The Dari word we advisers/mentors/trainers/LNOs hate to hear, the word we wince at, the one word we love to hate, is “Mushkil.”
“Problem.”
Mushkil rarely is the opening gambit. Mushkil creeps up on you. Mushkil is a sucker punch.
It goes like this… “Khoob!” (“Well!” or “OK!” as if to signal the end of an otherwise successful and pleasant meeting.) And then you hear what amounts to, “Dari dari dari dari dari dari. Dari dari. Dari dari dari,dari! Dari. Dari, dari, dari, dari, dari… Mushkil.”
Fuck.
You shoot a glance at the interpreter, who knows very well that you know what word is floating in the air. Before you even speak, he’s asking back, in effect, “What, pray tell, is the problem?”
It’s usually something significant, on the verge of urgent. Like this example, from my meeting just this morning: “Vehicles [that is, up-armored SUVs] were given out two days ago by the Americans. I did not receive mine, but General ______ got four and he only deserves two. Colonel ______ gave them to him!” You can almost hear the “thwock!” of the ball being swatted into our court. A pregnant pause ensues.
“That is disgraceful, General,” we reply, “and it is a gross affront to you.” (All of which is true.) “Colonel ______ is in league with the devil, and General ______ is a dishonorable thief. You sir, however, are an honest man and unfortunately you are suffering the consequences of being an honest man.” All of this too, is true. Knowing some of the background we continue: “We cannot produce a vehicle for you, much less two or three or four. However, we can assist your aide in filing the right request, so that at the next MoD conference we can produce the documents which have had no action taken, and confront General _____ and his lapdog Colonel ______, and uncover their fiendish plot.”
There’s more to it than squabbling; buried in there are strands of face, influence, prestige, authority and power. This is very important, and while it seems trivial and tiresome, it’s worth paying very close attention to. Besides, possession of an armored SUV can mean the difference between life and death here, especially for the senior officers. But we have to walk a fine line between getting them something ourselves and gently chiding them into making their own system work.
Mushkil– it’s all in a day’s work.
