Crooks

Things seem to be going pretty well for our projects here. The only real problem we have is that 1 of our 6 Mayors is a scoundrel. This is probably the global average, but this guy is at the top of the class—he is unpleasant and a crook.

Here’s the deal. We need to have security for our staff at most of our locations, and we usually rely on the Mayor to obtain it for us. Loyalty is really a big thing in Afghanistan—you want someone to say they will take care of you, and you want to know someone who knows them. To ‘know’ them usually means they are a part of your extended family or known by someone in your extended family, so that if they think of NOT being loyal, they or their family can track him down. The place is a bit like Oregon, which is just a big small town. Except here if you bragged you were ‘5th Generation Oregonian’ like the old-timers in the Beaver State, they would just laugh at you as being a newbie.

So anyway, the mayor got 4 guys he ‘knows’—which in Afghanistan will cost $75 a month. But the Mayor wants us to pay him $260 per month per guy, which means he pockets the difference. We won’t do it, so we are in a stand-off. Now, most will think, just pay the guys directly, and we can—but they will just have to pay the mayor out of their pocket, so we would prefer to pay the mayor, as it seems like a more efficient form of corruption. To be sure, corruption is everywhere, and we know it. We went to the state police, and they will only charge us $130, probably keeping about $50. That seems fair in a modest level of graft sort of way. (When the country becomes more experienced, they will learn to just call it overhead, which will legitimize the whole scheme).

I suppose we could refuse to pay—but then we would go home. Plus, if I got paid what these guys get paid, I would be corrupt too. Not even in Afghanistan can someone raise a family on $2.50 a day. Actually, I think the mayor makes about $3 a day. So we basically have to live with a constant level of corruption in the system, and not be too self-righteous about it. That may be the major difference between Afghan corruption and Tom DeLay corruption--here, a lot of the guys who are corrupt are also poor, and they subsidize their meager salary with a bit of graft. Tom DeLay graft is just about greed and power. I think I might prefer the Afghan form more.

I am not sure how serious this is—in Afghanistan everything requires negotiations. Karim bought our bed, but not before a long discussion that ended with us in the car pulling away from the store before the merchant made us a deal. Watching Afzal buy carpets the other day made Dennis Miller look like an ESL student. Buying a DVD at the bazaar wears me out so much I have to take a nap afterwards. Yesterday, Afzal negotiated the price of Kellogg’s corn flakes. I am amazed.

So the Mayor is just negotiating. But he is also greedy. (See Tom DeLay) We were painting 2 rooms in City Hall, and he brought us his contractor to do the job for a mere $800. In light of the fact we had found a guy to paint the rooms for $30, we rejected his kind offer. Crook. We can live with a bit of graft in the system, but robbery seems to be a bit uncalled for.

We are tempted to take our wheelbarrows and shovels and go home. But the people who live in the city are our real targets, and they lose if we quit. So we will just battle it out with this sob. I have dealt with at least 7 mayors before, a couple of which were real sob’s (not corrupt, just duplicitous and conniving) so I have some experience. And at least this guy can’t bushwack me at a Tuesday night council meeting.