Final note from Mazar e-Sharif

It is so hard to believe, but here I am, at the end of a string of goodbye parties and packing sessions, I am writing my final post from Mazar e-Sharif, for now. My time up here has been some of the most rewarding months of my life, both professionally and personally. I have met people with a resilience and will to survive I did not think existed. Now, as I rip pages out of forlorn notebooks, and donate stationary, colleagues keep popping their heads into my office, offering best wishes and home-made crafts in the form of almonds strung into a necklace, homemade yogurt and a hard white home made ball of cheese.

I am nostalgic but also inspired. What I am most proud of is the team spirit we fostered, where people learned the importance of dialogue and "putting heads together". According to the staff what they will remember from me is the fact that "my door is always open", and "I don't like I problems, I like solutions". In addition to one female who proclaimed she will always remember my standard response when someone walks into my office "what can I do for you".

I will miss my friends, and the crazy nights dancing the night away at one of the bi-weekly Mazar Social Club gatherings, a self-driven solution to a rather entertainment-challenged city. And who could forget Sebastien's Tenderloin at the Royal Oak English Restaurant. So many nights spent eating steak and drinking Becks in what fast becomes one's home away from home in the approved restaurant-deprived Mazar. I remember fondly Fridays a the WFP pool, followed by long sessions surfing the web on the Oak’s wi-fi, while sharing G&Ts with girlfriends, discussing previous and future conflict postings. I said this in Baghdad, and I'll say it again, it is remarkable how much faster friendships and other relationships are fostered and strengthened in these environments.

With that, "goddafis Mazar e-Sharif, Tashakor, Tashakor".