He normally walks into the office each morning with a smile and a cherry “good morning”. Today his cherry countenance was momentarily clouded as he looked at the new addition to my office. Standing in a lonely corner was a clearly old, abused, dirty wooden desk. It didn’t take more than a moment for him to recover.

“Congratulations on the ugly, dirty desk,” he said, breaking into a wide smile and a half laugh.

“Thank you,” I said, amused. “It’s my new desk.”

He just shook his head and laughed. We proceeded to have a 10 minute conversation on the dire situation of the office – poor facilities, poorer equipment – laughing the whole way through. The funniest anectdote being an office he’d recently been moved into.

It was the dead of summer with daytime temperatures reaching well into the hundreds (F…40’s C). To add insult to injury, the office had an onsuite bathroom with nothing but a curtain to separate it! He shook his head and laughed. His conclusion? (My new motto for living in Afghanistan….)

“If you can’t change it….enjoy it!”

On Sunday we’ll be following the Afghan tradition of celebrating the acquisition of something new by bringing sweets into the office. To be clear, it is a farce, as the tradition is reserved for “new” things only, but we’ll certainly be “enjoying it!”