On Mentoring

Todays discussion is on and about mentoring.

The original Mentor was an older friend of Odysseus. He watched over his family and household while Oddyseus was off fighting the Trojan war and eventually finding his way back home. But mentoring today has little to do with deceased greek guys.

The most common definition of mentorship is a relationship between an experienced person and a less experienced person in order to help, assist, or groom the less experienced person for future success.

It sounds a lot like the same skill set used in parenting. You cannot do everything for your mentee. That just makes them dependent on you to accomplish their job. The main thing they learn is that you will do the job if they do not. Mentees, however, are older and smart enough to know when they are being manipulated. The language barrier doesn't make it any easy either.

You can make recommendations or suggestions, but these work best if you bring them into a conversation and ultimately make them seem like your mentees idea. You have to allow them to come up with their own ideas and occasionally, although not catastrophically fail. That is the biggest hurdle I have seen here. It is difficult for us as Americans to allow anything to fail at any level. There are many 'mentors' here who simply will not allow their mentees to fail at all. I still remember in training at Ft Riley they stressed time and again that even a mediocre Afghan plan is still better than the best American plan.

That sounds very noble and laudable. The bottom line is that like our children, mentees also count on us to bail them out when their plans don't work. That is what I spent today doing. Our team was due to get out and look at some more facilities around the region today. Instead we got a frantic call last night and spent the better part of the day trying to fix a problem which will probably take several more days to properly sort out. What's more is that we knew early in the process that their plan would probably fail and advised them to choose a different path! Patience is a virtue. I do believe that we have increased our mentees trust and level of rapport since we are standing by them despite it all.

I guess like parenting there doesn't seem like there is a whole lot of glory in cleaning up 'messes'. But if your mentee learns from the experience, and can eventually operate on his own then that is the measure of success.

The Clinic to Nowhere

If this is what it feels like to win against bureaucracy I like it.

I wrote several weeks ago about a very large Police clinic which was to be constructed in our Region. It will really be a poly-clinic with xray, laboratory, and a small Emergency/Triage area. I am sure my Afghan friends will call it a 'shafa khona', or hospital, instead of a clinic.

The site was going to be at a small training camp about 5 miles out of town in the desert. Today I was able to meet with some Engineers who control the building plans and projects from Kabul. With very little persuasion, I was able to plead the case for moving construction closer to the city, where the population to be served is located. While 5 miles doesn't sound like very far to us it might as well be the other side of the moon to most Afghans. The main mode of transportation is by foot, or if you are lucky by taxi or donkey cart. We have two prospective sites and there is still a lot of contracting work to go through, but we are one step closer to having the right clinic in the right location. As an added bonus we were able to convince the team that our Regional medical logistics officer needs a small warehouse. This will be added to the construction project as well. While it did take a little time and patience (what doesn't in Afghanistan) these changes will fulfill the original intent of these gifts from our country to the people of Afghanistan.

I think this may have been the reason I am here in this country; to modify this one project. It could have easily slipped through to completion and been essentially worthless. But with some good old fashioned detective work and persistence positive change has occured.

I feel a little rebellious. Perhaps now that I have stopped the "Clinic to Nowhere" I'll run for Governor.

View from the Front

Just pictures today. Steve was TC for a recent patrol and got these neat pictures. Mud bricks drying in the sun and some of the mud brick buildings.

The vendors in the downtown area sell oranges and many watermellons.

It seems that every roundabout in Mazar e Shariff has a different and bizarre motiff. The next one past the globe(above) is one that looks like a birthday cake with large plastic candles. There are others with large bronze statues or space age structures in the middle. At times you may see people napping in the grass or even a herd of goats eating the well watered grass.

The return trip gave a great view of the desert area south of town heading towards the mountains(lower left). The center picture points out the size difference of the road, an MRAP and your average donkey cart. The far right picture is a naan vendor.

The Afghan have many needs and lack many things we would list as necessities, but overall they are still happy and friendly.

Downtown Public Hospital

Yesterday was another 'get out and see the city' day. Actually we have been trying to coordinate a visit with the Regional Mazar e Shariff hospital since our arrival here. Finally we were able to track down a point of contact at the hospital and arrange for a patrol to take us there. It was quite a production as we had folks from our Police medical mentoring team, the Afghan Army regional hospital mentoring team, The CO of the Afghan army hospital and several others with us. After an uneventful drive down to the area we parked the MRAPs and our 'away team' went into the complex.

We were met by the Regional Medical Director. For those who may not know, Afghanistan has three medical systems. The Afghan Army under the Ministry of Defense, The Afghan Police under the Ministry of the Interior, and the Ministry of Public Health(MoPH). So the Regional Director reports to the Minister of Public Health in Kabul and supervises all MoPH facilities in the 9 northern provinces of Afghanistan which includes at least nine hospitals and 85 clinics. We were ushered into his office for chai. I must say it was the most opulent office I have seen in this country. There was a marble desk, ten leather couches, and a large plasma screen TV. The Director, who actually spoke and understood English excedingly well, told us through an interpreter how the old regional hospital had burned down several years ago. So currently they occupy about 10 buildings in a complex until the new German sponsored four story building can be completed. They also get support from our State Department via the USAID organization and some help from Johns Hopkins University.

After chai and conversation time we took a tour of the facilities. There were two sections to the womens and maternity ward. There was a pediatric building complete with an entire ward for malnourishment and a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit with several tiny premature babies in serviceable incubators. The Director told us of their difficulty trying to get new mothers to breastfeed their children since it is tradition not to breastfeed until their third day of life. Dangerous cultural practices such as this have earned Afghanistan a 50% mortality rate for children under 5 years of age. With the help of education, vaccines and material support from Donors this concerning downward spiral is now turning around. We also took a tour of their Emergency Department and ICU/Surgical recovery area. It was perhaps the most troubling of the wards to observe. Unfortunately we only had time to visit 6 of the buildings before our time to press onwards arrived.

Of course most Americans who have never seen a struggling hospital in a third world country would probably have a very difficult time processing what we saw. But after a day to reflect on everything my partner Steve and I, who are sort of conneisseurs of third world hospitals, concluded that we have seen worse. Me in some parts of Asia, he in Africa. But for a country that is in the midst of a war and in temporary buildings for the most part it seems to be operating very well. It was depressing seeing the disparity between the Directors Office and the peeling paint and bare wires in most of the buildings. There is still a lot to do in this country.

One more word about the Afghan Health system. It is easy to be critical and see all that needs improvement here. But there are caring doctors and nurses who daily treat both insurgents and soldiers alike. They see them all as countrymen. In their consitution, free health care is a right of all citizens. So there is no cost to be seen or treated in any MoPH hospital. I find it odd that we are dictating how the Afghans set up and run their health system- "first remove the log from your own eye, then you will be better able to see the speck in your brothers eye"- a famous quote comes to mind. Perhaps there are things we can learn from Afghanistan.

Interpreter- Turjuman

The Dari and Arabic word for interpreter is turjuman. Interpreters are very important to all that we do here. I cannot mentor or work with my Afghan counterpart if we cannot understand each other. Even though my Afghan counterpart and I can communicate in some small way with my limited Dari and his limited English, it is always best to have an interpreter present. I once had a conversation with my counterpart without an interpreter present as I toured him around our camp. He was shocked when I talked about our "Fire House". He thought that we were shooting weapons inside of our Fire Department building, oops.

We had our Afghan Police Medical Director and his Quartermaster come to visit us today. As always we made some progress on several issues and learned more about each other and the system that we each work with. We were lucky enough to have two interpreters present today. The second interpreter did not really contribute to the conversation at all, but our interpreter did admit afterwards that he felt like he did a much better job today since he knew another interpreter was listening. A little competition can be a good thing.

There are several categories of Interpreters employed by the Department of Defense. Category I are local nationals like our team interpreter. They are usually hired through an Afghan contractor. They get paid monthly for their services and some extra money for going out on missions with us off the Camp. I dare say this extra money does not adequately compensate them for the potential danger they face. If you read the news headlines closely you will find the names of many interpreters among the wounded or killed in battle reports. Since they are targets for insurgents many interpreters work in areas that are not their home provinces. They also use names which are not their real names, so that they and their families cannot be tracked down easily. Many interpreters live in areas adjacent to Camps or FOBs, although a few continue to live locally with their families and commute. While there are many interpreters who perform their services for noble reasons, the main reason is the money. A US employed interpreter can make much more than a doctor, teacher, and most officers in the Afghan Security Forces. Many interpreters are doctors, engineers and teachers. They simply make much more money working as interpreters. Money which supports large extended families from this one paycheck. More concerning is that after one to two years of service interpreters can apply for a US entrance visa, leading to a further 'brain drain' of this countries best and brightest minds. Most of the interpreters you hear about in Afghanistan are category I interpreters.

Category II and III interpreters are US citizens. They have to be fluent in both English and Dari and/or Pashto. Additionally they have to have security clearances commensurate with the information they are processing. Although it is a little old, I would recommend a quick read on this article from the Stars and Stripes on Interpreters. There were problems this summer when older physically unfit interpreters were sent with Marine units. A starting salary of $210,000 a year is very enticing though. http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=63855

All that aside our interpreter is an integral part of our team. He has been with the mission for almost two years. He knows what has worked well in the past and what has failed. He knows who in the Afghan heirarchy can get things done and where to get needed supplies on the economy. The bottom line is that without him our words here mean nothing.

Our interpreter is also my malem- or teacher. I have asked him to help me with my Dari. At first we were just working on a phrase a day, but I quickly forgot these if I did not write them down. For the past two weeks or so we have been working our way through the Dari alphabet. We work on one letter a day(there are 34). He and I write down 10-20 words in Dari script and their meaning. Now I can read some of the dari signs and food or drink packages. He recently gave me a written test of 100 questions. I scored a 92, but he admits he made it pretty easy fearing that I would fail horribly. It is still a good productive thing to do daily in addition to office work and exercise. I enjoy learning more about Dari, Afghanistan and its culture every day as we have our lesson.

Change 2

Change is an inevitable part of life. The military specializes in change. The highest rates of change seem to occur in the military in war time. Orders which are authoritatively passed to troops one minute may be countermanded the next. Like reading the names of fathers in the old testament; one change begets another which begets another.

Upon arrival here I was briefed by the person I replaced that my job was to supervise in processing and vaccination of ANP recruits. This task takes approximately 60% of our time. Our team made the decision that this was really only a secondary job, since our primary job is to mentor the ANP Medical Director and his staff. (Change 1)

I have been eagerly awaiting the end of the Ramadan and Eid period. Now I can get back out and my secondary job. Last week our team started getting some interesting emails with powerpoint slide attachments which indicated this secondary mission of in processing may be handed over to contractors and Afghans starting in January. (Change 2)

This week we were informed via email that the contractor is ready in our area and will assume all in processing starting 3 days ago. This certainly caught all the training site coordinators off guard as well. So now we definitely do not do in processing (the previous teams primary mission) at all. (Change 3)

The key to dealing with all this change is flexibility and an open mind. Innovation is helpful as well. We still have our primary mission to perform. In fact we now have a lot of vaccines which we can provide to our mentee, since we won't be using them. The other thing these changes gives us is a certain amount of freedom. We can now move around the Northern Region and visit ANP medical facilities and construction sites without being tied to the date of the next in processing. I may even get a chance to go to Kabul and actually meet many of the staff there who we work with through email and phone.

So to sum it up, change can be stressful but also liberating in the right situation.