Perspective

It snowed all day Saturday (and a good part of the nights on each side of it) so Doug and I were grateful to have nowhere to go except up two floors and down the hall for dinner. Rada and I met in the gym where we both exercise each morning. She and I are funny together because we each think that the other is sooooo beautiful; definitely a small mutual admiration society. Doug says if we ever got dressed up and went out together we’d be dangerous. I agree. The men would be helpless puddles at our feet.

Anyway, Rada made plov for dinner. Plov is a traditional Uzbek dish of spiced rice and any combination of chicken, lamb or beef (we had all three Saturday). Also invited was a man named Tim who had worked in Afghanistan with Peter (Rada’s husband). They showed us pictures they had taken during their time there.

I was a little distressed to hear either Peter or Tim – I don’t remember which – refer to one man with whom they had to deal as an idiot. I could tell by the way it was said that the man was either difficult (as in works differently than we do) or ignorant - neither which calls for referring to him as an idiot. At the end of the pictures I asked what made the man an idiot. Thankfully, Tim said he wasn’t an idiot he just had nothing to work with. The man had no electricity and no training for starters. This got Tim to talking about dealing with the Afghani people in general in our quest for peace and democracy there. At one point he said something like “How do you teach people democracy who don’t even know that the world is round?”

That weighed heavily in my thoughts the rest of the night. I hear about the lack of education in places like Afghanistan and feel for the ignorance of the people there. Saturday night I realized how ignorant I am. Some of the Afghan people only know their little desert corner of the world. They see Americans come in and try to fix things (build bridges, build schools that the Taliban blow up) but they don’t know where these people come from. And they don’t know where they disappear to when their tour or post is over.

Tim said they saw men with hands black from never having been washed. There was one photograph of Tim and Peter standing with two Afghan men dressed in layers with their heads wrapped. They looked like relatively well dressed men. Tim remembered how heavy their stench was as they posed for that picture. It’s not just personal hygiene. At a voting station, a 14 year old girl ran the booth even though she was too young to vote. She was the only one who could read. And she was stunningly beautiful. She was with one or two other girls about her age who would not have their picture taken nor would they uncover their heads. This girl did not wear her head covering for the picture. Some people who work building with the Americans actually work dually for the Taliban also. So they spend all week building a school then go off and plot and execute its destruction. God help them. We see this as counterproductive; they see it as survival.

But I’m going to go back to that shocking statement about working with people who don’t even know that the world is round. I tend to think of uneducated as being illiterate, unexposed to the sciences, unfamiliar with other cultures, etc. These people may know no more than what they have needed to survive in the deserts of Afghanistan. They may have never heard of Ireland or heard a recording of any kind. I guess in their contact with Americans they have seen their picture taken with a digital camera.

I know that the people I’ll meet in Tashkent will not be that uneducated but it still has me thinking. I’m not used to being the, uh, sharpest tack in the box shall we say. No laughing. Now I’m faced with quite possibly in some social situations being the worldly, knowledgeable one. That has great appeal. I, however, have spent a great deal of my past life judging others. I don’t want to find myself thinking of any one as “idiot” because of their circumstances and my frustrations with not being able to deal with the difficulty of communication in such situations. I also don’t want to get an over inflated ego. I need to learn how to expose them to as much as I can while humbly learning what I can from them which apparently is going to be a lot more than stories and cooking as I originally thought.

Doug is extremely patient with people who are ignorant. He has little tolerance of those who choose ignorance. This is understandable. We (you and I) live in a world in which almost all knowledge is ours at our bidding. We cannot learn it all but if we don’t put a concerted effort it is a shame. We can build up treasure and see it vanish to poor investments, mismanaged banks or our own lack of discipline. We can build up our bodies only to lose our strength to age or illness or an accident. If we build up our minds, it is ours to keep as long as we live. Ooh! Ooh! I’m on a roll here (if not original). If we build up our spirit it is ours for eternity.