Remembering Rosemary Stasek, who passed away suddenly in Kabul on September 24, 2009 of complications from multiple sclerosis.  She was 46 years old, a friend of mine and a friend of Rubia.  We mourn our loss along with her husband, Morne, her parents, family and many friends.

Rosemary Stasek, in grey and blue silk Afghan designer clothing, stood before the Dartmouth students and began – kabuli astam – ‘I am a Kabuli’.  As she proceeded to reel the students into her world of Afghanistan –  war lords, peace lords, convoluted loyalties, security ‘situations’ and the workings of a one-woman NGO called ‘A Little Help’- Rosemary painted an insightful and appreciative picture of her new home.  After all, she too had been hooked by Afghanistan, a place as desolate as it is addictive, insinuating itself like fine desert dust into one’s skin, under the nails.

‘A Little Help’ kept Rosemary bopping around Afghanistan on military flights, arranging tent shelters for one school in the north, a library for another, assisting a maternity hospital in the inhospitable interior province of Ghor, training police in emergency obstetrics,  and mentoring her student assistants.  Calling her mobile you might find her in Faizabad or on the way to Chagcharan.

Rosemary’s talents and experience defined her personal work style.  She was a great list keeper and would take out her little notebook and start writing solutions while she was taking in the problem.  She introduced me to the staff, teachers and students of the Kabul School for the Blind where she troubleshot computer software, Braille equipment, transportation issues and medical treatment for the students, as well as a supply a knitting program for the girls. Her many supporters in the US sent boxes of yarns and needles; Rubia supporters did the same.  Knitting was an area where I could lend my expertise and so the knitting program at the Kabul School for the Blind was a project we worked on together.
 
Her sharp and frank language spoke to her candor and confidence. Rosie’s restaurant guide in Kabul Scene magazine and on her website left little doubt as to where to eat, and more importantly, where not to. Restaurants can be hard to identify in Kabul and more than once she talked me and a driver through finding an unmarked but remarkable eatery. Late one night I had a hankering for pizza and Rosie guided me through getting take out delivery, in Kabul!!

Rosemary was outspoken, and ambitious, not shy.  She announced at lunch once that she had two goals, to win a MacArthur ‘genius’ award, and to be interviewed on NPR by Terry Gross.  We joked that since Terry Gross interviewed so few women her chances were better for a MacArthur.  Rosemary was an adventurer. When riots broke out and her Qala Fatullah neighborhood was burning she did not get out until a security detail broke through and rescued her and her dog Tequila crouching together on the floor of the humvee.

Driving with Rosemary in Kabul added nerve wracking to an otherwise normally scary experience.  For me it was the only time I sat in a front seat.  Rosemary did not wear a head scarf. Driving, in a city where women mostly did not, attracted attention, but she did not feel threatened.  She felt that she, unfettered and uncovered, was an inspiration to the school girls and women of Kabul. She believed that women covered in burqas and draped clothing had to have a poor self image and self esteem.  I know she was an inspiration to her assistants, the Kabul University students whom she mentored and pressed to strive, helping them get to the US for advanced education.

Rosemary was comfortable with most everyone, rough or genteel.  She could play pool with shooters in a Chinese ‘restaurant’, return repeatedly to the women’s prison, picnic with friends, or ping pong with a warlord.  She maintained a fabulous network of contacts, cheerfully introducing one person to another.  She had the skinny on everyone and everything in town.  If she was willing to share her opinion on something – you heard it.  If not, she kept her own council.  Her house always had electricity.  When I asked her how she managed that she said simply bakhsheesh and paid the monthly ‘fee’ to keep the juice flowing.  She also had the fastest internet in town, fast enough for skype calls, imagine that.

She was willing to entertain an off beat request as well as a more conventional one.  I did the same for her.  When her beloved dog Tequila showed up poolside at the Canadian Embassy, Rosie knew it was time for a proper collar with clear identification.  She knew just what she wanted and asked me to get a collar with her that had Kabul and US phone numbers embossed in big print.  Another request was a cheese grater- she told me she had no problem getting parmesan in Kabul but couldn’t find a grater and could I please bring one. 

Rosemary found refuge in the camaraderie and restorative powers of the beauty salon.  She had been intimately involved with running the Kabul Beauty Academy for a while. (The rights to the book had been stolen out from under her and she was chased out at gun point, as she told it.)  She knew all the salons and hairdressers in town and modeled their handiwork in her colorful highlights, meticulous fingernails and toes.  If we couldn’t catch up for a coffee we would meet at a salon where she would drop in for a manicure or pedicure. When I told her I just had my first pedicure she told me a week doesn’t go by when she doesn’t indulge.

Rosemary’s delicate features- her tiny feet and hands, were appointed in Arabian gold jewelry. She always appeared polished, well put together in coordinated colorful Afghan outfits and a ‘can do’ sparkling smile.

And then there was Rosie’s garden.   She was proud of the rose bushes that surround her lawn. Boasting how they had grown since she first moved in there, she spread her fingers apart and declared they were the size of dinner plates.  Wistfully she mused that someday she would look back on her Kabul days and delight in the memory of her fragrant rose garden

After a vacation to Zanzibar where everything went wrong she told me next vacation would be in McAdoo.  It sounded to me like Timbuktu or Xanadu.  What could be more exotic than Zanzibar?  Later I found out McAdoo is where she grew up, in rural Pennsylvania, USA.

Everyone marveled at her courage.  One Afghan told me no one could be that brave and so she must be protected by the US government.  And who could dispute that?  Rosemary parked her car on the street in front of her house, never behind the gates and compound walls as everyone else does.  She wasn’t like everyone or anyone else. She enjoyed the thrill of Kabul city- its danger and adventure.  She accepted that she lived in a violent place, sometimes it scared her, mostly she moved on. She was addicted to Afghanistan.

And thus she became a Kabuli.  Rosie plugged away at her work, rebuilding Afghanistan from her corner office in a ‘gulestan’, her little rose garden where she really was at home.