A Party for Afghanistan

One of the aspects of my new job that I was not expecting is how close global events now feel. It would seem obvious that Elise and I are more in tune with what is happening in the world, since I work for an organization that tries to manage world events. Not only because global events may have a direct effect on how we live our daily lives, but more so because global events directly effect people we know now, new friends.

A family working in New Zealand and vacationing in Christchurch was caught in the earthquake, buildings crumbling around them as liquid earth bubbled from fissures splitting the ground beneath their feet. A family moved to Cairo with their newborn only to be evacuated a few short months later, the husband having to stay behind, separated from his family, the wife having to go home and raise their family alone, not knowing when she could return. A young man in Tripoli was instructed to return to his apartment and extract only his most prized possessions. A ferry was coming to get him in a few hours and take him from Libya. He would have to leave behind his favorite violin, one he’d been playing since he was in seventh grade. He would have to look into the desperate faces of women and children eager to flee the coming war and he would have to tell them there wasn’t room on the ferry for them. These are all stories from new friends, people we have met in the last year. These are all stories that could have been our story if we had gone to New Zealand or Egypt or Libya instead of come to Brazil. Maybe that’s why they hit so close to home.

This time next year, Elise and I will know where we will go after we leave Brazil. It seems way too soon to have to wonder where that will be, but some colleagues at work who arrived a year before us are now finding out where their next posts will be.

Elise and I were invited to a party this Saturday for a friend who had found out where his next assignment was, though they were less than thrilled to hear. The invite did not mention where they were going.

“Oh no,” I wrote, “Where are you headed?”

Kabul, Afghanistan.

It is one of those questions I wish I had never asked, not ever having imagined that would be the response. Now I was forced to respond, though I didn’t have words.

I saw him later in the hall and shook his hand and told him that I hoped he didn’t find the words that I had mustered patronizing. He said of course not and that he hoped I could make it to the party on Saturday. Spirits were high. They had to be…if for no other reason than for their two kids. He was going to Afghanistan, and they were throwing a party.

This is the right thing to do. Not everywhere we will get to go will be Rome or Paris or Brazil. Not to say we will necessarily sleep on straw mats with scorpions or be separated by civil strife, but my friend has already shown me how to act if we ever receive less than perfect news. Smile and have a party.