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October 14, 2010
7 October Rain and thunder came rolling through yesterday. The sweater has come down from the shelf. Summer has been expelled. I am teaching the boys the story of Ernest Shackleton, possibly the greatest success story to spring from failure. My three “keys” to good leadership seem to hold up here, but when you get down to it, leadership must be rooted in the ability to embrace failure, to wrap your arms around it and kiss it on the cheek. What I am talking about is not playing victim, not defeatist, I’m talking about what you do after looking failure in the eyes with open heart, after pressing enough to know that failure is resolved, she has made her decision, there are things in this world you cannot and maybe even should not understand. That is when you spend a few moments recalling for her the times you’ve had, when all was hope and learning, when she led you through your new home and explained to you the dos and don’ts, when she showed you she is no dummy, she knows chemistry, she knows how to fight. I remember when I sent her on a scavenger hunt. She was on the lesser team. This did not dissuade her from giving it her all. She actually thought her team could win. Perhaps she was always going to be failure. Not sure if this matters enough to say, but there, I said it. The story telling best not go on too long. You only need verify she existed, you existed, breathed in that air together and when she cried, you cried, and when she laughed, you laughed. Then, failure resolved, you tell her you are right here, press your phone number into the palm of her hand. If she ever needs you, anything, to call. Even for no reason at all. She will waver here, because she will have expected ridicule, anger, even hatred. She will shudder and her eyes will well up and she will look smaller than she is. This is when you must be strongest, because this is the moment you will think perhaps there is a way of turning this all around, that all you need do is quickly change your tack and success will be salvaged. Don’t. If you try, she will only go away full of poison that will leave her defenseless against the world that despises her weakness and envies her strength. You will pay, later, after the sun goes down. There will be a hole in your stomach that can’t be filled. You will wonder, “what if”. Don’t scratch, just let that wound heal. You have sent failure on her way ennobled, and you still have all your fingers and toes, and after all there are 27 crew members to lead to safety, through the darkest winter, through the worst kind of cold, through hurricane and ice chasm, and always a thirst even though all around you, everywhere, as far as the eye can see is water. The boys were in awe of Shackleton’s story. His world couldn’t have been more alien, yet there was a sense of kinship in terms of devotion to the task at hand, the priorities, the moment all the men splashed a bit of milk from their cups into the cup of the one who spilled, and when the “Boss” gave his mittens to the photographer who had lost his at sea; history would require a pair of nimble hands. The boys did not see failure. She had become a part of the landscape, even a weight lifted, a lesson in love. Failure’s name, in this case, was Endurance. I asked a long-time sponsor recently the most difficult thing about her job. She said, unequivocally, "losing" one of her kids. It is cruel, time. This week one of her children abruptly left the orphanage. She was utterly destroyed, as were all her sisters. Even in this, maybe the gravest crossroads of her life, she was fiercely brave. She had to go, and that was that. The pressures of her world, the risk we take including the world in this journey, pulled her away. It is a risk we must take, or the children will never mean anything to their people, nor their people to them. We cannot own these precious gifts. I have written of Maria so often it hurts. Home is never, at least for the orphan, where you have been, but where you are going to. Oh, dear Maria, wherever your path leads you, know that if there is a failure here it is mine, and that you carry with you a thousand heartbeats. Remember Prometheus, the fire you have given us, and we will remember how to feel alive. 15 October The Minister of Economics (Department of Non-Government Organizations) pushed his half moon glassed down to the end of his nose, looked me for the first time in the eyes and told me like a disinterested teacher to his un-ambitious C student that my life is more important than the volunteer work I am doing here in Afghanistan. Right away I realized I’d heard this before. A year ago I tried to enlist the head consul at the U.S. Embassy to assist me in my efforts to get the Afghan secret service off AFCECO’s back, a problem that went on to escalate from nasty interrogation of our representative to the outright terrorization of an innocent family. The Consul was kindly, but unequivocally told me that I was taking undo risks, especially given the neighborhood I lived in. He told me that there was nothing he could do unless I was actually dead, that your life is more important than the work you are doing. He told me to go home. This is a reasonable point of view, but on both occasions I couldn’t quite shed the resonance of falsity somehow oozing from its self-assured wisdom. Yes, it is of course fair to say my life (let alone the life of innocent others) is more important than many actions I might choose almost on a daily basis. Driving, for instance; certainly getting behind the wheel after having too much to drink, but what about speeding after just one drink, or even when sober speeding to get to a meeting on time, or to arrive at the movie theatre on time? What about driving a motorcycle on any occasion, or taking any of a thousand chances for a thrill? Is not my life more important than that thrill rafting down a river or jumping from a plane? With this frivolity in mind, is my life so much more important than the needs of the children here? Besides, though CNN would have it different, I am not driving a hundred miles an hour through the streets of San Francisco. I’d say it is more like a slightly hair-raising gallop down the Saw Mill River Parkway into New York City bumper to bumper going 50. In drama class this week we practiced improvising two scenes. In one there are two sisters and a father. One sister has been taking care of the father while the other has gone on to pursue her career in Europe. It is homecoming, as the father is close to death and the career sister wants to see him before he goes. We did this scene several ways, for example the one sister being resentful, the father loving the career girl more, or the one sister selfless and loving to all. Another scene involved two old friends, one who’s father was killed by Taliban and one, destitute, who has decided to go on the Taliban payroll and seeks asylum one night in his friend’s house. Sometimes in the middle of these sessions I step back and watch, sometimes I get right in there. They are always very much like life itself. You keep plugging away and once in a while it seems terribly meaningful. We finished class by learning a song divided into four parts, a fun way to practice working together with a script in English. It was a song I wrote about the strength of love to transcend boundaries and bridge distances. We did this in my old room at Mehan. Night is falling early now. Though it was five-thirty the windows were darkened and the room aglow. I remembered the night before leaving Mehan the first time, a year ago, all of the children crowding in to sing one last time together. The room is different now. It is not mine. There are desks and five computers, and there is a stack of brand new shoes in the corner. But this fact no longer elicits melancholy. The twenty-one children and one teacher of Raven Clan sensed something new happening. We drew closer, we became a unit. The walls of that room are like the wood of a guitar. They are beginning to resonate with all the tones of all the songs that have been sung there, all the lessons that have been administered by myself and others, and even all the wordless moments, hands clasped, tears shed, smiles provoked. Later, as I slipped on my sandals Parwana followed me to the steps that lead to the garden. “I am sad,” she said. Usually she says just about anything merely to practice her English, to get any lesson she can eke out of me, but this time I saw in her eyes she was serious. I paused and asked her why. “Because," she said, "I don’t know… today was a good drama class.” “Yes,” is all I could say, and goodbye. “Ian-jan?” she called before I stepped into the car. “Exam tomorrow, on Taj Mahal?” “What do you think?” I smiled. She smiled too, waved a finger at me and headed back into the orphanage. This week in leadership course we watched five movie clips: Joan d’Arc confronting the English cavalry and turning them away on the strength of her faith alone; General Patton slapping a soldier suffering from “shell shock” and sending him back to the front; General Custer leading his men right into the trap he had already been alerted to; William Wallace (Braveheart) giving his “freedom” speech to two thousand Scots; and Norma Rae refusing to be fired from her factory job and standing on a table with a sign saying Union, rallying her co-workers to do the same. What governs our leading style? A higher power, authoritarianism, position, charisma, or example? I asked the class to identify what kind of leader is Bashardost, Malalai Joya, Obama, Karzai, Mul Omar, Dostum, their football coach? We discovered not all leadership styles work for all situations. What if Obama had been president after the attacks nine years ago and Bush was president now? What kind of leader is best when there is an emergency? What leader is best when there is an argument to settle between two people, between countries? As usual I was pushing the lesson faster than I should have. I wanted this discussion to move into an examination of teamwork and how a leader emerges from the group. I'd set up some typical challenges from my counseling days such as crossing a "toxic river" with only two boards and a rope. Before I could shift gears it was Hala who yelled out, “What about you, Ian? What kind of leader are you?” I shrugged and said I am not a leader. The room erupted, unanimously. “By example, by example by example!” Please understand it is with more humbleness than pride that I say to you now it will take more than scolding, prohibitive words from the Consul or Minister to turn me away from this place.
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