Colins Afghan Journal 09

8/3/2019 Colins Afghan Journal 09

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5/11/07Dinglish

Im sitting back in Kabul now and its oh so comfortable. We made the trip backdown from Bamian yesterday. Everything went smoothly, except for 3 flat tires and nottoo much to mention about the journey. I drove for the first 5 hours, which was

exhausting on such a terrible road. We all wished we could have flown. After a weektogether it was hard for us not to get a little annoyed with each other during the long, harddrive. But we made it, relationships in tact.

It really wasa good crew to havetaken up there forthis trip. Everyonewas easy to get alongwith and they allknew at least a littleEnglish (except

Faisal) so I couldcommunicate withthem. The PARSAstaff have perfectedwhat we callDinglish, a blend ofDari and English thatsounds funny butgets the point across. For example; Marniejan gap we go bazaar, get buz wa pepsitranslates to marnie says we should go to the market together and get goat and pepsi.Asef is the master of this and we would have conversations for hours in this manner. Ireally like him, although he has earned the title of mister problem/ problem-solve as heseems to create as many problems as he solves. He is always happy and takes our teasingwell. Weve determined that Dinglish is a great way to learn dari, or English for that

matter, as it gives you words in bothcontexts. Its especially good forthose of us that dont like to sitdown to learn languages in a classroom, though in the end real study isneeded to not sound like a moron.


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Before we leftBamian, at 6:00 am theladies that were to startmaking rugs for usshowed up for final

negotiations. I wasbusy getting thingssquared away to leave,but apparently it didntgo well, as thenegotiations lastedonly 5 minutes. Momand Yasin came out ofthe meeting quitefrustrated. Mom knewthings wouldnt go well when the entered the compound complaining. Now it was the

wool is poor quality, and we dont have wood for the frames of the looms, which is thesign that youre in for some stiff negotiating. The ladies had told them that they wanted apayment of $40 per kilo of rug. This is outrageous and far far above market value,especially given we were going to provide the materials to them. She pointed to a highquality rug we had that probably weighs 5 to 7 kilos and was bought at the fair price of$40, without having to pay for the materials. They didnt believe her, but I watched herbuy the rug myself and its true.

When I heard this I was in disbelief. These people up here are not looking at whatwere trying to create, a market for their work. They are not understanding that they needto give fair prices for their work and in exchange will have consistent income, farexceeding what they bring in now which is next to nothing. All they see is that they havea Khereji (foreigner) with a large pocket book (false) and they want to get what they canout of it and run. This is not the first time we found this in our attempts to develop this

micro-industry andin discussingit we reallythink it comesout of acouple ofthings.

Forone, most ofthese peopleare illiterateand reallyhave nounderstandingof math,especially the


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women. We could probably offer them a base wage of $100 a month for full time workand they would take it, yet we are not trying to set up a sweatshop. Mom and Yasin arejust trying to facilitate the market to get more people access to cash, especially women.Secondly, they are trying to get as much as they can out of a single transaction; this Ibelieve is due to the war-time mentality that has developed in this country over the past

25 years. You need to get as much as you can,when you can because the opportunity mightnot be there tomorrow. They cant think in thelong term, and probably dont trust thedevelopment that my mom and Yasin are tryingto construct. Its hard not to be frustrated withboth their ignorance and mentality; you have tothink of what they have been through and theirlack of education. Mom and Yasin realize nowthat it will not be quite as easy to set thissystem up as they had hoped. Provide people

with materials and give them a fair price fortheir work to stimulate the local market andbring cash into the community. Simple right?Not at all; typical of any program developmentin this country, or the third world in general.They will think out their strategy and find theright people to develop it with. I believe theyhave the right idea and are going in the rightdirection, but its an experiment and needs to betoyed with to find a working solution.

Today has been spent catching up onmy journal and resting before our next trip into the provinces for my mothers surveywork. Well be going to Pansher, an area to the east of Kabul in the mountains, whichshould be beautiful. Well be staying only a couple of nights and then returning.


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Tomorrow Ill go over tothe Marastoon compoundwhere PARSA is locatedto check on the progressof my soccer field for the

orphans and plan out theconstruction of the goals.Kabul seems so easy andeven a little boring afterour time in Bamian, but itsgood to get some restbefore we leave onSunday.

Documents

Colins Afghan Journal 09