My time in Kabul is coming to a close.  This was my first trip to Afghanistan and my first field visit as an ICMA employee.  Since I joined ICMA last July, I’ve been looking forward to the opportunity to visit this country and I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here.  Many people questioned my interest in going to Afghanistan and when they heard I was going in the middle of winter, they thought I was crazy, but flying in over the snow-covered mountains was a beautiful sight with few comparisons in the world that I’ve ever seen.  While it is cold and we struggle to get heat in our offices most days, I am very glad that my first experiences of Kabul were of a peaceful snow-covered city.

Caroline Bixiones

Snow-covered Kabul

Yes, I said peaceful.  Men with guns standing every few feet in the street is the reality of living and working in Kabul.  There is no traffic pattern, and people and animals walk across the street at any time.  Though this all sounds like chaos, when you step off the street and into a shop, the office, or home, you encounter nothing but friendly people.  They are eager to meet you, help you, and work with you.  I came to Kabul to work with my colleagues on the Capacity Building and Change Management Program (CBCMP) with the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation, and Livestock (MAIL).  ICMA leads one half of the project called Component 2 focused on capacity building.  CBCMP is working to improve organizational capacity and enhance service delivery at the Ministry (MAIL) and District (DAIL) levels.

The primary goal of my visit to the field was to work on operations and Human Resources issues that the project had faced in its first year.  I found that our wonderful staff, HR Officer Najib and Finance Officer Rabia, has things well under control.  I was very impressed with their dedication to the project and enthusiasm for their work.  They have flow charts for every process that my grad school professors would be thrilled with!  I was also overwhelmed with their hospitality in welcoming me to their country.  They treated me to a traditional Afghan meal at one of the hotels closer to downtown and took me out shopping.  I was even lucky enough to meet some of their family members, Najib’s wife and Rabia’s two precious sons.  It is a brand new experience for me to be in a place where I can’t just hop in and out of the car freely, but our staff and security are just looking out for us and waiting until they say it’s okay to go in the store is an easy thing to do to protect ourselves.

Jaco Griesel

Getting a view of Kabul

Working with our ICMA staff was a delight and the operations and HR issues took far less time than expected, so I was free to participate and contribute much more to the programmatic work.  In these two weeks I worked with our Deputy Chief of Party Mark Glover (see some of his own blog posts and photos too!) on the CBCMP Component 2 Action Plan, Road Map, and the DAIL Roll-out Plan.  All of the great work we have gotten started at MAIL so far, in year two, is going to be brought down to the District level (DAIL).  All of these products were submitted to our donor the US Department of Agriculture (USDA).  While here, I also met with our USDA counterparts and many colleagues at MAIL.  I look forward to future visits when I can explore other parts of Afghanistan and work with the staff at the seven DAILs where the project is expanding.  Overall, it was a very exciting time to pay a visit to the project.

When I leave later this week, I’ll be bringing back an incredible work experience, a few souvenirs, a great deal of respect for my colleagues, and an excitement for this project and my next visit to Afghanistan.