Rewards: Faculty of Agriculture Farm Day 2008

Thursday, 26 June 2008 marked the inaugural Kabul University Faculty of Agriculture Farm Field Day. In preparation for the event, all of the student groups labored in their plots, removing weeds & harvesting crops, and Zia, pictured below, plowed the larger uncultivated areas with the fandangled Chinese 2-wheeled tractor (what many of refer to as a roto-tiller). Meanwhile, Joern and Hussain arranged for invitations to be sent, the venue to be mowed, the refreshments to be lined up, and all participants briefed on what was expected of them & what they could expect.

The day before the event, a colorful tent was erected, a stage and podium puzzled together, and over 250 chairs were set out. During much of the year, Kabul receives gale-force winds, causing us to be concerned about what we would find in the morning. And yet, we were hoping for some breeze to cool the suited crowd gathered on this 90 degree day.

By 8:30 am, a sizeable crowd of students, professors, and some honorary guests had gathered under the red & gold canopy away a time of the requiste speeches before they could dig into the cookies & tea.

Not too surprising was the scarcity of women at the event. One courageous student was asked to MC the morning's speeches. Her addresses were interspersed with agricultural poetry. This sounds quite odd to the American mind, but it is actually a common practice in this agrarian land, for agricultural activities to be touched by the Bacchus-like muse. This dear soul performed exceedingly well, and many of the students were sparked into jealousy, tormenting her with one of her mis-pronounced words. Ah, life in a male-dominant society. Women must be tough skinned or melt under the chastisement & abandonment.

After speeches by the Dean of the Faculty of Agriculture, the Minister of Agriculture, the Senior Advisor to the Minister Ramin of the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, & Livestock(http://www.agriculture.gov.af/english/English.htm), and other noted dignitaries, Joern thanked everyone for participating, and expressed what has gone into making this farm functional. After which, the festivities begun.

Attendees were encouraged to tour the 10 hectare (20 acre) farm, being enticed to make the rounds by booths serving fresh lemonade and locally produced melons. What a refreshment they were, as the sun grew hot and mouths dry.

Leading the tour was the Minister Ramin, pictured below in the cool season vegetable plot talking with a number of students. The entourage of nearly everyone else followed closely, hoping to get into the action. The student groups were eager to have the Minister and other leaders in Afghan Agriculture tour their plots. However, they were not so fully prepared for the Minister's difficult questions --Opps!


The presence of agricultural leaders was quite thrilling for the students, as it also offered an opportunity for them to field their burning questions --- as well as get in a little photo-op!

The day was a success. We trust that the enthusiasm will carry over into the coming years, resulting in annual field days. In a nation where test-scores determine the disciplines students will enter, there are innumerable occasions in which students enter agriculture for the sole purpose of getting a degree, and don't have more than cursory interest. The Farm Field Day serves as an opportunity to see what agriculture looks like, and hear about where agricultural training can take them. May God make something profound come out of this effort!

Getaways

There are always "little" stories to tell along the journey of life, little out-of-the-ordinary things that happen to make life a tidbit more interesting. This spring, we each had an outing that presented just this. In March, a trip to the Emirati beach & shopping scene, and in April, a trip to the US to finalize the three + year process of citizenship.

In March, after a tough winter in Central Asia, Ann and Nicole (pictured below), a friend living in a neighboring country, journeyed southward, to the shores of the Persian Gulf.

Luxurious white sand, pristine waters, and warm, yet caressing sun met us, beckoning us to make ourselves comfortable for a day at the beach. With towels in hand, and lounge chairs & umbrella courtesy of the Jumeriah Beach Park, we settled in for a day of sunning, swimming, chatting, reading, and even the indulgence of watching the diversity of nations parade before us.

Who would have thought that Dubai would be a destination for sun-starved Northerners? In exchange for a fist-full of Euros, this city-state, located in the center of a region of conservativism, has yielded to the anything-goes of the West. At first, it was a bit shocking to see so much skin. But in no time, we also secumbed to the practice in search of some rays that would wash away some of our wintry white.

Dubai, a city of contrasts. Extravagance. Ringed by "unhabitable" lands, both desert and sea, city planners & developers have plunked their interests into making islands appear in the midst of the sea (in the background of above is continued construction on "Palm Jumeriah", one of the 4 large island projects) and making the desert bloom (below is one of the many grassy-green parks scattered throughout Dubai, this one is on the "creek" or what is actually a large estuary, and conveys a feeling as though one has been transported to a warmer San Diego).

In the land where anything is possible, and no project is too expensive, travellers can be transported from sultry Dubai to snowy Ski Dubai in a matter of seconds. The Mall of the Emirates boasts the largest indoor ski facility in the world. With an 80 m drop over a 400 m run, there's enough room inside there to convince one of it's really being winter!

In spite of these wonders of the modern world, there is a corner of Dubai that clings to its heritage and history. Scattered throughout the city, there are heritage sites, begging the out-of-towners to come & understand. On the edge of Dubai Creek, in a part of the town called Deira, we happened upon a traditional Emirati home, complete with a bride & groom entering their bridal chamber. What amazed us is that people continue to dress in this fashion: men with the long robes & checkered head scarf, women with their black chador and often times with a gold face covering.

Stepping outside the heritage site, we were reminded that our feet were still planted in a place with a notable history; the characteristic wind towers and abras/water taxis (below) stand in sharp contrast to the speeding luxury cars and the towering skyscrapers looming in the distant background, demonstrating that freon-based airconditioning and bridges are recent conventions in this place, and not necessary for life.

Relaxing. Interesting. And blessed with the fellowship of a good friend.

Goals & Hard Work: The Building of a Student Farm

In our last posting, we left you hanging with an enticement of the coming student farm. Now in its neonatal state, the farm is beginning to take shape, and with the warm weather and team efforts, also green-up.

With this, we welcome you to walk through time and space to visit the most recent addition to Kabul University's Faculty of Agriculture:

It's February. A time of freeze & thaw, snow & sunshine. The ground has quickly gone from dust to mud to ice to mud to dust. We look out over the lay of the land with visions in our minds, hope in our hearts, and energy in our bodies.

Within a matter of weeks, the students are roaring to go, eager to take on the first challenge: clearing the land of building ruins. After two days of effort, all involved declared, "This is really too much. We're living in the 21st century, can't we clear land with modern technology???" The next day, we brought in a tractor to finish in 2 hours what would have taken us several days.

Omar Khan, our faithful friend and tractor drive, has been working diligently to plow this 1/3 hectare plot, land that has been in weedy fallow since the late 1970's. Omar Khan remembers well the last crops grown on this land and is happy to see it put back into production.

Production. That means the generation of products --- for consumption, for sale --- something with value that should probably be protected. Thus, the next step, deterring would-be thieves or mischievous youngsters. A 2.5m chain link fence was erected in time for the beginning of the school year, 21 March. Time has shown that we could have gone higher, or installed an unfriendly line of barbed wire across the top, as it's not quite the obstacle we had anticipated. Maybe Joern should carry a set of keys with him next time he heads to the farm on an off-day.

During the installation of the fence, the groundwork was being "strung out", plots being established, students being acquainted with their patches of land into which they could sow their effort and reap their rewards.

A couple of student groups initiated projects involving a hoophouse to study the effects of season extension compared with open field production. To accomplish this, we had the help of an organization working at the Ministry of Agriculture. They provided the carpenter to put our design into effect.

And quite a stunning effect it has had on many of the passersby. As we recently saw the plastic coverings of the neighboring hoophouses be tattered and torn to shreds, we're left to wonder how long this building will last, since the climate here is intense in every way: biting cold, blazing sun, cracking drought, driving wind & dust, deluging rain, piercing hail, blinding lightning. It's no wonder people age so quickly here. If poverty isn't enough of a struggle, God has seen fit for the people of this land to be confronted with a harsh environment.

Overall, there are over 20 groups of students doing work on the farm, from designing and landscaping the entry way.

To establishing and maintaining colonies of honeybees. They've had quite a time of it, too, having caused artificial swarms twice, and then witnessing the third (and natural) swarm, which left one of their colonies on the brink of death. Nevertheless, the other 3 hives are doing well, and we are looking forward to the first crop of honey in the coming weeks!

In the coming months, we will tell the story of the crops these student groups are producing. In the meanwhile, we will endeavor tell you of the other adventures we've had this spring.

Into the Throes of Winter

Shortly before the dawn of winter, we said "Goodbye" to our comfortable existence in the German Guest House, and decided to head off into a world not yet known to us -- life inside an afghan house.

Upon first appearance, our new neighborhood was bustling with activity: children playing ball and other games in the street, vendors shouting out their wares, and donkey's corralled at the neighborhood "organic refuse bin" (which also possessed an incovenient smattering of plastics). The majority of homes in our neighborhood are cozily tucked behind 3 meter walls; however, a few have done a seemingly un-Afghan thing: built the face of their homes directly on the road front. From the second story porches of these homes, we hear the voices of children & the conversations of the adults, and see the day's laundry hanging to dry.

We, also, occupy the second floor and have been spotted on the porch by neighbors (even though it is a law that one is not to gaze upon the "courtyard-areas" of his neighbor's house). To prevent accidental sightings, our landlord had placed a reed-screen around the second story; and in the attempt to prevent passerbys or neighbors from seeing into the house, the windows are thickly glazed with a reflectant.

So, on our daily walks home from the university, we come to the last blue gate in the block, ring the doorbell, greet the chokidar (literally chair sitter, but technically a guard & helper), and make our way up to our abode.

Well, wintery weather was in the making, and with it, brought the need for adequate heat. It is a bizarre thing that in a place with such chilly winters the houses are made for the summer, and heating is an afterthought!

The day we moved in, the landlord had installed a sizeable (and apparently antique) wood-burning stove (referred to here as a bokhari or chadi). For the first few days, it produced an excellent warmth. However, by the third day it began to smoke atrociously so that everything we possessed was infused with a non-aromatic smoke (some of the wood produces an incense-like vapor that somehow compensates for the presence of smoke, but unfortunately, we had but a few pieces of this kind of wood). The nice thing about a bokhari is its ability to heat up any item left on top of it-- a good place to reheat meals, keep tea warm, and toast the bread!



What are the benefits of being in a new place? Well, the views afforded from the patio are so interesting!!! From here, we see over the roofs of the neighborhood to the nearby hills and mountains. We can see weather-systems approaching, and have a good understand about the thickness of the smog layer. All the more provoking is the ability to inspect the precarious arrangement of hill-side houses (below in detail).

To the southeast (and all along the west, below), we can see ranges of mountains, whose snowy caps bring comfort to the local farmers' hearts, and have led to the creation of a proverb, "May Kabul be without gold rather than without snow" (Kabul bee zar baasha bee barf nee -- in Dari, barf is snow, so don't let your imagination run too wild). In the foreground of the mountains is a minaret, one of the many in the neighborhood, from which the call to prayer (and various other religious monologues) is broadcast. Our morning wake-up call is the first call to prayer. This time varies from season to season. At the time of writing, the call is at 5:10am, and getting earlier every week or so.

To the southeast loom large mountains which trap the kabuli smog, but also provide some great morning views as the sun's first rays turn these white slopes into a heart-warming rose.

Although the few months we have been in this new location have been bumpy, the onset of spring gives way to hope in every aspect.

This snowy path within the university is beginning to be touched with spring's first green, the resprouting of grass. And within the month, we'll break ground on the Student Farm. Spring is in the air, even though some lingering traces of snow remains!

Take a deep breath and hold on tight

We're five months into this new adventure, and at a point of wonderment: what are we doing here!?! Everything's so strange; and by the look on faces of the hoi poloi staring at us, so are we.

Now's not the time to weary of being a foreigner & stranger in the land. Now is the time to begin to enjoy it, realizing that God created diversity, not us, we are merely participating in this eternal truth.

And so begins a three week interlude from life in Afghanistan to the land of Mangoes with Sticky Rice, or at least so it is for the sugar-deprived Seigies'!!! If this tantalizes you, catch the next plane to Bangkok, OR, pick up some mangoes and head to the nearest Asian store for khao niaow (sticky rice), then check out http://www.importfood.com/recipes/khaoneeomamuang.html or

http://www.thaitable.com/Thai/recipes/Mango_on_Sticky_Rice.htm

After transiting through New Dehli and Bangkok, we landed on Koh Samui (Thailand) in the midst of a passing morning tempest. Inhale. Sweet aromas of plumeria & gardenia mingled with a gentle seabreeze pleased the nose, tickled the skin, and curled the hair.

Eight days on Koh Samui, so what to do? With a surprise attack, Montezuma landed on the shores of Chaweng Beach and made his revenge on Ann. After a couple of days of recuperation, we hit the beach, frolicked in pools & under waterfalls, fought the tide in a kayak, scoured the hills on the back of an elephant, bumped around a farm in an ox-pulled cart, adventured from beach to sandy beach, and had a gastronomically delightful remainder of the week.

Even though we had only been in Afghanistan for 8 weeks since our previous trip, we were a bit weary, and were grateful for the relaxing accommodations, complete with Christmas decorations & nostalgic songs, such as "Here Comes Santa Clause" and "Silent Night". The plethora of poinsettias and angelic creatures actually had a pleasant effect on our psyches, as they made us feel a little closer to home.

Second stop was in Luang Prabang, Laos, where we spent Christmas with friends who have been working there for the past 1 1/2 years. It was a very special treat for us to spend this special time of year with such precious friends, days of being encouraged and blessed. In addition to the cherished time of visiting & having fun with the kids, they took us on scenic tours around LP: a journey over the Namkhan River on a rickety bamboo bridge to a rice paper village, a longtail boat ride up the Mekong River to a textile producing village, and a picnic in the mist of a picturesque waterfall.

With sad reluctance, we left LP to head to Bangkok for a week in materialistic mania. We took our part in the mania, as we stocked up on hard-to-get goods, such as chocolates and dried mangoes, went to some great restaurants, and spent an afternoon at the Siam Discovery Ocean World (a fabulous aquarium in the lower level of the Siam Paragon Shopping Centre). During our stay in the land of Siam, we took the essential tours of the King’s Royal Palace, the Summer Palace in Bang Pa-In, and the Buddhist ruins of Ayutthaya for the requisite induction into the rich history and the progressive future of Thailand.

Bangkok was a reminder that we are living in an era of globalism, where difference between peoples and cultures are diminishing (for better & for worse). And it served as a reminder that being a foreigner is actually a common occurrence, and a pinch of kindness and courtesy is able to soften the stares, and turn grimaces into grins.

Lives of Contrast: Part 2

Some things are certain. The earth continues to revolve around the sun to bring us into new seasons, and rotates on its axis to give us night unto day. As for the number of our seasons, the substance of our days and nights, these are ever-changing. Boredom is for those who cease to consider the opportunity inherent to change.

And so we seize the opportunities at hand. Once again, we transversed the Atlantic and stepped into the highlands of Central Asia, into the heart of this hope-seeking land.


Upon returning, we found ourselves in a flurry of activities. A project initiated in September commenced a few days after arriving. Several of the second and third year students got their hands dirty and had sweat dripping off their brows while preparing this field for winter wheat variety trials.

They built borders around each plot and dug irrigation channels, then planted 30 varieties of wheat and irrigated the field. Hopefully, we'll be seeing green in the coming days.

Not long after the field was planted, an opportunity for students to work in a sheep feeding trial was made available. Several students jumped at the opportunity and have spent the past three weeks waking up early to feed 10 sheep and monitor the effect of each feed type on the sheep's appetite and digestion. Here is one student collecting the results of one sheep's digestion.

It's not just the guys getting their hands dirty, the girls, too, have been found out standing in their fields. On several occasions, we've gone out to the nursery to demonstrate different plant propagation methods and put knifes and pruning shears into students hands. They've had great fun and learned much through these times, and even some of the professors have come out to assist in the demonstrations.

As of last week, classroom instruction is completed, and students are heading to the fields to memorize their lessons. This field on the right is spotted with students walking through the field reading & reciting, a scene repeated throughout the campus. Many students hole-up under trees in what looks like make-shift housing, but what is truly their "study-dens".

The rubble here is a recent addition to our walking path, making the journey in each day a bit treacherous! We have yet to understand its purpose.

Goodbyes are a common occurrence here. In recent weeks, we've said goodbye to a number of friends. Dave, pictured with the cake, had been working on our project since June, and was living with us, as was Sebastian, in the background. Now, the guesthouse is a quiet place, with just 4 of us gathered around the table for meals.


kase ke qadr-e yak sEb-a na-fAma qadr-e bAgh-a na-mEfAma
One who doesn't appreciate the apple, won't appreciate the orchard. (meaning: appreciate the small things so that we can better appreciate the big things)

Lives of Contrast: Part 1

Living in the 21st century has provided us with tremendous opportunities of being able to live on the opposite side of the earth from our loved ones, yet continue to be personally involved in the affairs of their lives.

And so, we left our home in Afgh. on Friday, 12 Oct., and arrived the afternoon of 13 Oct. to the comfort of Mom & Pop's home in NY and the pleasant joy of being with Aunt Heide visiting from Germany.

What busy fun those 3 days held: an auspicious visit from a friend, outings with family, and even a trip to The Cheesecake Factory while finalizing items for our winter wardrobe.

By the 17th, we found ourselves basking in the coastal Georgian sun, and soaking up the love and smiles of family & friends, familiar & new, from far & wide. The occasion? A marriage was to commence, families to be united, a celebration to be enjoyed!

A weekend of activities was awaiting. The Bridal Breakfast (above: Grandma, Aunt, Mom, Sisters, Niece & Bride), The Groom's Dinner (below: Groom with Uga's German Chocolate Cake)
Some fun under the Georgian Sun (below: Mike with Eden & Alex),

To the making two people one -

the newlyweds walking the beach.

As quickly as these days past, the pictures serve as a reminder to us that we are connected to a body of people beyond ourselves with whom we have a history, and because of whom we also have a Hope and a glimpse into the future (below: us with Grandparents, the newlyweds, parents, & sister's family).

And so we rejoice in the goodness yet in this world, the grace and answer to prayers that allowed us to participate in these days of being with our many of our family members and friends, and to experience the happiness that is present when love blossoms into marriage.