John McNamara of the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team and Toby Bonthrone, Spirit of America Field Representative, in the newly refurbished Jahani Room

Late last year, the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) asked whether we could assist with refurbishing their meeting room, named after the Afghan poet Jahani.

The PRT's base had lacked a good meeting room ever since the PRT had switched from Canadian to American staff. The PRT used to have a good place to meet with Afghans, but its furniture had disappeared during the transition to the Americans. Since the transition, visits by Afghans to the base had dropped off precipitously, as there was no place to make them feel comfortable. The only rooms available were sterile and intimidating to anyone not used to military mores.

The Kandahar PRT found a room with good access and christened it the Jahani Room with the poet in attendance, but found that it was impossible to obtain funding to make it functional. Some of you may find this surprising, considering the stories of billions of dollars used, abused and wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan in the earlier years of both conflicts.

But precisely the previous lack of accountability led to extremely tight controls on funding in the past few years. Where previously commanders could allocate a pot of funds according to their self-designed priorities, these days funding has to be either come from a specific fund designated for a narrow purpose, or an exception has to be made at a very high level. With the drawdown and budget crunch, the latter is now usually out of the question, except in situations like humanitarian emergencies. As for the former, no fund existed for refurbishing meeting rooms (definitions are indeed that narrow).

Since the lack of a proper meeting space left a void of missed opportunities for Coalition Forces to engage with local Afghans, Spirit of America was more than happy to provide several thousand dollars to fully furnish the Jahani Room.

The room was not much to look at when we first got involved. In its state, it was neither culturally appropriate, and its dilapidated state would have been disrespectful to visitors. With all that divides Americans and Afghans, the former need to work hard to make the latter as comfortable as possible during interactions in order to build relationships, establish mutual understanding, and get things done.

The Jahani Room now

With our help, the Kandahar PRT was able to procure items such as rugs, cushions, tea sets and decorations to make the Jahani Room a welcoming meeting place. It is already in high demand, as it can be used by any constituents at the base, both military and civilian, to meet with Afghans.

In the not-too-distant future, I should be able to provide you with some examples of the kind of interactions that the Jahani Room has enabled.

Toby Bonthrone
Afghanistan Field Rep