation of the head of Focus Tajikistan. Pretty good, nice conversation, blah blah. Back to the office and finished the budget and the technical narrative while MJ toiled away on the budget notes.

We finished and then MJ, OM and I took a nice long walk from the hotel up the main drag here, Rudaki Avenue, to Rudaki Park. I'd passed the part and its neighboring monument on the way to and from the office. Seeing a city at walking pace and outside the confines of a car is quite a different experience from driving around. I guess that's obvious. Anyway, the evening was warm and lovely. I took some photos of the monument and then ran up to the top of the base to take some other photos, which is apparently not allowed -- a cop came over and said I had to get down! OM talked to him and apparently you can only climb the stairs if accompanied by, well, a cop. Stupid. It was okay, no big deal. The monument, I should say, is to Tajikistan's greatest leader, Somoni. I have pictures, words are not going to do it justice. There's a large arch and some gold involved.

There was a concert going on in the park so we walked over to watch. Lots of families around, little kids with ice cream and a girl on roller blades so heavy for her that she was knock-kneed with her feet out to the sides. The music was evidently Uzbek, and then Tajik, but I can't tell the difference. There was a woman singing and some men behind her playing instruments. Or, I should say, "playing." It was comically obvious that they weren't actually playing them; they weren't even doing an especially good job syncing with the music. The stage was under a pretty monument to Rudaki himself, who is apparently Tajikistan's greatest writer.

We meandered back to the hotel and I took my leave, the better to get a little exercise and chat with C. 

dushanbe weekend part the second

READ PREVIOUS POST FIRST

(cont'd)

I woke up around 10:15, much later than I'd meant but I guess I was tired. Also the phone didn't work, so my normal alarm clock was out of commission, i.e., I couldn't ask for or receive a wake-up call. Oh well. I sprang out of bed, bolted down some breakfast in the lobby restaurant, and called OM from the front desk. The car came 15 minutes later and I was off to the office. It's a short drive, less than ten minutes in light traffic and just over ten with morning traffic, as I found out today. But I'm getting ahead of myself there. Arrived just after 11 and OM, MK, and MJ were already hard at work. On a Saturday. We relocated to the conference room, which has more space to spread out than PE's small room here. Their main office is, of course, in Khorog.

Then we got to work. With a brief break for a very hearty Tajik lunch of rice, shashlik (shish kebab), and tomato-onion-cucumber salad, we worked until 7:30 PM. Then we went to dinner. The waitress brought menus in Cyrillic, which of course might as well be elvish runes to me. Then she brought an English menu but it was at least ten pages long. As I was poring over it MK, the most senior of the three women (OM and MJ are even with each other, I think) just started ordering stuff and I eventually gave up and just said, You do it, I'll eat whatever. So we had salads and soups and steak and cheese and honey and bread and vodka. 

And entertainment. The dining room was on the second floor of the restaurant building, large with a few small tables around two sides, two sets of long tables from front to back in the middle, and a stage in the corner opposite the stairs. Relatively early in the night, a guy got up and played a couple of smoov tunes over a drum machine. Then he went away. Then a six-piece band got up, sax guy included, and proceeded to play Pamiri, Afghan, and Uzbek songs. I think because of the sax, tinkly keyboards, and drum machine, it reminded me (awesomely) of "Free Willy." HOLD ME. LIKE THE RIVER JORDAN...

The band finished after 15 or 20 minutes and then it was time for the dancing. We had a woman Uzbek dancer, and three women doing some other kind of dance, and then the show-stopper. The three ladies had gone off stage and the opening bars of a Puerto Rican, Ricky Martin-style pop song started up. I said, out loud, This isn't Tajik. And then he sprang to the stage. The dancer, in white pants, an insane ruffled Mexican-ish shirt, a red bandana and a little black hat. And he absolutely killed it, the guy was clearly a well-trained ballet dancer. Our whole table was laughing out loud, it was so unexpected. Yes video, I will put it up when I get home.

He was followed by a belly dancer. Then, I kid you not, the band came back out and did another set, this time of Persian club bangers. The table in front of us was a mix of locals, expats, and Afghans and one of the guys was a very enthusiastic dancer. Forgot to mention that several of the people from that table and from another table along the wall got up and danced during many of the acts. Anyway, during the club banger set the guy was going around his table and pulling people out of their chairs to go dance. Then he came over to our table, shook his head and waved his hands dismissively at the women, and held his hands out directly to me. I said, Not a chance. He was persistent but I was bashful and refused. Mistake, I would have liked to dance to that music. It was fun. Opportunity lost. So it goes.

Then the three ladies came out again. Then the belly dancer. Then Spanish dancer and Uzbek lady, in different costumes, doing a more Central Asian dance. Then the three ladies came out in belly dancer outfits, holding candles, and one of them had a CANDELABRA ON HER HEAD. Then the band came back out. It was exhausting. We left. I went home, called C, caught up after a week of not talking at all, and passed out. 

End of Saturday.

dushanbe weekend part 1

What a packed weekend. It's going to take a couple of posts to get through it, because I'm sitting the lobby of the hotel waiting for the PE driver now to take me to the office and he'll be here in a few minutes.

The flight over from DXB was pleasant. Only 70 passengers on the whole 737 so I had an exit row to myself. Read about Bilbo et al., bought an expensive but not terrible chicken wrap and a beer, put my blindfold on, and conked out. The Dushanbe airport -- from the outside at night, anyway -- bears a strong resemblance to KBL. Same bright blue illuminated block letters announcing the name of the place. The consulate was a hoot: the Res Rep's office (HH's ambassador) had sent along an official letter of invitation so I was all cleared and ready to go. But it turns out the visa costs $58 and I, unbelievably, had talked myself out of needing to withdraw cash in DXB. Anyway, I was sitting there pondering my options when who should appear through the window (and I do mean right through the window, as if we were sitting inside a drive through bank teller's office and she popped up ready to deposit some checks) but OM! I guess she'd been assigned to come collect me from the airport at 3 AM. The staff at PE are nothing if not dedicated, about which more later.

Anyway, she talked briefly to the guy who seemed like he was in charge. By the way, all three consular employees were skinny guys in their early- or mid-20's dressed in jeans and polo shirts. The blank visas were in a stack in an unlocked drawer. And I was accompanied in the visa room by an Indian guy from ADB, an American tourist in his 50's, and 12 Nigerian soccer players, here to join Tajikistan's very, very low-level pro league. The head consular guy told me to just go out through immigration, go to the other terminal, where there's an ATM, get some cash, and come back and pay. So that's what I did! Just waltzed right out with my stamp and everything. OM led me over to the arrivals terminal and sure enough, there were three different ATMs all in a row. We went back, I paid and got a handwritten receipt after OM reminded me that I'd probably need one, and drove off to the Serena.

Check-in was fine, I had taken a Benadryl earlier, on the plane, so I fell asleep basically as soon as I lay down in the excellent bed. Comparing this Serena to Kabul and Islamabad is a boring but somewhat inevitable game. The bed is notably nicer here. The breakfast notably less nice. I'd better stop there for now. Part 1A: Saturday: The Day and the Night will follow.

terminal two

I'm sitting in Terminal Two at DXB, waiting for my flight to Dushanbe. About three hours to go until boarding. This terminal is just for use by FlyDubai, the emirate's budget airline. People in Kabul complain about it a lot because it's apparently often late and you have to pay for anything on board, including pillows. But the plane was new, the staff were pleasant, and the flight was on time. Maybe I just got lucky but based on that one experience I'd take it over Safi any day.

The terminal is kind of a Terminal One in miniature. Even the weird juxtaposition of the branding (utterly generic and global) and the people (god only knows how many languages are being spoken in my immediate vicinity right now) is the same. The destinations are smaller, though. Some I haven't even heard of: Where is Mahsad?

I finished Liar's Poker and left it in Kabul for Liz to read, and then read the entirety of The Places In Between between last night and today. More thoughts on those later. For now I'll just say that they were interesting books to read back-to-back. Had to pick up a new copy of the Economist and a copy of The Hobbit from the truly, somewhat depressingly pathetic newsstand in the duty-free. They had 18-20 different books, of which two or maybe three seemed like things I'd ever want to read.

The time in Tajikistan is going to be a little nuts. I just set up one meeting but the rest of my non-PE meetings there are going to be completely ad hoc. A woman from Focus Tajikistan just told me that there is apparently a habitat improvement conference next week in Khorog, which some donor-unit colleagues are attending. Who knew? Maybe I'll go to it. It's nine days until I'm home and right now that seems like a ways, but I know it'll rocket along. 

last night in kabul

Today was good, a little more relaxed than it's been here. What an intense few days, it's hard to believe that I haven't even been here a week. Talked with Dad early this morning (Mom was at an event), which was very nice as usual. Did work all morning in my room (in the quiet! with no one around!), ate lunch, then went to the office for a meeting with the AID environmental guy. That went fine, then did some more work, then met with Akhtar to debrief about the week. He got excellent feedback about the workshop, which was great to hear and very nice of him to volunteer to me -- I didn't even ask, it wouldn't even occur to me to ask a CEO. He just told me.

Was at the office later than I meant so no chance for shopping, but that's alright. I'll try the terra incognita of Tajikistan next week. I can't wait to go, although it's going to be a bit crazy with work the first three days. Tajikistan is so similar and yet so, so different from Afghanistan. Historically northeastern Afghanistan and southern Tajikistan are of a piece -- same language, same terrain. But Tajikistan was a Soviet Socialist Republic. The Soviet foray into Afghanistan, well, we know how that went.

Tomorrow morning I'll take it easy, pack, and then head to the airport at 11. My next post will probably be from Dubai, then hello, Dushanbe!

workshop over

And, deep breath. The workshop finished up today with the first Steering Committee meeting. I was, blessedly, excused from attending, so I used that time to continue helping with the research and learning agenda and to do some other work I've been putting off. The workshop went about as well as could be hoped, and it sounds like the SC went really well, but it's a relief for it to be over.

In fun news, I actually met the governor of Badakhshan today, along with the Deputy Minister for Rural Rehabilitation and Development. Very cool, they both seemed like nice and humble men.

Tired now, so going to take half a Benadryl and hit the sack.

oversleeping

I've done it the past two days. I think if Benadryl is going to work properly I need to go to bed on time and take it on the early-ish side. Otherwise it knocks me out too thoroughly and I can't get up. It hasn't been catastrophic from a work perspective but I missed my date with C this morning and am sad. Hadn't had that problem with it before so lesson learned.

ventriloquism

This post will not discuss work, except to say that the day went well and I spent the evening with work people. At, first, a nice dinner at some people's house and then at, of all things, a ventriloquist show. The woman was really talented and very funny. Not something I thought I'd ever do in Kabul, although it was completely natural at the same time. She does cruise ships and the like, and apparently met some guy who works here on a cruise out of Dubai, he invited her to Kabul and she said what the hell. She was followed by a woman from Houston who played traditional Irish music on violin, and sang, and then was joined by an electric guitar, electric bass, cello, and drums and played some really fun jammy music. I had the single most expensive drink of my life, a $20 vodka tonic. Supply and demand, an inexorable law.

It was a really nice evening, all in all, and the great thing about having a (loose) curfew is that it's over and it's not even that late. Barely past 11. Tomorrow morning we're going to try to finish the program monitoring plan and then the afternoon brings the Steering Committee. Big news.

Alright, so I lied. I will talk about work. Other exciting news: Yesterday afternoon our humble workshop was joined by the governor of Badakhshan (!!!) and a (female, and apparently quite controversial) member of Parliament (!!!). They came and sat in as we discussed the results framework and then we went outside and had photo-op time. Very cool. The governor will be on the Steering Committee of the project, so it was neat to have him there at this very detail-oriented meeting. A bit like having Martin O'Malley at an IMPACT Silver Spring meeting. You might not be sure what you think of the guy, but it puts a spring in your step that he showed up.

fresh air

I have literally gotten no fresh air today. Not a single breath, even from passing a slightly open door. The workshop went pretty well I guess. The room is set up wedding style, with round tables and 8 or so chairs per table. Just enough seats. Someone pointed out this morning that there's a disconnect between my table at the front (the expat table -- me, Lydia, Liz, Jack, Jayne, Dilovar, Lisa) and the rest of the attendees, who are almost all based in Badakhshan and are almost all Afghan. So if nothing else it's really valuable just to have everyone together, to make sure that our visions of what the project is going to be like align.

My time to shine part 1 came at the very beginning, when I gave a presentation to open the workshop by going over the objectives and the background of the project. I think I botched it by talking too fast. Odd, I do not normally get nervous in front of groups, but I had drymouth and everything. No one ever tells you you sucked after you give a presentation but I did. That's okay, it was just covering territory everyone is familiar with anyway. And I made up for it later. On the other hand, the most senior-level Network person in the country was sitting front and center and had immediately preceded me. Oh well.

Time to shine part 2 was at the end, presenting and answering questions about reporting and compliance. On this I was much more comfortable and did very well. Yeehaw.

And I participated very actively and, I think, constructively, in the other two main components of the day: Reviewing the implementation plan and completely overhauling the project monitoring plan. At several points I noticed how focused and un-bored I was, and was amazed by that.

This post has been very self-centered, but whatever, this blog is about me, damn it. I do think the day was productive for everyone involved, and hopefully it will help make the rest of the workshop more productive, as well.

My brain has hurt for the last three to four hours, and I am very tired despite another decent night's sleep last night. The loose movements were back this morning and early afternoon with a vengeance but I don't think that's it. I hydrated well. It's after 7 PM now. I should force myself to go to the gym and at least hop on an exercise bike and get my blood flowing a little. And go outside. I'm not hungry.

end day 2

Not a huge amount to report. Slept about 9 hours last night (SO GOOD). Lots of meetings today, I spent a total about about 20 minutes outside although it was gorgeous outside. Wanted to go shopping this afternoon with a colleague but had too much work. See previous post for gastrointestinal status, although that seems to be getting better. My toilet flushed for a solid thirty minutes while I was on Skype with C -- the connection is so uncertain that I didn't want to interrupt to go fix it, although eventually I was able to. Very vigorous flushing. The conversation with C was the highlight of the day, technical difficulties and all.

I did finally manage to finish the damn concept note rewrite I was working on, so that's good. And the meetings today were productive if overlong. I'm nervous about tomorrow. Don't feel especially nervous my legs have been twitching for hours and I can tell I'm going to have a hard time going to sleep. It will be what it will be, I'll just get up early tomorrow and go through my slides again and go over the agenda again and hopefully be ready.

Now it's time to eat something (still haven't eaten dinner; it's 10:05 PM) and read my book and take some Benadryl and sleep until at least 6:30.

Last thing before bed: After the gym yesterday I took a 15- or 20-minute shower, which is three or four times as long as usual. The showers here are absolutely fucking terrific. Wish I got pressure and heat like this at home.

loose movements 2: the re-loosening

It begins...

kabul groggy

It's about 20 to one PM here in the Serena. I just woke up from a 1.5- or 2-hour nap, with great reluctance and much snoozing. Thanks to the anonymous front desk person for not getting impatient when I kept asking him to call back. Arrival this morning was uneventful, although we did have to walk to parking lot A to find our ride instead of seeing him right after coming through customs -- annoying but really no big deal. Actually little things have gone wrong logistically from the get-go. There was that; someone at AKF got the billing info wrong vis-a-vis who's paying for our consultant, NM, and who's paying for me, so now I'm paying for him instead of myself; my credit card didn't work on two machines and I had to spend 15 minutes on the phone with Chase only to find out that they have their ducks in a row and the problem is over here with the hotel. All in all nothing really serious, just whining.

NM seems fantastic (initials are his and those of his home state, incidentally). In a move that would have been more disconcerting coming from a less pleasant individual, he made eye contact with me as I was walking toward my seat on the DXB-KBL flight and said, "You're Luke, aren't you?" Slightly floored, I said, "Well, yes." Turns out we were seated right next to each other! He's had a pretty fascinating career, it sounds like, starting in academia, moving through a phase of being a personal adviser to a former president of Ecuador, whom he'd hired as a professor when he ran an academic institute in Quito (!), and then many years in capital-D Development.

While we were waiting for his bag to come down the carousel in Kabul, I asked him how he'd known it was me, and he said, "Well, you know, development people tend to have a certain look, and I was looking at everyone and none of them really looked like a Luke until I saw you." He's right, development people are easy to pick out on these flights -- I'd have pegged him, too, without difficulty. They're separate from the ISAF people, the security contractors, the diplomats, and the Afghans. All pretty easy to distinguish. And I was probably the only or one of the only youngish white development-looking (as opposed to security-looking) men on the plane. So maybe it's not as impressive as all that, but still! Adjacent seats.

Made my way through the entire most recent issue of the Economist on the two flights and started reading Liars' Poker. As a rule I'm too embarrassed to read country-specific books in public when I'm traveling. Michael Lewis is definitely an easy writer, I'm going to finish the thing in days. The Economist is a brilliant newspaper but the more I read it the more sensitive I am to how wrong it can be. Never less than stimulating and thoughtful, though.

Now time to go to the gym to get the juices flowing a bit. I'm still stiff, especially in the old IT bands. Then, work. Giddy up.

new books to the list

From here:

The Hired Man, by Aminatta Forna
The Liars' Gospel, by Naomi Alderman

NPR has a pretty solid and eclectic set of summer reading lists. These were on one called "Female Perspectives: Five Novels That Bring Outsiders In." 

marhaba

Chilling in Dubai in the business class lounge, which I'm entitled to because my layover is long and includes part of a normal sleeping time -- the flight to Kabul is at 3:30 AM. That means I can get reimbursed for a hotel, but my two readers may recall that the DXB airport hotel is offensively expensive and I don't really feel like leaving the airport. On the way back the layover is almost 24 hours, so I probably will leave the airport and get an actual hotel room.

Sitting next to me is a group of sub-Saharan African dudes who are many Heinekens in (free beer and wine in here). Not sure what they're talking about but they're definitely tipsy. Plus they're playing some cool music through someone's iPhone. Sounds like high life so...Ghanaian? I don't know.

On the flight over I watched Chile's annual good movie from last year, which is called "No." It's about the advertising campaign that helped shift the tide against Pinochet during the run-up to the plebescite that ended the dictatorship in 1988. Really an excellent movie, I thought. Also I re-watched "Michael Clayton" for the fourth time. I pushed play kind of reluctantly because four times is a lot to see a movie, but man I loved every minute of it. So good.

Not much else to report. Have started to do some work and will keep that up for a while. Need to rewrite the intro for a concept note that I wrote and then was rewritten by someone else. Evidently my version was better. And I'll read some. Brought the book that Mom gave me about a guy hiking across Afghanistan and also picked up Michael Lewis's Liars' Poker in IAD. Needed something else easy for the trip and everything stacked at home is intense. I wasn't about to bring Through the Eye of a Needle, which, though I'm enjoying it, weighs about 7 pounds.