Meet the Team

This picture (minus Karima) encompasses the entirety of Roshan's Marketing Communication team. 

From left to right you have Mohammed Farid Qayyumi,  Surat Khan and Dr.  Abdul Sami Raheemazay. 

Man I love these guys.   

Farid is in charge of finance and enjoys Thursday afternoons when he regularly breaks out a fancy snack of some kind and shares with everyone.  The first week Karima and I showed up he brought out a bottle of  "The Pepsi Mountain Dew" and made sure everyone got a glass to celebrate the end of the week. 

Surat Khan doesn't speak very much english,  but we communicate through the international language of hugs.  He's probably one of the friendliest people I have ever met.  You have to understand a little bit of Afghan culture, which is something I have started to figure out.  One aspect of this culture is that when you come to work in the morning,  you start the day by greeting everyone in your department with handshakes and asking how they are doing,  how their families are,  etc.  If you go to another department to talk to someone,  before any work can be done you have to also greet everyone in the same manner.  One day a few weeks back,  on a normal day I showed up at work,  went to shake Surat Khans hand and he gravely got out of his seat,  opened his arms and gave me a giant bear hug.  "It's the Pashtun way" he said.    

"Karima,  am I supposed to hug this guy every day now?"

"I have no idea"

So I play it safe and dole out the hugs on a daily basis.  We're buddies.

A fun fact about Surat Khan.  He's got the biggest hands I've ever seen on a human.  Look at his hand on my shoulder,  it looks like a bear is trying to break my neck.  

Dr. Sami is an actual doctor,  but it turns out he can make more money working for Roshan,  so now he is a manager in the marketing department.  He'll likely inherit the department after the company goes entirely to Afghans.   He's super quiet,  shy,  incredibly smart and funny as shit.  At any given time he's probably got 50 things that he's remembering to do.  While Karima and I have notebooks filled with checklists,  and to do items,  I've never seen Sami actually write anything down.  And I've never seen him forget anything either.  He has a notebook,  but mostly uses it as a coaster for coffee mugs.   He was really quiet at first,  but once he warmed up to us,  we started getting hints of his very sarcastic and dry sense of humour.  It started with whisperings of "Did Sami just say that?" between Karima and I,  but now he's got me cracking up on a daily basis.  

Here's the team with Karima.  Of course as a woman she doesn't get the hugs.