“I miss the donkeys!” … A lesson on culture shock

Walking slowly down the cleanly buffed halls of the Georgetown Mall, I felt myself slowly drowning, gasping for breath, in a rising flood of merchandise, advertisements and messages. Scantily-clad posters of artificially manufactured, starved and busty Victoria’s Secret models, jewellery stores selling massive shiny rocks, bright neon lights, slogans and logos all assailed me – assaulting each of my senses.

And all I could think as my heart beat nervously in my chest and my brain struggled to process this absurd onslaught of messages was, “Help! Someone, please! Where are the donkeys? I just want the donkeys!” I was longing, inexplicably for the crowded, dusty streets of Kabul, where donkeys, money changers, crippled mine victims begging for “bakhshish” (charitable gifts of money) and man-pulled wooden carts all join in the chaos of rush-hour traffic. The chaos of an American mall was simply too much – too clean, too organized, too bright and too demanding.

I suppose my friend Chris was right when he said that culture shock is not so much the obvious differences. It is not my not needing to wear a scarf, for instance (though I did take a double take a few times on the way out of a house when I realized I was lacking my chadur). Instead, the more difficult culture shock involves one’s constant semi-conscious evaluation of and adjustments to unspoken norms, rules and behaviours.

Reverse culture shock, usually far more difficult and painful, is more like an old pair of jeans that no longer fit. Perhaps they have shrunk in the wash of time that has passed in one’s absence or perhaps one has grown too big for them. In either case, these norms and rules which once fit so perfectly are suddenly uncomfortable and unnatural, leaving one to suck in and pull tight so as not to be revealed as being totally naked and ill-equipped in one’s own “home” culture.

After five weeks away and having generally succeeded in pulling my Western jeans on, I have returned to Kabul and am again having to readjust. I am reminding myself again not to look men in the eye, not to laugh too loudly in public, to dress appropriately and to take time to ask the long series of questions about one’s health and family that make up a proper Afghan greeting. I am reacquainting myself with dust and dirt, with a few hours of municipal power daily, with cold showers and the challenges of transportation. My tongue is relearning its way around the Afghan language. And as much as some of these things leave me a little frustrated, I mostly find myself happy to be back. Not yet quite comfortable in these cultural clothes, but grateful to once again see the donkeys.

The NGO Chaos Theory

“It seems like NGO workers are constantly followed by a certain amount of chaos.”

These were the words of an almost perfect stranger, a friend of a friend who had graciously offered me his sofa in Dubai when I had, in desperation, contacted him less than twenty-four hours earlier to ask if I could stay the night. This conclusion, I recognised, had largely been formed through years of experiences with our mutual friend, a fellow Kabul-based NGO type. Yet, somehow, through our first conversation this man, who knew almost nothing about me, had managed to confirm for himself this statement. I sat there wondering whether to be insulted or convicted. Surely I am not followed by chaos … am I?

Perhaps he had reason for his statement. After all, I had just shared with him the story of how it was that I had come to sit cross-legged on his living room floor – a story that included airport strikes, cancelled and delayed flights, plane malfunctions, international calls failing to go through, totally booked hotel rooms in both London and Dubai, taxi drivers getting me lost and a rather dodgy promise of a seat on the flight to Kabul the next day. I hadn’t even mentioned my having booked a rental car at the wrong airport in Washington, DC earlier in my holiday.

“Chaos?” I thought. “I deny it!”

No, just a day in the life of a NGO worker – one who functions in a world where Murphy’s Law rules, a world where complications will always occur at the most inconvenient times and will find the most amusing solutions and a world where laughter and patience are essential tools should one not wish to find their next trip involving a straight jacket and padded walls. I’m sure this is thoroughly normal.

Alas, all this “chaos” did not meet my mother’s prediction of my meeting a tall, dark and handsome number on the connecting flight. I had to settle for several offers by airport staff – the first to sell me a pack of gum for the bargain price of one million Euros with the Granada Airport barman included, the second by a car rental agent at Gatwick to help me book a hotel room for two instead of one (wink wink), and yet another by the passport check man who lamented at what a shame it was I was travelling alone. I suppose this is better than the Afghan passport and baggage checking staff who always feel it is absolutely necessary to know my marital status. The last time I was asked by the Kabul passport checking official first, where I was travelling to and then whether my husband was there, I decided that “there” was a general enough term and said yes. I certainly hope he’s out “there” somewhere. I suppose we’ll just have to wait for the next chaotic travel experience to find out where.

Goodbye tonight …

(A poem written after what I thought was my last conversation on this earth with my Nana.)

Goodbye tonight is a delicate thread
Like a spider’s wispy fibre, seen only under the low slant of your setting life
Loosely tugging at the membrane of that world
One stitch, tenuously sewing this world
For one instant
To that one

Goodbye tonight is a single drop
Swelling with the substance of all your years
Escaping through some minute fracture between our worlds
Falling against the surface of this one
Sending ripples that play against the wall of my heart
Calling me to tilt my chin up for its source

Goodbye tonight is an old, worn leather bag
Its scarred surface covered with the worn stickers of so many journeys
Bloated with my history
Clasping shut a century of memories
The legacy of those that have come before
The heaviness and contents of what I will carry forward

Goodbye tonight is the soft flutter of a white handkerchief
Your embroidered initials clasped between my fingers
Bidding bon voyage
Wiping away every tear
Signalling truce
Introducing wholeness

Goodbye tonight is a towering red cliff face
The heaviness and certitude of my faith rising up immensely all around me
Unshakable, immoveable, certain
The conviction of your destination
The awe of its victory
The hope of our future

Goodbye tonight is the scribbled note of my heart
Rolled up for you to deliver
Placed within the wrinkled clasp of your hand
“When you look on His face, tell Him I love Him
Tell Him He’s beautiful
Tell Him He has my life
Tell Him I’ll see Him soon”

Goodbye tonight is a weightless rising ember
Glowing red with all my love
Ascending up from my open palms
Letting your life go where I cannot yet follow
Calling out for you to pray for me
Promising to carry forward the flame you leave behind

Sweet Liberty!

When I arrived in Afghanistan six months ago, I began to feel this strange relief of being away from the context of the American church. While initially I couldn’t really understand that relief, I came to realize that my years in that Church context had left me with a rather profound sense of condemnation that I simply would never be a “good Christian”. While I am convinced that this is not unique to the States (this is only the environment in which I have experienced it), the Church in the States really seems to have bought into the cookie-cutter picture of what a Christian “should” look like. With that image comes a laundry list of spoken and unspoken rules of what we are and are not supposed to do, the vast majority of which are never addressed in the Bible. And so comes the condemnation.

I feel like much of the Church in America is bordering on becoming pharisaic. The Pharisees created for themselves hundreds of laws. They essentially “micromanaged” righteousness into something they could achieve through their own strength and discipline. Thus, they effectively eliminated any need for the Messiah. In Matt 5, Christ says that He did not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it. In fact, He says that our righteousness must surpass that of the Pharisees and scribes. From there, He goes on to say some absolutely absurd things – if you’re angry with your brother, it’s like murder; if you look lustfully, it’s like adultery, etc. In the face of these hyper-Jews who are convinced that they have got the whole holiness-thing down, Christ demonstrates that every single one of us are totally and completely condemned under the law.

With all this, the law becomes a means not for man to achieve holiness on his own account or with his own strength, but a means for proving conclusively that there is not one man (save Christ) that will ever reach the true mark of holiness and perfection. This has the potential to cause utter discouragement and hopelessness if we don’t have the second part of the story – that Christ has won that righteousness for us and has freed us from the condemnation of the law (Romans 8 – “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death”).

With this realization, I have been exploring what that freedom really looks like. I don’t believe that my freedom is a license to sin (1 Peter 2:16), but nor do I believe that many of the things the Church has labeled as sin are thus. In all this, I have felt challenged to return to the true fundamentals of the foremost two commandments to love God with all my heart, soul, mind and strength and to love my neighbor as myself. This is something that still thoroughly confuses me, particularly as Christ so frequently says that obedience is the demonstration or outpouring of our love for the Father. I confess I do not know what obedience looks like, which rather scares me. I know that I love God and frequently fail to demonstrate it in action. But I also know that I am in the midst of untangling myself from the rules that have condemned me.

I want to know what true obedience and true righteousness look like. I want to be radical in the way that I love God and those around me. I want to shine out a message of hope to this world. And I want to be free of stupid rules and pictures of what some guy in a suit thinks that should look like.

I should be clear that I really don’t think that this is unique to the American Church (it’s just the context in which I have experienced it). I also trust that many of those that hold so tightly to their rules and fundamentals do actually have a genuine love for God, as did, I suspect, many of the Pharisees, however much we may demonize them. It’s not them that we should look at, but at ourselves and our ability to condemn one another in our pride and fear.

I am discovering that, while I have walked with the Lord for years, I have essentially missed the truth of the freedom that was won for me on that cross. I think God is calling us to a life of liberty and love of Him and of one another. The opportunity to relish and rejoice in that freedom only causes me to want to love God more and is, I am sure, far more attractive to those who do not know Christ than the condemnation that we Christians too often offer.

So, these are my thoughts … I’m still wrestling with it. I think I have a lot of it in concept, but am now trying to fight the Enemy’s attack that keeps trying to keep me under condemnation.

Friendship Finish Lines

I have discovered a peculiar characteristic of friendships played out in this international world – they often have a finish line, to which people run – sometimes sprint – but rarely do away with. The cause of this finish line is the frequency with which goodbyes are said – the knowledge that you or the other person will eventually (probably soon) get on a plane and fly away back “home” or to another port of call – Sudan, Kazakhstan, Liberia, Cambodia, etc.

The introductory questions here in Afghanistan are almost always the same: Where are you from? Who do you work for? How long have you been here? (and then) How long do you expect to be here for? And there it is … the finish line.

(The furthest from this normal introduction I ever received was in a restaurant called Elbow Room where a friend of a friend introduced himself with the following sentence, “Hi, my name is Nick. I’m a wannabe DJ and I’m on the shits.” I should be careful, because anyone who has spent any time in Kabul will immediately know who I’m talking about since there is only one Nick that moonlights as a DJ.)

Back to the finish line – with this last question, we all know how much time we have and begin to construct a clear picture of just how far this friendship will go. We know, in essence, where it will end – not just in terms of time (April 22nd Chris leaves), but in terms of depth – and the whole of the friendship is lived toward that end.

This is perhaps not true of every expat. Some expats that grow up with stable, one-town childhoods are probably much better at not capping friendships, though many of them learn the skill quick enough after experiencing the sting of constant transition. For those of us that grew up in this crazy transitional world – we TCKs (Third Culture Kids) – this is second nature to us, and the thought of beginning a friendship with no finish line seems absurd and, more to the point, incredibly foolhardy.

The best analogue I have come up with is that of the difference between high board diving and scuba diving. Jumping off of a high board into a pool is exhilarating – the rush of stepping off, the thrill of falling and splitting the water with one’s body. But it is short lived. There is a bottom to be hit and once you hit it, you spring up quickly to the surface, climb up the ladder and jump off again. Scuba diving, on the other hand, requires commitment and bravery of a different sort. It is begun slowly and its whole passage is one of exploration. There is always further down to go, always more to discover. It involves danger, the possibility of predators or injury. But in the process, a whole new world is discovered.

I am a high board jumper - or was, before I met Kimberly, my best friend. I have frequently thought here that Kim ruined me for high board jumping, the very necessary skill here, when she coerced me into deeper waters. She was the first friend that refused my finish line and made me keep running – terrifying me in the process. Chris, another friend who I met here similarly disabled me. Kim grew up in Knoxville, TN and Chris in small-town West Virginia (is there another kind of town there?). Both friends didn’t understand the rush and immediacy involved in my version of friendship, my need for intensity and then my commitment to clean splits. When Kim was moving away from DC, as much as she had grown to be my closest friend, I still could not see another option but saying goodbye. I was prepared for it, but not for her anger and flat refusal to let the friendship go. With Chris, I knew I had three months before he would leave Afghanistan and became frustrated when he didn’t seem to feel the same urgency to squeeze as much as possible into that short timeframe. They each, in their own way, forced me to do away with finish lines and have become precious friends in the process.

I struggle in Afghanistan with how to continue this trend. The truth is you can love people much more deeply and genuinely when you are not anticipating an end. I want to care for people in this way and to enjoy the richness of these kinds of friendships. I want to provide spaces for depth in my friendships. I know, however, that there is an incredible risk in these kinds of friendships, particularly when played out in an environment of such constant transition. It hurts when your diving partner is suddenly pulled out of the water, leaving you alone. And the process of again learning to go deep with a new partner is exhausting.

I wonder if there is a balance to be struck, but I confess that if there is I do not yet know it in full. I neither want to live with total careless abandon nor protective rigidity and superficiality. I want to be genuine. I want to love others without thinking about the consequences and in so doing to offer the peace and depth we all truthfully long for. So today, as I prepare to say goodbye to yet another good friend at the end of this month and two more next month, I will choose to imagine these friendships as extending past their finish lines. I will choose to let them develop as they will, knowing that it will cause me pain as well as much deeper joy. I will choose to go scuba diving and will trust that the exploration will be worth it.

Coming Up for Air

Have you ever tried holding your breath under water until your lungs begin to burn and your brain starts to send panic signals to the rest of your body? When your face finally breaks the surface of the water, that first, sudden burst of air to your lungs almost hurts, though it brings enormous relief. This is a little how I feel at the end of two exhausting months.

I am afraid this blog entry will not be terribly eloquent as I’m reasonably sure I lack the energy for pretty imagery, but it should serve to catch you all up on life here in the “garden city” of Kabul.

My office spent much of March concentrating on writing a HUGE proposal. Early mornings, late evenings and long weekends were spent, without ceasing, writing, planning and strategizing. Simultaneously, I worked hard to study the language and to maintain some very special friendships. I walked out of the month already feeling pressed and stretched and desperately needing rest.

April was busy and straining in a different sort of way. One friend dubbed it, “the month of loss”. We lost the proposal we had worked so hard on. I lost the housing that I had been counting on. And then there was the most difficult loss – my four closest friends, one each week of the month, left Afghanistan. While I know this is an inevitable part of the expat existence, particularly in Afghanistan where the average stay is probably only a few months, it still hurts and I find myself wondering how to keep giving out my heart and having genuine friendships when goodbyes are always lingering around the edges.

Simultaneous to all of these ‘loses’ was the business of field travel. I love going to the field – being with people in small, remote villages; rumbling across dirt roads; practicing my Dari. But it is exhausting – to the core! 24-7, non-stop work! Your brain must always be turned on and you arrive back with more of an itinerary of things to do than you left with and about a quarter of the energy to do them.

So, at the end of almost four months in Afghanistan, I find I am drained. This is not particularly surprising since everyone hits this point, but it is, nevertheless, difficult. I am trying to work out some way of taking a holiday (a long weekend at least). Thus far, the possibilities include a weekend in the UAE, sitting on a beach and going snorkeling or seeing if I can get to Finland for a week mid-summer to enjoy the peace of my godfather’s cottage.

Saying this makes me feel rather weak – like I’m not really as hard-core as I would like to think of myself – but it is reality. I am tired and need to come up for air soon so that I can go back to being immersed with more energy and vigor.

Custard Mouse ... Mouse Custard

My friend Peter and I went out to a local Indian restaurant about a week ago to have dinner before he left for home-leave in Australia. After a wonderful meal, we called the waiter over to inquire about desert options. We were politely informed that they were serving two deserts. When we didn’t recognize either by its name, we asked the waiter to describe them. The explanation came exactly as follows:

“The first is custard mouse. The second is mouse-custard.”

I worked hard to stifle a sudden burst of laughter. I was convinced that I must have misheard the waiter and so I apologetically for the explanation again. The waiter’s face was earnest as he again politely informed me that the, “The first is custard mouse. The second is mouse custard.”

Still thoroughly confused and finding it near impossible to not roar with laughter, I asked, “What’s the difference?”

The waiter managed to look only slightly peeved and explained a third time, “The first is custard mouse. The second is mouse custard.”

Realizing that we were clearly not getting anywhere with this conversation, Peter and I thought it best to consult the menu. We noted three options listed with their traditional Indian names and asked the waiter which desert was which. Pointing to the first item, the waiter said, “This one here is the custard mouse.” Finally feeling as though we were making some progress, I asked which item the mouse custard was. Again, the waiter pointed to the first item.

I stole a brief glance at Peter, who at this stage had given up all efforts to control his laughter. We looked to the waiter and ordered one of each, figuring that this way we would at least assuage our curiosity. When the desert arrived it was indeed two different items, each of them absolutely delicious.

Ask me to describe them and what can I say? One was a custard mouse. The other was a mouse custard.

(On a fun side note, when I returned to the same restaurant two nights ago with a different friend I was asked if I would like to order a cappuccino, which I gladly accepted. The waiter returned a few minutes later and informed me that since they were very sorry, but since they had no ice cream, they could not serve me a cappuccino.)

Crying over spilt ... eggs

Driving through Kabul’s dusty roads a week ago, I watched a swarm of people buzz by. The fabric of blue burkas billowed lightly as women walked by, some balancing overflowing trays on the curve of their heads. Old, rickety wooden carts lined the streets, their oranges, carrots and onions providing much-needed splashes of color amidst the clouds of dust rolling out from under the wheels of passing cars. Three young boys, no more than ten, passed in front of our car, their backs bent under sacks twice their size, full of red plastic watering cans. The smallest turned and wagged his finger, scolding my driver for having driven so fast and come so close. I chuckled, suddenly seeing the disapproving expression of an old man somehow transplanted under the dirty skin of this young boy’s face.

My eyes wondered down the street, inspecting the goods being sold in open store fronts. Here were all the mechanics’ stores. Empty blue, red and green gas containers hung above the entry ways. A man sat bent over an old engine, his hands and arms dyed charcoal by the oil. Outside the neighboring store, another man perched the sole of one foot against a machine and strained unsuccessfully to start it by pulling on a long cord. Two stores down yet another mechanic bent over the bonnet of a car, twisting, turning and tweaking the car’s innards unconvincingly.

A little further down the road, the blue-black of mechanic’s stores turned to the red of butchers. Large cuts of meat hung in lines. Whole fat-tailed sheep, skinned and ready for consumption hung upside-down, their fatty bottoms drooping in unappetizing wrinkles.

Between the store fronts a small alley curved round, lined on either side with the mud-brick walls of homes that stacked themselves one on top of the next up the side of a mountain. Lines of clothes crisscrossed between houses, flapping out colorful brushstrokes upon this canvas of grey. The small portrait of a woman zigzagged up an invisible path, following the mountain’s craggily surface to her home.

The world outside was filled with the busyness of life in all its wonderful contradictions. I thought to myself again how much I wanted to leave this mobile metal box and walk out into the craziness and action. Too often I feel like I am watching this country on some semi-interactive live television, displayed through the screen of my car window. Security means that I do not walk, but drive, between locations and that much of my life is lived behind the compound walls of my office and home.

Much as I have repeatedly read and heard Afghanistan’s devastating statistics, I find my heart has not yet grasped the humanity behind the numbers. I am not broken by the injustice as I think I should be. I do not really understand what it means that 1/5 of all children born die before the age of five, half of those before they reach their first birthday. I do not comprehend the full significance of the fact that the maternal mortality rate is among the three highest worldwide, parts of Afghanistan giving mothers a one in seven chance of dying from a maternal death. My brain can’t seem to grasp the consequences of the average life expectancy being 45, putting me beyond my mid-life. And the numbers go on … Perhaps they are too big and what I need is just one woman or child, one story, to give these figures a face.

The closest to discovering this face behind the numbers came a few days ago while driving home from work and watching the craze of action and life rush by my car window. Struggling against a cold that had kept me under the weather for about a month, I sat dazed and hazy, cursing the traffic and generally feeling sorry for myself at the back of my driver’s car. As I stared out mistily into the bustle that surrounded me, my eyes landed and focused on the hunched figure of a small boy, crouched with the arch of his back leant against a dirty cement wall. His arms lay crossed over his tucked-in knees. His little head was buried into the crook of his elbows – crying. Between the fan of legs that passed between him and me, I spotted the source of this little boy’s tears, the tragedy that had just taken place. By the boy’s side was an empty cardboard egg carton. Strewn in front of him were the broken white shells from which crept the yellow-white contents of his daily wages.

It is strange that in a country with such staggeringly bad statistics it would be a small boy with a few broken eggs that would bring me close to tears. I pictured the boy arriving home with no money and no eggs to face his family. Would they be angry? Did he have a father to punish him or had his father been killed during the years of conflict? Would they have money to eat that night or would he go hungry? The questions filled my head and I nearly jumped from the car, wanting to do something – to buy his broken eggs, to stop the tears, to make it better. And then suddenly, the traffic parted and my car lurched forward between two cars and around the corner. I craned my head to watch the curved figure of the boy disappear and knew that I had encountered some of the humanity behind the numbers.

Lying on the Beach in Kabul

Exercise is a great challenge here as security greatly constricts the amount of free movement anyone can get. Before leaving Boston, I heard from my father about a yoga class that a few of his colleagues attend each week. Not ever really having taken yoga before, but figuring it could constitute yet another part of this grand new adventure, I made a point of investigating soon after my arrival and discovered there was a class on Monday evening.

The amusements started a third of the way through the class when the electricity suddenly began having what I can only describe as a sort of manic-depressive episode of on-off-on-off again flickers, finally leaving us in utter darkness. I was already beginning to suspect that the instructor was out to bend my body into positions it was never meant to take on. The lights going out only meant that I was left to bend in response to auditory commands with no visuals to follow at all. It was like a strange game of Twister without the help of knowing where the red dot is.

The instructor’s commands made the class all the more entertaining. She would say things like, “Now imagine yourself getting bigger. You’re taking up more room.” And so I would try to imagine myself taking up more room, only to realize that the whole point of taking these classes was so that I might lose some weight and take up less room.

When it came time for our relaxation exercises at the end of the class, I almost couldn’t contain the giggles. Despite my strategic position next to the stove, the classroom had been freezing all night. In preparation to unwind, the instructor told us to put on all the warm things we had. I fumbled around in the dark and managed to locate my socks, sweater, coat and shawl, which I duly wrapped tightly around me. I lay on my back, closed my eyes and prepared to become totally relaxed.

The instructor’s instructions came, “Relax your neck, your shoulders, your legs.” I tried to ease the tension and avoid the urge to shiver.

“Now imagine that you’re lying on a beach in the sun. You can feel the warmth of the sun on your face.” Struggling to keep my toes from becoming stiff with cold, all I could think was, “Lady, my imagination just cannot work that hard!”

“Now, breathe in deeply.” I inhaled deeply and almost chocked from a lung-full of diesel fumes coming from the stove. This yoga thing just cannot be good for you!

Finally, if the class hadn’t provided reason enough to laugh, through the silence I heard the soft rhythm of a man snoring. I thought, “Perhaps he found the beach.”

Explosions in Kabul

I should immediately apologize for this title as it really is unfair, but I just couldn’t think of a better one. These are not the kind of explosions that one might expect here, at least not if you’re new to the country.

On Sunday afternoon, as the snow began falling heavily all over Kabul, the heater in my bedroom stopped functioning. Dad and I tried hard to rectify the situation that evening, but to no avail. I threw on an extra blanket, filled my hot-water bottle and pulled on fleece socks, determined not to let a cold Afghan night get the better of me so early in my time here.

I spent the next day working out of Dad’s room, which was considerably warmer. When a guard, who my mother nicknamed Pedro after a good Spanish friend to whom he bears a striking resemblance, came in to fill the diesel tank on Dad’s heater. Trying desperately, and unsuccessfully, to remember the word “bokhari” (heater), I tried to indicate to him that my stove had gone out and would not start. I quickly resorted to silly “come” hand gestures and got him to follow me into my bedroom.

“Oh, stop!” said Pedro upon seeing my heater.

“Yes, stop!” I replied, making more funny gestures, this time of shivering. (Now we’re communicating!)

I left him to mess with the heater and returned to the heat of my father’s room. A few minutes later Pedro entered the room again. “Miss, Stop!” I gave him a puzzled look and followed him to my bedroom. A miracle had occurred! Somehow he had managed to get the thing started again.

“You got it started!” I said with real glee.

“Yes. Start!” he said with a smile.

So where’s the explosion you ask? Well, just wait …

I returned to my father’s room to finish some emails and leave my room to heat up, when I had a sudden, strange urge to check on the stove. I got up and walked across the hall to my room. Just as I opened the door, I heard a great “WHOOOSH!” sound as the flames went shooting out. The flames then retracted momentarily before another great orange WHOOSH.

Only knowing about three Dari words so far and none of them amounting to anything approaching a frantic, “HELP, THE HOUSE IS ABOUT TO BURN DOWN!!!” I resorted to calling down a very dignified, British, “Excuse me?” The son of someone who works in the house and happens to know a little English emerged from the kitchen and seemed to become quickly confused by this strange foreign woman, looking very frightened and saying, “Come! Please, something’s happening!”

As he walked into my mini-combustion center he let out a startled “Oh!” and ran over to the stove, turning some knob and making the flames come down to a restful flicker. He turned to me, still looking rather shocked, and said, “Actually, very dangerous!” All I could do was let out a nervous laugh and repeat over and over again the word, “Tashakur” (thank you).

I’m sure this isn’t quite the kind of danger we were all anticipating, but I can now say I’ve experienced one explosion here in Kabul.

Shades of Grey - Arriving in Kabul

Just as the women who walk behind the thin mesh veil of their burqas, Kabul seems shrouded beneath a gauzy grey blanket of dust. The grey sheathe masks the cities’ subtle beauties and graceful dignity so that one needs to look just a little closer, behind the curtain, to the eyes of this wonderful country. Indeed, it is in the faces of Afghans that I suspect the color really lies.

Dad and I arrived in Kabul last Thursday evening on a UN flight from Dubai. The fiercely jagged peaks of the Hindu Kush rose and jutted to either side of the plane, their snow-covered edges making their appearance all the more awe-inspiring. This is the kind of beauty we are not meant to understand nor to contain, but to respect and tremble at. It was here, in some unforgiving crevice of the mountains, that my parents’ organization lost three young women in a plane crash just one year ago. As we approached Kabul, I watched this new world approach through the small portal window next to me. The plane suddenly dipped, coming into the city’s valley, and then circled uncomfortably close to the surrounding mountains before landing on a small runway.

My father and I gathered our belongings and I brought my shawl over my head to cover my hair, tossing a loose end over my left shoulder. Backpack on, we went through passport control, which roughly consisted of two small desks ceremoniously placed behind Plexiglas walls. We collected our luggage from an equally cramped and dusty room and discovered the driver waiting for us outside.

My first views of the city were clouded by a thick fog of jet-lag made worse by a sleepless night in Dubai. Others in the car politely pointed out various landmarks as I struggled to make my mind process anything. Pot-holed streets bumped up against one another, flanked on either side by cement and mud-brick walls that guarded Kabul’s more private life. Driving here feels like a constant off-roading adventure, made more interesting by the myriad obstacles of people, bicycles and deep sewage ditches someone here has nicknamed “alligator pits”. It is the ultimate testosterone tussle – cars and drivers involved in a constant alpha-male gorilla battle to claim space and establish dominance.

We finally arrived at the house unscathed and were greeted by Dad’s guards, who wore some of the largest smiles I have ever seen as they shook his hand, embraced him and welcomed him home. Expecting them to politely greet me with “Salaam”, I was surprised when they shook my hand as well and then, looking to my father, said “dokhtar” (daughter). I shall never forget those smiles.

Yes, I think I will enjoy it here. The security and subsequent constraints on movement around the city will be a challenge and frustration, I’m sure. But I sense this city and this country hold something far more beautiful than the image captured in our Western media spots. In fact, I begin to wonder if it isn’t those images that have created the real veil behind which Afghanistan remains hidden to much of the world.

“You are welcome here. I hope that your time in Kabul will be good.” This is the regular greeting I have received from Afghans. Today, an Afghan doctor followed this statement with, “Many people have fear to come here. I hope you will like it.”

Yes, many people do have fear to come here, and perhaps some of you are fearful having me here. Things do happen – bombs go off, people are killed and kidnapped – these are a reality. But they are only one part of the reality and do not reflect the Kabul – the Afghanistan – I am slowly meeting and I hope to show you all in the coming months.

Preparations

How does one begin preparing for two years in Afghanistan?

Preparing for the actual travel is one thing. I find myself seated cross-legged on my bathroom floor, surrounded by a world in miniature – Little bottles of shampoo; little bars of soap; funny little foot scrubbers. I begin to wonder whether someone will also have shrunk my destination (Little Kabul?).

Kabul doesn’t feel little at the moment. Nor does this move. The floor and bed of my sister’s bedroom, covered with what will become the contents of my father and my suitcases, attests to the bigness of this move. Apparently two years in Afghanistan roughly translates to six toothbrushes, twelve boxes of tampons, two blow-dryers, five chap-stick tubes and tons of hair things. I find all this utterly absurd and rather overwhelming.

Six and a half years ago, I found myself in a similar state, this time cross-legged on my parents’ living room floor. Piled high around me were empty boxes and suitcases, and stacks of clothes and sheets and stuff that were meant to have been neatly packed into them. I looked, half-crying, at my mother. “I’m not ready,” I said. To this day, neither she nor I are sure whether I was referring to lack of progress I had made in filling boxes or whether, instead, I was saying something deeper and more significant. “I’m not ready … for college, for leaving, for life.”

Of course, I was ready and off we drove, car packed full of all my freshman belongings. By the time we arrived, something had changed and I settled in quickly. My words to my mother were my only real hint at this vague fear I held that I was not at all prepared for the next stage of my life.

Today, I am tempted again to say, “I’m not ready.” The truth is that I’m not sure what exactly to be ready for. Afghanistan feels like an amorphous fog with promises of adventure, growth and challenge just beyond the next wisp of white cloud. Through the veil, I think I begin to see the snow-covered, dusty roads packed full of cars and trucks maneuvering themselves around one another. I think I get a glimpse of men and women wrapped tightly with dark grey-brown shawls. For an instant, I even wonder if I smell or hear something of this new and foreign place. But then, just as soon as these visions begin to crystallize – poof, a wind blows in and everything vanishes again behind a new blanket of cloud.

On Monday, I will load up a car with suitcases and bags. I will look around this house in which I have lived since I was twelve, but which my parents plan to sell for an impending move to Spain. I will step on a plane, kick off my shoes under the seat in front of me and buckle my seatbelt. I will vaguely hear the stewardess recite the safety procedures I have heard hundreds of times. And then we will begin to taxi off and I will watch this country begin to move, slowly at first with a low grumble and then quicker, whirring higher. And I will say goodbye to this country as my home for the last time. When the buildings beneath me have almost vanished, I will look away from the window, close my eyes, thank God for wonderful years here and this time, I will say, “I am ready.”

Beef Stew and Chocolate-dipped Faith

I walked into a Christian bookstore a few days ago in search of a devotional - a workbook to help me daily study God's word. I've been slacking recently and my relationship with God has suffered from the neglect. I was hoping to find something to really help me dig in and wrestle with hard questions and issues - I was craving spiritual meat.

What I found was a Christianity that seemed to have been hijacked by mass commercialism, witty one-liners and feel-good, self-help nonsense. Rather than a store full of resources for strengthening a Christian's faith, encouraging their souls and challenging them to walk more closely with God, the store resembled Oprah's book club, selling wimpy truths and pats on the back.

The women's section was by far the worst! Apparently Christian books aimed at women have discarded the belief that we are powerful, thinking, believing, praying, conquering creations of a mighty God. Instead, the faith represented on the women's bookshelf gave the impression that all we really needed were nice, happy thoughts each day accompanied by a tasty recipe. "Jesus loves you ... here's a nice recipe for beef stew." Am I the only one that feels the issues of my life and this world require more substance than that provided by a recipe book pretending to be a devotional???

Do you know there is actually a book called, Faith-dipped Chocolate for women? It "offers readers who crave chocolate delicious encouragement for their faith. Sprinkled throughout are yummy recipes, fun chocolate facts, ideas for creating chocolate gifts, and quotes celebrating God's gifts of chocolate." One reviewer actually said, "Served up with rich morsels of Scripture, Faith-Dipped Chocolate gives a little taste of heaven on earth." Now ladies, love for chocolate aside, COME ON!!! Can you really imagine Paul finishing every chapter of Romans with creative recipe ideas for manna and quail?

I grieve the fact that somehow we have corporately bought into this mundane version of faith. How is beef stew or "chocolate-dipped faith" going to help me walk with God? Is beef stew going to help me battle the sins that constantly entangle me - my pride, my fear, etc.? Is it going to help me love this world radically? Please someone, tell me where is the substance of our faith? Where is the power?

Is no one else dissatisfied by this cheap knock-off? Like the Louis Vuitton and Prada fakes sold on city street corners, have we really settled for something that may vaguely represent the real thing but will quickly fall apart the second anything heavy is put inside it?

Perhaps that is the problem. Perhaps we all have sold out and given up the desire to search for and find truth. Perhaps we have stopped believing that there is a truth to be found. Lets face it, while our generation affirms people's right to believe, we do not believe in the substance, the ultimate truth and reality of what they believe in. As a result, all we're left with are nice, happy thoughts, but little substance and no power.

I truly hope that we are not so easily satisfied. I know for myself that I crave more depth. I desire to love God with all my heart, to see Him work in and through me, to see the world changed for the better. I want to see the Church stand up against injustice and be known for being outstanding in our love and brave in the way that we face the difficulties of this world. I alone am powerless to do any of these things and will never be satisfied by a faith that thinks beef stew and chocolate are all the nourishment that I need.

Sunrise in México, Sunset in DC

The drive through the mountains from Cuernavaca to Mexico City is magnificent. Sharp green covered cliffs stand erect on one side of the highway. Small pueblos of grey cement block buildings are nuzzled into the mountain’s crevasses. Laundry flaps lazily in the wind as a man works the corn in his garden. With the setting sun, the silhouettes of distant mountains turn varying shades of blue and purple against pink and orange clouds. Fields of hay stacks glisten a warm gold. The valley slowly fills with a great sea of lights, splashing like waves against the sides of hills, turned islands.

Early this morning, this valley I have come to love bid me farewell. Through blurry, tired eyes, I watched the sun rise and the sky come awake in pinks and blues. After several hours of flying, lost luggage and missed flights, I looked out the shuttle window at Washington Dullus Airport to see the same sun setting behind lines of planes.

It is thoroughly strange to think that five wonderful weeks in México have come to an end. There is so much that changes with only a few hours in a plane. The air here in Boston is different – colder and crisper. It feels fresher, though not as comfortable as the warmth of Cuernavaca.

I feel grateful that I know these places so well – that I can navigate the streets and speak the languages, that I have come to know and understand some of the rhythm of each place. I am grateful that as I drive through Boston I feel a love for this city as well as a readiness to leave it and move to the next place. I am grateful that far away there are other cities and other countries that I will come to know and love like these. I am grateful that this is my life – a life lived here amidst the wonder of so much of God’s creation.

And I'm going to ...

Afghanistan.

That's right friends - I will be traveling to Kabul in January. For the first few months I will live with my father and will be taking Dari language lessons. (That's right ... from one language school to another. It's rather a shame they don't speak Spanish in Afghanistan.) I will spend the first few months volunteering with Future Generations, the same organization out of which I will be doing my Masters program. In March, I will travel to India for a month to meet with my fellow students and learn on site there. When I return to Kabul in April, the hope is that I will take over from a young man who has been working with Future Generations for the past couple of years. At about that time, my father will be finishing his time in Afghanistan so I will move to another house.

I am both terribly excited and rather overwhelmed. The thought, "Oh dear, what have I just gotten myself into" has definitely crossed my mind. Having said all this, I am also struck that the Lord, again, has provided overwhelmingly. Praise God!

Romance

From a darkened room I write – the blue haze of my computer screen stroking my face. With the power out, it provides the only light, save a candle that sits by my bedside. Outside, the rain in pouring down, a rare thing for Cuernavaca, la Eterna Primavera (Eternal Spring). My body feels full with contentment, having just returned from the most magnificent dinner.

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Flickering honey-colored lights quiver and skip across white linen table cloths, moving and swaying to the rhythm of a fountain’s falling water. A pink orchid hangs overhead from its earthen basket. A stairwell, painted warm yellow and orange, rises upwards and around the plaza in which I am seated – wine in hand, letting the tastes of fresh goat cheese and apple slices encircle my mouth. And then, softly at first, the music begins. The sound creeps upwards, rising into a crescendo, the notes beginning to swell within my chest. Just as my body feels full with the light, the music, the romance and the beauty, he steps forward and stands at my side. Like releasing the power and beauty of a great ocean wave, he opens his mouth and out swells the most glorious voice – to serenade me.

Never before have I experienced the shear force and power of a voice so close that it caused me to tremble and my heart to falter. Never before has opera music sounded so serenely beautiful. Never before have I struggled so hard to find one word, even one, in Spanish or English, to express my emotion. Never before!

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México is a country saturated with this magic and romance. It is a country full of the richness of love and affection.

Sitting at dinner with friends, there is the constant dance of couples’ hands twisting and turning, entwining themselves around one another. As if simultaneously carrying on two conversations, their hands whisper to one another with assurances of affection while their mouths go on speaking with others at the table.

Their words, too, betray something of México’s romantic sentimentality. The language is full with the richness of couples’ affection – “mi amor” (my love), “mi vida” (my life), “mi reina” (my queen), couples call one another.

A walk through a park is a walk through couples, their bodies curled round one another, lent against tree trunks, reclining on benches, sprawled across the grass. This is not the place for the PDA-wary. Even the car alarms here whistle as if at a beautiful woman passing by.

I enjoy the freedom of love here. I enjoy its taste. I enjoy the shamelessness of affection. And I wonder why we aren’t all so generous in our demonstrations of love, so affirming of our feelings.

Pyramid Stones & Life's Construction

Have you ever wondered whether you should give up on the thing that you have felt yourself made for all of your life? This is where I am tonight.

Since I can remember, working and living in developing countries alongside poor communities has been a defining part of who I am and who I hope to be. It is so much of what makes up my heart, like an undercurrent to my life.

There was a period of my life when I experimented with the idea of white picket-fences and 2.5 children. I tried to adjust my childhood normalcy to that of my American and British friends. I tried to convince myself that perhaps I could be happy and fulfilled in suburbia.

Here in Mexico, the Spanish conquistadors used the stones from pyramids they had demolished to construct churches and palaces. I have tried to do this - to take the materials of my childhood and adult experiences and construct something different, something of the "developed" world, something normal . . . But I can't. The stones in Mexico were made to come together into magnificent pyramids. The stones of my childhood were made to construct a life lived overseas. And yet, in the midst of tiredness and discouragement, I can't help but wonder at how easy it would be if only I could build something different.

I have been trying to find a field placement for the past several months and trying to hold the faith that the Lord that I love, the Lord that has provided for me so abundantly in the past will do so again. And while I believe this, I find I am sapped of energy. After months of trying to convince various NGOs of my infinite value and potential, I am becoming less convinced.

I know many would urge me to have faith in myself. I have never quite understood this. The older I get, the more of a lie it appears to be. Have faith in myself? I am not all-powerful. I cannot control the way the world moves. I am just a woman - wonderfully and carefully made with gifts and talents, yes - but still just a woman and therefore weak and limited. My life and this world are far too complicated and far too dangerous for me to place my faith in this fragility.

I wonder at how the pillars of my faith did it - kept the faith in God's overwhelming love and power despite all that happened to them and around them. The troubles of my situation are so terribly small in comparison, and yet I doubt. The Word says that "... faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. (Heb 11:1). I am learning that it is not merely a exercise of the mind, but a work of one's will. It is labor . . . and I am tired.

So this is where I remember that while, in all my perfectionistic nature, I long to never doubt, I also belong to a God that has told me, "Cast all your burdens on me, for I care for you." After all, it is He that has been building my life such that I long to be in the field. It is He who created these stones, He who decided what they would make and He who will ultimately construct something magnificent with my life.

First Nights

It is a strange feeling to be in a country for the first night. The air seems to move under a different weight, as if adopting its own peculiar walk. In Mexico, that air walks in circles around me with a heavy fullness. The spaces between people are filled with it. It is as if the air becomes the meeting ground for noises and smells and all that combines to make a place. The air has a feeling to it.

I arrived in Mexico this evening, exhausted. After waking up at 4:30AM to catch my flight, I spent the second half of the trip from Chicago to Mexico sitting next to a woman and her three year old daughter - adorable, but lacking in any understanding of good ol' American personal space. I kept scolding myself after picturing the scene from Dirty Dancing - "This is my dance space. This is your dance space." Oh, I should know better than to be this possessive over air.

From Mexico City, I traveled about an hour and a half to Cuernavaca. The trip south begins in the mass traffic jam that is the center of D.F. (Destrito Federal). Street markets, business people, tourists, buses, taxis, bicycles all collide in a wonderful crash of color and sound. Slowely this wonderful commotion begins to subside into city neighborhoods with houses rather than buildings. Cement walls surround the more expensive homes but do not keep out the gentle roar of the city that is like an undertow that keeps these suburbs tied to the city. And then, finally, the roar of the city dies and is replaced the silent music of the mountains. Jagged rocks rise on either side, lined with fluorescent green moss and grass. Then suddenly a valley breaks and there, nestled in the richness of the green are the familiar corrugated tin roofs of little pueblos. A man's horse plods slowely forward while a child runs quickly buy.

Do we know how fortunate we are? Do we realize the richness of cities and pueblos?

I know that it is on these evenings, having arrived again in a new and familiar place that the fullness of the air and the life that it holds suddenly feel more precious. It is on these first nights, before I am used to all that surrounds me that I realize how overwhelmingly full of life and beauty this world is! And then I think, I want to be a part of this world. I want to live here. And then I realize that it is precisely because it is new that I am struck be it, and that this life does surround us, wherever in the world we find ourselves.

For those in the know - by common demand

I received so many questions as to what it is that I am doing that I am finally deciding to post to add to the confusion.

I left Washington, DC and returned to Boston in mid-September when my father returned from Afghanistan and my sister from Scotland. My family spend a wonderful couple of weeks together.

On October 13, I leave for Mexico for five weeks to continue my Spanish language study and visit with some friends of the family. As some of you may recall, these are the same people that I stayed with for a month in the summer of 2004.

On November 20, I return to Boston from Mexico only to turn right around on November 21 and head California where I will spend Thanksgiving with a couple of my best friends.

When I return from California on November 29, I will continue my search for scholarships, fellowships, etc. In January of 2005 I will begin a blended learning Masters in Applied Community Change and Conservation program with Future Generations. I will be based in the field (though this is a rather large detail yet to be worked out) and will apply all the lessons back into the context of the communities with whom I work. Once a semester, my fellow students will gather together from more than a dozen countries to study in a different field site. In March '05, I will be in India, August '05 in New York, March '06 in Peru and August '06 I will be graduating in Tibet.

I hope this has managed to eliminate some of the confusion, though somehow I have my doubts. Let me know if you think you get it - I could use some of that clarity.

Perfectly and Abundantly Providing

We serve an abundantly and perfectly providing God! I am reminded of this particularly today as I prepare for my last day in Washington, DC, a city that has held both my great joy and great pain. It seems strange that it is the loss of goodbyes and all the incredible uncertainty that lies before me that now reminds me of God’s character and the confidence I can find within it.

I have said so many goodbyes in the past week and have felt rather overrun with weariness. The most painful came last Sunday, when I bid my church family farewell. This fellowship of believers have formed my community and my home for the past three years and have taught me what true koinonia, or fellowship of brothers and sisters, is meant to look like. They have taught me, too, just how messy ministry is, how costly justice is, how powerful truth is and how crucial love is. There simply are not words for what this family of believers means to me.

In addition to my church, I have said goodbye to friends from various parts of my life – GWU, World Vision, Little Lights Urban Ministries. Just last night, I was blindfolded and taken for a picnic at National Airport by three dear friends at work. A few nights ago I shared dinner with old housemates from Little Lights’ Ministry House. The goodbyes have been taxing, particularly as I do not yet know what I am saying hello to.

Even in this series of goodbyes and the presence of such uncertainty, however, the Lord has reminded me of His perfect love and provision. The goodbyes have become markers not so much of loss, but of what all God has provided for me in these last six years. The very sting of loss has signaled the great joy that these friendships have brought me, and so in the midst of all the uncertainty and sadness I have been reminded that God will continue to do as He has so consistently in my life – provide.

So today, as I leave this city, these friendships and this body of believers that I love, I have a choice – to be discouraged by the uncertainty of next steps or encouraged by the certainty of God’s character and the remembrance of His consistent provision. Today is when my choice of faith is made.

(To see photographs of those I have said goodbye to, visit www.wokabaut.shutterfly.com)