Grounding

Yesterday I received the Service to American Medal for National Security and Foreign Affairs for the economic programs I have helped to design, procure and launch in Pakistan as USAID's Director of Economic Growth. The day included a federal news radio interview, http://www.federalnewsradio.com/index.php?nid=15&sid=1769116 in the morning and black tie gala in the evening where this video was shown, http://vimeo.com/6738075. This article below was drafted by a local reporter in Pakistan. In my ongoing attempt to help my friends and family understand what I do in Pakistan with USAID, check out these links.

An American Dedicated To Pakistan

USAID officer wins award for focus on economic development

LAHORE – Amy Meyer sits on the floor of a modest apartment here with a dozen Pakastani women surrounding her. A baby crawls toward her, and she picks him up.

“Tell me about productivity,” she asks the group in rapid, confident Urdu bouncing the baby on her knee. “How is your client base growing?”

Cacophony ensues, but Meyer engages each woman one by one and counsels them on the specific problems in their positions as sales agents working to expand markets for female entrepreneurs in cottage industries.

This particular program provides business development services to generate income for women. It is just one of 10 integrated programs Meyer manages for the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Economic Growth portfolio. Others focus on energy efficiency, job skills training, financial services, and food security.

Because of the success of these programs during the past three years, Joe Ryan, Meyer’s supervisor, nominated her for a Service to America medal from Partnership for Public Service, a nongovernmental organization. To Meyer’s surprise, she won. The National Security and International Affairs award recognizes a federal employee for a significant contribution to the nation.

“Amy is doing the best job of any officer I have worked with in my nearly 30 years with USAID. She sets an example for us all,” said Ryan, a USAID/Pakistan associate director. “She deserves the highest recognition.”

Ryan said Meyer’s success lies in a combination of her clear vision about where economic opportunity lies, and a round-the-clock dedication and a near-complete immersion in the Pakistani lifestyle.

Since her arrival in Islamabad in 2006, Meyer has overseen the budget in her program rise from $7 million to more than $200 million. Her challenge, then, has not been acquiring more resources to assist economic growth in Pakistan, but how to use them effectively and efficiently.

“What we have now is an integrated, interdependent program where all the players understand that their intervention has discreet responsibility with respect to the others,” Meyer said. “Workforce development creates job skills, business development improves production.”

To Meyer, the most important fact is that all the programs empower women. Previously, only about one in ten economic development dollars in Pakistan was previously available to women. According to the World Economic Forums Gender Parity Index, Pakistan ranks 127 out of 131 countries in the world.

Some parents and husbands do not want female entrepreneurship despite their need of additional income. Also, unmarried women and their families worry that forays into business, which can involve travel to make sales or working in a mostly male office, might affect their prospects for a husband.

When women overcome family and mobility constraints, however, the opportunities are there. Some couples operate the business jointly, and the husband provides the transportation services, which is successful.

“Some of the women go into business despite their husbands’ disapproval,” Meyer said. “They have expenses, like personal loans or dowries for their daughters, which won’t go away by doing nothing. These are tough women who make decisions for themselves despite the constraints of cultural tradition.” Despite the immense responsibility of managing multi-million dollar budgets, Meyer says she finds immense joy in the on-the-floor meetings and focus groups with beneficiaries she attends in the provinces or hosts at her home in Islamabad.

“No one can articulate needs better than women themselves,” she said. “I can make personal contact with women because I speak the language and I am a woman myself. They can tell me directly how, in partnership with their husbands or brothers, they can take their business opportunities much further.”

Maliha Hussein, a Pakistani economic consultant, said, “[I have] never met anyone at USAID with such clarity and sense of purpose.”

Ryan agrees. “As America’s commitment to the development of Pakistan grows, I hope we can engage more officers of Amy’s caliber and dedication,” he said. “Her unique approach is not easily imitated, but her results are surely enviable.”

Meyer keeps her focus and balances her life with daily yoga and mediation, and a social life with her Pakistani friends and colleagues outside the office environment.

However long she may stay, Meyer says she is grateful for the chance to work on behalf of the American people to assist Pakistan.

“USAID has provided me an opportunity to do things that I could never have attempted without it,” she said. “My service here has been a real labor of love.”

###End###

See USAID's official press release: http://www.usaid.gov/press/releases/2009/pr090924_1.html

See Washington Post coverage:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/21/AR2009092100617.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/23/AR2009092304643.html

Going Under

Each year I go on Home Leave. This is a perk Foreign Service Officers get for working overseas. It’s a one month holiday to the US, and it must be spent in the US. The point is: they don’t want us to forget who we are, where we are from, and what America stands for…it’s true, that’s why we get the Sabbatical.

So, every summer, my family meets at Neebish Island in the Upper Penninsula of Michigan to catch up, spend time with the nieces, and ask Amy the standard questions: “What exactly are you doing in Pakistan, and when are you coming home? Oh, and who are you dating?”

This past year, it wasn’t my mother or grandmother’s questions that surprised me, it was my brother’s.

We were doing a puzzle—I don’t think we had ever done a puzzle before—searching for the edges and the corners and Brent says,

“What’s it going to take for you to come home Aim?”

I kind of ignore the question and look for a blue edge.

My brother is a professional stuntman, actually a professional snowboarder, who does back flips off moving cars and snowboards in avalanche territory.

“Amy, I take risks for a living, I know what risk is, I calculate it every day, and I think you’re crazy.”

I was so surprised that this line of questioning was coming from Brent, rather than my mom or grandmother, I actually thought about the question. But, I couldn’t really imagine leaving…it’s not my style. I went to Bosnia for 7 months and stayed for almost 7 years. Since it was Brent, I thought hard about the question as he kept talking.

“It was crazy to go for a year, it’s crazier to stay for 4 years, every day you stay alive there it’s luck, pure luck.”

“Brent, forget about it, find the rest of the tree pieces.“ I said trying to change the subject. He wasn’t letting it go.

Finally I decide on my answer. “Ok: if someone I am close to gets killed or I lose a limb, I’ll come home.”

My brother then tells me he’s sending someone after my left pinky. “Watch out for a guy with a patch, Aim. I’m getting you home somehow.”

One of my friends here , Manesha, recently went to Peshawar to deliver a training course. She has been going to Peshawar for years, knows the city and people really well. When Manesha goes to Peshawar she stays at the 5-star Pearl Continental Hotel, like every other foreigner. In fact, last week it was full of UN staff working on the IDP crises coming out of Swat. The thing is, 5-star hotels in Pakistan are death traps. They are death traps in the same way that police stations are, or the mosques of moderate mullahs or Embassies. These places are targets. For instance, when the Islamabad Mariott was attacked last fall, it was somewhat shocking, but also expected.

The night before the blast, I asked Manesha if she would do Yoga in the morning on her balcony. She explained that her plan was to do the Ashtanga sequence in the gym the following day.

As I walked out the door the next morning, I glanced at the paper’s headline. The Pearl Continental Hotel in Peshawar bombed. The crazies had blown up the five star hotel; this was no surprise, and yet it stunned me. I knew Manesha was in her room the night before watching a movie with her colleagues. Now I had to call her to see if she was alive. I hate making this call. I hate making the call to tell people I’m still alive, and I hate making the call to people who I think might be dead. It rang and rang.

When Manesha checked into the PC earlier that week she made one decision that saved her life. After seeing the room the hotel assigned her, she walked back downstairs and said she wanted a different room. We are told in our endless, fairly effective, very informative security training that we should never sit near the windows in hotels or restaurants, and never take a room on the front side of a hotel. These are the places that get destroyed first. When she went to reception, she said she wanted a room on the back of the hotel, with a balcony, in case there was a bomb and she had to jump into the pool. The receptionist, who may be dead now, said, “We have excellent security, there is no chance of an explosion here.”

“Regaradless, I would like you to stay in a room facing the swimming pool.” Manesha insisted.

This is what saved her life. When the hotel was bombed that night, the front side of the hotel was decimated. But, Manesha ran out of the building, barefoot, glass in her hair, clinging her cell phone, alive.

Thankfully, Manesha answered the phone. I was in a state of shock the rest of the day. I kept crying and replaying the last 5 or 6 explosions that have really affected me. I spent the day talking with close friends here about the madness and the escalation of attacks targeted against police officers, moderate mullahs and foreigners. And I kept thinking about my brother. "What is it going to take Aim?"

Staying Afloat

I call my mom from a taxi racing towards the Thai Buddhist Monastery, “Mom, I’m not calling from Pakistan, I’m on vacation in Thailand.”
“Honey, that sounds nice. How long will you be there?”
“That’s why I'm calling. I am going to be completely unreachable for the next 11 days, no cell, no texts, no email. I am going on a silent retreat.”
“Amy, you, on a silent retreat, you have no chance.”
“Thanks mom,” I say, only mildly discouraged. (Turns out...she was right).

Few people believe that I am actually an introvert. I chatted with my mom for a few minutes about what she would do if Grandma died in the next 11 days, how she really didn’t understand why I choose to spend my vacations like this, and how she doubted silence would suit me.

I have been living in Islamabad, Pakistan for 30 months. If you count the year I spent preparing to come by completing a SAIS Masters Degree in South Asian studies, an intense Urdu language program, and a trip to Kashmir after the 2005 earthquake, it has been 3.5 years since I started bathing my consciousness and imagination in all things Pakistan.

Living in Pakistan is at times difficult, dangerous, and exhausting. At other times it is beautiful, intimate, healthy and inspiring. My ability to experience its lovely sides has to do with two lifelines: my contemplative practices and my yoga and meditation community. Inevitably, with the nature of life in Pakistan as an American diplomat, my energy resources run low. I retreat to Thailand for restoration.

My Thai escapes involve intense ashtanga yoga instruction, colonic hydrotherapy, and silent Buddhist meditation retreats. Thailand is the way I get recharged, spending time in silent meditation and in nature, regaining clear vision and soaking in energy. Thailand renews your cells, and your depth of concentration, and your imagination, and your digestion. This is how I keep my resilience buffers blown up, buoyant, spongey, bouncy, and able to take another shock. Thailand is where I go for the energy to live my life here.

So I came home last night, after three weeks in the Thai washing machine, I detoxed my colon, deepened my ashtanga practice to Cormasana, and enjoyed the bliss of 11 days of silence in my home away from homes. What changes will I bring into my life here with this increased spurt of energy? When is my next break? Are my emotional boundaries rock solid? Is my life here about more than work? Am I deeply, meaningfully, emotionally connected to kindred spirits? Even after three weeks in Thai retreat-ville, I have very minimal reserves: what will I give my energy too, what will I allow to deplete my resources, am I well in my own skin?

Last time I came back I started my dream of launching a yoga segment on a TV show in Pakistan. My second intention was to start a blog, and here it is. Mom, this is why I go on silent retreats. Pema Chodron, thank you for instruction on the middle way. And to my Pakistani yoga and meditation community, here we go, into deeper, more regular, sustained group practice. Built on common moral values and concentration, leading to insight.

Om, Om, Om….or, as I like to say in Pakistan: Alif, Laam, Meem.