Just finished this wonderful, gripping, creative book by Emma Donoghue. It's a bit like a much darker The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, in that it's a thriller told by a child narrator with an idiosyncratic way of looking at the world. The book is in two halves, both are good but the first was ultimately more satisfying to me than the second.
Thursday, October 29, 2015
Friday, October 23, 2015
rum punch
Also, I'm not done with Rum Punch yet, but my assessment so far is that it's what a Carl Hiaasen novel wants to be when it grows up. Don't get me wrong, I love Carl Hiaasen. But Leonard was on a different level.
Makes me want to watch Jackie Brown again.
Makes me want to watch Jackie Brown again.
last day
I'm sitting at an unoccupied desk in the office this morning, going through a backlog of red-flagged emails from the last two weeks and waiting to head over to the Ismaili Center for the Steering Committee meeting at 2. After that's over AV and I will go back to the Serena to talk about two things that have taken a back seat in year one of the project because he's been getting everything else rolling. Those things are: (1) the trust, which is the main innovation in the partnership and which we're finally starting to grind into gear in Afghanistan; and (2) the research and learning agenda. Output-level monitoring seems to be doing alright, but we set aside money for some higher-level work and we need to figure out what the heck that's going to be.
Then either one last quick workout and stretch before I fold myself into 15 hours of coach seating, or, if there's no time before dinner, just dinner. Then pack, then a few hours of sleep and hello DYU. My flight leaves at 5:45 AM so I'll leave the hotel at 4.
EDIT:
Ended up doing a quick workout, showering, and going to the Ukrainian place with a big crew. Nice place, although for all its apparent Western-ness, they only have squat toilets and to be honest I've never shat in one of those before. It was an experience. I'm sure I was doing it wrong. But after some arranging and some bracing, I made it work. Now sleepy even though it's only 10:15. Must pack, then must awaken at 3:50. Change money first. Yes.
EDIT:
Ended up doing a quick workout, showering, and going to the Ukrainian place with a big crew. Nice place, although for all its apparent Western-ness, they only have squat toilets and to be honest I've never shat in one of those before. It was an experience. I'm sure I was doing it wrong. But after some arranging and some bracing, I made it work. Now sleepy even though it's only 10:15. Must pack, then must awaken at 3:50. Change money first. Yes.
Thursday, October 22, 2015
disappointed
The helicopter got cancelled at the last minute due to rain in the mountains, so no trip to Khorog, no opening ceremony. Stuck in Dushanbe, doing ordinary work. It's okay, I expected that this would happened, but it's still a bit of a blow. Oh well, we really did everything we could to make it happen and the weather just did not cooperate.
The last couple of days have been productive, in particular the compliance review and planning process I went through with Focus Afghanistan colleagues yesterday. They'd flown up especially to meet with me, so I'm glad it went well and that we have some concrete action items to follow up on on both sides. I'd been planning to run the session with them based on the "working with USAID" PowerPoint that CS and I developed lo these many years ago for Pakistan and that I've used several times since. But then I remembered my adult education training from earlier this year, and thought harder about what we should really be getting out of our time together, and at the last minute I completely scrapped my prep and started over with a new plan. Good call on my part.
Last night we went to dinner at Salsa, the Mexican-and-whatever-else place that's a bit farther down from the office. It was surprisingly good -- I had a smoked salmon panini with pesto and cheese, the only decent fries I've ever eaten in Tajikistan, and tomato soup -- and they had Hoegaarden! Lovely time and because we left straight from work dinner was over by 8:30. We hopped in a taxi that was just parked in front of the restaurant and in very limited and broken Tajik got him to drop each of us off in turn. Me last. We were five and he had a buddy with him, so the buddy got in the trunk (hatchback) and we went four across in the back seat. No problem, except buddy had to get low when we drove past a couple of cops at one point. Total cost: TJS 30, or about $4.50.
Now I'm going to go run a little bit and stretch, then eat lunch (famished, did not eat a full breakfast because I was rushing to get out the door for the airport), and then knuckle back down to the emails that I've been slogging through this morning.
Only big thing left is the steering committee tomorrow, and then it's home again, home again, jiggedy-jig.
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Monday, October 19, 2015
well, then
Just finally had a call with our CEO in Pakistan. I was a little nervous as I've been thinking about it as a job interview, and we hadn't talked in a while. It was not a job interview. He's decided already that he wants me to be Director for Policy and Partnerships, overseeing a team of four or so. He just wanted to talk to me about the challenges he's facing, his vision for how to address them, and the timeline for strategy development. It's funny because a month or so ago the big-big boss told me that a job in Pakistan was in the bag for me if I wanted it, but I was not thinking Director. That's a VP-level role for us.
Now I'm sitting here just laughing and shaking my head.
Anyway, no promises from me, and I mentioned the turmoil at home and the likelihood that I'll need to stay there for a few months at least while things settle down post-MJ. He said of course, he understands, no problem. Then he asked me to start brainstorming questions to ask about structure, strategy, staffing, etc., so that we can get into all that the next time we talk. Which will be November, after his overall organizational structure and budget is approved. He wants me to come to ISB before the recruitment process is over to talk things through.
Wow.
Now I'm sitting here just laughing and shaking my head.
Anyway, no promises from me, and I mentioned the turmoil at home and the likelihood that I'll need to stay there for a few months at least while things settle down post-MJ. He said of course, he understands, no problem. Then he asked me to start brainstorming questions to ask about structure, strategy, staffing, etc., so that we can get into all that the next time we talk. Which will be November, after his overall organizational structure and budget is approved. He wants me to come to ISB before the recruitment process is over to talk things through.
Wow.
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Saturday, October 17, 2015
michigan - michigan state
It's 1:30 AM. I've watched the first quarter and a half or so and I am making the executive decision to pack it in. Work to do tomorrow. No alarm, though.
Go Blue.
Go Blue.
back in dushanbe
After a half-fine, half-miserable 13.5-hour drive from Khorog to Dushanbe, which featured a flat tire, a splitting headache (not a migraine, though) and some nausea that peaked with me throwing up into a triangular hole in the ground in the bathroom of the restaurant where we stopped to eat dinner in Kulob, I woke up this morning feeling fine.
The days since my last post were filled with visits and conversations with people in villages along the Panj and up and down the tributary valleys. We had tea, dried fruit and nuts, and some of the purest, most delicious honey I've ever eaten with the head of a village that lost 80% of its farmland to this summer's floods. We were treated to poems, number exercises, and a dance by preschool kids in a village where we are going to help build a seven-kilometer-long irrigation and drinking water pipe. We talked to a group of women who have begun packaging and selling dried mulberries and apricots, and one woman who is putting the rest of them to shame in terms of the volume of her production. We walked through a dairy processing plant in Khorog and learned about the major supply and storage problems that the company is facing. We ate enough Tajik food to be polite along the road -- Tajiks are extremely hospitable and it's unthinkable to take up their time and then refuse tea -- and then a ton of Indian food once we got to Khorog and checked into the Delhi Darbar Hotel and Restaurant.
The weather was cool and crisp and the valleys are gorgeous, green oases beneath the steep brown mountains. Poplar trees are everywhere, turning from green to bright yellow. Then the weather turned on us at just the wrong time, as we were supposed to fly back to Dushanbe on Friday but switched to Land Cruiser at the last minute because the flight had been cancelled. It doesn't take much for that to happen, unfortunately, just low clouds through the mountains. And because the weather is supposed to be spotty through the beginning of next week, our return trip to Khorog for the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the cross-border transmission lines that is one of the two anchoring events of my trip had to be postponed again. Our AID colleagues can't do the one-day drive that we do all the time because of security regulations, and they're not allowed to fly commercial on the Dushanbe-Khorog route. So AV and I (mostly him) spent some time in the car trying to figure out what the hell to do and playing phone tag with the key players on each side. Mobile phone service is not great in big chunks of the Panj valley.
In an hour and a half AV and I are going to meet with the owner of a fruit bar processing company whose Khorog facility we visited the night before last. Then I'll go to the gym, eat lunch, and get cracking on the work that's piled up over the week.
Here are a few photos from the trip.
The days since my last post were filled with visits and conversations with people in villages along the Panj and up and down the tributary valleys. We had tea, dried fruit and nuts, and some of the purest, most delicious honey I've ever eaten with the head of a village that lost 80% of its farmland to this summer's floods. We were treated to poems, number exercises, and a dance by preschool kids in a village where we are going to help build a seven-kilometer-long irrigation and drinking water pipe. We talked to a group of women who have begun packaging and selling dried mulberries and apricots, and one woman who is putting the rest of them to shame in terms of the volume of her production. We walked through a dairy processing plant in Khorog and learned about the major supply and storage problems that the company is facing. We ate enough Tajik food to be polite along the road -- Tajiks are extremely hospitable and it's unthinkable to take up their time and then refuse tea -- and then a ton of Indian food once we got to Khorog and checked into the Delhi Darbar Hotel and Restaurant.
The weather was cool and crisp and the valleys are gorgeous, green oases beneath the steep brown mountains. Poplar trees are everywhere, turning from green to bright yellow. Then the weather turned on us at just the wrong time, as we were supposed to fly back to Dushanbe on Friday but switched to Land Cruiser at the last minute because the flight had been cancelled. It doesn't take much for that to happen, unfortunately, just low clouds through the mountains. And because the weather is supposed to be spotty through the beginning of next week, our return trip to Khorog for the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the cross-border transmission lines that is one of the two anchoring events of my trip had to be postponed again. Our AID colleagues can't do the one-day drive that we do all the time because of security regulations, and they're not allowed to fly commercial on the Dushanbe-Khorog route. So AV and I (mostly him) spent some time in the car trying to figure out what the hell to do and playing phone tag with the key players on each side. Mobile phone service is not great in big chunks of the Panj valley.
In an hour and a half AV and I are going to meet with the owner of a fruit bar processing company whose Khorog facility we visited the night before last. Then I'll go to the gym, eat lunch, and get cracking on the work that's piled up over the week.
Here are a few photos from the trip.
Breakfast with a side of bodybuilding in Kulob
Hundred-year-old graves exposed when this hill washed away in July's flash floods; the black line was the former level of the ground
A waterfall across the Panj River in Afghanistan
School kids on their lunch break in Yazgulom village
A typical Tajik lunch, for guests anyway, in Yazgulom; lunch is served on a topjan, a raised platform with cushions on it that are ubiquitous in the Tajik countryside; boiled goat and turkey not shown (the goat was surprisingly delicious but I did not sample the turkey)
Dried fruit storage facility under construction
This is what 12.5 metric tons of dried mulberry looks like
The awesome promotional poster for Delhi Darbar in Khorog
Dairy processing plant in Khorog; I sampled some strawberry yogurt, which was delicious
Replacing a flat somewhere between Khorog and Darvoz
Monday, October 12, 2015
feeling more chipper
Looks like I'm going to be able to come back to Dushanbe on Friday instead of being alone in Khorog over the weekend, which is good. I can get on the day trip (helicopter-style) back over to Khorog on Monday. That means both a less lonely, less logistically complicated and burdensome to others, and likely a more productive weekend ahead. Good.
Also, today was fun. We drove around -- AV, Parviz, and I, along with Ahmad the driver and Jeonjon the regional market development guy -- to visit people all over Kulob and Shuroobod. We went to a micro-lending organization; a business development service center, where we heard an oddly unambitious business plan (more on that in a sec); and a couple of common interest groups, which are like proto-coops: one for honey and one for apples and pears. I got some stuff on video and took some photos but will need to be more proactive tomorrow about getting good quotes and keeping stray hands and shoulders out of the shots. And it's nice to talk to people about the work that they do, and what they appreciate about the help we've given them, and what more they need to expand or solidify.
About that business plan: The director of this BDSC told us he plans to start a sewing workshop with 12 women who have been trained at the BDSC. He plans to pull in revenues of 62,000 somoni a year, which is less than $10,000. His profit he expects to be about 23,000 somoni, or about $3,700. We pushed a little to try to make sure nothing was getting lost in translation, but it seems not. And then AV, Parviz, and I puzzled over it for a long time afterward. The math doesn't make sense. After figuring in equipment costs, taxes, and all that, you're talking about paying your employees something like $600 per year. This is a poor country but that is really, really low; the median per capita income here is just under $3,000. So he's talking about roughly the equivalent of paying someone $4,500 a year in the US.
Anyway, I'm wiped out now. Going to try to stay up a little while longer just to make sure I sleep through the night. 6:50 wakeup tomorrow and we're on the road again.
Also, today was fun. We drove around -- AV, Parviz, and I, along with Ahmad the driver and Jeonjon the regional market development guy -- to visit people all over Kulob and Shuroobod. We went to a micro-lending organization; a business development service center, where we heard an oddly unambitious business plan (more on that in a sec); and a couple of common interest groups, which are like proto-coops: one for honey and one for apples and pears. I got some stuff on video and took some photos but will need to be more proactive tomorrow about getting good quotes and keeping stray hands and shoulders out of the shots. And it's nice to talk to people about the work that they do, and what they appreciate about the help we've given them, and what more they need to expand or solidify.
About that business plan: The director of this BDSC told us he plans to start a sewing workshop with 12 women who have been trained at the BDSC. He plans to pull in revenues of 62,000 somoni a year, which is less than $10,000. His profit he expects to be about 23,000 somoni, or about $3,700. We pushed a little to try to make sure nothing was getting lost in translation, but it seems not. And then AV, Parviz, and I puzzled over it for a long time afterward. The math doesn't make sense. After figuring in equipment costs, taxes, and all that, you're talking about paying your employees something like $600 per year. This is a poor country but that is really, really low; the median per capita income here is just under $3,000. So he's talking about roughly the equivalent of paying someone $4,500 a year in the US.
Anyway, I'm wiped out now. Going to try to stay up a little while longer just to make sure I sleep through the night. 6:50 wakeup tomorrow and we're on the road again.
Sunday, October 11, 2015
frustrated
I really didn't have to come this week at all. The anchor event that was scheduled for this week got pushed at the last minute. That is frustrating. All the riding around this week will be fine and dandy, and I'll get to film some stuff that will be useful for comms and that will be appreciated. But overall the planning for this trip has been haphazard and last-minute, and that's partially my fault. Didn't have time to think about it with all the turmoil in DC. Once I found out that the opening ceremony had been postponed I should have changed my ticket.
It's still a privilege to be out here and it'll be cool to talk with people and look around. And I surely have plenty of work to do and will try to find some other ways to be useful while I'm here. Maybe I'll try to take a day trip out to the hot springs next weekend or see if there are any other day trips to be made. Or maybe I'll go to Afghanistan, if I can get a visa. We shall see.
It's still a privilege to be out here and it'll be cool to talk with people and look around. And I surely have plenty of work to do and will try to find some other ways to be useful while I'm here. Maybe I'll try to take a day trip out to the hot springs next weekend or see if there are any other day trips to be made. Or maybe I'll go to Afghanistan, if I can get a visa. We shall see.
sunday
Body decided to wake up a little before 6. Not ideal but miles better than 4:30. That hour and a half is the difference between functionality through to a normal bedtime and light misery. I spent the first couple hours of the day gleefully reading recaps of Michigan's destruction of Northwestern and wishing that I'd been able to watch the game.
On the elevator down to breakfast I ran into a consultant that's visiting PE right now to help them with their insurance claim after the flooding this past summer. He joined us for dinner last night so we ended up eating breakfast together. Very interesting guy, insurance is one of those Very Important Things that I don't know nearly enough about.
I got in a decent workout, read a bit, watched a little TV (BBC interview with Edward Snowden), and have been working on the compliance training that I'll give next weekend in Khorog. Need to figure out a way to make it less dry, some kind activity for people to do. And now I'm procrastinating by writing this and doing other work-related odd jobs, such as thinking about whom should be notified of the recent management changes.
On the elevator down to breakfast I ran into a consultant that's visiting PE right now to help them with their insurance claim after the flooding this past summer. He joined us for dinner last night so we ended up eating breakfast together. Very interesting guy, insurance is one of those Very Important Things that I don't know nearly enough about.
I got in a decent workout, read a bit, watched a little TV (BBC interview with Edward Snowden), and have been working on the compliance training that I'll give next weekend in Khorog. Need to figure out a way to make it less dry, some kind activity for people to do. And now I'm procrastinating by writing this and doing other work-related odd jobs, such as thinking about whom should be notified of the recent management changes.
Saturday, October 10, 2015
omar khayyam restaurant
Much more pleasant than the Hunting Lodge. There was moderately loud music, and then a band that was also moderately loud and smoove but not awful, and then slightly louder music. I was able to converse without quite shouting the whole time. God help me but I ate some salad, here's hoping my gut can handle it. Now I'm exhausted and gonna take some benadryl and read until I pass out. No alarm tomorrow but I'd be shocked if I sleep much past 7 AM. Here's hoping I make it even that far.
Also, I truly love David Bowie's song "Sound and Vision." It has been stuck in my head since I left for IAD on Thursday night. A good one to have stuck up there.
Also, I truly love David Bowie's song "Sound and Vision." It has been stuck in my head since I left for IAD on Thursday night. A good one to have stuck up there.
c
Back in Dushanbe, just got up from a non-nap (eyes closed, no sleep) of about an hour. I'm groggy but not sleepy, which isn't surprising because my body thinks it's the morning and a good time to be awake but also hasn't slept more than two hours at a stretch since Wednesday. Pleasant business breakfast this morning with DJ and AV and one of DJ's employees, who was mostly quiet during the meal. Many topics to discuss and some progress made on a couple of things, at least in terms of knowing what we each need to do on them. AV and I caught up a bit more after breakfast and then he left to do work and I came upstairs to clear my inbox and rest.
Now it's about 5:15 PM and I'm going to head to the gym to get a sweat up, take up some time, and wake myself up for dinner at 7. Would prefer to stay in tonight but DJ was insistent and it's rude to turn down such friendly hospitality. Hoping to at least be back at the hotel by 9.
Later:
Over the past couple of weeks I have missed C desperately, felt more strongly the heartache (such a physically apt word) and longing and regret and worry that I've felt since the day after Memorial Day. The intensity of that feeling is strange to me: I am not used to being unguarded, to feeling my emotional defenses being stretched thin enough to see through. But here I am, feeling just that. And also feeling that losing her is a terrible blow, an even more painful one now than when it surprised me (my willful blindness, not her sneak attack) in May.
She and I talked just now and I unloaded all that on her: the heartache; my regret at holding back from her, which I always did a little bit; my immaturity as represented in my inability to bring up concerns about our relationship with her, waiting instead for her to be the adult and bring them up herself; my desire to be intimate with her in a way that I couldn't or just plain didn't before. She was taken aback, I think, and did not know how to respond. I'm not sure what I expected, or whether I really expected anything. She said the same things she said in May, which makes sense as she is thoughtful and resolute. The difference now is that rather than being unsure of myself I am sure now that I want to commit to her, if she also wants that, and I said so.
Leaving open the possibility of an expat life -- something I don't even really want anyway, with or without C -- is not worth the cost if the cost is being without her. The itch is still there to be scratched, I have to go for a little while, but I want that scratch to be temporary if it means we can be together. It sucks a great deal that I'm only realizing this now, only telling her this now, and she pointed out how much better it would have been to say those things a year ago. But my brain and heart took their own time, and that time was long. I hope not too long. In any case at least now we've talked about it and she knows how I feel and can take some time to think about it, and maybe I can breathe a little. The sadness has been suffocating.
Now I've got to rally, get dressed, and go to dinner. I hope the music isn't too earsplitting, the last place DJ took us out to was unpleasantly loud.
Now it's about 5:15 PM and I'm going to head to the gym to get a sweat up, take up some time, and wake myself up for dinner at 7. Would prefer to stay in tonight but DJ was insistent and it's rude to turn down such friendly hospitality. Hoping to at least be back at the hotel by 9.
Later:
Over the past couple of weeks I have missed C desperately, felt more strongly the heartache (such a physically apt word) and longing and regret and worry that I've felt since the day after Memorial Day. The intensity of that feeling is strange to me: I am not used to being unguarded, to feeling my emotional defenses being stretched thin enough to see through. But here I am, feeling just that. And also feeling that losing her is a terrible blow, an even more painful one now than when it surprised me (my willful blindness, not her sneak attack) in May.
She and I talked just now and I unloaded all that on her: the heartache; my regret at holding back from her, which I always did a little bit; my immaturity as represented in my inability to bring up concerns about our relationship with her, waiting instead for her to be the adult and bring them up herself; my desire to be intimate with her in a way that I couldn't or just plain didn't before. She was taken aback, I think, and did not know how to respond. I'm not sure what I expected, or whether I really expected anything. She said the same things she said in May, which makes sense as she is thoughtful and resolute. The difference now is that rather than being unsure of myself I am sure now that I want to commit to her, if she also wants that, and I said so.
Leaving open the possibility of an expat life -- something I don't even really want anyway, with or without C -- is not worth the cost if the cost is being without her. The itch is still there to be scratched, I have to go for a little while, but I want that scratch to be temporary if it means we can be together. It sucks a great deal that I'm only realizing this now, only telling her this now, and she pointed out how much better it would have been to say those things a year ago. But my brain and heart took their own time, and that time was long. I hope not too long. In any case at least now we've talked about it and she knows how I feel and can take some time to think about it, and maybe I can breathe a little. The sadness has been suffocating.
Now I've got to rally, get dressed, and go to dinner. I hope the music isn't too earsplitting, the last place DJ took us out to was unpleasantly loud.
Friday, October 09, 2015
jk jk jk
I fucking love John McPhee. Coming Into the Country is wonderful.
Brought that, Elmore Leonard's classic Rum Punch (on which "Jackie Brown" is based), and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (which I've inexplicably never read) on this trip. Plus per usual I bought The Economist at IAD. Always good to catch up on tidbits from random countries I never think about and to get a (Euro-style) liberal view on the dollar as a global currency and whatnot.
Brought that, Elmore Leonard's classic Rum Punch (on which "Jackie Brown" is based), and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (which I've inexplicably never read) on this trip. Plus per usual I bought The Economist at IAD. Always good to catch up on tidbits from random countries I never think about and to get a (Euro-style) liberal view on the dollar as a global currency and whatnot.
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