Afghan dryers

To the untrained eye, the following pictures might look like a shoddy art installation. If you take a closer look, you’ll see that these are some of my freshly line-dried clothes. The drying process is actually 7 steps. Line dry to ensure the requisite amount of Kabul dust is embedded, take off line and place near the bukhali, flip once one side seems dry and less stiff, flip again because the first side invariably soaks up the wetness released from side 2, flip again (for the same reason mentioned previously ), turn clothes inside out and flip twice … at this point, your clothes should be warm enough to wear (although strangely still not dry enough).

The French Resistance

L’Atmosphere is one of the more popular spots in town for ex-pats. It might be because it serves alcohol at all hours (for those 3 martini lunch types), could be that it has free WiFi, or that in the summer it opens its in ground swimming pool and people actually saunter around in bikinis. It has been put on many organizations “not cleared” list because it attracts foreigners and is a good spot for a bombing and/or kidnapping (although neither has been attempted there to my knowledge). You can’t tell it is much of anything from the outside. Like most of the restaurants in Kabul, it is fairly inconspicuous from the outside .. aside from the guard station that usually houses 3-4 men wearing Kabul’s favorite accessory: a kalashnikov. But once you walk through a series of doors and around a private backyard, you get to the oasis. It is also my housemates’ home away from home where they can speak French, chain smoke cigarettes, drink, and say things like “put it on my tab” (which gets settled at the end of each month). I’ve also dubbed it the French underground since that is where most of the Frenchies go when they are hiding from work.

Hameed

Hameed is 10 years old and is one of the most charming people I have met here. He has been studying intensive English for 2 years and relished the chance to practice it on real English people. He caught my eye as my group stood in front of a kiosk buying water. He came up to me and said “It is too cold for water. You should have tea.” He is the only one in his family who speaks a language other than Dari and his dream is to go to Canada (I guess the Canadian tourism board must have done something fantastic here). Hameed spends the winter months (like many other Afghan children) playing with friends, flying kites, and trying to make a few extra afs by doing odd jobs (like polishing shoes, carrying your inner tube up a snowy hill,etc). Since most of Afghan’s schools are outside (or in tents), children only go to school in the warm months and have their winters off.

One Fine Day

There was a suicide bomb to the north of Kabul today and an alert that foreigners are being targeted to our south .. so I did the most prudent thing imaginable and headed west to go inner-tubing. I went out to the Kabul Golf Club (not nearly as ritzy as it sounds) that is still blanketed with snow and for a few cents, some Afghan youths will let you borrow their inner tubes. The area is called Gargha. The funny thing about it (aside from a bunch of adults going tubing), is how Afghans are so unused to seeing foreigners do the things they do (meaning aside from being in tanks and military convoys), that we become the attractions and they seem to think that it is ok for them to gawk and take pictures of us. I try imagine what would happen if on the streets of New York, if I ran up to a bunch of tourists and juts watched them and took pictures of them, and followed them around .. how strange that would be .. but here it is as though I’m the pied piper for Afghans and wherever I go, I get a following (ohmygosh ..I now know how Paris Hilton must feel).

Road rules

There are a few traffic lights in Kabul, and while they might work, they are disregarded by drivers. In fact, every rule of the road is totally broken here. Want to go down a one way street the wrong way? No problem. Want to park on the sidewalk? Go ahead. Want to ignore the official looking guy with the whistle in the middle of the road … act like he’s not there. Police, even though they have Kalashnikovs, aren’t paid that much attention to either (one person told me it is because they don’t have bullets). American, UN, and NATO forces are usually yielded to on the streets of Kabul because they have big guns and the bullets that go in them.

Montezuma visits Kabul

It was bound to happen. It has happened to every ex-pat I have met, and now I too have had my stomach Kabulled. Just imagine having the worst case of Montezuma’s Revenge in a place where there is no electricity, heat, or running water (yes, the plumbing pipes are still frozen and so toilets are not flushing) .. oh, and all the waste baskets are slotted. Needless to say I had a messy and hellish night. To understand
why Massood’s Revenge kicks Montezuma’s ass is to see the water system here. There are water pumps on the sides of the roads where people line up to get their water. Alongside the water pumps run the open sewer system. The water is clearly not well filtered and there is no health department monitoring the bacteria levels (and certainly no heath codes exist in local restaurants) which might explain the high rate of stomach aches among foreigners. It might also be because we get conned in to buying things like cream cheese by a company called “Puck.” Now I’ve sampled cream cheeses, and this isn’t it .. it is more like mayonnaise mixed with a white velveeta/cheeze wiz, and you can pretty easily guess what we have renamed “Puck” (for you bad guessers, it’s Puke). Also worth mentioning that I believe I have now come across a cheese I don’t like.

The marriage "trick"

I was told this story and sworn to secrecy. I share this only because I know that the story’s star does not read or write and the chances of him (or his family) stumbling across this wee blog are remote.
When he was 20(-ish) his parents decided who he should marry. He didn’t want to get married but he couldn’t offend his parents. He was taken to his future bride’s home to meet her (and her family) for the first time. During this meeting he asked to speak to the girl alone. They went to a room off the main room where the door remained open (opposite sexes are not allowed to be alone together unless they are married). While together, he asked the girl whether she would like to marry his entire family as he told her he intends to live with his family forever. The girl said no. He then went to his family and told them that the girl said she didn’t like his family and wouldn’t want to visit with them. They got terribly offended (as he knew they would) and they forbade him to marry the girl. This little story was told to me by a man who is probably in his 40s now. He believes that what he did to get out of the marriage to be the greatest trick ever performed. Like I said, he doesn’t get out much.

One boy's story

A translator for an NGO that I work with has a very high and squeaky voice. It is reminiscent of high school when all the boys’ voices were breaking. Since you never know how old people are (Afghans don’t celebrate birthdays), I assumed that he was a teenager in transition. I asked my contact at this NGO “what is the name of Peter Brady on your staff?” I got a quizzical look back and had to explain, “You know .. Peter Brady from the Brady Bunch. His voice kept cracking …” The answer I got is probably the worst case of foot in mouth I have ever experienced.
“His name is Zeldai and 6 years ago when his father was killed, he cried for so long and so hard that his voice never recovered. He is teased relentlessly by other men because he could not contain his grief and does not sound like a man. He will have a hard time ever getting a wife.”
Imagine having a permanent scar of your sorrow. Zeldai’s story is sadly not unusual here. I want to bring Zeldai home with me.

Gun Motifs

Men with big guns is a common site on the streets of Kabul. The size of the man may change, but the unmistakable AK-47 doesn’t. People carry them here as naturally as people carry small dogs on the streets of New York City. In fact, most carpet shops will feature rugs with Kalashnikovs on them. Guns are common, as are UN caravans, and surprise military training blockades. The other day, traffic was re-routed because the Italian Army decided to run a training maneuver (I promise, this is not a set up for a joke). It’s strange that the site of guns is so commonplace that you begin to notice the people who don’t have them. If I was living a movie script, this feature would be rated “R” for violent themes.

Face of the Nation

Afghanistan is all atwitter over the release of the Bollywood movie "Kabul Express." It has been officially banned here and anyone caught selling, buying or owning a copy is subject to a 50,000 afs fine (equal to $1000 USD). A segment of the country's population is angry at how they are represented ... but before I get in to that, here's some context
Afghanistan is broken into 34 provinces and each province has a major ethnicity or tribe. The main tribes are the Pashtun and the Tajik and the smaller tribes are the Hazara and Uzbak. Taleban fighters are made up (primarily) of Pashuns, but not all Pashtun are Taleban. It is fairly difficult to distinguish the tribes from each other, but the most obvious tribe (in terms of looks) is the Hazara .. they are considered to have Monogolian-esque features … and as one lady put it “they have wrong noses.” (meaning their noses are a little wider ad squatter than their fellow countrymen. I have the impression that the people here identify with their tribe first, and then with their country. It would stand to reason since this is a country of long standing civil wars. But I digress ...
so in the movie, the Hazara believe they are depicted as poorly as the Taleban are depicted, (and even worse) as poorly as the Pakistanis are depicted ... if there is something that ALL Afghans agree on, it is that everything Afghan is superior to anything from Pakistan.

My staff learns English

As lovely as the Dari and Pashto languages are, it is important for the staff of the Media and Communications Directorate to be able to converse in English (especially during wartime with so many foreign journalists running around). To this end, I have hired an English teacher to come in and train the staff three times a week. Here is a snapshot of their first lesson:
(the scene)
The teacher puts a label on each student's back with an animal.
The mission is for each student to figure out what animal they are by asking, in English, yes or no questions about themselves.
(the conversation between two of the students)
Gity: "Do I eat water?"
Abbas: "Yes."
Gity: "I am fish!"
Abbas: "No."
Gity: "I am fish! I eat water!"
(Teacher interrupts to explain that one drinks water, not eats water. They resume.)
Gity: "Do I drink water?"
Abbas: "Yes."
Gity: "I am fish!"
Abbas: "No."
Gity: "I am fish! I drink water!"
((Abbas looks at the teacher unsure of what to do since Gity is quite convinced she is a fish, and Abbas doesn't want to offend her.))
This goes on for another 10 minutes before Gity finds out that she is a chicken.

Some like it hot

One of the campaigns that I've been tasked to initiate and direct is on self immolation; or rather against self immolation (since few are in favor of setting yourself ablaze). Apparently this is a big problem in Afghanistan with thousands of girls attempting to die this way annually. Here is what I've come up with so far: "It's not cool to be so hot." It sounds better in Dari since it rhymes.