Christmas Mubarak!

A couple of weeks ago my boss and I (and our interpreter) spent the afternoon calling our Afghan colleagues to wish them a happy Eid. "Eid Mubarak!" he began every call, to the giggles, guffaws, and gratitude of all the folks we called.  So, today, Christmas Mubarak!

 

We spent the day working today, travelling all around the province, speaking with everyone from high government officials to village cops to dirt-smeared kids. I had a ball. Some of the highlights:

 

- During a very somber meeting with a government bigshot and a group of bearded elders in traditional dress to discuss the coalition activities in their area, cheesy, late-90's club music started playing out of nowhere. Sheepishly, one of the elders reached into his pocket and whipped out a cell phone waaaay cooler than mine. He shut the ringer off and we continued

 

- We spent an 2 hours driving not more than 10 miles to village out on the outskirts of the provincial capital. The road was so bad we saw probably 10 donkeys for every car, mostly old toyota corollas. I thought our Humvee was going to snap in two- I have no idea how these folks keeps these little Japanese sedans running for a decade on these roads. It's gotta be magic.

 

- Standing in front of a school that our predecessors built just a few months ago, a group of about 30 villagers insisted that we never do anything for them. "We built this school," we said, "and that clinic right over there." "Yeah, well," they said, "the road's terrible."

 

- As we walked down the crappy road to the new clinic, a kid pulls up beside me and starts chatting me up. "Baksheesh, give me pen." Since I didn't have enough for the several dozen kids walking behind us, I said sorry. He grinned and said "My name is Apenis." "No it's not, kid." Grin. "My name is Apenis." "Your name is not Apenis. My name is Felipe." He laughed and said "My name is Sabiullah." "OK, that sounds right."

 

- Met a Barney Fife village cop, bearded, five foot nothing, no gun, who spent an earnest afternoon shooing kids away from our trucks.  He was great. Obviously loves his job, loves his village, and takes a lot of simple pride in what he does.

 

I think the day made me nostalgic for road trips to Mexico with the family when I was a kid. We had a powder blue, '74 Chevy silverado with a camper in the back. The crappy roads, the mud brick homes, the donkeys, the endless streams of kids, the rock star treatment my dad would get every time he got out and started giving change and candy to every kid he saw. My mom yelling at him when he ran out of stuff- "if you don't have enough for everyone, don't start!"

 

It was a good day. A Christmas (eve) to remember.