Day 12 - Ada Tours Kabul and Afghan Salaries

It's right at two weeks since I left home and I was getting a bit lonely. I do get to talk with Gina and the girls most every day on Skype, sometimes twice a day, but still, I really wanted a travel companion. Even more, since nearly all my travels have been with Gina, I really wanted a female travel companion. It's just not quite stable enough here for Gina and the girls to come over, so I had to find someone else. After thinking just a very short time, I decided upon Ada, yes, Augusta Ada King, the Countess of Lovelace. What, a countess you say? Yes, she's a fairly old friend of mine. We first met when I was a cadet at USAFA back in 1988. It's been an on again, off again affair. She was one of the people that taught me how to program. I figured, why not take Ada with me as I visit places around Kabul and do my work here, and she graciously agreed. If you're wondering who Ada is, you'll have to visit the links above for the background and history. If you already know, then congratulations, you're a fellow geek.

If you've ever heard of the "Flat Stanley Project", this is sort of the same thing. I had a friend while I was stationed in Korea that traveled everywhere with Flat Stanley. I figured it was Ada's turn to see Kabul.


Here we are at the start of our adventure in the rose garden at NMAA. We're headed to the German Embassy for a dinner on Friday, but more about that next post. The plan is to have Ada with me wherever I go and share pictures of our adventures. I hope she's up to all the travel at her age. By the way, I ran this by Gina ahead of time and she understands given my long relationship with Ada. I'm not sure she approves though ;-).

Last post I mentioned that I would give an overview of the personal economic conditions here. On day 6 I discussed an overview the cost of the war and the Afghan GNP. Afterwards I started asking around about the salaries of some of my Afghan colleagues and learned some interesting and troubling things. Here's what I found.

The cadets at NMAA are paid like those at the US service Academies. They are paid between 2000 Afghanis (Afs) per month for freshman and 3500 Afs per month for Seniors. At the ballpark exchange rate of $1 = 46 Afs, that's between $43 and $76 per month. I'm willing to bet an aweful lot of US teenagers make more than that every month in their allowance. The majority of cadets take that money home to their extended families (parent, siblings, grandparents) to help support them. A mid-level NCO here is paid about $130/month, and junior officers are paid about $300/month. Our translators are paid by their employer between $2 and $4 per hour, although I'm told we pay the contracting company that hires them quite a bit more. Needless to say, almost everyone I talk to has a second job. Not the cadets, they're busy full time and then some, but most of the Officers and NCO's working here and virtually all the civilian support staff. Many days at 4pm the IT staff I'm working with has to stop what we're working on so they can catch a bus to their second job, which typically starts at 5pm.

It is true that the cost of living is lower here than many other places, and I plan to try and figure out some of those numbers. I'll share them on the blog if I can. I have a very open relationship with my translators. I answer pretty much any question they ask me, and they reciprocate by doing the same.

Next post I'll have pictures of Ada and I at the German Embassy dinner and will discuss another disturbing thing I discovered about the level of transparency and corruption here.