Press Review
Revue de Presse de L'Atmosphère
Press review about L'Atmo
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Press Pipel : une exception à Kaboul !
TIMES
15 octobre 2007
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By Heidi Kingstone. Sept 2007
A great deal of table-hopping goes on most days at L’Atmosphere,
the popular French restaurant on Forth Street in the ‘upmarket’ Kabul
neighbourhood of Qala-e-Fattulah. It’s one of those ex-pat places where
everyone knows everyone. In the summer its large green garden is heavy with the
scent of those famous Afghan roses that grow in great abundance. When the
weather turns warm the fearless swim in the cold aqua-coloured water of its
sub-Olympic size pool, or just hang around drinking wine and smoking, quite a
contrast to what goes on outside the heavily barricaded entrance that stops
Afghans from entering. Earlier in the year when five Talibs were released in
March in exchange for Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo, the
table-hopping accelerated. Usually/often populated by journalists hard at work
on their laptops or engaged in earnest conversation about Afghanistan, on this
night everyone agreed that as a result of the Italian government’s action the price
on journalists’ heads had just gone up. Perhaps it had. But as the story
unravelled it turned out that the highest price was paid by Afghan journalist
Ajmal Naqshbandi, who was later beheaded.
As a foreign correspondent Afghanistan is a gift of a place to
work. Stories seem to fall from sky and access to people is often much easier
than in countries where the hierarchy is established and entrenched and
movement far more restricted as in Iraq, for example. Afghans not only like to
have their pictures taken, which is both delightful and peculiar at the same
time, they also are generally happy to talk. Compared to Baghdad where I
reported from in 2003/4 there is an entirely different feel and accessibility.
Kabul is party city. You can head from one reception to another, from the bar
at La Cantina to Red, Hot, Sizzlin’ and can always rely on the UN or other
official organisations to host some nightly soiree, which makes networking fun
and easy. Depending on the kind of socialising you are looking for – whether
it’s with fellow journalists, the NGO crowd, the military, diplomats or
shooters – it’s all on hand.
In the four months that I was based in Kabul, with occasional
wonderings around the country including a few hours in Kandahar and trips to
Bamiyan and Dai Kundi, I never felt remotely in danger. Maybe I walked around
in a bubble-like existence because, after all, it is a war-zone. Infrequently I
would look over my shoulder, or ask a question about safety, but having largely
stayed away from the real conflict zones – Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzghan – I felt
protected.
Clearly, for Afghan journalists, unfortunately used to a climate of
violence, this is not the case. Just before I left in June, Shokiba Sanga Amaaj
from Shamshad TV was murdered in her house. Threats to journalists are sadly
common. When I went to visit Saad Mohseni, Afghanistan’s Rupert Murdoch, the
Afghan-born entrepreneur who had spent 20 years in Australia before founding
Tolo TV, he joked that the first thing you say to someone is, “I’m going to
kill you. We are a violent people.” He wasn’t kidding. After the murder of
Naqshbandi journalists in Kandahar, Helmand, Ghazni and Zabul, provinces,
received death threats from the Taliban.
What is not a joke is that lawlessness threatens every journalist’s
right to freedom of expression. That’s certainly the conclusion of Danish
Karokhel, the director of Pajhwok Afghan News, an independent news service. The
consequences of what we write in our free society are hardly dire and hardly
matters of life and death. IN Afghanistan to tell the truth journalists often
have to relocate for a period of time, or sometimes, they can never return to a
region if they have done a critical story. In 2006, three journalists were
killed and 50 incidents recorded involving beatings, arrests, threats.
Afghanistan remains a deeply conservative and ultra-traditional
culture, one that is unlikely to change in the near future. Women journalists
have been murdered and threatened. While they appear regularly on TV, which is
a positive trend, the country is so conservative that the fact that women
simply smile in sight of men causes complaints.
I am not sure that in all my travels around the world I have ever
come across anywhere quite so foreign as Afghanistan. Perhaps this is why it
has cast a spell over foreigners for so many centuries. Something about it
traps your soul, but it is equally difficult to explain why. Kabul is not only
desperately poor, but travelling to Afghanistan is like a trip back in time. I
arrived in February to a city covered in mud. It dripped from everything – from
the sky, from the leaves, it shot upwards from puddles.
When the weather changed the mud turned to dust, which went
everywhere, in your eyes, in your throat and to the darkest recess of your
cupboard. As everyone who has ever been will tell you, the percentage of faecal
matter in the air, due to open sewers and the geography of the capital, which
is 1800 metres
At the moment the media situation is mixed, a momentum has built up
that may be difficult to stop despite the threat from institutions or lack
thereof, official intimidation, pending legislation, insurgents, lack of
funding, past history and present culture. Just a few of the overwhelming problems
that face Afghanistan. After almost 30 years of conflict starting with the
Soviet invasion in 1979, the civil war fought by the Mujahdeen, and the rule of
the Taliban that ended in 2001, institutions, much like the country itself,
were left in ruins. The middle class had fled, universities closed. There was
no educational system and no capacity. This remains almost as big a problem
here as corruption, which isn’t to say there aren’t many talented and capable
Afghans, there are, but capacity remains an issue. There is also a hunger for
information. The first thing people buy is a $50.00 TV set and at $30.00
generator. TV ownership is running far ahead of electricity access bucking an
international trend.
Afghans have become great survivors, some say opportunists. There
is the famous story of a communist who within days had grown a beard and become
a mujahideen who within days grew a longer beard and become Taliban who within
hours shaved off his beard and was known as a technocrat. As a result people
need to understand what’s going on because it’s survival. [Based on surveys and
focus groups conducted by Tolo TV, which has 60 percent of the market share,
people can tell the difference between propaganda and news.]
On the one side there are weeklies, dailies, monthlies which are a
recent nationwide phenomenon, but a lot of times what you read in the papers is
defamatory, there are no facts, no balance, just insults. When I went up to
Bamiyan, the province in the north where the Taliban destroyed the ancient
Buddhas, I spoke to the governor, a feisty and impressive woman called Habiba
Sorabi. She was dressed conservatively, as women are, and she lamented the fact
that her opponents could just hurl insults at her through the media without any
restrictions or redress. There is also some simply dreadful journalism. Take
for example the story of a suspected suicide bomber: “He said police detained
the suspect after five-hour [sic]. He said: After searching the suspect, we
came to know that he was a retard.” Another story explained graphically that
"the whores were arrested from the restaurants where they were doing
prostitution and where wine was also sold. He would not say to which countries
the sluts belonged.”
Perhaps the government shouldn’t fear the media as much as it does.
It feels the need to limit what is put out as the country because it is in a
state of war. Neither the government nor the public understands what freedom of
the press means. Why should they understand the concept any more than they understand
or want ? democracy. It is the responsibility of the fledgling media to hold
the government accountable for its actions and also for the media to be held
accountable for what it writes. This is a new phenomenon. Afghan journalists
get intimidated and are vulnerable in ways that Western journalists can only
imagine, so the independence and freedom and diversity is extremely fragile,
and will likely remain so until, or if, the security situation is stabilised.
As government ranks are stuffed full of [former] warlords, drug
barons and many other unsavoury characters, it is hardly a leap to say that
when there are reports on corruption these people don’t react well. There is
still a feeling that the government can control information.
Until 2005-6 Afghanistan’s media was feeling somewhat positive. Law
reforms had come in 2004, guaranteeing freedom of expression, replacing the
existing Afghan press law of 1943. But in June the Wolesi Jirga, the lower
house of parliament or literally house of the people, passed a new media bill.
[, which goes to the upper house of parliament and subsequently for
presidential assent before it becomes law.]
The controversial bill has undergone many changes due to protests
from journalists, MPs and the media itself, which rebuffed the original
broad-ranging restrictions on media content. But licences will continue to be
issued by the Ministry of the Interior and Culture. The law also stipulates
that there needs to be a balance. It’s vague enough for people like Mohseni to
worry about possible prosecution.
For many, though, the flourishing of the media is one of the real
success stories of the last five or six years. That’s certainly Chris
Alexander’s take. He is one of UNAMA’s two Deputy Special Representatives and
at 37 already Canada’s former ambassador to Afghanistan. Sitting in the UNAMA’s
Compound B in Kabul he says that “when history is written the vibrancy of
independent media will be found to have played a pivotal role in the
parliamentary and presidential elections.” He points to the 250 media outlets
in this country, some tiny, some microscopic, not always economically
sustainable but compared with 10 or 15 under the Taliban, extremely lively.
Statistics about media in Afghanistan are notoriously hard to come
by and media outlets, often operated by one man or woman, open and close
regularly. When I was there some long-term Afghan watchers suggested that
failed-states-on-the-rebound need first to concentrate on political stability
and physical security, otherwise, like Afghanistan, they won’t rebound for
long. Some ask which is more important, the survival of an Afghan free media or
survival of the Afghan nation-state. Perhaps the framework of ‘reconstruction’
as established at Bonn and upheld, ever since, needs a government that is
perhaps liked, hopefully respected but ultimately feared.
As it is the international community has poured huge resources into
training journalists, producers, photographers, editors, Tolo takes people when
they are young at 20 or 21, some even at 17, and they get on-the-job training.
That is how they attempt to break the mould of Soviet-style parrot-like
reporting. People from the BBC have also worked with Tolo, and ‘intellectuals
and academics’ review everything. “We try to employ people who are brave and
intelligent, who are eloquent and have common sense,” says Mohseni. “Everything
else then falls in to place.” But many international agencies, once gung-ho
about training and funding, have lost interest after realizing the media outlets
they had started were a long way off becoming sustainable. There is still no
overall structure in place for the development of the media, and without
international funding many papers and radio stations ?? could collapse.
Journalists are still threatened by powerful people and bribed to take a
certain line.
We take for granted the ability to call things as they are. When I
was talking to Mohseni in his Kabul office, with the requisite number of
multiple TV stations on in the background, the Blackberry beeping and telephone
ringing, he made an interesting comment. “It’s a must now for people to be
telling the truth. Our credibility is one of the reasons why we are successful.
Bad things happen in our society, and we force the government to face up to the
challenges. We can’t lie to our people even if it goes against Afghan culture,
which is not very abrupt.” Honour, politeness and diplomacy are fundamental
social skills in this rigid society. Just look at Pashtunwali – the Pashtun
tradition of hospitality. Perhaps as a nation it is time for Afghanistan to
change. If the media can impact how Afghans express themselves, more honestly,
it’s a good thing.
For Afghanistan's journalism to flourish, and it is a big if, some
of the issues it has to look at are teaching the police and other law
enforcement bodies that the media is something to be protected, not muzzled or
manipulated. Chris Alexander believes the government has to improve its
strategic communications, and resist the temptation to blame the messenger; a
credible public broadcaster needs to emerges; funding and manipulation of media
from abroad needs to decrease; and a solid advertising market needs to emerge
on the back of a flourishing private sector. All this is still very much a work
in progress. In this insecure situation, the media has a similar challenge to
almost anyone and anything else in this country - and that is to survive.
Heidi Kingstone is international correspondent for The Saturday
Star in Johannesburg and writes regularly for a number of British and foreign
publications. She has recently returned from four months in Afghanistan
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Joëlle Roumat a apporté le soleil et l'accent du Sud-Ouest dans son
restaurant afghan
Constance de Bonnaventure
Septembre 2007
Le confit de Kaboul
Cela va faire un an que Joëlle Roumat a
fait ses valises pour venir s'installer à Kaboul, en Afghanistan. Restauratrice
pendant plus de vingt ans, elle a décidé, du jour au lendemain, de retrouver sa
fille en poste dans la capitale afghane. Aujourd'hui, elle navigue entre Kaboul
et Islamabad, deux villes agitées et sous les feux de l'actualité.
Qui eut cru que l'on pouvait déguster de
bons plats du Sud-Ouest à Kaboul ? Lorsque l'on passe la porte de L'Atmosphère,
le restaurant français, le léger accent du Sud-Ouest de Joëlle nous transporte
immédiatement ailleurs. Nous sommes bien loin des rues poussiéreuses et de la
tension qui règne dans la capitale. Pour les expatriés, Joëlle est un cadeau du
ciel. En plus de ses recettes magiques, elle a apporté ici l'accueil chaleureux
dont tout le monde a besoin.
Pouillon et le Maroc. Voilà près de un an que Joëlle, à peine effleurée
par la cinquantaine, s'est installée dans la région. Landaise, née à Pouillon,
près de Dax, elle étudie à Bayonne puis à Pau. Les rencontres et ses choix de
vie l'ont ensuite amenée à passer près de vingt ans au Maroc, pour revenir en
1997 à Pau, où elle ouvre une brasserie, Le Carnot.
C'est presque à contrecoeur que notre
Landaise se retrouve en Afghanistan. Objectif : rendre visite à sa fille
Jessica, humanitaire à Kaboul. « Je ne pensais jamais rester. C'était juste
pour faire plaisir à ma fille. » Jessica prévient sa mère que le restaurant
français recherche quelqu'un pour superviser la cuisine, refaire la carte et
former des Afghans. Joëlle hésite, dit oui, puis non. Et, finalement, en
septembre 2006, elle atterrit à Kaboul et découvre alors cette ville crasseuse
où la pauvreté est omniprésente. Mais quel n'est pas son étonnement quand elle
débarque ensuite à L'Atmosphère ! « Là,
j'ai eu un choc. Je ne m'attendais pas à trouver ça après avoir traversé cette
ville aux rues si sales. » Dans un jardin fleuri, autour de la piscine, il
y a plein de jeunes, de toutes nationalités. « C'est un autre monde », glisse
Joëlle.
Très vite, elle prend ses marques. La cuisine, française, est influencée par le
Sud-Ouest : foie gras, confit de canard, salade de gésiers ou encore jambon de
Bayonne de quoi ravir les expatriés en manque de nourriture occidentale ! Le
soir, elle fait le tour des tables. Elle explique et fait partager sa passion.
« Ici, je suis un peu la maman de tout le
monde », raconte-t-elle avec un grand sourire.
Sa popularité. Le pari n'était pas gagné pour cette femme coquette et
indépendante. Elle a dû s'adapter très vite aux conditions du pays, où les
attentats rythment les jours. Porter le voile, ne jamais sortir seule, être
sans cesse vigilante. Mais professionnellement aussi, car Joëlle doit gérer une
équipe entièrement masculine : sept hommes en cuisine et six serveurs. Malgré
la barrière de la langue, la complicité s'est très vite installée. « Joëlle a apporté un réel rayonnement humain
qui a fait beaucoup pour attirer les clients. Elle a su s'adapter très vite
», explique Marc Victor, patron de ce restaurant. C'est vrai que sa popularité
est notoire à Kaboul.
Aujourd'hui, Joëlle, Marc Victor et leurs associés ont ouvert le même restaurant
à Islamabad, au Pakistan, que Joëlle va gérer, ainsi qu'un autre au sein de la
base militaire française de Kaboul. Leurs projets ne s'arrêtent pas là. Reste à
savoir quelle sera la prochaine destination.
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Le « Tour de France » vu de Kaboul
Constance de Bonnaventure
Juillet 2007
Un verre à la main, les
yeux rivés sur l’écran, ils sont Français, Anglais, Américains ou encore Afghans.
Tous se sont donné rendez-vous dans le restaurant français de Kaboul,
L’Atmosphère, pour regarder une étape de haute montagne du Tour de France. Il
est 2 heures et demi de plus qu’en France. Le lieu contraste avec les rues poussiéreuses et sales de la ville. Beaucoup
d’expatriés de Kaboul aiment se retrouver ici, qu’ils soient humanitaires,
entrepreneurs ou encore journalistes. « C’est un petit coin de France que l’on vient chercher »
entend-on souvent.
Pour Marc Victor, patron
de l’Atmosphère, c’est devenu une habitude de retransmettre les événements
sportifs français. « Ma mission dans
ce pays est aussi de faire découvrir la culture française et le Tour de France
en fait évidemment partie ».
La télévision est
branchée sur une chaîne Sud-Africaine. « Ce
qui me manque, ce sont les commentaires en français » déplore Jérôme
Mathieu, responsable du développement dans une ONG média. Les serveurs de ce
bar-restaurant sont afghans. Ils passent régulièrement devant l’écran : « c’est Paris ? », « les
routes sont belles et tout est vert » s’étonnent-ils. Jérôme apprécie
le côté international de cet événement, le fait de se retrouver avec d’autres
nations. « On se rend compte de
l’ampleur du phénomène au niveau mondial » souligne Sébastien Turbot,
entrepreneur en Afghanistan depuis 5 ans. « Pour
nous qui sommes très loin de chez nous et dans un environnement si différent,
regarder le Tour de France nous donne un goût de notre pays » ajoute-t-il. Un brin nostalgique, les Français
de Kaboul admirent les paysages montagnards et la verdure de la France… Alors
qu’en Afghanistan on commence à voir sur les routes des cyclistes aux tenues
bariolées…
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Jasmin Afghanistan mars 2007
AK-47
appetizers for main-course security
KABUL - December 10, 2007 - Guests at L'Atmosphere restaurant in the afghan capital are srutinized by the meanest bouncers on the planet.
You
You push through a woolen flap, through a courtyard lit by kerosene
lamps - and straight into the hoppingest war-zone nightclub since Rick's joint
in Casablanca.
The lounge is usually jammed wall-to-wall with diplomats, civil servants and
aid-group employees from 100 nations.
There's a decent house red wine, cold beer, a full menu, a killer sound
system and a roaring log fire - wood being the only reliable source of heat in Kabul since the city lost
hydro when the river dried up six years ago.
Owner Marc Victor, a former French radio journalist, opened the
restaurant two and a half years ago. But the muscle has been in place for only
about six weeks.
"We were told by the British Embassy that our security wasn't good
enough, that their people could not come here," he said. "So, we made
some changes."
Newcomers to Kabul are always being told the city is safe, but it's a funny kind of safety. Westerners do not venture onto the streets unaccompanied by night, and never without a car. It's not even considered a wise practice in daylight.
Every residence for westerners, from the posh Serena Hotel
to the humble guest houses, is a walled compound with armed guards.
"We don't really get to see much of the city," said one
foreign aid worker. "All day long, you pretty much stay indoors."
Actually, it's been pretty tranquil in Kabul
for the past month and a half - by Kabul
standards, at any rate.
That's how long it's been since a suicide bomber blew himself and 10
Afghans to atoms outside the Ministry of the Interior office in the city
centre. There's another French restaurant on the same block.
That road is still blocked by massive concrete barriers, which appear
from time to time on Kabul
streets with no explanation. No wonder the city has traffic jams.
"We get phone calls from the Ministry once a week," says Aziz,
our Afghan "fixer" - kind of a combination driver, guard and tour
guide. "They tell us what the security situation is, and what we should
tell our guests to do.
"Basically, you don't go outside after 11 p.m., not without a driver. I don't go out after 11 p.m. But things are very calm and safe now.
"I would say your chances of being kidnapped or killed by a bomber are maybe one in ten."
Top Kabul restaurant takes Afghan youngsters off the streets
by Christophe
Vogt 
The man might be struggling a bit now but he is on the road to a good career that is a far cry from the petty low-income jobs on the streets of the Afghan capital that he once depended on.
The youngster is among 15 Afghan men aged between 15 and 18 who are mastering the restaurant trade in a unique training programme at one of the busiest establishments in the city -- L'Atmosphere.
Marc Victor, one of the owners of the restaurant, initiated the project after he had trouble finding staff even though about a third of the people in the city are unemployed.
"It annoyed me a little that I could not find trained people and so I thought there was room to teach people this trade, a job which is very practical," said the journalist and writer who has now also become a restaurateur.
"It is a modest project, we are not going to put thousands of people in the job market, but it's simple and it is solid," he said.
The training programme offers something new that can take advantage of the booming restaurant trade in a city filled with expatriates who have few other options for entertainment, little time to cook and cash to spare.
"It is something completely different and which no one else is doing," said Alexia Van der Gracht from the NGO Afghanistan Demain, the main partner in the project.
"There are quite a few NGOs that do job training but it is always the same thing," she said. "For girls it is sewing or being a beautician and for boys it is mechanics, carpentry or shopkeeping."
There is a cultural gap to bridge with French dining customs worlds away from those in Afghanistan , where people traditionally eat with their hands.
The gap is even wider for those who come from the poorer classes, as do Victor's trainees.
The nine-month training course is practical: at L'Atmosphere it covers the basics of the hotel and restaurant business -- including how to lay a table, a bit of history about the hospitality trade and hygiene.
Afghanistan Demain teaches the men to read, write and use a computer, or brushes up these skills.
There is a strong focus on English, which is indispensable for working with foreigners. The language is studied for 10 hours a week with vocabulary angled towards their future jobs.
And this is a job of the future, said Victor.
"I don't say that it is a country which is going to become very touristy in the next two years but in the longer term that will be the case," he said.
The job is demanding but it pays well. A L'Atmosphere waiter is paid 150 dollars, but he can triple this wage with tips, Victor said. This compares to a policeman's 70 dollars a month and a teacher's 50.
The French embassy also believes in the project: it has contributed 40,000 euros (50,600 dollars) to train around 30 trainees in the next 18 months.
The trainees -- who were selected by social workers who trawled the streets for suitable candidates -- are paid 30 euros a month, more or less what they might have earned doing odd jobs.
The sum goes some way to persuade families in this conservative Islamic society to let their sons work in a place where alcohol is served and where they have a lot of contact with foreign women.
But L'Atmosphere will not be seeing waitresses any time soon.
"We asked the social workers and they said, 'No, never!'" said van der Gracht.
"There may be some in the restaurant business one day but they would have to from a much higher and open social class," she said.
Cherchez le garçon...un restau français de Kaboul sort les enfants de la rue
Par Christophe
VOGT
Ils sont une quinzaine de jeunes garçons afghans dans les jardins et les dépendances de l'Atmosphère à apprendre les arcanes des métiers de la restauration.
Marc Victor, l'un des propriétaires du restaurant, avait du mal à trouver du personnel, dans une ville où le chômage touche pourtant bien plus du tiers de la population.
"Cela m'a un peu agacé de ne pas trouver des gens formés et je me suis dit qu'il y a quand même un espace pour former des gens à ce métier, un métier qui est très pratique", explique le journaliste-écrivain devenu en plus restaurateur.
"C'est un projet modeste, on ne va pas mettre des milliers de gens sur le marché de l'emploi, mais c'est simple, c'est concret", souligne Marc.
Selon l'UNICEF, il y a 40.000 enfants travailleurs à Kaboul, qui font très souvent de petits boulots mal rémunérés.
"Il y a pas mal d'ONG ici qui font de la formation professionelle et c'est toujours la même chose", se désole t-elle, "pour les filles c'est de la couture, ou esthéticienne et pour les garçons c'est toujours mécanique, menuiserie ou les métiers du bazar", renchéri Alexia Van der Gracht, dont l'ONG Afghanistan Demain est partie prenante dans le projet.
A l'Atmosphère, "c'est des cours d'hôtellerie, de restauration, d'hygiène, un peu d'historique de l'hôtellerie, qu'est ce que c'est qu'un restaurant français, comment on met une table", raconte Marc Victor.
Afghanistan Demain prend en charge le reste, lire, écrire, compter, ou rafraîchir des connaissances émoussées par des années loin des bancs de l'école. L'anglais, indispensable pour travailler avec des étrangers, est appris de manière intensive (10 heures par semaines) et avec un vocabulaire axé sur leur futur emploi.
La restauration est un secteur d'avenir en Afghanistan. "Je ne dis pas que c'est un pays qui va être extrêmement touristique d'ici deux ans, mais sur le plus long terme ce sera le cas", affirme le patron de l'Atmosphère, où la clientèle d'expatriés se presse.
Dans la capitale, les restaurants fleurissent, et les étrangers qui y travaillent ont de l'argent, peu de temps pour faire la cuisine, et surtout le besoin de se distraire du quotidien.
Le métier est exigeant mais il paye bien. A l'Atmosphère, un serveur est payé 150 dollars, mais il triple son salaire grâce aux pourboires, selon Marc Victor. Un policier ne gagne que 70 USD par mois, un instituteur 50 USD.
Pour Gullam Mubin, 18 ans, l'argent est important. "En tant que serveur je peux gagner de l'argent. On a beaucoup de soucis à la maison parce que mon père est instituteur" et que son salaire ne suffit pas, explique-t-il.
L'ambassade de France croit au projet. Elle le finance à hauteur de 40.000 euros pour une trentaine de stagiaires formés sur 18 mois.
Pour convaincre les jeunes, et leur famille, ils sont payés 30 euros par mois peu ou prou l'équivalent de ce qu'ils gagnaient dans leur petit boulot. Il a aussi fallu que les assistantes sociales de l'ONG, en appellent à leurs pouvoirs de persuasion pour laisser le fils travailler dans un restaurant, où un bon nombre de clients sont des clientes et où se vend de l'alcool.
Un signe encourageant: tous les stagiaires sont restés après les manifestations qui ont endeuillé Kaboul le 29 mai et qui avaient une forte connotation xénophobe.
En revanche, les serveuses ce n'est pas pour demain. "On a demandé aux assistantes sociales et elles ont dit: non jamais!", se souvient Alexia van der Gracht.
"En fait je crois qu'il pourrait y avoir des femmes dans la restauration mais il faudrait qu'elles viennent d'un milieu social beaucoup plus élevé et beaucoup plus ouvert", souligne t-elle.
At L'Atmosphere
Ann Marlowe in Afghanistan
Kabul - Friday,
October 7, 2005
L’Atmosphere is
something of a scene, a large restaurant with a bar and many tables set in a
huge garden with a swimming pool. Sean is in the middle of a group of
expats -- no Afghans go to places like L’Atmosphere, with the exception of
young overseas Afghans -- and it seems we’re all waiting for our ride to the
party. Everyone is some sort of journalist. I’m surprised that the sex
ratio seems even, but I guess the mercenaries and security types are a cadre
unto themselves. You can usually spot them right off -- bigger, burlier,
and walking with a lumbering gait never seen in the journalistic world.
It occurs to me
as I observe the body language of the group drinking in the garden that expat
society in Kabul is split in two classwise: the press corps and NGO
administrators who are middle to upper class, and the security people who are
from the same strata as the armed forces most of them were trained in. My
impression is that the Americans and Brits here are skewed to the upper class:
two of the Americans I know here graduated from Harvard, and Sean went to Eton.
Like their kindred spirits from England who went out to India and the farflung
bastions of empire a hundred years ago, these young Ivy graduates have gone to
work in a country where they can have more responsibility- and power- than as
investment banking grunts back home.
The party is a
big one -- maybe 100 people. Sean and his friends drift off into more or less
urgent flirtations, and I don‚t want to get in their way. It‚s so crowded that
it‚s easy to meet people anyway. I talk with a Spanish NGO worker, an
Australian who seems to have been drifting around the country for nearly a year
without any particular mission, and then, just as I‚m casting about to see
where the handsome men are, someone calls my name. Sven is towering over me. I
met him and his brother Eliot and his sister in my friend John’s Bowery loft
eight months ago, when Eliot was between jobs in Afghanistan. They’re a
strapping, attractive, quintessentially American upper class set of siblings.
Sven and I quickly make plans to play golf tomorrow, his last full day in
Afghanistan.
I went to the
bathroom and took a walk around the party. Any handsome men? There were a few,
but they had that odd hostility that I’d noticed on other trips here, a
defensiveness that wasn’t going to help them move the gender ratio in their
favor, or they were wimpy Euros…
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