In no particular order:
Iran's Foreign Minister sounds infinitely more reasonable and grounded in reality than anyone from the USG or (needless to say) Netanyahu's government.
Typhoon Haiyan...holy shit.
Raw vegetables...when will I learn my lesson?
Past couple of days have gone well although I continue coughing. Friday and Saturday morning were very productive. My training on working with USAID went over really well, I think. The PE staff asked lots of questions and were very engaged throughout, which is a good sign. Notably, I felt extremely comfortable giving the talk and answering questions, which is a great feeling and not at all how it was last year with Satpara in Pakistan. And for that one I even had Caryn with me. Partially that's just because PE folks are friendly, as I know I've said before.
After we finished yesterday, Oistamo, Mehrafruz, another PE colleague and I went to lunch at the same place as Friday. The food was better this time: borscht and pounded-flat steak with legitimately good french fries. Fun conversation again, it's interesting to see the differences between Mehrafruz and Oistamo. Mehrafruz is much more traditional -- believes in heaven and hell and believes morality is tied to your punishment or reward in the next life, believes men and women can't be friends without attraction -- while Oistamo is much less so. We talked at dinner on Friday night about atheism. They were both surprised that I don't believe in god, but Oistamo thinks that when we die, that's it. No soul. I found that kind of interesting, that she would believe in a god but not in souls.
Last night I was getting ready to read, do some bodyweight exercises, and watch the only worthwhile English-language channel on the dial here, BBC World News, but my shot-in-the-dark email to a colleague at AKF Afghanistan panned out when she wrote me back with her cell phone number and said she was going over to some friends' for dinner and why don't I come over? I jumped, obviously, as much because I figured it might help me find an activity to do today as anything else. The hotel night duty lady called a cab and we had a very awkward four-way, two-phone interaction trying to communicate to the driver about where we needed to go. The conversation apparently failed, because we drove to the market area, then pulled back into a rabbit warren of alleys behind the Soviet-era apartment buildings where the middle class and expats live. No one here is rich, as far as I can tell.
The driver stopped behind a seemingly random building, got out and called my colleague Tahira's cell phone. Then he came back over and gestured for me to start walking with him. So we continued through the rabbit warren on foot, with the guy checking buildings periodically, asking the few people around outside where the foreigners live, following their gestures, calling Tahira back and grunting into the phone to Tahira's friend who speaks Russian, and walking some more. Finally I took the guy's phone and called her myself, and she said she'd come downstairs to meet us and asked what was around us. So after about ten minutes of searching, we made it. I was going to give the guy a bit of extra cash because he'd done so much walking around and calling on my behalf, but Tahira said he was incredibly rude to her friend so she just gave him the fare and we went upstairs.
Dinner was tasty if vegetarian. Nice to have some home-made food with well-cooked vegetables, and good company. Coming home was much easier.
This morning I got a chance to Skype with Dad, which was great. Then I did a little work, did some bodyweight exercises and stretching just get the juices flowing a little after wayyyyy too many days without any exercise, showered, and read. Last night's crew showed up plus a couple of guys from OSCE who were here doing election monitoring. They're on their way home but came by the Serena for one last brunch. The food was good -- Pamiris do breakfast much better than they do other meals, as far as I've experienced -- and again nice conversation.
Now I'm sitting in the common area while they clean my room. My social activity itch has been scratched so I'll spend the rest of the day happily plugging away at work, exercising and stretching some more, etc.
Iran's Foreign Minister sounds infinitely more reasonable and grounded in reality than anyone from the USG or (needless to say) Netanyahu's government.
Typhoon Haiyan...holy shit.
Raw vegetables...when will I learn my lesson?
Past couple of days have gone well although I continue coughing. Friday and Saturday morning were very productive. My training on working with USAID went over really well, I think. The PE staff asked lots of questions and were very engaged throughout, which is a good sign. Notably, I felt extremely comfortable giving the talk and answering questions, which is a great feeling and not at all how it was last year with Satpara in Pakistan. And for that one I even had Caryn with me. Partially that's just because PE folks are friendly, as I know I've said before.
After we finished yesterday, Oistamo, Mehrafruz, another PE colleague and I went to lunch at the same place as Friday. The food was better this time: borscht and pounded-flat steak with legitimately good french fries. Fun conversation again, it's interesting to see the differences between Mehrafruz and Oistamo. Mehrafruz is much more traditional -- believes in heaven and hell and believes morality is tied to your punishment or reward in the next life, believes men and women can't be friends without attraction -- while Oistamo is much less so. We talked at dinner on Friday night about atheism. They were both surprised that I don't believe in god, but Oistamo thinks that when we die, that's it. No soul. I found that kind of interesting, that she would believe in a god but not in souls.
Last night I was getting ready to read, do some bodyweight exercises, and watch the only worthwhile English-language channel on the dial here, BBC World News, but my shot-in-the-dark email to a colleague at AKF Afghanistan panned out when she wrote me back with her cell phone number and said she was going over to some friends' for dinner and why don't I come over? I jumped, obviously, as much because I figured it might help me find an activity to do today as anything else. The hotel night duty lady called a cab and we had a very awkward four-way, two-phone interaction trying to communicate to the driver about where we needed to go. The conversation apparently failed, because we drove to the market area, then pulled back into a rabbit warren of alleys behind the Soviet-era apartment buildings where the middle class and expats live. No one here is rich, as far as I can tell.
The driver stopped behind a seemingly random building, got out and called my colleague Tahira's cell phone. Then he came back over and gestured for me to start walking with him. So we continued through the rabbit warren on foot, with the guy checking buildings periodically, asking the few people around outside where the foreigners live, following their gestures, calling Tahira back and grunting into the phone to Tahira's friend who speaks Russian, and walking some more. Finally I took the guy's phone and called her myself, and she said she'd come downstairs to meet us and asked what was around us. So after about ten minutes of searching, we made it. I was going to give the guy a bit of extra cash because he'd done so much walking around and calling on my behalf, but Tahira said he was incredibly rude to her friend so she just gave him the fare and we went upstairs.
Dinner was tasty if vegetarian. Nice to have some home-made food with well-cooked vegetables, and good company. Coming home was much easier.
This morning I got a chance to Skype with Dad, which was great. Then I did a little work, did some bodyweight exercises and stretching just get the juices flowing a little after wayyyyy too many days without any exercise, showered, and read. Last night's crew showed up plus a couple of guys from OSCE who were here doing election monitoring. They're on their way home but came by the Serena for one last brunch. The food was good -- Pamiris do breakfast much better than they do other meals, as far as I've experienced -- and again nice conversation.
Now I'm sitting in the common area while they clean my room. My social activity itch has been scratched so I'll spend the rest of the day happily plugging away at work, exercising and stretching some more, etc.
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