Post-YSEL camp Post

The Senator Lounge in the Dubai airport. My YSEL students went back to Afghanistan yesterday, Diwlai was celebrated in Delhi with lots of lights and fireworks, had a restful sleep at the luxurious Hilton, had my Ayurvedic massage this morning and am now on my way home. Where has this month gone I don’t know. Seems like it always happens with my camps. We just get started and then it’s over. Never enough time to get everything done that we want but there’s always next time. Next February is my when I’ll be heading back to India for another camp. In the meantime there’s travel to Turkmenistan for a new project and other parts of the world. 2012 will be my year of travel with a lot of work in Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and India. In addition to travel, I’ll be making some good money so I can pay down my mortgage and student loans ☺. Maybe even do some intensive repairs on my house to boot. I do need to fix up my apartments, especially the bathrooms. It’ll get done. Meanwhile I’m just going to enjoy another glass of wine here.
Since last writing so much has gone on at camp. We had a fantastic group of students from all over Afghanistan and they had a great time learning leadership, about each other, improving their English and having a lot of fun in a safe and stress free environment. We even had a few love matches between the boys and girls and it was special to watch young love flourish without judgement, scorn or shame. In order to make a civilized future Afghanistan, the future needs a place to act civilized, and at our camp they did. We introduced the concepts of ladies first, gentleman acting like gentlemen and the simple idea of respecting each other. In the stressful, intense environment at camp it is hard to see progress until one day someone says something or does something mind-blowing and you realize that you have achieved your goal.
My best moment at camp was taking one of my girls, who had broken her shoes, to a shoe store to buy a new pair. Mazhgan is from Jowzjan, a very conservative area of Afghanistan, and going out and buying shoes was something she had never done. She was hesitant about entering the store where 3 salesmen were telling her to come in and look. “Go in,” I told her and I accompanied her in the store. I helped her chose a pair, made her bargain him down for a better price and when she decided to buy them, she gave me the money. “No, you pay for it. They’re your shoes not mine. You can buy them,” I said. It was then I realized that she had never been out shopping for shoes ever, and probably never handled money before. She thanked me profusely afterwards, saying she would never forget this day in all her life. It was a real triumph and boost for her self confidence—a realization that she can buy her own pair of shoes. Every time she wore them at camp, I got a satisfied grin on my face.
Another special part of camp was having Daniel there. Daniel is the 5 yr old son of Chynara, one of my teachers who has been at all the camps since 2004. He came the first time to our last camp in February and has ever since called me his American daddy. We put him in a kindergarten class at the school where we ran the program and every morning I would get him up and walk him to school, both of us walking hand in hand to the kindergarten wing on the other side of the stinky open sewage canal we called the River Stinks. Our daily routine was to hold our noses and run across the bridge as fast as we could. The last week he deicded to move into my room and sleep in my bed, giving his mom a break for awhile. It was a special time and it was nice to feel like a father to a young son. He’s back in Bishkek now and misses me. I miss him too and hope to see him soon.
Despite all the pollution at camp, the management of CT Schools was very kind to us and did their utmost to make our stay comfortable. There is a push to go back but I don’t know if I can handle another unhealthy month there. Unless I work in weekends away in nature that would be the sanity maker for this place. Overall the kids liked the place a lot so maybe we could wing it. We shall see.
After 3 weeks home, I will be heading off to another stan, Turkmenistan, for a new project. I will be designing and running a college prep course for students interested in applying to US colleges and universities but don’t have the proper skills to be good candidates. I haven’t been to Turkmenistan since 2003 so it’ll be interesting to see how much it has changed (or not) since the death of Turkmenbashi, the benevolent, wacky dictator. I’m a little stressed about leaving Lulu and my house for a long period of time but it’ll be interesting work and good dinero so why not. Maybe I’ll wind up taking Lulu with me, I don’t know. She’s kinda old and maybe should stay put in Brooklyn. Enough roaming the planet for my 16 yr old cat. She wasn’t my favorite of my three cats but now that she is the last one left, I do give her all the love and attention she deserves.
Anyways, my plane starts boarding in 20 minutes so I should post this and go. Will I be upgraded to business class? Who knows. I’m supposed to be but right now I’m in economy plus. Fingers crossed everybody.