aud’acious

Here’s a true story that happened to me recently in Washington DC.

There were two Palestinian principals and two Afghani university professors who are also deans of education and science in their respective fields. They spent their first week in LA, their second with an American teacher somewhere in the US and their third week in DC. One of the Afghani deans spent a week in Ohio with a young 6′4″ baseball-loving, American government teacher who had never been out of North America and never lived outside of Columbus. The Afghani, named Farmanunullah, was an older man with a pot belly, a salt shaker beard, cheery smile, little English (two classes), and 7 kids. His wife incidentally wants more kids but he is “opposite”.

Apparently from the Ohian teacher, Gaven’s stories, their week together was unique. “Where is the water in your house?” Well, says Gaven, “It comes out of faucets like this one.” Farmanullah lifts the lever, turns it off, lifts it again, a smile creeps across his face. “Only cold water? No hot?” Gaven says, “Turn the lever to the left.”

Anyway, so a bunch of hippy entreprenuers all in their late 20’s and early 30’s who want to save the world met with us in a modern building in the diverse bustling neighborhood of Adams Morgan. These are just the type of people who know that you can hire a green cleaning service and have all recycleable paper products. They showed us the powerpoint of their cool businesses and unique job titles like Joey, Chief Experience Composer. Afterwards they said, “We know the government takes a long time to get things done. We are looking for cool projects that we can tackle and have solutions in a much shorter more efficient way.”

So people began sharing the difficulties they face in education in Palestine. The two Afghan teachers sat quietly with I’m guessing somewhat oblivious but smiling faces. There wasn’t much time left and the Chief Experience Composer turns to the Afghan teachers and asks what challenges they are facing. This was probably the first time the entrepreuners realized the Afghanis really didn’t understand much of what they had said because it took several attempts before there was an intelligble response.

With a broad papa-like smile on his face, Farmanullah said, holding up three fingers, “In Afghanistan, we have three problems. One. We have bad government. We need to change government. Bad. No more government. Two. We have no building for school.”

“How many students are in your school?” asks Joey.

“6,000.”

“Alright so you need a building…,” says Joey.

“Third. No electricity.”

“Ooo, that is a problem, ” says Joey’s co-worker/friend, whatever they call each other.

Farmanullah sits back in his chair, his face is broad and smiling. His hands cross his lap. “You can change our government?” He says, “In Afghanistan we have tribes. Many school buildings, tribes come burn down. No good. We need new government.” Then it was over. The meeting was over, the discussion was over.

Oh funny. A side note about Farmanullah. Apparently Gaven told me that one early morning he was driving Farmanullah to school with him. It was still dark outside. Farmanullah said, “In Afghanistan if we have school under stars? No good.” …I agree.