Courtesy Photo | Archeologist Amy Holmes prepares to travel aboard a Black Hawk helicopter from Kabul...... read more read more
KABUL, Afghanistan – Long Beach archeologist Amy Holmes, who has built a career studying the nuances of ancient civilizations by examining artifacts they left behind, spent the past year learning firsthand about Afghan culture by working and living in the Islamic country.
Holmes, 38, served as a civilian employee of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, redeployed to the Los Angeles District Dec. 5, concluding a yearlong tour, during which she headed programs designed to teach job skills and provide humanitarian assistance to the populace.
She worked closely with both Americans and Afghans on a program designed to teach engineering skills to an emerging generation of Afghan college students.
The program is critical to the United States’ exit strategy for Afghanistan, because the new wave of engineers are expected to run and maintain hundreds of Afghan army and police buildings the Corps of Engineers has built during the past six years, she said. The country has a dearth of engineers because many of Afghanistan’s educated residents fled the country while its universities deteriorated during decades of Soviet and Taliban rule.
One of the most rewarding projects during her tour was purchasing and delivering engineering textbooks for several universities across the country, Holmes said before she left Afghanistan.
“The engineering students at Kabul University were using either Russian textbooks from the ’80s, or they were using photocopied textbooks, so they had a real urgent need,” she said.
New books were purchased using funds made available through the Commander’s Emergency Response Program, which are earmarked for humanitarian needs. The project was underway before Holmes arrived in Afghanistan, but she took over during the early stages and oversaw the program as books were delivered to five of six universities.
One of her most memorable experiences occurred in March when about 40 people worked together to unload books from a delivery truck at one of the universities.
“We formed a big line. It was neat because it was U.S. military and Afghan students. We all handed the book boxes from one to another and stacked them into their library. It was a fun group exercise,” Holmes said.
The books have had a significant and immediate impact on the quality of education, said Susan Repon, an electrical engineer who serves as a quality assurance representative for the Corps of Engineers in northern Afghanistan.
Before the books were made available to the students, engineering students lacked the educational background to even ask questions about U.S.-quality engineering matters. They are absorbing the material quickly and now are able to ask their American mentors technical questions, Repon said.
The Afghan students value the textbooks and efforts by Holmes and others to deliver the materials, said Repon, who is on temporary assignment from the Seattle District of the Corps of Engineers.
“The books are still in great shape,” she said. “The students leave them in the library. They can use them on campus, but they can’t take the books home, so they stay in great shape. They are so proud of those books.”
Holmes also worked with U.S. Embassy and military personnel on an archeological project in Mes Aynak, a world-renowned archeology site southeast of Kabul.
The Corps of Engineers designed a temporary warehouse for hundreds of 1,400-year-old Buddhist artifacts that an international team of archeologists is removing at a furious pace. The 9,800-acre site is slated to become one the world’s largest open-pit copper mines soon. Bulldozers could start turning earth as soon as next year.
Her most significant cultural experiences were gained while working side-by-side with Afghan men and women employed by the Corps of Engineers at the Afghanistan Engineer District-North headquarters compound in Kabul.
For instance, Holmes typically wore her strawberry blond hair in braids, unlike virtually all Afghan women, who cover their hair with head scarves. Both Afghan men and woman commented about her “hair pattern.”
More importantly, she learned that talking about an Afghan man’s wife or daughters, even in the most casual way, is strictly taboo. It’s considered an invasion of privacy. The standard even applied to a friendly Afghan colleague who had worked in the same office for months.
“In the United States, you go to work and you get to know your co-workers. ‘How’s your family? How’s your wife? What did you do this weekend?’ I started saying things similar to that and he just dodged the questions about his wife,” Holmes said.
Once, after returning from a three-week vacation to Long Beach, she showed her Afghan coworker photos from her trip. The colleague considered one of her photos particularly scandalous. The snapshot showed Holmes and her husband Joe Harris kissing on the front porch of their home.
“He said, ‘Whoa! That’s your husband. And who’s that?’” Holmes recalled. “I said, ‘That’s me.’ He said, ‘Whoa!’”
After several months, the Afghan coworker showed Holmes photos of his wife and daughters, but he never disclosed their names, she said.
The most difficult aspect of her tour was trying to maintain relationships with friends and family members in the United States, Holmes said. “You really get to know who you’re friends are very quickly. You get to know who sticks by you, who talks to you on Facebook, who sends you e-mails,” she said.
Some of her friends stopped communicating with her altogether because of their opposition to the war. “That was tough,” she said.
In contrast, the physical separation drew Holmes and her husband closer together. “I wouldn’t have been able to do it without his support. He kept the household under control and was always there for me when I needed to talk,” she said.
They spoke by phone frequently.
Somewhat ironically, the most difficult aspect of returning to Long Beach was parting with her new cadre of friends in Kabul, Holmes said.
“I’ve made some great friends here,” she said shortly before leaving. “You work with people, and you see them so many hours during the day. Your world revolves around a certain group of friends that you see constantly. It’s going to take an adjustment to move from one world back into another world.”
| Date Taken: | 11.05.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 01.08.2012 04:25 |
| Story ID: | 82154 |
| Location: | KABUL, AF |
| Web Views: | 208 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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