The Consul speaks

A colleague at Embassy Kabul explains why he likes his job.

Nothing is easy in Afghanistan, not even a simple trip down the street.
Even after 10 years into my career, I'm always learning something new here in
Afghanistan. It's both exhausting and inspiring, frustrating and uplifting. For
me, working in Afghanistan isn't just an opportunity to serve on the frontlines
of American diplomacy, it represents a chance to take on unique
challenges.

Read more here.

In search of an Afghan cat

Snow Leopard, a photo by Aamir Yunus on Flickr.

Apologies at the beginning, because the title for this post is a really poor pun on the title of this blog. (I tell you this in case you weren't really paying attention.) But cats have been in the news in Afghanistan recently. First, the good news. The snow leopard of Afghanistan, considered extremely endangered, turns out to have a surprisingly healthy population in the Wakhan Corridor, in the high mountains of northeast Afghanistan, according to a report from National Geographic.

On the down side, read this story from the Washington Post about the cat population of the American Embassy in Kabul. It is, by the way, absolutely true that the Embassy has a pretty big population of semi-domesticated cats that most people either like or tolerate. The account of the crisis in the Embassy is wholly accurate, I would say. I was in Kabul when the "cat town meeting" was held, and although I didn't attend the meeting, by all accounts it was raucous. Never get between a cat and a cat lover, is my advice. My colleague feels bad that Ambassador Keith, the Assistant Chief of Mission, was called out in the Post article. I just think that if you are an Ambassador, you want to get in the newspapers standing up to tyranny or at least welcoming Lady Gaga. Not for cat genocide.

Personally, I always thought the cats were non-offensive at worst, rather sweet at best. They certainly didn't deserve the threatening notices posted all around the cafeteria. Except for the black cat that all too often sat on the steps of the Old Chancery, where our offices were located. We were convinced that this one was the Iranian Spy Cat, and no doubt deserved deportation, though certainly not execution.

In the Embassy

Attending the U.S. Embassy Awards Ceremony, in the new Chancery building. The Embassy atrium features an Afghan tapestry based on the Jasper Johns painting of the American flag that you can see here. Thanks to Brian for my photo.

How it all started

Over coffee, naturally.

A friendly coffee in the State Department's Foggy Bottom cafeteria with an old colleague turned into, "Can I tell my boss that you'd consider going to Kabul?" And then a phone call from the boss turned into, "We could really use you." Though I think that "you" was a euphemism for "someone" or even "anyone: help!"

I've all too often found my jobs, not exactly through networking, but rather through serendipity. I tell people, and it's nearly true, that I joined the Foreign Service because it was raining one Saturday morning in Brooklyn, so I took the Foreign Service exam in the main post office, rather than get wet. It is the absolute truth that I got my first Foreign Service posting, in Ivory Coast, because it was the available French-language assignment, I spoke French, and, having recently finished graduate school, I had little appetite for a year learning, say, Czech or Mongolian. And when I left the Foreign Service, sure I would never return to the State Department, a phone call inviting me to work on cultural exchanges with Iran, a land that had always been mysteriously attractive for me, was all it took to entice me back.

So it was natural that when Kabul came calling, I went willingly, entranced perhaps by the mythology of the Silk Road and the curiosity of a huge Embassy in a war zone. My boss, who had served in Iraq, wondered why I wanted to go; his boss thought it would be a great adventure and learning experience; his boss (there's no shortage of hierarchy where I work) worried about who would do my work. And Fidy said, "Go!"

But the truth is, I was sent on a mission. Not a political or evangelical mission; democratizing the world was far from this commander's orders. My mission was simple: "Bring back an Afghan kite!"