Khoob nay

The Dari expression for "No Good" is Khoob Nay, khoob meaning good, nay meaning no. The kh sound is pronounced like you're hacking something up, rather than with a hard k. Khoob nay has taken on kind of a profound meaning around my office, since most of us know little more Dari than those two words, and since we seem to invoke them so often. The reason I mention this is because of the picture, which, if you couldn't tell, is a recently poured concrete column on one of our projects. This column embodies the most profound meaning of khoob nay.



I'm sure everyone has something they can think of at work that gives them a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of their stomach. As an engineer (a stretch, I'll admit, but my job title says civil engineer, so I'm a civil engineer, Dammit!), this column is one of those things. If it was just one column, it wouldn't be so bad. Unfortunately, there are about twelve more columns on this site, and the combined effect is something like a funhouse. Nothing is straight. Brick walls veer to the outside, columns tilt left and right, and nothing except the floor is truly horizontal or vertical. And let's not even get into the materials and techniques they used to construct these drunken columns, since basically everything they did was in violation of the contract specifications.

If you're curious, the building is eventually going to be a big hangar to house and maintain the equipment owned by the Department of Public Works. If you remember from a previous e-mail, this equipment may or may not actually exist, since it was charitably given away to one of the governor's buddies. As a result, this project may or may not actually serve a purpose.

Okay, that's me being cynical. It is a legitimate project, even if the Department of Public Works is lacking both leadership and equipment. It builds capacity, it gives them a place to store and maintain what little equipment they do have, and it should help to grow as a developing organization.

This type of thing is what makes the work around here challenging, because all this happened within the past week. I'm extremely fortunate to be on a team located in a place free enough to travel around and visit all these projects and catch these problems early. Other PRTs have to organize convoys and travel through IED-infested roads just to see project sites once a month, and I can't imagine how they are able to produce lasting projects. This building is actually a sort of success story, since if Panjshir wasn't so safe and the government so capable (if still somewhat mafia-esque), the columns would probably have gotten plastered over, nobody would have known the difference, and the lifespan of the building would probably be shortened to some degree.

For those of you wondering, the solution is to tear down and rebuild the columns, which is unfortunate, but better discovered and fixed now.