Geneva Gibber

It’s Monday morning and I’m back at work, which isn’t quite as good as sleeping, but far more pleasant than being stuck at school. For the first time in my life I don’t spend Sunday night dreading having to start a new workweek. It’s pretty great.

The following is the world’s longest blog entry – you may want to read it in shifts:

Back to my Bern story (5/19/2006). I met the Afghan group and my boss Oscar at the train station at 6:45 AM to leave for Bern, which is as many of you know is not my best time of day. However, I was determined to make a good impression, and I was pretty excited about going to Bern, so I was uncharacteristically chipper. I went out of my way to strike up conversations with some of the men, as I had been instructed to do by the director of our office. When I first started working, she informed me that one of my most important duties during the Afghan visit was to interact with the men, helping them to become more accustomed to interacting with women on a professional basis. By the time we arrived in Bern most the men seemed very comfortable around me, and some of them began asking me if I would be in a picture with them. I didn’t think much of the request, as I had seen them take pictures with the other staff. So I was in ten or eleven pictures when we first arrived in Bern (including one in which the man told me he wanted a picture with me while my hair was blowing in the wind - a little strange).

We spent the morning listening to members of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation discuss the Swiss relationship to Afghanistan. Then after lunch, my boss went back to Geneva and left me to escort the 23 men on a guided tour of Bern. At our first stop on the trip, one of the men asked to take a picture with me, and then another, and another, and so on, and I felt a little ridiculous, but I didn’t protest knowing that being an American made me a bit of novelty. Then as the trip progressed, at every site on the tour, a line of men would form to take a picture with me. It became more and more clear that my status as a CASIN employee or as an American was definitely not the reason why they wanted my picture. The number of pictures I was in became absurd – I would guess somewhere between 75 to 100. My face actually hurt from smiling so much. At first, the ordeal was flattering (as I am certainly not held in such high esteem by men in the US), but eventually it just got to be down right creepy. Don’t get me wrong, the men were never anything but gentlemen, and I never felt in any way harassed, but I did start to feel like there were always eyes trained on me, which I didn’t enjoy. Apparently, I would be terrible celebrity.

Once back in Geneva, my inability to be rude, left me agreeing to have tea with one of the men, Fardeen (he’s 26, so not a creepy old man situation). The tea was to take place in his hotel room, which seemed a little bit suspect, but his roommate would be there, and I didn’t think it would be a terribly big deal. After having some tea and chatting for a while I said that I needed to go home, but he said it would “please me very much if you would stay and have dinner with me.” At this point it was 9:00 at night, and I was pretty hungry, so not being one to pass up free food I agreed to stay. I quickly learned that one should make an exception to the free food rule, when the man offering to “cook” has had his mother and sisters cook every meal he has ever eaten at home. About ten minutes after getting up to prepare dinner, Fardeen returned with a plate of cookies and a bowl of cream, and set them before me. (I have no idea, why it took him ten minutes to “prepare” this meal.) I didn’t know what I was supposed to do with the cream, but my best guess was that I was supposed to dip the cookies into it. After I ate my first cookie, Fardeen apologized because he hadn’t been able to find a spoon for eating the cream. Thank god he couldn’t find a spoon – imagine if out of politeness I actually had to eat straight cream with a spoon. The thought of it still makes me a little nauseous.

So after my delicious dinner of a couple of cookies, I announced that it really was time for me to go home. Fardeen was visibly disappointed, but asked if he could escort me home. It was after ten at this point, so it seemed like a gentlemanly thing for him to offer. Once arriving at my apartment, he asked if he could see my room. Now I am not an idiot, and understood that all of the stall tactics at his room, and his desire to come upstairs meant that he wanted to do a little more than talk, but he hadn’t made any kind of move all night. My biggest concern at that point was that he would try and kiss me, which under other circumstances wouldn’t have been entirely tragic, but his being a trainee at my work made the situation impossible, not to mention my concern that if the other Afghan men found out, they would completely lose any hint of professional respect they may have for me. The last thing I wanted was to live up to the whorish western women stereotype I was sure most of them believed was true. If I had been a sensible person I would have told Fardeen I was tired and that he couldn’t come up to my apartment, but my inability to say no unless I’m refusing something blatantly unreasonable meant that I let him see the apartment. (For those of you who might be concerned for my safety, I have a male roommate, and I know the guys who live next door, plus Fardeen, although persistent was quite harmless). After I showed him my room, I told him that I was tired and that it was time to go. The following was our ending conversation:

Beth: Thanks for the tea and dinner.
Fardeen: I don’t want to leave; we should talk more.
Beth: But I’m really very tired, and we’ve talked for a very long time.
Fardeen: But it’s so nice to talk, we should keep talking.
Beth (turning on her blunt side): I really don’t think that talking is what you are hoping to do.
Fardeen (picture 26 year old guy who has never dated and knows almost nothing about girls, looking very disappointed and rather confused): Well, I thought that I would stay the night.
Beth: (picture 26 year old girl, suddenly realizing that 26 year old guy trying to kiss her should not have been her big concern, and it is time to make the relationship very clear): I’m sorry if you had the wrong impression when I accepted tea. I know what you must think of Americans, but I would never sleep with someone I just met. Also, you are training at my office, and sleeping with you could get me in a lot of trouble.
Fardeen: (Continue picturing utterly confused and disappointed man): Oh, ok. (long pause) But I thought, well, I thought I would stay the night.
Beth: (Repeats above explanation about why he can’t stay.)
Fardeen: (despondent): Ok, But may I see you again. Maybe we could take a walk.
Beth (still completely unable to turn down offers that are not explicitly unreasonable): Yes that would be fine.
Fardeen: Tomorrow? At six?
Beth: Ok, come meet me outside of my apartment.

Fardeen sulks away. Beth clothes her door. Lights fade. End scene.

Now for those of you who consider me pathetically naïve to think that Fardeen wouldn’t try and sleep with me, let me note a key point. The whole night, the closest he came to me was to sit on the very end of a couch while I sat on the other side – most of the night he sat across the room from me. He never once touched me, not my hand, not my arm, nothing. There wasn’t the slightest suggestion of physical interaction until he announced that he thought he would stay the night. As a female who has spent a substantial amount of time in bars, I am well rehearsed in male suggestions of sex, and Fardeen was displaying none of them. He was more like a super nervous guy on a first date who was wondering if he might get a kiss goodnight. Hence, my confusion - a mistake I won’t make again.

Sorry for the obscenely long post. If it was too long for you to remember everything here are the key take away points:

Afghan men like to take pictures with Beth.
Tea means sex to an Afghan man.
Cookies and cream are not a good dinner.

As I am sure I have bored you all to death, I will stop my story for now. More tomorrow though, as I tell you about admirer number two.