I’ve entitled this post with a very specific title in
mind. Diplomatic LSD is how I term the
facial expression that one often displays while speaking with foreign
government officials. That is, it is
important to remember to keep a pleasant appearance regardless of the situation
or what is said. Towing a “smile and
nod” party line and provide some sort of affirmation (slight tilt of the head,
a raised eyebrow just to demonstrate your interested) regardless of what you
are really thinking. Of course, sitting
there for a long time in such situations is hard work on the face and often the
eyes grow large and glaze over and your facial muscles freeze into some phony,
indignant, toothy smile vaguely resembling a forced elementary school photo as
your mind struggles to follow the conversation. The pain of these situations is
sometimes compounded with a language barrier and the need to work with an
interpreter who may not know the nuances, phrases or, yes, even the language
you’re communicating in. That’s why
there is training to effectively work with an interpreter. You see, it is very
important not to talk TO the interpreter, but to try and maintain eye contact
with the person you are having a conversation with. Though this sounds easy, it can actually be
difficult at times. Now, given this disclaimer,
let me tell you about a recent meeting….
Picture it – a district village in the middle of
Afghanistan. A US Army Captain, a
Private, I and an interpreter go in to speak with the District Director of
Agriculture and District Director of Irrigation about water issues in the
district. We start off with
introductions. First the captain, then
the private, then when it was my turn, Akmed the interpreter looks over to me and
says
“I’m sorry, but who are you?”
Well, this
is off to good start. Ladies and
Gentlemen, I would like you to meet Akhmed the interpreter who I worked with
all last week – how quickly they forget
Slowly turning to the translator “uh…my name is
Jas…”
“No, no. I mean, what do you do?”
Did we JUST
meet?
“I’m a General Development Officer with USAID”
“What does USAID do?”
Funny, I was
just thinking that in the office myself
“Uh…we administer development projects on behalf
of the United States government…”
Ok, it was a painfully slow start through the
introductions, but the Captain, Directors and I finally learned who was
who. Now, it was time to find out what
they did. And so with Akhmed as our
faithful translator the conversation went something like this:
“Now then, you’re the District Director of
Agriculture and you are the District Director of Irrigation”
Both of them “yes, yes”
“Good, so you (to the District Director of Irrigation)
work under the Ministry of Agriculture, correct?”
“No, of course not!”
A bit confused, I turned to the District Director
of Agriculture “uh…you do irrigation though, right?”
“But of course”
“So you work for separate Ministries, but you both
work with irrigation. So you work
together?”
“Yes, but no”
“So you work separately then?”
“Not really, but something like that”
Ok, moving
right along now…
“They are both interested in irrigation, but the
water issues are separate” a third man in the room answered
“And who might you be?”
“I am the District Director of Development”
Seizing the opportunity to kill more birds with one stone,
the captain invites him to sit down and participate in the conversation. After
he sits down, we decided to let determining the actual roles of the directors
sit on the back burner and turned our attention back to the Director of
Agriculture.
“So is the district
having any agricultural problems that need to be addressed?” the captain asked.
Dead silence.
Seriously no one was speaking. No
one was speaking because Akmed was just sitting there looking at them. Feeling uncomfortably stupid, I slowly turned
to the translator
Akmed, are
you translating through mental telepathy?
“Uh…Akmed, would you like to ask him the question
now?
And so he did.
“Ohh….yes…the wheat and the urea” the District
Director of Agriculture answered
“The wheat and the urea? What’s wrong with the
wheat and the urea?”
“Well…it’s no good”
“No good?
What do you mean “no good”? What is wrong with it?”
“Well it doesn’t grow enough”
“Huh?” I jumped in looking intelligent as always.
“They only give us 35 kilograms of wheat seed and
that isn’t enough and the seed must be bad”
“Oh,
ok. Well how much wheat seed do you
need?”
“20 by 20”
“W...w...what?
What does that mean?”
With a look of exasperation “the land is 20 by 20”
“20 by 20 what? Feet? Meters? Yards? Inches? What is the measurement?”
“Afghan measurement”
“Uh yeah…ok, so for every 20 by 20 plot of land
you get 35 kilograms of wheat seed, correct?”
“Yes”
“So if a farmer has 2 plots of land then he
receives 70 kilograms of wheat, right?”
“No of course not!”
Yeah, WHAT
was I thinking?!
“Well...wait…one plot of land equals 35 kilograms
of wheat seed, so two plots of land should equal 70 kilograms” as I scribble
this out on my notepad for them What? Am
I doing the math wrong here?
“No, no, no…no farmer gets more than 35 kilograms”
“Oh…now I understand…EVERY farmer receives 35
kilograms of wheat!”
They then look at each other and back at me as
though I’m the dumbass in the room.
“No…of course not!
Not every farmer receives 35 kilograms of wheat! Why would they do that?!”
“I...I…don’t know.
I don’t understand who is supposed to get the wheat now? Per farmer? Or
per plot of land?”
“Yes, of course!” they cry out in joyous unison.
Staring out the window behind the District
Director of Irrigation, I think to myself in
the parallel universe, this is probably a very intellectual conversation.
As I sat there with my glazed, confused look and
toothy grin, Akmed, to my amazement then snatches my notepad and pen and jumps
up and lunges at the Director of Agriculture.
Oh my God! What’s
he doing? He’s going to attack the District Director of Agriculture!
He then rushes over and engages the Directors of
Irrigation and Agriculture about the wheat seed. Meanwhile, the District Director of
Development dissatisfied with not having the conversation directed at him,
looks at the Captain and starts to speak about…something. What about? We’re actually not sure. For you see, the Captain didn’t speak Dari
and the Director didn’t speak English and Akmed was having a field day with my
notebook and the 20 by 20. It was
through drawing, broken English and pantomime that it was explained to us that only
farmers with a 20 by 20 plot of land could receive wheat seed. If you had more or less than 20 by 20, then
too bad.
Oye! My head
is beginning to hurt! No reason to talk about urea.
So the captain begins to question the Director of Irrigation
“The rainy season is approaching and we are just
curious if you had a prevention or relief plan prepared that we could look at?”
“You see,
when the harvest moon comes out and shines itself over the sleeping corn which
slowly opens its leaves….”
What the….?
As the captain and I sat there trying to mask our
confused looks, our eyes dart between the directors – who all seemed pleased at
the answer - and ourselves and I couldn’t help but think to myself “and the dog howls twice at midnight. Is he speaking in code? Does he have a plan or not?!”
After about five minutes of this, the captain then
interrupts
“Uh…yes, yes…ok, but” now speaking very clearly
“does…he…HAVE…a plan…for us to look at?”
Once again, Akmed translate the question only to
receive a more exasperated ten minute response.
“When the cows and deer meet the frogs at the
lake….”
“Oh my God…I
think he must have had a stroke. What
the hell is he talking about?”
Meanwhile, the captain whose eyes were beginning to glaze
over listening to this begins to blink rapidly (or perhaps that was just a
nervous twitch) and regains consciousness.
Then, nonchalantly looks over at the private to see what notes have been
taken. The notepad was blank. The private sitting perfectly still with
pencil in hand and wide eyes and focused on the Director of Irrigation,
whispers to the captain
“I…am…so…confused”
Yet, we all sat there with open smiles on our
faces and wide eyes listening...
Alright
then! We’ll just assume a big “negative”
on a flood plan …next question
“Now every
summer there is a drought here and we want to minimize the problems. What do you need to help you when there will
be a drought?”
Akmed looks over at the captain with sincere concern
in his eyes and says “but I don’t know what they will do”
Through narrow eyes and clenched, smiling teeth
the captain slowly and quietly responses
“I’m not asking YOU! I want you to ask THEM!”
Akmed, I
would like to remind you that the nice captain is armed with a loaded pistol.
And while Akmed remembers his job and translated
the question of the drought, I begin to jot down in my notepad some ideas about
this that we can discuss: drought plans, water retention, conservation efforts,
etc. We can really get some ideas going
now! Anything topic that relates to water and then the Director responds…
“Roads”
Whoa! Didn’t
see that curve ball coming
“W…w…what?”
I stammered “you want a road to help you with a drought?”
“Yes most certainly”
Hoping that the look sheer stupidity was not showing
on my face “well…why do you need a road?”
“To go with the wall, of course” the Director of
Agriculture chimes in
Shooting a look to the Director of Agriculture “WALL? You want a wall?! What do you want a wall for?”
“For security” answered the Director of Irrigation
“One wall on the road for security, correct? We’re still talking about the drought though,
right?”
Both looking at me with “uh…yeah…HELLLLO?” look in their eyes “yes, yes” they responded in
unison
The captain, just as confused as I am, but
obviously deciding to play along with this asked
“What kind of wall to do you want?”
“3 meters high, 4 meters wide and 7 kilometers
long!”
HOLY SHIT!!!
They want us to build the Great Wall of Afghanistan! What on earth do they need
a wall like that for? To see it from
space?!
Almost falling out of my chair I asked
incredulously “you...you…you need a wall 7 kilometers long?”
“Ok, only 2 kilometers then”
“Wait…what?...now 2 kilometers?”
“Ok, ok,…700 meters. In fact, whatever you can build us”
What is
this? I’m not negotiating!
“Wait a
minute, let me see if I get this straight…to assist you in times of a drought
you need a road and a HUGE or small wall, correct?”
“NOW you understand”
Actually I
have no freakin’ clue to what we are talking about!
“But again, WHY do you need a wall?”
(Sigh) “To retain the water – a water retention
wall”
“What water?!” I almost cried out “you’re talking
about a drought!”
“Exactly!” he grinned
What’s going
on here? We should be talking about the water and everyone is talking in
riddles about walls and roads. It’s like I’m in the Afghan
revival of the “Miracle Worker;” only now I’m Heller Keller and the translator
Annie Sullivan.
Staring at the Director of Agriculture, my mind
races
“Awa…awa!”
mentally making a pumping water hand motion
Having no reaction, I then look over to the Director
of Irrigation
“Awa…AWA!!!”
pounding my fists together in sign language for “water! water!”
I begin to
mentally pound my head with my fists.
Noticing the vein in my forehead that is going to
explode, the captain jumps back into the conversation
“Ok, ok, for either a flood or a drought…”
Pause. Deep breath “do you have any plan
for this?”
“Yes of course, why didn’t you ask before? I wrote the plan down”
And the
clouds of despair opened up
“Did you give it to anyone?”
“Yes, yes, the vice-governor”
“The current vice-governor?”
“I don’t know”
“When did you submit the plans?”
“A long time ago”
“Have you followed-up on them?”
“Oh…yes…of course not. No, no, the government will not implement my
plan”
Akmed…I
swear if you have been drinking or that if this is some sort of joke….
Regaining my composure…
“So to clarify – you have a plan…about…water
issues? Yes? And you submitted it to…someone….perhaps the vice-governor….a long
time ago, right? And you haven’t drafted anymore plans, correct?”
“Yes, it was a very good plan”
“The one that you won’t follow up on and that the
government won’t implement?”
“Yes”
Just making
sure
“I also have plans” the director of development
jumps in
“Oh you do?” I replied drily “would you like to
tell us about them?” please say “no”
“Yes, yes, I have six plans”
“Six plans?!” sitting up for this “really? Wow!
When did you submit six plans? And to who?”
“Oh, I’ve never submitted them”
(Sigh) Of
course not
Seeing that this conversation was not really
going….anywhere and it was now TWO HOURS later, the captain and I decided to
leave and began to say our thanks and goodbyes. As we stood though, the
directors gave us a pensive look and the director of Agriculture asked
“But wait…what about the “weather machine”?”
Oh THIS will
be fun and we’ve only wasted 2 hours of our lives on this conversation, so
what’s a few more minutes?
Slowly taking our seats I intrepidly asked
“the..the…what? The weather machine?”
“Yes”
By now, I am thinking something out of James Bond. An imposing monster of a machine with knobs
and buttons that can conjure tornadoes and tropical storms. Looking over at me, then Akmed, then the
directors, the captain asked
“I’m sorry, but what…what…IS…a weather machine?”
“We don’t know, but we don’t want it”
Of course
not. Who would want a machine that they
don’t know about.
“Uh…well…if you don’t want it, why do you have a
weather machine?”
“The international soldiers came and put it on the
ground outside and told us that we must keep it. We protested as it doesn’t look good there
and then the Ministry in Kabul told us that we had to keep the weather machine”
“The Ministry?
What Ministry? Agriculture?”
“No”
“Irrigation?”
“No, no…The Ministry of Weather and Temperature”
Oh my God,
this is something out of a Lewis Carroll story.
Next a white rabbit with a big pocket watch will appear…
The captain now wanting to get back in the fray of
things, but not really knowing how to approach it, asked
“Well…so...do you know how to use the machine”
“No, but there is someone with training”
“Someone WAS trained how to use it?”
“No”
“Someone IS BEING trained how to use it?”
“No”
“Someone WILL BE trained how to use it?”
“No”
This is when the captain looks across the room at me
with the help me out, before someone (i.e.
Akmed) gets hurt look
“Well, I think we have all the information we need
here” for the doctors at the asylum “and
we hope to speak you about this later” I announced and we left. And as we were leaving, we began to wonder
that if it was such a confusing experience on our end, what do think of us as
well. I mean, how is information being
translated to them…and you'll soon find out as we did in the next story.
As an afterward, I would like to add that the names have
been changed in order to protect the security of those involved. In fact, after the experience that we had,
the Captain and I are thinking of changing our names as well.
