Today was my day off, so I slept in a bit. I was a little under the weather, so the rest did me good. In the afternoon we were invited to the Germany embassy for a party and BBQ celebrating three of the German's birthdays. It was a very nice, relaxing evening at a wonderful German oasis in Kabul. Of course there was German Beer (Bitburger), champagne, red, and white wine. We however stayed true to General Order Number 1 and had water and sodas. I did eat a good bratwurst that they had flown in from Deutschland for the occasion.
As promised, I took the lovely Ada with me. We're standing in front of the German embassy here. It's a bit hard to see because of the way the compound is set up and modified for increased security, but hopefully you can make out the German flag in the background. Sorry about the cheesy grin, but it was the only picture like this we took.
I was doing some reading over the last few days and discovered the website of Transparency International. Their mission is to lead the fight against corruption world wide. I agree that it is one of the leading causes of poverty in many disadvantaged nations. If you read the summary on Wikipedia it turns out that Afghanistan ranks 179th out of 180 countries as the second most corrupt according to TI's corruption index. What's more discouraging is if you examine the ratings since 2005, things have gotten even worse (i.e. more corrupt). Day to day I work with a lot of senior military and civilian Afghans. I wonder how much knowing this will temper my interactions with them. I am normally eternally optimistic, but I do have a very pragmatic outlook at times. In most cases, our aid and military contracts are purposely given to Afghan businesses to help develop the economy here. I've only recently been exposed to how much some of the contracts cost vs. what I've discovered is actually being passed down to the individual workers. It is a big delta.
Tomorrow's a new day and I'll try and be more up beat. We're training the NMAA English instructors in the new lab and helping them develop ways to use the technology in their lessons plans and classrooms. I'll include pictures and discuss how it goes next blog.
It was way better than the DFAC!!
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