Home / 2012 / November

To The Crew

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| by | Afghanistan |
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Thanksgiving in Kabul, and so much – and so many – to be thankful for. I finally feel like I am exactly where I am meant to be in life. Thank you – to new friends and old – for being a part of that. And a special thank you (bear with me for a long post – feel free to just control + f for your name):

To the colleagues that helped me get here - Toby, for having the controversial faith to give a 20 year old college student a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; Agus (who I just saw after three years!), for making the introduction that brought me here; Tara, whose stories and experiences were what ultimately convinced me to jump on the opportunity; Ahmad, for being the facilitator that made this trip happen.

To my Twitter and other virtual buds (I do work in social media after all!) – some of whom I have yet to actually meet in person – Amandine, for trusting me to stay in your (amazingly warm and welcoming) home while you were away; Sajad, for making so many connections after numerous online interactions but just 1 in person meet-up; @_ndrw, for being a constant and supportive reader; Akhila for inspiring me with your writing; and Abed, Alex, and Mike for all of of the hours we spent working together on TEDxKabul communications.

To my family, friends, friendtors, and mentors back “home” – mom and dad for putting up with my impulsive decisions as well as the ensuing worry; Rajiv for the years of love and support – I will never forget them; Yamila, whose Egypt adventures gave me such wanderlust (and the push to create my own adventures); my old colleagues for still being so supportive (especially Will and Nathan for making me still feel part of the “team”, and AMC for the continued mentorship); Lulu (and Cadengo) for all of the pre-Afghanistan support and friendship; Lisa + Lulu collectively for reminding me of where I come from and that some things never change; Matt, for the encouragement to move forward when everyone else called me crazy; Cecilia for taking me in when I most needed it; Martin, for being the one man that’s stuck around the longest (8 years of friendship and counting!); the entire Global Shapers community for giving me a built-in and inspiring/encouraging community where ever I am; Justin for being such a great sounding board; Ted for inspiring; and Eugenia, for being the absolute best bestie a girl could ask for.

And to my new (and old) friends in Afghanistan - Farid and Zahrona for the years of friendship; Riz for making me feel so welcome during those critical first days; Gull, for helping me to feel at home for the first time in Afghanistan; Paddy for giving me a place to crash and regroup; Eliot for always making sure I was on the invite list; Melissa for being a wiser older sister and anthropology mentor; Ahmad (again) for the great conversations at FSC, Dari lessons, and shisha adventure (more to come?); Maria for being a kindred spirit in country; Pashtoon for an unforgettable experience in Kandahar; the entire Kabul rock scene (Trav, Warren, Pedram, et al) for converting me into a total, loyal groupie; and last – but definitely not least – to Hameed and Una.

Hameed, so thankful for your infinite patience and insight, for the good times we’ve already had, and all of the adventures to come. I can’t wait.

And finally to Una, for being a source of support, wisdom, and laughter since even before I arrived in country – thank you, thank you, thank you. My first two months in Afghanistan would look so different without you.

I know there’s so many people that I missed, but I think you know who you are. Thank you so much for being a part of my life. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours! Big hugs from Kabul,

xoxo Eileen

Do insurgents fly commercial?

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| by | Afghanistan |
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Packing for Kandahar. More at http://instagram.com/eileenguo

When flying from a less conservative to more conservative part of the world, there’s always that tricky question of when to don the culturally appropriate garb. Flying to Kabul isn’t too big of a deal, as the only clothing change is the addition of a headscarf. Since it’s an accessory, western women just pull it out of their purses and cover their heads before getting off the plane.

But what do you do when the attire in question is Afghan chadori, known in the west as the burqa?

You can’t whip it out of your carry-on and just throw it on with the same ease as a headscarf. The burqa requires quite a bit of adjusting for novices to get the small round skullcap to fit just right and the grids (for vision) to sit directly in front of your eyes. Even when it is on correctly, most women walk around holding the garment in place with one hand.

But let’s assume that putting on a burqa is as logistically simple as throwing on a headscarf.

There is still a more subtle cultural issue to consider. Seeing a woman sans chadori – whether niqab, hijab, or burqa – is an intimate sight usually reserved ony for husbands and close male relatives. But what if you first see a woman uncovered, and then you see her covered? Is the act of veiling itself an intimate sight? And if so, how culturally and morally taboo is it to put on a chadori under the very public gaze of passengers on a plane?

These were the questions that I was asking myself on Monday morning, as I stood in the waiting area of Kabul International Airport’s domestic terminal. The flight was delayed, with nary an announcement or explanation of any sort. I was surrounded by security contractors, scattered women – Afghan in head-to-toe black niqab and western in sweaters and headscarves – and a hundred Pashtun men in traditional salwar kameez, turbans and, in some cases, sporting long, thick beards. I was acutely aware of the number of eyes watching me (and each other); some impassively, others curiously, a small number hostilely. As I followed their eyes following me, I couldn’t help but wonder who these people were. What were they doing in Kabul, and in Kandahar? What were their stories? And, perhaps most importantly, what did they think of me?

Under those scrutinizing gazes, I almost wished that I was under the anonymizing cloak of my burqa, gifted from a friend’s wife that had no need of it in Kabul. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Kabul-Kandahar is just a one hour flight, with an additional (and inevitable, or so I’m told) two hours sitting on the tarmac. Even so, I did not relish the idea of being imprisoned beneath the blue cloth the entire time.

Besides, I reasoned, though I might have been anonymous, as a woman traveling alone in chadori, I would likely have drawn more attention, not less.

But that still leaves the question of when to go beneath the burqa. Would it be worse to veil myself before the gaze of a hundred Pashtun men on the flight, or to walk, naked without it, into a throng of a hundred more in the airport?

I suppose that the answer depended on who – or what – I thought I was protecting myself against. Insurgents? The Taleban? Taleban sympathizers? The over-curious? Leering men found the world over?

And that, in turn, led to the somewhat improbable and very silly question: do insurgents fly commercial?

 

I never came up with an answer but, in the end, I veiled as soon as we landed.

Ordering the Disorder

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| by | Elsewhere |
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“Europe is boring. Everyone sits around and drinks coffee and reads books all day. There’s nothing else to do. No excitement, no fun.”

K was an Arabic interpreter at the Internet Governance Forum. Originally from Lebanon, he had been working in Azerbaijan for years, with a four-year stint in Europe in-between. He was tall and slim, with a muscular grace that reminded me of a male ballerina, and he towered over me as we stood drinking cheap instant coffee. We had already covered the usual conference pleasantries, the basics of our respective personal histories, as well as our opinions on American foreign policy in Afghanistan, so we had built up a rapport when he made this pronouncement.

“Look, there are bars and clubs everywhere, but this is not what I’m talking about. Here, in Azerbaijan the driving is crazy. And you walk down the streets and see people fist-fighting and you are like, ‘Those idiots!’ but then the fight keeps your mind occupied, at least for a moment.” His hands had been stuffed in the back pockets of his jeans, and he took them out to indicate where he meant.

“Here, the police are friendly. They stop your car just to get to know you. And here, if you are missing a document or something, it’s still OK. No problem. You just pay a bribe and support the man’s second job. It’s not like that in Europe.”

K betrayed the hint of a smile and I was not not sure if this was because he was joking, or if he was simply reminiscing about some encounter with the police corruption that he so euphemistically and poetically described.

“I like the excitement. The disorder. The…chaos.” He paused, as if that was not quite the word he was looking for.

And it wasn’t. I knew what he meant. It was not the chaos that he was drawn to. Not exactly. It was the grittiness, the flaws, the seeming contradictions that stared him in the face on every street corner. But it was also more than even that.

The thing that most people don’t understand about conflict and crisis zones is that even the most complex, lawless-looking places are governed by rules. Those may be utterly unintelligible to us, but they exist. And it’s the slow process of recognition, discovery, and eventual understanding of the order amidst the disorder that is so appealing.

“In Lebanon, the political situation is not so good.” K sighed and shook his head, but the shadow that crossed his face quickly dispersed. He continued on to give me a brief and simplistic history of modern Lebanon. This time, he was fully aware of the irony of his words, pulling and teasing at them to reveal the extent of the contradictions.

I mused over his love for the daily grit of life in Azerbaijan but dislike of the at times life-threatening danger of living in Lebanon.

Everyone has a limit, it seems, as to how much discomfort and danger they can tolerate.  For K, the random stresses of Azerbaijan – far “worse” than anything in Western Europe – presented an acceptable level of dark reality. It was exciting. It broke up the monotony of everyday life. The political and security situation in Lebanon, on the other hand, was too much. And understandably so; though not officially classified as a conflict zone (as Afghanistan still seems to be) the threat of violence in Beirut especially is all too real.

But perhaps even more importantly, Lebanon was his country, making it too close to make light of, too close to look at impassively and with the sense of invulnerability and invincibility that he felt in Azerbaijan. There, the danger was foreign, and the relative mundanity of its crimes and car accidents were not only bearable, but even fun.

 

A woman in a headscarf approached us. It was time for him to get back to his interpreting duties. He grimaced at me. “Let’s talk more at lunch.”

I nodded and waved, wondering idly how we were going to find each other in the masses of hungry forum attendees. But I wasn’t too worried. We had our moment of connection and I felt as if I knew everything about him, and vice versa.

In our respective Central Asian countries, we were fellow expats – and kindred spirits.

Dubai

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| by | Elsewhere |
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It is morning in Dubai, and I have been up since 04:30. I watched the sun rise over a sliver of marina, the light hitting the deep turquoise of the water, the gleaming white of the yachts, and the glittering glass of the tall buildings on both sides. I’m on the 16th floor – out of about 30 – in a luxury apartment building that belongs to a friend in Kabul, and even from “down here” the views are spectacular.
I’m in Dubai for just over 24 hours to get my visa back to Afghanistan, and then I head to Baku, Azerbaijan for the UN’s Internet Governance Forum.  I didn’t expect to like Dubai. Everything about this city is the antithesis of Kabul. I love history and culture and localization and even chaos, and Dubai is modernity, efficiency, globalization, and consumerism.
That Dubai is so close to Afghanistan – and to all of the other headline-making conflicts in Africa and the Middle East – is incredibly disorienting. A short 3.5 hour flight, and you leave the endless dust and fecal-matter-coated sky of Kabul; the burqas and the distinct discomfort of being a woman; the pockmarked roads and the ditches (I fell into another one on Saturday); the crashed cars from all over the world that get a second life in the streets of Afghanistan; and the constant presence of cheap weapons and the cheap men that wield them.
 –
On the way to Kabul International Airport, I felt incredibly sad to be leaving. It was silly, since I’d be back in Afghanistan – Kandahar, to be exact – in a week. But I missed this strange place, and it did not help that I was leaving in the dark of night.
But the flight from Kabul to Dubai is always in the early morning, and so the leaving of Kabul is almost always done while the sky is still dark, the streets are empty, and your only companion is the haunting melody that floats over the mosque’s loudspeakers. That, and the armed men, though even they seem less threatening in the sleepy pre-dawn.
I regretted my last-minute decision to attend the conference in Baku. As great of an opportunity as the IGF will be, there are still so many places in Afghanistan to visit, so many people to meet, so many interviews to conduct. Besides, I had just started Dari lessons, and finally was beginning to pick up on conversations around me.
–
My first impression of Dubai was of the heat. I was wearing a black turtleneck sweater dress over black jeans (jeggings, to be precise), a black coat that skimmed my knees, and a blue floral headscarf that an ex-boyfriend’s mother had brought for me from Kashmir. Appropriate outfit for Kabul, not so much for muggy Dubai, where women from all over the world descended with their 4″ heels, designer bags, and tight, tight clothing. Is that cleavage, really? Her ass is hanging out of her jeans! How is this still the Middle East?
It was not until I “acclimatized” a little that I realized how much I actually missed all of this. That feeling came as I was walking through the food court of the Dubai Mall with a new friend from the Afghan Embassy, though it had been building as we drove through the new freeways past villas and skyscrapers and a remarkable amount of green space for a city that rose out of the desert.
“Do you want Pizza? KFC? Burgers?” He asked.
“I want something local,” I responded. “Is there a local fast food?”
He laughed. In a city where the population is almost 90% foreign, what could I expect? We settled on Iranian fast food that was not very fast at all. It tasted just like Afghanistan’s, though my kebab was of shrimp instead of lamb.
–
I feel guilty that after just a month in Afghanistan, I could want all of this. I thought I was tougher. I have always prided myself in my ability to adapt and to get off the beaten expat path. But sitting here now – in the most comfortable (and the largest!) bed I’ve slept in since leaving the U.S., in this apartment with its full wall of windows, in this city that is global in every sense of the word – part of thinks that I could get used to this.
But at the same time, I can’t shake this growing suspicion that I am just an outsider looking in, and that this world – this normal world – no longer belongs to me.