Tag: Afghanistan

Rule of Law Programs and the Monitoring & Evaluation Conundrum – a Snapshot

November 4, 2024

One of the things that has always bothered me about Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) of international Rule of Law programs has been the innumerable risks involving incorrect data collection and input, and the ever present danger of conflicts of interest, not to mention lack of experience and expertise. Add to all this the challenges of violence, a hostile host government, war, and other calamities, and the writing on the wall is quite clear.

Oversight of a project does not mean that M&E is actually being carried through. A while ago, I gathered some of my thoughts. I wonder how current they are. My review of reports and audits makes me think that not much has changed.

Historically, some U.S. Government agencies were late in understanding the importance of M&E to determine the impact that foreign assistance programs were having.  In the last few years, I always kept hearing that we needed to answer then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s “so what?” question regarding how effective our international aid projects were.

Many multi-million dollar programs had no internal nor external M&E experts to provide guidance.  In Afghanistan, for example, the U.S. Embassy’s 2013 rule of law strategy failed to incorporate any performance measures.  (For an interesting report that reveals what the problems relating to M&E were at the time, I suggest you read the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) audit).

Through evaluation tools, M&E programs aim to demonstrate program impact.  This, in turn, provides feedback to guide program implementation staff to enhance future programming by identifying planned and unplanned results to allow donors, implementers and host country beneficiaries to understand what works and does not work, how to maximize efficiencies, and address any issues that might arise before they become a problem or a cataclysmic risk.

In government contracts, the Statement of Work (SOW) may provide the indicators to be used.  Sometimes, the implementer may develop a series of iterative evaluations as well, which might include a training evaluation and an audit, a trainee-satisfaction survey, a mentoring plan, and -depending on the program- a public outreach component.

Performance indicators may combine the Foreign Assistance Framework Indicators (F-Indicators), as well as customized indicators, with the goal to develop and utilize indicators that measure outputs and impact in the short, medium and long-term of the project.

Of course, the most perfect and all-encompassing M&E plan will not work unless both donors, implementers and beneficiaries take into account the critical risks inherent in, or coming from, the place of performance, and agree on some critical assumptions that, at the very least, encompass three contexts: political, security, and operational.

What I have learnt is that decision-makers and bureaucrats from both the government side and the corporate side make choices and issue “diktats” without having had the benefit of operating in the environment where the program is being carried out.  I never gave it much thought until I witnessed it first-hand.  Therefore, it is imperative that the “experts” who are hired to handle M&E issues understand that they may be dealing with people who have little or no knowledge of the hurdles the technical staff face day in and day out.

Sometimes, the mere fact that electricity is not available or the internet connection does not work, may mean that M&E data cannot be incorporated into a database.

While I applaud the importance of M&E in program management, I see some problem areas:

Who monitors and evaluates the authenticity and the accuracy of the M&E plan and its implementation in-house?  In other words, if I am the donor, would I fully trust the contractor or grantee to monitor and evaluate itself?

Through my own observations, I came to the conclusion that the Chief of Team of a project would have to have not only “Rule of Law” and international development experience, but a keen understanding of the host country – for example Afghanistan -, business development, human resources, management, accounting, psychology, history, security, culture, philosophy, and -most importantly- an understanding of how the State Department works. Who can meet all those requirements?

If the donor hires a third-party to do an indepent M&E of a program, how comfortable can the donor and implementer be that the third-party will do an unbiased and truly objective M&E assessment?  What are the chances that the M&E firm will have a former implementer employee evaluating the very same program that person put in place?

Rule of Law programs are not immune from a myriad of conflicts of interest.  Who pays attention to these things?  

Afghanistan – a Labor of Love

November 4, 2024

When I first started working with Afghanistan, one of my job requirements was to prepare a presentation for future advisors in the justice sector. These advisors were primarily American and international lawyers, judges, corrections officers, and a sprinkling of other experts.

My research uncovered amazing stories and records of a time in the mid-20th century that seemed surreal. The shock of what had been versus what was. To wit, Once upon a Time in Afghanistan.

This research led me to a jewel of a movie, that I considered a love feast for the eyes, because in a short time, it captured the beauty of the country and its people. I had witnessed it myself, despite my being confined to a limited area in Kabul. This was around October 2012.

I never forgot that film, and that’s why I share it today.

I always think of Afghanistan, and everyone I met there, and I still feel sadness at how all our efforts seemed to go up in flames. Sometimes I wonder whether it was all for nought. Maybe, maybe, I am too pessimistic and there’s a glimmer of hope. Miracles do happen.  

Afghanistan – touch down in flight is a beautiful 5 minute film by Salome and Lukas Augustin. It is dedicated to the Afghan people and Gayle Williams, a British aid worker who worked with the disabled, who was murdered by the Taliban because they claimed she was spreading Christianity.

Watch it below! You won’t regret it.

Of Tigers and Lions and the Rule of Law ~ Kabul-kind-of days, circa 2-24-2012

October 25, 2024

“Corans brûlés”… I read the title doing a Google search, and, for an instance, found it amusing. For a fleeting moment, the term conjured up pleasant, sweet images. Yet, thanks to the “Corans brûlés” we had been on “lockdown” for a couple of days.

Life in Afghanistan, which, according to all expats I had spoken with, could be tediously monotonous, had the capacity of changing course in a blink.  I was happily ensconced in our working compound, researching away, when word came out that the Security office of the US Embassy was enforcing a lockdown because it had been told the Korans had been burnt in one of our bases there.

It was odd, traipsing to our SUVs and starting the trek back to our living quarters.  All of a sudden, I kept looking at the people standing on the sides of the roads with trepidation.  The men one saw on those same roads, carrying weapons, who were they?  Presumably, they were policemen.  But who were they meant to protect?

We hit some traffic, but all went well.

The next day, the American and international advisors were all ready to leave to our work compound by 7:15AM, but by 9:30AM it became obvious we were not going anywhere (we followed what the US Embassy dictated).  So we all stayed in our gilded cages, working from our rooms. 

Yet, all the classes for Afghan judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, and criminal investigators were still being held inside our compound, and all our Afghan staff (instructors, justice advisors, cooks, char force) was still there. The irony of our work environment and the monumental dangers these Afghans faced did not escape me and I marveled at their dedication and strength of spirit.

By the end of the day we knew that the compound called Green Village, where a large group of contractors and other foreigners lived (and where we had been the week before), had been accosted – so much so, that apparently the residents had to stay in the concrete bunkers for a while.

But our own Camp X had been calm, probably because it was right next door to the airport and the airbase out of which US military and State Department flights took off.  The areas in my Camp containing what I thought were excess concrete dividers turned out to be where the bunkers had been set up to protect us.   There had been no need to use these bunkers until that day.

The previous day, for some strange reason, they had lifted lockdown for a while, so that we ended up going to the office (even though all travel to all places – like ministries – had been cancelled).   In the entire time I had been in Kabul, this was the first and only time that I was uncomfortable with the idea, because our Afghan driver was uncomfortable himself.  Yet, the trip was uneventful, and we took a completely different route, far away from the madding crowd. 

Because we left much later than usual (around 10AM), I noticed the squalid little stores all a-buzz with action:  the butcher shops with their mutton carcasses hanging outside; the cobblers sitting on their dilapidated wooden boxes; the men clearing snow off little shelves where wooden planks and poles were kept for construction purposes; the tin pot stores with their glittery gold and silver wares shining pretty in an otherwise bleak setting; and everywhere the women in their burqas, walking with little high heels or heavy boots over filthy slush, or squeezed inside a mini-bus or taxi.  I kept thinking I had never seen such pathetic penury with an eclectic whirring of sorts.  However, in all the places I had ever been, I had never looked at a city with such sadness. 

Despite it all, the morning commute turned into a veritable history lesson, and the 3 of us passengers, and the nervous Afghan driver, had a hilarious conversation that began when I tried to make light of a nerve-wracking trip. I asked my Pakistani Muslim colleague whether kids in Afghanistan had names signifying “barbarian”, like mine.  

Thus the driver and my colleague began the story of Babur, a former king of Afghanistan, descendant of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, who settled in Delhi and began the Moghul Dynasty in India, and whose great-grandson built the Taj Mahal. 

They told me that Babur (or Babr in Persian) is very close to Barbara, and that Babur’s name really means “lion”. I pointed out that Babur and I had something in common -the lion- since my surname Dillon originally stems from “De Leon”.  There were some guffaws and by the time we entered Compound Y, there was no longer nervous tension in the car, and I was not a “barbarian”, but rather “Barbara the double lion!”. I didn’t quite get why “double”, but maybe it had something to do with my gray hair? It turned out that Babur can also mean “tiger” in Arabic, but the beauty of the laughter that helped alleviate tension was not lost on me. With a sense of relief, I genuinely felt close to my driver and fellow passengers. And so what; tigers and lions (and bears, oh my) at the end of the day conveyed the same image of strength and might.

By late afternoon, we were told the sobering news that 2 US soldiers and countless others had been killed, and we were once again put in our armored SUVs, but this time we had a third SUV with a couple of “shooters” inside, to escort us back.  Because it was Thursday afternoon, and the day before the Muslim “Sabbath”, there were few people in the streets, so our ride, thankfully, was uneventful as well, though we could see 3-4 helicopters flying in formation above the US compounds over my own Camp X.

Friday was the only day off at work, and we were also placed on lockdown, because it is the day when the Afghan males go to the mosque, and it was anticipated that the mullahs would be inciting the masses.  We were all surely safely ensconced in our little nests inside the gilded cage of our compound.  Other than the occasional helicopter flying over us, this was a totally calm and ordinary day in Kabul. 

I had no idea what would happen the next day.  The assumption was that we would all be getting ready to go to work.  But we would not find out until the early morning. It turned out the lockdown continued. Alas, our work in preparing class curricula, presentations, and reports to headquarters and the US Government, was never interrupted.

And so ended another day.  

Kabul commute 2 002.JPG
Kabul commute 2 002.JPG

See the water pump to the left and Nan bread to the right.

A bunker by the dining facilities.

Poles used in construction.

Afghanistan: Reflections of a Not-so-Long Ago Era

October 22, 2024

Someone asked me about my legal work involving Afghanistan.  Her question triggered old memories of an enthralling time that appears to have been lost, at least for a while.  However, my propensity for keeping diaries and writing e-mails and letters, developed during elementary school in Buenos Aires, preserved memories of my impressions visiting and working in Kabul a decade ago. 

I was new to the country, but an old hand in what we used to call “development work in the Rule of Law”.  What follow are my personal impressions, as written then, updated with a couple of edits. All the work mentioned here can be found in the myriad of inspection reports, evaluation reports and other documents that the US Government makes available to the public.   

February 17, 2012:

It was a gloriously sunny day, clear blue skies, with not a hint of cloud or haze.  So much so that I could see, for the first time, the little houses built on the denuded slopes of the Hindu Kush.  

I had no idea that Hindu Kush actually means Hindu Slaughter.  I need to do more research about this.

So, two days ago I was up by 6:30am and by 7:45am we were all in 3 vehicles going from Camp X, where I live, to Compound Y, where we work (some of us live and work in the same sites, which can become quite onerous.  Can you imagine having breakfast, lunch and dinner with the same people you work with day in and day out?  For a year or two or more?).

Compound  Y is situated in the most exclusive neighborhood of Kabul.  It consists of villas walled in.  It is no different than all the other villas around (some held by Embassies, others by international organizations, and others by the ministers and sundry government officials).   The movie The Kite Runner apparently was filmed in this neighborhood called Wazir Akbar Khan.  Wazir Akbar Khan was the leader who fought during the famous First Anglo-Afghan War that ended in a monumental defeat of the British army in Gandamak. At one point the highest governmental award that the Afghan Government could bestow was an eponymous medal.

What is noticeable, though, is that -apparently- all the streets are unpaved, (I cannot tell right now because of the snow), have barriers across them that are always up, and can compete with the rest of the roads in terms of the deep craters that destroy cars.  Rumor has it that the residents don’t want these holes repaired because it protects them from nefarious sorts:  these craters don’t allow for a quick getaway.

I took the opportunity to go to the roof of my building to take photos of the city and the surrounding mountains, because I was told that it is very, very rare to get such a clear glimpse of the mountains that encircle the city.

I met a young lady, from abroad, with a Masters in Business Administration, who is a “procurement advisor” at a major Ministry and is helping them set up a system for tracking, budgeting for and storing, inventory.  She has been in Kabul for 3 years and loves the Afghans and her job.   

One of the aims of my program is to train Afghan judges, prosecutors, lawyers and criminal investigators to clinically apply the law.  Among the several courses we offer, one lasts 8 weeks, and another 4 weeks.  Since 2007 there have been more than 14 thousand individuals trained by us! 

Another aspect of the project is to have the Attorney General’s and the Ministry of Justice’s Offices identify promising Afghan lawyers who are then trained for 1 year before sending them to University of Washington’s Law School for a 1 year LLM program.  Why University of Washington?  Because they have, apparently, the best legal clinic that provides pro bono work for Native American tribes.  And this is the closest one can get to understanding the tension between the formal justice sector (courts and the power of the state) and the informal justice sector that handles tribal issues and customary law.

There are so many things that are happening here that one never hears about!  I shared a cup of tea with an engineer with the US Corps of Engineers, who has been managing construction projects all around Afghanistan.  Example:  building generators in remote villages (that have no roads) and that, through the use of little streams, generate the first electricity these people have ever had!  They have also built small schools in these small villages, so that, again, for the first time, children have a place to go and sit down to attend classes taught by Afghans who have been trained by the international community.

I share the pics of the mountains that form the Kabul bowl, and you can get a sense for the architecture of the place.  We cannot drink the water, so bottles are stored, en masse, everywhere.  

And we have a little kitty that sits by the front door of the building. 

We are, of course, in a state of alert, and, for good reason, the security task force here takes it very seriously. 

I leave you with a comment a wise advisor made to me:  

In Afghanistan, 2012 is the Persian year 1390, which, if one compares it to our Western world’s 1390, not much has changed:  there are still feudal lords or barons (the Afghan warlords) fighting each other with the vast majority of the people being illiterate serfs.

The Fall of Afghanistan

October 15, 2024

While time eases anguish for some, I still smart at the thought of all the work, human lives and dreams and treasure lost not so long ago. In August 18, 2021 I reflected having a very hard time engaging in every-day lovely thoughts and things.

Earlier that month had sent me into a spiraling depression. Why? Well… Six years of working with Afghanistan and many more years being engaged with the country.

I don’t think anyone other than those who were so thoroughly engaged with Afghanistan could understand, but maybe I was wrong.

I cannot begin to imagine what family/friends/colleagues of those who fought, worked and died there were feeling then -and even right now-, both in the US and abroad.

Although, for those who question today, “what was the point?”, I can only answer, the point was all the Afghans. We worked hard to make a difference for the Afghans.

Yes, indeed, contractors made a lot of money. There is a monetary value attached to high risk. And the US Government was aloof a lot of times, hiding behind the mighty fortresses of secured buildings in Afghanistan while the hired contractor employees, earning good salaries, risked much.

However, most people I knew who were hands-on (Afghans, Americans, USG employees, international employees), worked hard for a new future for all Afghans, and risked their lives. I didn’t know a lot of them, but I knew a few, who hailed from all over the world. From Colombia to Nepal.

At the time, while I did not visit Facebook that often, I had felt the need to share the overwhelming sadness I felt about Afghanistan.

Let us not forget the ugly corruption surrounding everything we worked on. What else is new? Corruption affects everything and everyone. Here, there and everywhere. The only difference is the Rule of Law as it is meant to be. Justice meted fairly for all. It is corroding around us nowadays. Hopefully, we can help save it the way we should.

Inevitably, the Fall of Afghanistan all ended up being an internecine battle here in the US, which I found not only revolting at that time, but it triggered an anger I have seldom felt.

I leave you with a quote from an email I sent from Kabul to family and friends on February of 2012:

“The snow makes the place more picturesque, but it is grim. I can handle most anything, except seeing the burqa-clad beggars sitting on the side of the roads, in the slush, getting soaked.

Yesterday, I attended for a brief period one of the classes set up for 38 judges, prosecutors, lawyers and investigators. It was fascinating. The Afghans, though loquacious, don’t engage in screaming matches like the Iraqis did. I find that my silver head amuses them a bit.

I am humbled by all the American and international advisors here who work under dire conditions. No one from the outside really knows all the work that these guys are doing. Will all these efforts yield fruit? Or will the country collapse into civil war after we pull out?

It is interesting to get feedback from these advisors who have been in remote locations. They all love working with the Afghans, although they realize that the common refrain here is: “brother against brother, brothers against father, family against tribe, tribe against tribe, tribes against country, country against the world”.”

A Daughter’s Tribute to Her Mother

October 13, 2024

Today would have been Adriana Dillon’s 97th birthday. It has been 14 years since my Mother left us. 

Amazingly, though I spent many years remembering the dénouement, I am not sad thinking about her loss.  In fact, I don’t think of her as being absent from my life the way I did when it happened.  In many ways, she is ever more present than she ever was.

As my Mother was leaving this world, I emailed my children, who were not at her side, what their Grandfather, Aunt and Uncles and I were going through:

We have spent a lot of time laughing and crying together with her.  We have rosaries blessed by John Paul II and pray our Our Fathers and Holy Mary’s and St. Francis’ prayers… and then we will make jokes and laugh …

We are at peace, and know that Grannie is better off going to meet her parents, the Pope, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Thackeray, Balzac, Victor Hugo, and all her beloved authors.

Grannie always said she knew God would keep her in this world until we no longer needed her.  She needs to know now that we are strong enough to let go of her.

Reflecting on those last moments, I realize how lucky we were to be able to mix laughter with the tears, and to share until the very end the strong family bond that was at the heart of my Mother’s life.

I also realized then, after a full year of her death, the meaning behind the tradition of wearing black for mourning.  It was a way to let the world know that the mourner was going through a stage in his/her life that required others to understand, at the very least, his/her constant void and woeful sorrow.

I once wrote that “not all women who give birth are good Mothers, and many women who do not have children themselves make formidable Mothers. For the essence of Motherhood is in giving of oneself in a selfless manner.”  My Mother was the most unselfish person I have known.

Two years after her death I embarked on a new venture, one that would take me to Afghanistan, something that I found exhilarating and approached with trepidatious anticipation.  How I wish I could have shared with her my discoveries of Afghanistan’s history and poetry and art. There was enduring beauty I came across, despite the incessant danger and sadness of a war-ravaged place.

Her constant reflections and wisdom are my ever-guiding principles.  God’s mills grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly small was one of her favorite quotes. In my own experience, it is absolutely true.

She also made the best scones and empanadas one could ever dream of, and her High Teas were a feast to behold, like Babette’s.

I am grateful that she was spared the biggest viscissitudes that some in her family have encountered since her death. I miss her physical presence, her big eyes and warm smile.  She left an indelible mark that withstands the ebb and flow of time. 

Since death is inescapable, one of these days we will all be with my Mother again.   She was an incurable romantic.  What I would give to watch Pride & Prejudice with her one more time.

If only I could leave a minuscule fraction of good will for my children to reflect on, I shall leave this world like my Mother said, when God no longer thinks I am needed around.


A Painter’s Ramblings on War

October 11, 2024

On May 8, 2009 I discovered Ramblings from a Painter, a painter’s ramblings of his Iraq military tour of duty. At the time I had noted in my defunct old blog that artist Skip Rhode had a wonderful gift, and made some ugly landscapes look delightful! For example, his painting of a Containerized Housing Unit or CHU (a shipping container used for living quarters by the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan) makes it seem inviting and cozy.

But what caught my eye initially was Mr. Rohde’s blog entry on Iraqi children’s drawings. He said,

What got my attention was just how normal these drawings are. They could have been done by any kid in the United States. Here are happy families with little houses in the countryside with flowers and trees and puffy clouds.  I’m not quite sure what that thing is in the sky in the bottom picture – a bird? a bug? – but for sure it isn’t threatening.  All the figures have big happy smiles on their faces.  These are happy drawings from happy kids.

Lament, the Pietà-like painting above, evokes a sorrow, an anguish that is hard to fathom. It is the inescapable grief of a Mother who has lost her son, seemingly forever. The Mother’s pained look displays some determination, in my humble opinion. This Lament makes me think that she is a woman of faith, so that beyond the sadness there is a glimmer of hope.

What a poignant painting that encapsulates the senseless horrors of feckless times.

Shedding Mortal Coils

October 9, 2024

I have a transparent snake’s skin that someone found walking around the fields in Maine. He gave it to me and I saved it, thinking one day my baby grandchildren would find that exoskeleton fascinating. The other day I found a faded photo of the critter. And it made me wonder…

Fast forward to this summer: I discovered an old curiosity I had gifted one of my nephews. I should have kept it for myself, since I am a Scorpio! I remember how thrilled I was to find a creepy crawly immortally entombed in plastic at a tired old “store” at a US Government compound in Kabul. What are aunts for if not to do wacky things for their nephews and nieces?

I also just discovered that scorpions, like snakes, shed their mortal coils, as Hamlet would eloquently state. Sometimes, I wish I could do the same.

A “Baad” Story from Afghanistan

October 8, 2024

“We bought you with money and will kill you with a stone “Da zar kharidim da sang mekoshim”“

Violence against women and girls is a universal problem. The fear and sadness in a victim’s face is something I will never forget. I witnessed those faces in many countries, while working on “Rule of Law” projects, where we were trying to make the public aware that there were “legal” avenues to combat such an abuse. The recurring theme from the victims I met had an underlying commonality: the cold hatred in the eyes of the perpetrator, before and after the violent acts, was worse than the actual physical pain.

When I worked in a program involving the justice sector of Afghanistan, I learnt about “baad”. The New York Times had a story in 2012 that explained the baad custom that is prevalent in certain areas of Afghanistan.

It is a practice that most of us find repulsive:  the giving of girls as reparation for the crimes or bad deeds of their male relatives.  It is a traditional form of dispute resolution that had been made illegal in Afghanistan at the national level. 

The Afghan Government in 2009 had enacted by decree, The Law on the Elimination of Violence against Women (EVAW), that specifically referred to the practice of baad, making it a criminal act to marry or “give away” girls and women to someone as blood price. The law prohibited the trading of women and girls to resolve disputes, including those related to murder, sexual violence, or other harmful acts. The UN’s Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) had to say about baad in 2010 added this explanation to the problem:

“UNAMA HR found that giving away girls to settle disputes, through baad, takes place in communities throughout the country. In spite of the prevalence of this practice, many Afghans expressed strong opposition to it. As an informal method of dispute resolution, UNAMA HR found that in the central region more baad is practiced in conflict zones where the Government exercises less authority and lacks legitimacy (for example, conflict-affected areas such as Tagab and Alasay district in Kapisa province, Uzbin in Sarobi district of Kabul province) and in remote areas where the formal rule of law institutions are weakest.“

One reality, though, was that the formal justice sector outside of major urban areas had limited resources and functionality.  At the local level, jirgas or shuras headed by community elders or religious leaders settled community disputes.  Another reality was the fact that many communities were totally unaware of what the national law stated.  

A booklet produced by the International Development Law Organization (IDLO), that was used by the Afghan Attorney General’s office to explain the EVAW, provided a glimpse of the enormity of the educational campaign needed to reach the many rural and remote provinces, communities and Government officials who did not know about the laws affecting the rights of women. There were other publications, as well as a comic book, Masooma’s Sunrise (see below). IDLO is a “global intergovernmental organization exclusively devoted to promoting the rule of law to advance peace and sustainable development”.  

The U.S. military intervention in Afghanistan did not contemplate advancing women’s status and rights. However, the U.S. reconstruction effort’s goals included improving the lives of Afghan women and girls.

The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) found that from 2002 to 2020, the Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Department of Defense (DOD) disbursed at least $787.4 million for programs that specifically and primarily supported Afghan women and girls in the areas of health, education, political participation, access to justice, and economic participation. SIGAR also stated that “[t]his understates the total U.S. investment in women and girls, however, since hundreds of additional U.S. programs and projects included an unquantifiable gender component. State and USAID have not consistently tracked or quantified the amount of money disbursed for projects which directly or indirectly support Afghan women, girls, or gender equality goals. Therefore, the full extent of U.S. programming to support Afghan women and girls is not quantifiable.”

Nowadays, I find so little information about the plight of the women and girls in Afghanistan. So much time has gone by, and the little progress that had been made went up in smoke, so to speak, when the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan.

I look back at my involvement in the Rule of Law work we did in Afghanistan and can’t help thinking that we were neophytes in a social and legal experiment that we did not understand and were not fully committed to carry through.

One of my prized possessions is a lapis lazuli stone and a CD that the Afghan ladies working in the gender-based violence program I was involved with gave me. The CD contained pictures and recordings of the numerous billboards and TV programs that had been created to bring awareness to the population at large, and to let the victims of violence know that there were shelters available for them to seek protection and peace. A small amount of those millions of funds went into that campaign.

Nowadays, I can’t help but wonder, was all this for nought?

Argentina and Afghanistan: a root discovery.

October 7, 2024

Meet Argentina’s famous tree:  the ombú (Phytolacca dioica), that conjured in me images of a long-ago childhood, and poems that I did not appreciate -then- the beauty of their cadences. For example, a famous Argentine writer and statesman, wrote an ode to the tree:

Every region of the planet
Has a feature of importance:
Has Brazil its sun of ardor,
Mines of silver has Peru,
Montevideo its hillock,
Buenos Aires, land of beauty,
Has its grandiose spreading pampa,
And the pampa the ombu.

Or, in its original Spanish: 

Cada comarca en la tierra
Tiene un rasgo prominente:
El Brasil, su sol ardiente;
Minas de plata el Pera,
Montevideo, su cerro;
Buenos Aires, patria hermosa,
Tiene su pampa grandiosa;
La pampa tiene el ombú…

The ombú’s magnificence is in its intricate roots and the thick foliage that protects cattle and man alike from the harsh elements.  Yet the tree’s sap is poisonous.

Reconnecting with a friend of mine, whom I had not seen in decades, I discovered -to my amazement – that Afghanistan produces the one root that has medicinal powers and is widely used for flavoring: licorice (Glycyrriza glabra).  In fact, licorice from Afghanistan used to be one of Afghanistan’s biggest exports to Europe and the United States. (Today, doing a cursory search, I could not find much data).

My last journal entry was a hopeful one: “Next time I visit Afghanistan I shall explore more about their abundant and unique root.  In the meantime, I am enjoying reconnecting with the beautiful roots that, in my travels, I have only seen in Argentina:  the ombu’s.”