Sunday, September 28, 2008

Meetings

A large part of what we do here involves holding meetings with locals. The meetings for us, in the engineer section tend to be with, either Afghan government officials or local contractors who are working on our projects. The very first meeting I had here was with the governor of Logar province, Governor Wardak. We had dinner at his house so we could all meet and discuss the issues for us, the new team on the ground. Two weeks ago Governor Wardak was killed by a roadside bomb in the northern part of his province. That served to remind us that the violence here is not just aimed at NATO forces, but also those who work too closely with us.

Nonetheless, even with the constant threat of violence here, locals continue to work with us toward the common goal of making Afghanistan better. Just this week, I had a meeting with the Gardez city mayor, the Director of Power and the Director of Water Supply to discuss an in depth plan to provide paved streets, power, fresh water and sewer to a large portion of the city. Unlike many of the meetings we had, all parties came together with ideas and a willingness to genuinely work together. Like all meetings here, I left not completely sure what course this project might take. However, I did leave with an unusual optimism and hope is a valuable thing in Afghanistan.

Thank you and God Bless.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Do I detect some optimism in your second paragraph?! You're doing a great job, Marc & I'm glad you're seeing that slowly but surely the Afghanis will appreciate it. Take pride in the little signs of progress. :)

On another note, when do you come home? & when do you find out if home will soon = DC? Let me know, miss you - Angela.