Salaam from Kabul

Things have been super busy, so sorry for not writing sooner....

This past weekend we went on a hunt for the bookstore and managed to find it. It felt really weird to be inside the structure I've been reading about for the past month. Rais, himself, was not there, but I managed to pick up a copy of his book and some postcards (a rare find in Afghanistan). I also had a chance to visit the Safi Landmark Hotel which is located in the main city centre mall here. The food was amazing and they had a live sitar and tabla player (I hope I'm spelling that right).

I also went for my first meeting at the First Microfinance Bank Afghanistan (FMFB-A) which falls under the Aga Khan Agency for Microfinance. I met with the CEO, CFO and Marketing Manager, and got an overview of the Annual Report project they would like me to complete. There is a lot of work coming up with this report, but I think it will be a good challenge. They are big on me doing some capacity building while I'm here and ultimately want me to train their Marketing Manager to take over the Annual Report for the years to come. I've been really overwhelmed thinking about how I'm going to teach this guy how to write and manage this report for the years to come, especially when his English reading and writing skills aren't too strong. He's on vacation for the next week, so I have some time to come up with a strategy to not only involve him in the project, but give him ownership over it.

Over the next couple of weeks the planning for the Tajikistan FMFB report will begin, and I will hopefully make a visit there at the end of June or early July. I'm really excited about getting to do some travelling while I'm there. A friend of mine just left Roshan to go back home to Tajikistan, so hopefully I'll get to visit him while I'm there.

I got a very cool project assigned to me at work, which I'm unfortunately not allowed to discuss because it's a first in Afghanistan, and no one wants the project to be leaked out and potentially picked up by other mobile operators in the country. I am handling the media and event launch of this interesting product, which I'm really excited about. All I can say is it's big. I'll write more about this when we are closer to the launch date and I'm allowed to open my mouth.

The Dari classes are coming along, slowly but surely. I'm having a bit of a tough time with it. I think I really need to start reviewing and practicing everyday outside of class. I have this instinct to built my sentences in Dari like I do in French and it's frustrating because the structure is completely different. The vocab is a bit difficult to pickup. I need to find some cue cards, or make some because I think that's going to be the only way I pick this up.