Sunday, December 07, 2008

Microsoft and refusal to comply

I have a pretty slow internet connection so I really like blogger's option to email my blog entries and have them automatically posted (instead of having to go to a website, wait for each page to load, and then deal with how blogger *doesn't* play well with my browser of choice Opera). The problem i have is that my main email program is Outlook mainly for its PIM features and my HTC TyTN II plays best with outlook compared to other PIMs. Outlook adds in tons of HTML and "MS HTML" (ie non-W3C approved html code) to its emails, normally this is not a problem for regular emailing but blogger apparently doesn't like it so my blog posts come out all funky looking, quite irritating. This is a something that MS does quite often, that is, taking a standard and modifying it (ostensibly "improving it") in a way that makes other standard-compliant applications have problems. They somehow (my guess is through lobbying) got the their XML based document standard approved over OpenOffice's xml document format which was totally open thus flubbing the process.

Man Manicure & Massage

Ok, so it wasn't a manicure (though i have heard of straight guys getting manicures i am not one of them) it was a shave which to me is perhaps the male equivalent of a manicure. I think i have written about something like this before but i am too lazy to sift through my blog entries. I am working in a not-so-large town in south-central Azerbaijan so make no mistake, there are no amenities here that Azeri's would consider "extravagant" but there seems to be a convenient convergence of two cultural customs here barber shop shaves and therapeutic massages.

I have had a b*tch of a time finding places that do shaves in the US which is ironic to me for two reasons 1) I have heard stories about how back in the 50s (?) men just went to the barber shop in the morning to get a shave and 2) In this day of gyms/spas/manicures etc i would think a nice hot/close shave would be in the mix somewhere... apparently not. Its not just the US though, in places where stubble is en vogue (Italy, a place where my German friend commented, even the national news reporters can have a 5'oclock shadow and be in fashion) or where spindly beards are frowned upon (Thailand) or a place where almost all guys are very well shaved and a haircut costs a pittance (Moldova), its hard to get a shave in all those countries. The exceptions thus far are Afghanistan and now Azerbaijan.

I was a bit surprised at how many places you could get a fairly good shave in Afghanistan but it later started making sense as some ("modern leaning") Afghans think that facial hair is a bit uncouth or just a rural thing and then there are those that want to look like "good Muslims" there but also want to "look good" so a good shave/beard-trim becomes important. I went to a dirty little place near my office that had a very sharply dressed young barber there (and he used disposable razors) I am thinking (this is only "Davidson theory" i am not an anthropologist) that a combination of elements like the one that causes Moldovans to be so clean cut and that causes Afhgan's to consider getting a shave at a barber shop which converged here in Azerbaijan resulting in barbershops that give shaves, good ones too (though i fear it is dying here just as it has in the US, what a pity). The barber i go to has a small little place, i mean really small, about the size of a large walk in closet but he has a steady hand (important!), uses disposable razors (insanely important), uses the good ole brush n lather foam, and finishes up with aftershave and some baby powder type stuff... one comes out feel'n like a million bucks.

I have a friend who is a masseur, charges a kings ransom($50 *minimum*), and last time i checked she was having a hard time of it (and my guess is she is having a harder time now with the economy such as it is). Being a masseur you must charge alot especially if you have one or less clients a day but that pretty much makes it prohibitively expensive for po' folk such as myself... unless you live/work in developing countries! In many of the developing countries massages are a maximum of $20 (that was at a expat place in Cambodia), it was $10 at a Chinese place in Cambodia (which was more for locals and IMHO was at least as good as the expat massage place), in Thailand the little old lady gumby massages were like $4 (I usually tipped an extra $1) and in Moldova it was about $7. Here in Azerbaijan it is 6AZN (1AZN ~1EUR) for 40minutes... not bad at all, even on my pathetic salary.

I don't think the massage thing is a cultural convergence thing really, I have noticed that most Russian trained doctors are trained in how to give therapeutic massages and there are also trained masseurs as well. Azerbaijan is a former Soviet republic and it is not hard to see how that has influenced many aspects of society here but not totally, they are still pretty socially conservative (specially regarding interactions between men and women, i had a hell of a time finding a Russian teacher because most of the teachers [or their husbands] didn't think it would be appropriate to teach a guy...grrrrr). Well i found out in Moldova that even the village doctors gave massages and so i thought i would check out here, and yup, they got em. It was a bit awkward at first because the girl (well 20s) didn't speak English and i only speak mediocre Russian so she put me in a room and i guess told me to undress but i wasn't sure how far was acceptable (the Russian tutor finding thing now makes me nervous about offending locals) so i stripped down to pants/t-shirt and when she came in she gave me what sounded like a "I'm supposed to give you a massage like that?!" spiel, i got it and went to my boxers no problem and got a pretty good massage. There are different nuances every place i go, in Cambodia i don't remember anything in particular but in Thailand the little old ladies would freak out if you took off any more than your shoes (this was at *real* massage places, not the brothels, people don't usually take you seriously if you are a guy and say "I want a massage", they just assume you are referring to its euphemism). The Thai massages usually consisted of an unnaturally strong little old woman (trust me, not brothel material) who would do things like put her foot in your arm pit and pull your arm, pushing the limits of ones ligaments (not to mention physics) and you would come out feeling like gumby reincarnate... didn't really help so much if you had knots in your back but i image would be excellent after a exercise workout.






U.K.'s prudent savers feel punished... its not just the UK

I was listening to American Public Media's "Market Place" and they had a piece about how some prudent savers in the Uk are feeling punished and ya know what, its not just them! Times like this when people and businesses are getting bailed out because they were frivolous, not cautious enough, greedy, or just plain stupid makes me feel like all my frugality has been for naught. It is a freerider delima of sorts, i talked with a Spanish colleague regarding the Spanish social system and job hunting also came up, she wasn't worried about it because after she finishes a job she just collects unemployment salary from the government for a few months (something like 80% of what her previous salary was) then looks for a job later... she also confessed that her brother, who owns his own business pays very high taxes (higher than she does) and how he effectively pays for her to sit around (I am wording it more harshly than she did). I have had a harder-time-than-most with job hunting so this blasé attitude is just insanely frustrating. While i was working in DC i lived in an "up and coming neighborhood", which is a euphemism for a ghetto place that has potential, sometime when i would take off early I would see guys just mulling around in the middle of the day and wonder "well maybe they have night jobs", well that was naive, they just collect unemployment (much less than what one would get in most western European countries) and enjoy mulling around... no shame.

Society's inability to hold *all* these people and businesses accountable is... frustrating.


Getting closer to "Media Jukebox" Nirvana

By non-geek/media-phile standards i have alot of... media. In some ways i am a bit of a junkie (i constantly max out my measly little internet connection trying to download podcasts [fuh-get-bout video podcasts]) with lots of music videos, movies, music, and misc videos. The advent of MP3s and DivX was a blessing and media related improvements such as FLAC and x264 along with things like 1.5terabyte hard drives its all quite mind boggling (my *first* foray into this kinda of stuff was a groundbreaking attempt [well for me, hey this was 1995] to record a white zombie song to my hard drive which resulted in a 40mb wav file that took up more than half of my 60mb hard drive).

In some cases i find myself behind the tech curve (i still don't get things like face book) but in other respects i find myself ahead of the tech curve (well ahead of the masses, there are still plenty of media gurus light years ahead of me), a "Media Jukebox" is one of those things I consider myself to be ahead of the masses on but a bit behind the tech-crowd. In my "old" age i have become less interested in tinkering (which is a bit depressing) and just want the stuff to work, my way; a media jukebox is a good example. I am not interested in recording from the TV onto my computer (ah la TiVo) i will rely on bittorrent for that i just want something that i can browse through my collection, or let others browse through my collection easily, i mean really easily. While (IMHO) there is no substitute for winamp for music it is not something that you can operate easily without a mouse not to mention sitting on your couch while looking at the TV. For me the all-most-there solution is a media jukebox that i can control with a RF (ie WiFi) tablet pc like remote. Yes yes there are tablet pc like remotes out there but these setups usually cost thousands of dollars and are totally proprietary, not what i am looking for.

I had been looking over many many different "media jukebox" (commonly called "media center" but i like "media jukebox" better) software packages starting with the one that comes with windows (which will certainly help popularize the concept). Unfortunately most of the reviews etc that i have found focus on PVR/DVR features and not on compatibility etc (i find that usability of most of them is pretty straight forward, but after using in depth features of programs like winamp i guess i would). I have recently re-tried Media Portal, i had tried this once before but for some reason (which i don't remember) it didn't hook me (my guess is stability or too much tinkering since it is still in RC phase). Then there was Xbox Media Center (XBMC) which *looked* great but at the time it was only for, xboxes (and i have to admit that it is an ingenious way to use an old xbox albeit takes more tinkering than i want to bother with plus i am not a game console kinda guy so i don't have an old xbox lying around to hack). Now Media Portal seems more stable and XBMC has been ported to windows (and Linux!). Some of the nice features of these programs is that they can read the album art and ID3 info from the music files (you can embed pictures in music files, called album art) and they can parse file names (like from movies and music videos) and automatically download information about the videos by web scraping places like IMDB and Mtv; all very nice features when you have hundreds (or thousands) of files!

Another note, Opera v10 (alpha) just came house (yeah!!!!!!) and it now has a feature that firefox along with some other programs have had, auto-update, and i don't mean just checking to see if there is a update downloading that file and then making you install-update it, i mean something that just downloads the little updated bits and then updates the program and then lets you keep going (maybe with a program restart in there somewhere). Something like this is really missed in media portal which isn't totally stable yet. Something like an auto-update feature and super efficient (ie can run on minimal hardware) would be about what i need for my folks (hi Mom hi Dad), to be able to put all their music/movies/etc in an easy to use interface that they could control with nothing more than a remote while looking at their TV would be... ideal.

Wednesday, December 03, 2008

Stocks Are Less of Your Net Worth Than You Think... if you will be getting SS...

I just finished reading an article in the WSJ that i thought would make me feel better about my portfolio unfortunately that didn't happen since it's optimism is based on social security, something that i still have limited faith i will see when i get to SS-collection age.

I know that even taking into account all the financial catastrophes the US has had (ever, even with "bumps" like the great depression) the stock market survives and ultimately you end up making money but listening to the doom and gloom on the news doesn't help.

It does make me wonder how all these financial pundits get to be where they are, i remember during the internet boom everyone talking about the "new economy" and then it crashed spectacularly (or for me it did) then this housing bubble which was only a surprise in how big it busted (I remember hearing speculation about the housing bubble years ago).

The trick it to keep reminding ones self that time and diciplne should prevail... but its a hard thing to keep in mind.


Sunday, November 09, 2008

Multi-post what i am doing

I have noticed that lots and lots of apps (applications and websites) have options to add little blurbs about what you are doing/thinking/etc, and then there is twitter which is a tell everyone whatever you want all the time (potentially annoying if you ask me but hey). I am waaaay too lazy to change these things as something pops into my head but if there was a way (a website service?) that can update all the places at once, that is I could say "trying to find a translator to hire" (which was what i was doing all last week, actually my staff was doing the searching i was doing the interviewing) and it would show up in facebook, linkedin, skype, and twitter, or whatever.

I am actually surprised that i haven't been able to find such a thing but thats fine, it just popped into my head.

Monday, July 28, 2008

Back in the CIS

Well I managed to escape from Afghanistan after some (typically) painful job hunting to Azerbaijan, from an uber-islamic society to a semi-secular-Islamic society (actually, as the French husband of the person I am replacing said, “well, actually they drink vodka more than they go to the mosque” [that said they still don’t drink much]).

 

It is kind of amusing, I haven’t really worked in a CIS country since Moldova and I am finding *many* similarities with a few things I recognize from Afghanistan (the common thread in the later two being Islam).

 

I was hired as Head of Country for an organization here but unlike most of the (few) development organizations here my office and most of my staff are based outside of Baku which is kind of strange. I am kind of glad I am not in Baku as it is a booming oil town and I don’t make nearly enough to keep up with the people there (the expats and even some of the Azeris) plus after Afghanistan it will be nice to have something a bit quieter not to mention safer.

 

Anywho, more as I have time.

 

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Using the Internet as an information source for help as opposed to a source for copying.

I am presently teaching a business communications ESL course at American University in Kabul and am learning more about teaching every day.


When I was in school (even in 2005) there wasn’t nearly as much information online as there is now (and there certainly wasn’t as much back during undergrad in the 90s). Without a doubt this information boom has been a blessing, no two ways about it, but the misuse or abuse of this information has become more and more disturbing to me. In the US I have heard about problems related to plagiarism etc but for those who are caught there are very stiff penalties (a friend of mine was expelled from school for a year and all she did was copy someone’s homework). In the developing world it is a different story. There are almost no laws about not claiming someone else’s intellectual work as your own and even if there are laws they are routinely ignored. I admit that I am perhaps a bit flexible about “fair use” but profiting off of someone else’s work or claiming someone else’s work as your own really really bothers me. In the class I am teaching I routinely catch students blatantly copying from the internet and not citing the copied work (or worse claiming it as your own); even worse many of the international students from developing countries in my grad school program routinely copied the work of others (and didn’t get caught nearly as often as they should have). I have heard worse stories from friends who are/were professional teachers having papers submitted with the URLs still in the header with students swearing it was their own work.


This is one of those “I can identify the problem, but don’t know the solution” things, if I was to treat my students as my friend in undergrad was treated I would have a class that was 1/3rd its original size. I have had to stress repeatedly that un-cited work will not be counted (they are presently working on final projects) all this and I am not even requiring the work be cited according to any particular standard (I had to use APA), just tell me how I can find the information if I wanted to refer back to it… and many of them still are not getting it.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

God bless comic book movies

I was never one for comic books, for some reason I could never get into them. I suppose I should have grown up by now in terms of taste but it (arguably) hasn’t happened. Enter computer animation of the last 10 years, creativity, and the epiphany that Marvel Comics had that there is serious money to be made here. Yes, of course we have had movies based on comic books for years but I think (sorry, no actual research) that the number of comic book based films has started to increase in frequency. Due to the “fantastic” nature of comic book characters I’d say that producing these types of films with all the needed special effects was a Star Wars sized proposition (which was cool as hell in its day but almost passé nowadays). With a move in the “incredible effects” direction (using cgi) with the debut of Terminator 2 and later the Matrix special effect has grown to jaw dropping capability.

 

For various reasons my taste in movies has become pretty shallow in that great special effects, reasonable acting, and an ok storyline is usually enough to get me to watch something (of course gratuitous violence and sex always helps J). I’d say that these comic stories (which are ripe for storylines and cool scifi concepts) along with Hollywood today makes for really entertaining viewing.

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Under Attack!!

How's that for an alarmist title? Well it's misleading to say the least but it still seemed appropriate. Last night (3am) I kept hearing all these noises, sometimes it sounded (in my groggy state) like very brief thunder other times straight up gunfire. I found out this morning that it was actually a shootout between some terrorist and the Afghan Police/Army. It took place less than a mile from where I am which I guess should be unsettling but for some reason its not. I guess some of the reasons it is not particularly unsettling is that I have heard about violence in Kabul for awhile (though I haven't actually heard the violence itself), rumor has it these guys are linked to the attack on Karzi and the police found them and cornered them, they weren't after me, and there was almost no chance I would be caught up in it. Still its kind of surreal. For me the most difficult part of working in Kabul is having to take security into consideration all the time which means I (as I keep saying) don't get out much. Ironically the projects I manage are in a very safe area of Afghanistan (Central, called Hazarajat) where one can, and I have, walk anywhere one wants without fear.

I was walking in Bamyan, a province smack in the middle of Hazarajat, a few months ago and as often happens an Afghan (student) who wanted to practice their English came along and started talking to me. We came to a creek that we had to cross so I hopped across and he just left his bicycle in the grass along the edge of the creek (plenty of people around). I asked him if "that wouldn't be a problem?" and he said "what wouldn't be a problem?" apparently he was not worried in the least about someone stealing the bicycle even thought it probably cost 2-3 weeks salary for many people in the area. Yeah,
I'm hoping to get a job there next (assuming my next job is in Afghanistan).


If you want to see via satellite the approximate area where the fire fight took place (in Kabul) go here (Google maps). The fairly barren area to the right with a faint line going across it is a very well known mountain and the line is a very old wall built by a king way back when (not sure how way back though). I live about a mile west of this point. The houses at the base of the mountain are where Kabul's poor (not poorest) live. I have been around here and can attest that this particular area is not the nicest of mountain "settlements".

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Burqa Emporium


Burqa Emporium
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho

Well I am not sure if this shop would count as a “emporium” but the only thing they sold was burqas. I should have gotten a photo but they had burqas for children (bought my cousins one, should be interesting to see their reaction) and even a burqa for dolls! I know westerners who have tried wearing a burqa and found it to be intolerable, not being able to see, hard to breath, etc; and in reality (or in Kabul, not sure about other areas) women here sometimes wear buraqs but flip the front up so they can see (and exposing their faces but they don’t seem to care).

I have been told different things by different people about why the buraqs are worn the main reason is so men can’t see how women look and many times women only wear them because their husbands make them do so. But there are many conservative women in Afghanistan, the cook for my organization (who is ethnic Tajik, not typically as conservative as some other ethnic groups here) wears a burqa outdoors but her husband died a few years ago so it is obviously of her own will (she also never comes out of the kitchen either but doesn’t seem to care too much if I come in and see her). Another odd (to me) example is an Afghan friend of mine (who is a *really* nice guy and ethnic Pashto, who tend to be more conservative), his wife wears a burqa and not because he make her (she requires it). He actually has a funny story; his family lives in Pakistan where women also wear something that is similar to a burqa but you can see their eyes (in Afghanistan you can’t see any part of their face) and his wife was getting stares for wearing an afghan burqa but she refused to “expose” herself by wearing a Pakistani style dress so he had to buy sunglasses for her at which point she finally yielded and wore the Pakistani style clothes. Different cultures.

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Google is a content producer... kinda.

I was just listening to an NPR podcast where the host was interviewing Google’s head Mobile Software design person (regarding Google’s new mobile OS for phones) and the host asked “so how will you make money off this” and the software design person gave some nebulous answer which the host seemed to understand and reworded Google’s entire business model in a way that I have never heard before, Google is like a TV producer making shows people want to watch then getting revenue from the targeted advertising, that is things like Google maps, gmail, Google groups, and now Android are just services (like TV shows) that people want to use (or in the case of TV shows, watch) and then Google makes money off the advertisements.

 

Perhaps everyone out there has thought of it this way already, and indeed I understood how Google made their money but I never heard it described like this host did, the simplest explanation I have heard to date.

 

Sidewalk Barber


Sidewalk Barber
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho

This group was about the least amicable of the people I tried to photograph. I found the “sidewalk barbers” to be really interesting to watch, and I came across many excellent (well 3) photo opportunities, but almost every time I asked to take a photo (I always asked first) they would give me an emphatic “No”. The only reason I got a photo of this guy was that my friend told him (unbeknownst to me until he was getting prepped) that if the barber would let me take a photo my friend would agree to pay for a haircut (I would not have agreed to this as there have been few photos that I felt were worth paying for [paying for photos builds a culture of “lets get the rich foreigners to pay to take photos of us”, seems like a bad precedent]). So I took a photo of this guy and he still wanted more money. I now wonder if the profession just draws in a certain type of personality. Another afghan friend said that maybe the barbers are ashamed of what they do but people doing far more menial work agreed to let me take photos no problem, perhaps there is a cultural element I am missing here.

Monday, March 24, 2008

Fire!


Fire!
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho

I wish I had gotten a picture of this when it happened but alas no photo. The (diesel) heater caught on fire in one of the offices in my building and pretty much managed to add a layer of soot in minutes. The person walked in saw the thing gurgling and spitting out fiery blobs of diesel so he picked it up, ran to the balcony and tossed it over the side (burning his hand in the process). There was a trail of burn marks on the rug between his office and the balcony where the fiery drops of diesel left their mark (and they have yet to change the rug months later [yes, I am behind on my posting]). The kicker for me is this was the second fire in two months.

These heaters are pretty simple in design, they have a can of diesel that drips into a pipe that puddles at the base of a larger can and is lit. The problem is that if any dust/dirt gets into the tank/can that holds the fuel it can temporarily clog up the spout and if you have turned it up a bit more turn your back and whatever dirt/dust frees itself the spout starts gushing diesel which overflows the part where the fire is and viola! Deathtrap.

Saturday, March 22, 2008

My National Geographic Magazine Photo


My National Geographic Magazine Photo
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho

Well it was *supposed* to be my national geographic magazine photo but while it came out ok it did not come out nearly as well as I hoped it would. One of my photography problems is I don’t like to be obvious about taking photos and to sit in front of the person and snap off 20 different photos while the person is right there (which could very well have yielded at least one really good photo) is beyond uncomfortable for me.

Asides from the scene that seemed almost perfect I have been amused by the sewing machines in Afghanistan. These sewing machines are “hand powered” by a crank. It seems like this setup would be particularly difficult to use since I would think that one would have to have one hand cranking the machine and one hand guiding the cloth along.

My great aunt’s (great grandmother’s?) sewing machine (that my folks still have) was foot driven, it seems like that something that allowed both hands to be free would be a lot easier to use but perhaps that setup would be a bit more complicated mechanically speaking (and the more complicated the setup the harder it is to fix). The whole human powered part makes total sense though because much of Afghanistan doesn’t have any electricity and even those parts that are electrified areas don’t have consistent power.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Landslide!


Landslide!
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho

This was one of the field adventures I had while heading out to one of the field offices. It had apparently rained somewhere (certainly not in Kabul) which caused a few landslides. Our driver made it through some spots I really didn’t think we’d make it through but this part he was not willing to try unless we nudged the odds a bit (that is digging). Despite the fact that I am holding the camera I did help quite a bit (actually the driver and I were the ones to ask one of the villagers for some shovels) and got props for it from some of the staff. We might have been able to make it over this hump but it was actually viscous mud mixed with rock so not totally solid and a bigger problem (that is not apparent from this picture) was that if we flipped we would roll down a 20 foot embankment (we do have a roll-cage in the truck but why risk it?). Our options were to turn around and take a 8 hour detour (we had already been driving since 5am it it was now mid afternoon) which the driver was not keen on.

Normally I have thought of Afghans as pretty hard working but these kids were certainly the exception. One of the staff had asked if they could help and they said they had to go somewhere (that was at least 15 minutes before this picture was taken, after they said they had to go they promptly sat down and started to gawk at us). I even offered them $2 apiece (two days salary for some families) and they still didn’t want to help (apparently not the most fiscally savvy of children). Anyway, we shoveled away and tossed small rocks out of the way and put large rocks on the soft spots and after about an hour of work or so Nasurla (driver) locked the hubs, made it over the hump, and gunned it through the 2 foot deep 20 yard long pool of mud and to safety on the other side no problem! dude you rock! (He is probably the most careful of the drivers, the other drivers give him a hard time because he is "slow" [euphamism for safe?])

Monday, March 17, 2008

Tough As Nails


Tough As Nails
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho

This is Atoi and while I am not sure he is actually “tough as nails” he certainly gives that impression (driving full throttle on narrow Cliffside roads for 15 hours at a time, washing the car in 15F weather with a rag and bare hands, chasing down any of the staff that tries crossing him [being about 6” helps, taller than average here], and just looking pretty tough and weathered [though he is just 65]). He drives like most afghan drivers, absolutely deranged; even my boss whences sometimes and my boss grew up in Afghanistan!

I have to admit though that he is one of my favorite drivers here. I learned how to say “donkey” in Persian from him since he calls everyone on the road (and police) donkeys (borderline obscene here). The mere fact that he looks and talks like he could eat the creosote off a telephone pole helps fend off would be urban-assault-prone-drivers, beggars (who can pick your pocket if they get close enough [though this is rare]), and really helps when I am negotiating in the market. During Ramadan (Ramazan here) he was a one man hurricane, kinda scary actually (to all those who don’t know, during Ramazan people fast during the day which tends to make people pretty grouchy).



Correction: Apparently he is 75 (he has lived in Kabul for 65 years I think) which makes seeing him literally run around all the more impressive

Monday, March 10, 2008

Staff Photos


Staff Photos
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho

No these kids are not my staff (though make no mistake, child labor is alive and well here) but these were some photos my staff took. My organization has way more digital cameras than it needs (though the cameras are never available when we need them “Where the IDP project camera?!” “Oh, Mohammad took it home” “When?!” “Two weeks ago” “Sigh…”) and since the project donors always like to see photos of the projects they are funding I have the staff take project pictures. I get pretty mixed results in that sometimes they don’t take any photos, or I get photos of the backs of peoples heads but to their credit they do take a lot of pictures so out of this quantity they sometimes have a few good pictures.

I loved this photo of the children of one of the families we tried to help, this was actually taken with a 7megapixel camera… but for some reason the staff took 2 weeks worth of pictures using a 640x480 resolution (less than 1 megapixel I think).

As for the children here, I of course noticed two of them (the boy in particular) had reddish hair. Before coming here I had assumed that all Afghans pretty much looked like Arabs but I was quite wrong. I still think a lot of Afghans could pass for Arab in the central region they are “Hazara” which are ethnic Mongol, and there is a ethnic group called “Buyat” and they look pretty western, and then there are Afghans that to me look like Panjabi Indians. I do remember when I was in Laos seeing some children who had reddish hair way out in the boonies and I though “hmmmm, they are keeping up with fashion (dyed hair I thought” but I later learned that that color hair can result from severe malnutrition, I have no idea if that is the case here or not.

Friday, March 07, 2008

Transportation in Afghanistan


Transportation in Afghanistan
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho

The first thing I thought of when I saw this (other than “Where is my camera?!”) was some friends of mine. They have children and told me that they used to joke with their kids when their kids friends were around and sternly tell their kids “if you do that again I’ll lock you in the closet again!” well of course they were joking (though I can totally see the kids’ friends’ eyes just popping out of their heads) but they could just as well said “I’ll put you in the trunk of the car!” well here it is, though I don’t think this kid is being punished.

There are of course a million and one “How many Mexicans can you fit in X vehicle” jokes in the US but Afghans take it to the next level riding for hours hanging onto the backs of trucks, riding with cattle (squished?!), on tops of trucks, and now in the trunk of taxies.

Backup Power and Chinese/Indian Products

I was recently trying to find Freeplay Energy’s “FreeCharge Weza” (foot cranked generator) and came across the Xantrex XPower Powerpack 1500. Sad as it may be, I was drooling over both of these things as Kabul is the land of intermittent (and quite often no) power. But then it occurred to me that whatever is available in the states for a kings ransom (which is then doubled by shipping costs) can quite often be found in India and China for a 1/4th of the cost (and admittedly 3/4th to 1/20th of the quality).

My organization has a few solar panels setup on the roof of one of our buildings and I found out that they were made in India and our engineer informed me that they were about 1/3rd the cost of the European equivalent. I have noticed at least one shop in Kabul (and I am sure there are more) that deals mainly with alternative energy generation such as windmills, solar panels and I am sure a few other things. It would probably be worth checking the place out to see if they have slightly cheaper power packs (would be nice if I could keep my computer and our satellite modem going a bit longer when the power craps out [and for all you electronics engineers out there, yes, I have a UPS and two US made [for 240v systems] surge protectors so even if I got an Indian battery gizmo and it decided to melt down I don’t foresee my baby [aka laptop] having any problems)

To further illustrate pricing in India and the US I was looking for the medicine “Immetrex” which is *insanely* expensive in the US (proof that the US pharmaceutical industry is legalized robbery) because I had run out and life with a migraine is pretty miserable. I found out from an expat that a reasonably priced Indian equivalent could be found in Afghanistan and my staff did in fact find some of these tablets for about $2.50/tablet. Two bucks for a pill may sound like robbery but in reviewing my options with my folks we quickly came to the conclusion that (if they work, which they seem to) the Indian pills at $2 a pop was worlds better than the $4/pill it would cost in the US and that is $4 *with* insurance, its like $200 for a pack of 9 tablets w/o insurance). I can understand companies wanting to make some of their money lost through R&D back but sometimes the prices are just insane.

Thursday, March 06, 2008

Afghan Golf


Afghan Golf
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho

Coming from a golfing state (NC) I should love the sport but alas, I can’t fathom what those funny Scots where thinking when they came up with this game (and ironically I’ve got Scottish blood in my family)

Well on my way to a lake outside of Kabul we passed “Kabul Golf Course” upon seeing this I had to stop and take a picture which involved waving my hands around to the driver (he is getting used to this but I still get the feeling all the drivers in my organization are going to lynch me someday for all the photos I have them stop for). I’m not sure if I am the only one but there are those things I just don’t expect to see in Afghanistan and a golf course it one of them. Now I have to admit that this particular golfing green isn’t something that any self respecting North Carolinian would play on but after being cooped up in a compound (depending on one’s organization’s security policies) one might be surprised at what eventually passes as acceptable.

I was actually surprised that this place hadn’t been invaded by Kuchi yet (afghan nomads as far as I can tell) as they had forcefully made their way into the edges of central Afghanistan for some pretty pathetic grazing areas (this scrub was prime eat’n by comparison). Another thing that was kind of surprising was that foreigners would go there at all; the area wasn’t guarded, was a nice spot for sniping (indeed not a mile away I climbed a mountain that had the remains of a bunker where the Mujadin (sp?) sniped Russians about 15 years earlier), and well, it was full of only foreigners with a few Afghan caddies. While I admit that it is hard to resist the draw of familiar things (being poor as dirt helps keep me away from such western amusements) and I probably do get out a wee bit more than some expats but I tend towards afghan areas and not places with tons of westerners in groups.

Living from a Wheelbarrow


Living from a Wheelbarrow
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho

This was supposed to be my phenomenal photo but alas it didn’t turn out quite the way I wanted. I was hoping to get all of them to turn my way so I could get a picture, actually the irony here was almost annoying because usually, if people know I am a foreigner, they can’t stop staring at me.

If you go to a large market in Afghanistan you will see people with wheel barrows carting stuff around, smaller scale version of the two men pulling a heavily laden cart in another picture, but probably in the same pay range as. They are paid by vendors to cart stuff around from one place to the next, for cents per trip.

The scene actually reminds me of migrant workers that gather at places like construction sites or home depots etc; they wait and hope for some daily work, and usually it is just barely enough to get buy.

Walkers for Afghan Tots!


Walkers for Afghan Tots!
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho

While cavorting around Kabul’s biggest bazaar on my photography excursion I came across something I don’t see very often, a traditional (I think) Afghan toy!

Lately I have been trying to find some toys for my cousins, for the girls it was a cinch but for the little(est) boy it has been kinda difficult. I am not the type that enjoys getting meaningless or useless gifts so I tend not to give them either (personally I’d rather do without than get a meaningless/useless gift). This has been a bit of a problem though, if he was a weeee bit older I could get him some really cool handmade knives (a staple of my boyhood) or maybe some old Islamic/Buddhist/Greek coins always interesting (when you are old enough to appreciate them) but damn, for a kid who is not even waist high (well not to me at least) it ain’t easy.

In talking with my Afghan friends they have confessed to me that there are few traditional afghan toys (that they can think of). I actually saw a picture of this toy somewhere else and my friend informed me it is a walker for kids (ironic, you start off using one of these things and end up using them too [kind of like diapers I guess]). So tots that are learning to walk shuffle around while holding on to these but my cousins is pretty darn mobile (ie not that young) so it wouldn’t work for him but they are interesting all the same… I haven’t seen older people here use walkers at all but a larger version of this might work for those aging 60s revivalist!

A Dollar A Day


A Dollar A Day
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho

This is a common scene in Kabul, and larger cities in Afghanistan (but really I have only been in Kabul and smaller towns/villages) men acting as human mules to cart around goods for vendors, it is a really sobering sight for me every time I see it (100s of times) and unlike some depressing scenes in development this kind of thing still gets to me.

These scenes keep brining me back to a conversation I had with an NGO officer for who I was doing some consulting work for in Kenya (arguably one of the better off countries in Africa, despite the recent violence). I had said something like “you wouldn’t want them hauling a 50kg (100lb) bag of fertilizer for 7-8 miles…” and I noticed as I said that her looked to his colleague and she half smiled back, it occurred to me at that moment that my made up scenario was actually quite real. I have seen hard work in many countries but I think the hardest work for the least compensation I have seen is in Africa and now Afghanistan. The men in this picture probably will not earn more than a dollar apiece this day.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Hello, How are you, I'm fine how are you? I'm fine thanks how are you? How are you ...

If you listened to two Afghans greet each other you would think Afghan's are some of the most polite and caring people in the world (and indeed they can be but i am not sure they take the world title). It is very common, upon meeting someone, to ask how they are doing... many times and in many different ways all at the initial meeting. A common (translated) greeting would be as follows:

Hello how are you?
I am fine and how are you?
I am fine thank you are you healthy?
I am doing well are you good?
I am very good thank you
How are you?

And for this i am not kidding at all. Honestly the first few times i met new afghans i thought they were just joking with me, giving the new (foreign) guy a hard time but i quickly found that they were being quite sincere even doing the kiss on the cheek thing. Fortunately being in Europe softened me up to that a bit... though i always appreciate doing with a soft-cheeked woman rather than some big bearded afghan guy, though i guess i am one to talk having a beard at the moment as well. Also, i have only seen once instance of a guy cheek-kissing a woman, i would say that it is probably haram (taboo to those non-Muslims out there) in most cases though i have never asked.

The cheek kissing reminds me of an obligatory sexual harassment workshop that the Peace Corps volunteers had to take in Moldova. At the time Peace Corps Moldova had a ethnic Bulgarian Russian speaking doctor who was adored by all volunteers (including me) he took very good care of us but he would sometimes say the funniest things (that might be offensive had someone else said it). During soviet times he was with the soviet military and at one point was in Portugal on assignment. He was trying to explain how guys could be sexually harassed too and to do so he used his time in Portugal as an example, "Victor (he sometimes referred to him self in the first person, pretty Russian) was werking in Portugal and I meet woman doctor, she kissed me on cheek and first Victor was offended, I was harassed! ... But then Victor thought Hmmmm, maybe this is good thing… now victor likes this" (all the volunteers almost cried we laughed so hard, perhaps you had to be there).

Friday, February 08, 2008

Temple from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade?


Temple from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade?
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho

Nope, but it kinda reminded me of the temple from end of that movie. There are a few key differences, this is not nearly as old as the movie temple was supposed to be, this was in Afghanistan not the Middle East, and this had nothing to do with the bible.

As I understand it this place was build by some important Afghan (nobility?) about a hundred years ago as a sort of summer house (which makes sense because while I was there in July it must have gotten down to in the 40s [Fahrenheit] at night). It is now used as a mosque of sorts and is the second thing most people think of when they think of Band-i Amir (right after the Lakes themselves).

Waterfall?


Waterfall?
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho

Not exactly sure what to call this, waterfall I guess. Regardless I was quite pretty I wouldn’t say spectacular but worth a photo and by Afghan standards this would certainly pass as spectacular. It is runoff from the lake and has a Yellowstone (national park in the US) kinda look to it due to the funky colored growths (moss, algae?) growing where the water was flowing.

Really Deep (take my word for it)


Really Deep (take my word for it)
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho

Well they had paddle boats out at Band-I Amir, how they got them out there (Our 4x4 had troubles in some places trying to get there and it was only carrying people) I have no idea but non the less they had em and almost every Afghan wanted to go in one. I was not particularly hip on paddling around in one of these things since I am not a fan of getting wet (and I got very, wet [and irritated]), there was *no* safety gear, I am not the best swimmer, and it just wasn’t all the novel to me but nonetheless I was coaxed into one of dinky little boats. While out paddling around wherever my co-paddler desired I noticed that the lake seemed to be pretty damn deep! I thought I would capture my observation on (digital) film, but alas you can’t really tell much by looking at the picture but I checked on Wikipedia (they spell it Band-e Amir, seems that proper spellings of places here using western characters is not formalized yet) that some of the Band-i lakes are indeed pretty deep (average depth of 80 meters).

Adrenaline (continued)


Adrenaline (continued)
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho

Here is a shot of one side of the “cliff pillars” my colleague was hopping around on, if you look up on (around the the center of) the ridge you will see a white dot, that is a full grown Afghan man, and if you will look to the bottom right of the picture you will see that I wasn’t able to fit in the base… it was (or at least seemed like) a looooong way down.

Adrenaline


Adrenaline
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho

That is one of the (non-explicative) things that came out of his mouth after he got back onto solid footing. This was an American colleague of mine who was intrepid enough to go hopping around on these cliff pillars (for lack of a better name). Also notice he is doing this in something like rubber Birkenstocks (damn hippie)(Just kidding Theo). You can’t imagine how high up this was and how it looked even higher up, vertigo just doesn’t describe it. I didn’t have the cohones to follow but our driver took the lead hopping back and forth like a little afghan mountain goat (all the while egging us to follow, I didn’t fall for it). I later found out that our driver drove a tank during the fighting with the soviets which goes a long way towards explaining his unhinged driving tendencies and his general perception of danger.

The Band-i Amir Resort


The Band-i Amir Resort
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho

I really wasn’t told much about Band-i Amir so when I got there I was pleasantly surprised. It is a pretty remote place, of course no running water or electricity (but that could be said about most of Afghanistan). I can’t remember where but I remember reading some comment about how Bamiyan City (one of the two largest cities in the province) is for the “Extreme Tourist” well they haven’t been to Band-I Amir; Bamiyan city has a few restaurants (admittedly they all only serve kebabs, damn good though), markets, occasional electricity, and hotels… Band-i Amir has none of those. There are a few generators which you can hear grinding away at night but they pretty much just serve to power the lights around the little vendor stalls and not much else. Here you can see the lake above, a string of tents/shacks below (vendors with a surprisingly large variety of things to sell) and assorted tents which are the Band-i Amir equivalent to hotel rooms. To the left (out of the picture) is an outhouse of questionable hygiene and a restaurant of sorts. Really though, considering where it is located the amenities are more than I would have expected.

Wednesday, February 06, 2008

Afghan Boonies Toilet & Public Urination


Afghan Boonies Toilet & Public Urination
Originally uploaded by gaikokujinkyofusho

While visiting the different lakes in the Band-i Amir lake area I noticed a small structure built into the side of a cliff and asked one of my Afghan colleges what it was, the answer (matter-a-factly) was “it’s a toilet” (I am sure there was a mental “duh” in there somewhere). One of the things that first struck me in Moldova was public urination, I have since seen it in many other countries but 99% of the time was men. I would not have expected to see such things in a culture as uber conservative as Afghanistan but I do, all over the place. Yesterday I was going to a meeting and this driver prefers to go through the public market (I question the time efficiency of taking the market route but markets are always interesting to observe so I never say anything) and there was a wall along the way, not even a block apart were two Afghan men standing, right there back against the public peeing on the wall, amazing. One last note that does seem to be different from other countries, many guys squat to pee, I haven’t quite figured this one out, they pretty much do the same standing-n-peeing thing but while they are squatting, perhaps they think they are being more discreet, I just don’t know.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Hello Engineer/Dr/Teacher/Mr Bob!

There is an interesting formality in Afgahnistan which used to throw me for a bit of a loop. The use of “Engineer” and “Teacher” (‘oo-staht’ in Dari), and I believe a few other things, as titles. In the west we of course call someone Doctor So-&-So if they are PhDs/MDs here you do the same but you also call someone Engineer or Teacher So-&-So if they are engineers or teachers, interesting.

 

Another interesting detail is you are considered a teacher if you have 14 years of schooling (more like going to the 14th grade than going and getting a 2 year technical degree), of course those teaching in school are also “Oostahts”. Some people are called engineer (or call themselves) Engineer even if they don’t have an engineering degree which was kind of strange. I know at least one Afghan who this seems to irk in that he does have a 4 year engineering degree (and I can attest that he is one of the most competent Afghans in my organization) so when others, who do not have engineering degrees are called “Engineer” I can sometimes see him flinch.

 

How to fight Guerillas?

Guerilla warfare has always irritated me, even though it helped my country defeat the British over 200 years ago.

 

It irritates me because it mixes civilians with fighters but of course its brilliant in that when the opposing side kills civilians (probably by accident either while trying to kill fighters or because they are unsure if the civilians are helping the fighters) and killing civilians helps the fighters gain support, they aren’t seen as brining the fight home, the victims just see the opposing force shooting at them.

 

Despite the effectiveness of guerilla warfare it still strikes me as cowardly. I actually have more sympathy for car bombings against military than I do hiding out in some village and encouraging air strikes from the other side.

 

Another point is the whimpyness of much of NATO in combat. I have heard from Afghans that many of the Europeans are *much* less willing to fight in close proximity and tend towards air strikes (which kill much more indiscriminately). This bites in two ways, one it of course kills indiscriminately but also most afghans don’t see the troops and even if they do it is just assumed that they are from the US so any botchups made are instantly blamed on the US (*not* that the US hasn’t made its fair share of mistakes but I don’t think it is responsible for as many civilian deaths though I can’t back that up).

 

Computer Protection Bloat

I just recently finished my yearly evaluation of antispyware, firewalls, and antivirus programs and switched to different antivirus and anti-spyware programs (the firewall still rated pretty high). Since the programs tend to change in effectiveness (for example, back in the day Norton antivirus was a hoss at finding/nuking viruses; now it tends to fall behind some other antivirus programs) almost every 6 months but since I am lazy I don’t bother researching them except every year. The best free (non-cracked since I try to avoid that stuff nowadays) antivirus seems to be antivir and best (free) antispyware seems to be SpywareTerminator, and Comodo is still one of the better firewalls out there or so I have concluded after reading the reviews, forums, etc.

 

My main grip is bloat. Three programs (six processes) take up over 85mb of memory on my computer now I do have a gigabyte of memory (which doesn’t go as it used to) but it still feels like bloat. I didn’t start to use antivirus/spyware software until about two years ago, I believe I am savvy enough to identify viruses via email on flash drives etc (looking for strange hidden files, executable attachments etc) but its gotten over my head and especially where I work now (where they have no sense of computer security and are the USB flash drive happiest people I have ever seen) this security is really needed.

 

What actually prompted me to post this was that I had also been looking for a functional IM client that was small and efficient and I came across Miranda, after seeing that and other programs like utorrent I have come to the conclusion that there are a lot of lazy programmers out there (ironically all the security software I use is produced by companies were as Miranda and utorrent are open source community efforts) that could make their code a lot more streamlined and stable.

 

Oh well.