By Nora Boustany

Friday, October 2, 1998; Page A33

Who are some of these impeccably clothed soldiers battling in the trenches to save the world's economies? As the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund gear up for their annual meetings beginning Tuesday, residents will feel the presence of these institutions, the traffic will be horrendous, and it will be impossible to get reservations anywhere. But those imposing buildings on 19th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue are not filled with hollow gray suits.

Meet Mahmood Ayub, a soft-spoken man with a doctorate in economics from Yale University. Fair-skinned with green eyes, he hails from the tiny Pakistani mountain village of Alamsher (The Lion of the World), about 10 miles east of the Afghan border and 20 miles from the site struck by U.S. missiles in August. He belongs to the proud Turi warrior tribe, never totally subdued by the British during the Raj and left by Pakistani authorities in semiautonomous status since partition and independence in 1947.

Ayub was the first from his tribe to be educated in a school where English was the language of instruction -- in a region where education was shunned as the work of the devil, to say nothing of British-run schools. His father, Mohammed, had left home at 14, moving to Peshawar, where he worked and taught himself and eventually became one of Pakistan's early diplomats. When he wanted to put his daughter Amina in a convent school in Peshawar, a strange man came knocking at his door to convey a death threat from Grandpa Sher Mohammed Khan, Ayub recalled.

A polyglot in command of six languages, Ayub has made a reputation for himself by pulling off delicate negotiations on economic-reform packages with senior officials and heads of state. He has been at the World Bank for 22 years working on development in Latin America, the Middle East, North and East Africa and now in sub-Saharan Africa.

"I could have gone to the private sector, but emotionally I valued working on issues of poverty because I felt guilty leaving my country and the second-best solution was to work on development elsewhere. I felt I was giving something," he said in an interview Monday. "It scares me sometimes, the dimensions of the problem that you only sense upon visiting some countries. Our lives here are too sheltered. We no longer go there with blueprint solutions but listen to the beneficiaries."

Going back to his village at the foot of the Hindu Kush, a mountain range shooting off from the Himalayas, where tribesmen roam amid the scenery with Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers as an ornament of manhood, is always bittersweet.

"You are distancing yourself from your first love, and you can't do anything about it," said Ayub with melancholy. "Whenever I go back, I feel like a misfit. I have spent as much time outside of Pakistan as in it." One day he would like to go back to make a difference, such as in women's education and modernizing.

Ayub's summary of his identity: "At the end of the day, you are part of the army of global technocrats. You don't belong anywhere, yet you can fit everywhere. What makes it all acceptable is that you always have a core of friends that makes all the difference."

Help in the Wake of the Hurricane

The Dominican Republic's ambassador has shown his true mettle as a dignified diplomat under fire as he seeks to bring relief to his countrymen, who are clinging to life amid nature's formidable forces.

Ever since Hurricane Georges struck last week, Ambassador Bernardo Vega has fought against the odds, coordinating the landing of U.S. military planes in his country while airports remained shut, setting up a hot line for American families worried about their relatives and lobbying for a six-month deferral of a foreign debt to the Paris Club, "just to get a breather." He is focusing on humanitarian aid after the hurricane, which hit the southern coast of the Dominican Republic and moved northwest across Haiti toward Cuba. In a few days, the death toll rose to 320 and flooding forced 200,000 people out of their homes, destroying houses and coffee and sugar crops.

Vega has managed to tap into some of the goodwill he has cultivated with creative hospitality by treating Washingtonians to what they like best about everything Dominican: designer Oscar de La Renta shows, merengue parties and cigar-and-rum receptions at which private companies pampered guests with fresh cigars hand-rolled on the premises. But the real test of friendship comes at one's moment of greatest need.

Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew M. Cuomo and 10 members of Congress flew over the devastated areas after the hurricane hit, and a promise of $35 million in U.S. aid has been made, Vega said in an interview yesterday. There is still a dire need for food, medicine and construction materials. "The U.S. military has lent us seven Black Hawk helicopters to deliver food to families stranded on their own rooftops, which is the only way we can bring food to them," he said.

Chicago Cubs outfielder Sammy Sosa, who ended this year's regular season with 66 home runs, has started his own fund to collect money for the victims in his home country, while Vega is mobilizing his community and organizing fund-raising through tax-deductible contributions made out to the American Red Cross and mailed to the embassy.