Storytime

When I was a little girl, among my favorite books were The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trilogy. In my visits to Afghanistan, I recall The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, wherein Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent end up stranded on prehistoric Earth with a shipful of exiled middle-management from the planet Golgafrincham. It's not really fair to analogize the proud and storied Afghan people with Adams' pre-lingual native hominids. However, the US occupiers bear more than a passing resemblance to the bureaucratic, preening, incompetent, process-obsessed, blustering Golgafrinchans. The kind of people who will hold a series of meetings about how and when to discover the wheel. Who declare leaves to be currency, then decide to burn down forests to prevent inflation. And then make documentaries about it.
I'm also reminded of another favorite childhood fable - Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee at King Arthur's Court. A late 19th century engineer bumps himself on the head, awakens in Camelot, and quickly puts his superior knowledge to work becoming the most powerful man in the country save only the king. Appalled by the (literally) medieval conditions, he makes it his mission to introduce technology and modernize England. His chief opposition? The Church of course. The intersection of ancient and modern is frustrating on both ends. Ultimately, the Yankee ("The Boss" as he is known) is put to sleep by the King's old tutor Merlin - whose magic The Boss mocked, but which is nevertheless the native and reigning technology.
And then, of course, there's Kipling's The Man who Would be King. He wrote about this part of the world a hundred years ago, and even then it was the graveyard of empires. I loved Kim and Just-So Stories as a Tot, but I didn't read this until after my first visit here. There's no satire. Just straightforward, brutal allegory.
So many people live here, have lived here, have passed through on their way somewhere else. And by that token, so many have attempted to conquer, or passed through on their way to conquer somewhere else. The natives routinely dispatch all comers, without even the benefit of shoes. Since the time of Alexander the Great, the world's most ambitious warriors have cut across Afghanistan on their way from Europe to Asia (or vice versa), depositing their genes along the way. These are the toughest people on the planet.
As for our current venture: what will serve to distinguish us from those who have come before? Our president has declared a 2011 pull-out date. I listen to Fary and Dave complaining about the intractability of the government, and I think, good. Let them get out of the way. The ones who remain to do the work of reconstruction will be the private organizations who are truly interested and motivated - not pencil pushers or empire-builders. Ah, but Dave says, if there is no security private groups will not come here. And security is costly.
The president (the Afghan president) has made a declaration that all private security companies should be disbanded in Afghanistan. And this is quite something, because a large percentage of our presence here is contracted out.

What will be our legacy? I have seen entire parking lots of abandoned earth movers, left to rust by the Russians who bailed twenty years ago. Our CIA effectively hand-picked the extremist psychopaths who comprise our chief complaint against the nation, our reason for coming. How much of the current situation is our fault? How much can we fix? Is it any of our business?

Ours as much as any other empire, I guess. There is a long tradition of diversity here. Many nations, many tribes have made this land their home, have left their art and their culture. It is a beautiful city, Jalalabad. It was once a jewel. Best oranges in the world, some say. And gardens built by kings. Buddhists used to run the show here, did you know? The shameful thing is, you can tell where americans have been by the trail of destruction. Not, say, by the trail of clean water and reliable power. We can be such jerks.

I suppose my personal goal is the same here as it is at home: help people, especially young people, to obtain knowledge for themselves. Support people in their endeavor to live healthy and safe lives. To do whatever I can to reinforce the twin values of creativity and curiosity.
These are just rambling thoughts, really. Today was a big day and it will take a minute to organize it all for consumption. And I have a bit of homework, too. I am still feeling the effects of jet lag, barely.

Maybe tomorrow I will swim in the scintillating pool...