happy birthday sarah zibell

monday was my birthday, + i was treated v. kindly by my kabuli buddies.



laila arranged for a cake from the serena hotel + a morning birthday party for me in the university cafeteria, which drew quite the crowd of cake fanciers!

then, there was a lunch at the lovely sufi restaurant, which got me all nostalgic for austin as there was something in the feel of it, the beautiful old house with light streaming in, hardwood floor friendliness of it, that reminded me, finally, of homeplace.

[with hamayoun + laila at sufi]

we had a lot of fun despite the presence of a blustery group of male poets who kept leering at laila, raising her ire. we discussed the performance of music for a long while. laila is a beautiful singer but cannot really perform outside of her home as it's just not considered proper.

she told me that a lot of the girls who audition for the afghan star television series do so not from afghanistan but by sending tapes from germany, the u.k., the u.s., etc. laila admires the girls who are performing on the show and finds them v. v. v. brave. i completely concur.

one former contestant, herat's farida turana, has turned her eye to politics, leveraging her tv fame to win a seat on kabul's provincial council (similar to a state legislature). turana, quoted in time:

"when i competed for afghan star, i wanted to prove that a woman from herat could sing. now that i have been elected to the provincial council, i will prove to people that a lady who can sing can be in politics as well." indeed!

my evening was spent at the charming gandemack lodge with friends . . .

[bahar + dana]

[david, penny, denise, fiona, hera
just out of the frame: ben, serwat]

[denise with gandemack's daily specials. first up: luxus leper pate!]

[chris, mike, justin, jane.
caveat: not all of these wine glasses were mine, please!]



[still hiding in restaurant bathrooms,
taking moody photos of myself @ 37 years]

l. + h. + s.

my afghan co-workers + i have been having some interesting conversations about dating, relationships, marriage, + so on.




l. is a v. independent, intelligent young woman who is really only interested in marrying for love. she has rejected a number of arranged marriage proposals + is constantly receiving telephone calls from sad-sack beaus.

h. married quite young. his main pleasure at work is to goad + advise l. in how to attract a husband (and, of course, to suggest potential matches based on the steady stream of young men who visit our office).

according to h.:

when a boy and girl meet properly, they are surrounded by family + are not allowed to speak to each other directly. thus, the boy must use nonverbal cues to woo the girl: rapidly blinking his eyes to indicate his appreciation for hers, drawing his finger over his eyebrow as a means of expressing his liking of her eyebrow shape. so much is focused on the eyes as that is often the only part of the girl that is not covered in some fashion.

when a family is scoping out a wife for their husband, the women of the family pay a visit to the girl's home. the young lady is usually so terrified of them that she hides + hides until forced to show herself. the visiting women are v. strict in their assessment, looking carefully at how tidy the home is, as that is thought to demonstrate v. much the character of the family. apparently, one of their tricks is to closely observe the ceiling lights: if there is any dust on them, this is an indication of the poor quality of the family + the ladies politely take their leave.

and so on . . .

in the reverse, l. + h. are intensely curious to discuss what they've heard about u.s. customs: living with someone without being married, the prevalence of divorce, how women are still accepted socially even though they have been divorced, unrelated adults co-habitating platonically well into their golden years . . . l. tends to favor these, while h. is rather incredulous.

i am equally flummoxed by the prospect of this 25-year old father of 3 spending a great deal of time grooming a second wife (not l.!) . . . and in such a tremendously up-front manner. i suspect that i will never understand afghan men + of course the feeling is mutual. still, it is good that we try to talk to each other + we can mostly keep it light when discussing each other's customs/traditions/what have you that we may sometimes find unappealing.

never boring!

the problem with barking dog

barking dog speaks in a constant monotone from about 4am - 12am daily. he is tireless. in my effort to understand what he has been trying to tell us + concerned for his welfare, my mind has been aswim with grim thoughts . . .







perhaps barking dog is being trained for dogfighting + is being kept tied up so that he will become tough + angry. typically, dogs have short fighting careers, after which point they are released to the streets, where they rove in packs, scare people, + eat garbage.








or, barking dog has been abandoned, can't escape, + is starving. there is no aspca here, no dogcatcher, nothing of that sort. since dogs are not commonly kept as pets + there is a war going on, complaints to the police or even to our guest house management would be pointless. finally, all houses around here are surrounded by 12 foot walls and razor wire. any attempt to pay a neighborly visit to inquire as to the welfare of barking dog or even to throw him a snack over the wall is likely not to be met with much good will.

**********

barking dog, this morning, around 4:30: 'bark, bark, bark, bark, loud whimper, silence.' the shuttering of barking dog threw me into a panic + i couldn't return to sleep. downstairs, i told my two housemates what i had heard. one was sympathetic; the other seemed relieved. all day, i wondered about barking dog.

**********

i needn't have worried. b.d.'s voice is back to full capacity. curiousity got the best of me + i climbed onto the roof of peach house to see if i could find barking dog. he lives here, in the nice house where they've going doing remodeling.


he is tied up in a doghouse. he is a medium-sized black dog, sort of like a collie. near him, in the backyard, two little boys play + mom talks on the phone. none of them pay any attention to barking dog. i can't imagine their resolve. i guess they consider him to be a watch dog? but talk about crying wolf, barking dog! i imagine that he is lonely + confused + frustrated for being all of the time tied up when others are nearby having fun.



what to do, what to do? i hear ya, b.d.

burst

yesterday was v. special. as part of the kabul hash house harriers, i ventured on foot into the city for the first time since my arrival. hashers were divided into runners + walkers, guided by dedicated + safety-oriented leaders. many of the folks are in the security industry here in some capacity. they scout the routes ahead of time + carry concealed weapons. each friday, another adventure!













i cannot adequately express the thrill of being out on the streets with friends, scurrying along small dirt pathways through neighborhood locales, followed by hordes of kids alternately taunting us + asking us to take their photos for $1. the air was v. clear yesterday + the winds were good, so there was a lot of kite flying. in fact, we were perched on amir + hassan (the kite runner)'s hill above wazir akbar khan.





despite my pride in exploration, i was immediately reminded of the thread of brutality that runs through the fabric of everyday life here. our hiking up + down swimming pool hill took us through a few small graveyards, where we were saddened to see many large (presumably human) bones scattered under our feet.

(with jo + dana, wearing baseballcaps for the sun + headscarves for the locals)

i posted a link yesterday to an article about swimming pool hill, but in case you missed it: this olympic-sized pool was built by the russians atop a large hill in the middle of kabul to train their solders to swim in high-altitude conditions. the taliban made sickening use of it during its reign, forcing people off the high dive + into the empty pool below. now, it's about half-full of stagnant water + attracts unsupervised children, who play there.






little ones are everywhere. these boys had a v. sweet donkey, whose chest area they had henna'ed orange. many kids tend sheep + goats here + are v. creative about decorating them with henna -- it is wonderful to see multicolored flock scampering by -- esp. popular are posterior + billygoat-beard color modifications.









post-hash involves elaborate rituals -- code names, spoken + sung word games, + tons of drinking. 5 hashes makes you official. then, you must undergo a nasty hazing, after which you are branded with your sexually-oriented codename. while i'd like to think that's not something i would need to endure, i suspect that i will, as there's no getting around how unique this group is in such a closed-down place + how much it matters to have fresh air + adventures + to meet folks you may never encounter in business-as-usual kabubble reality.

presenting . . .

gym cat!

somehow she got into the house, wandered up to the second floor while we were making dinner.







ate brekkies + chicken + also tuna casserole that had been left out on the table. hungry gym cat!















gym cat looks a lot like unica cat, from earlier today - there are many of these calico-like cats here, but i'm not sure they are actually calicos. fun fact: all calicos are female.

unic-aah

4 new ladies here, 3 in my house, yeah! we went to unica tonite -- to have drinks by the pool + partake of the dinner buffet in the unanticipated (but welcome) company of cats, the president of our university, + his charming friend from the united nations.









unica is a guesthouse for u.n. staff but is also open to internationals. it boasts an outdoor bar, a lovely lawn + pool, a beauty salon, a restaurant, + (best of all) what i suspect is kabul's only wine shop! we loaded up + at v. v. v. steep prices i'd never pay back at greenpoint wines + liquors. one of my new housemates, a professor of chemistry, is hatching plans to begin producing her own wine.

the unica beauty salon offers intriguing services . . .

the moussing of a lady's hair: $8
athlete's foot treatment: $25
nail art stone (?): $5
abdomen waxing: $15
drainage massage (?????), 1 hour: $30

rightfully, the salon favors the rarefied "bathing costume" over the common "swimsuit" in its literature; viz. "please bring along your bathing costume or an extra under wear for body treatment."



i'm there, a million times over!

h-what?

afghanistan is roughly the size of texas. i would like to test this by car, with a friend or two. perhaps another time, as i'm still in this olde peach house forevermore. soon to grow roots.


i was going to name this blog RoughlyTheSize until i heard the phrase "the kabubble," which is ExactlyTheSize.

booze is v. hard to come by, so i'm mostly drinking ice tea for fun these days. trying now + then to make breakfast tacos with old el paso tortillas, pace picante sauce + a whole lotta liquid smoke i brought from home, oof.




i do have dominos + dirty waylon + texans talking to me on the skype - a recent highlight was joy panning the camera to show me her daughters, chloe danger + delilah darlin, wrestling in the living room. the fight ended only when big sis chloe (the gentle) pulled down lil sis dd (the terror's) u-pants.

h-what i'd give directly for some of the lightness of texas in this city which feels so heavy, with war, with election nonsense, with lonely hearts, with fasting. feels, is, hopefully will not forever be; afghanistan is beautiful, + i wanna see it.

iso gym cat

our basement has, in addition to a first-aid kit + storage for extra mattresses + air conditioning units, a modest gym.


venturing down there this afternoon, i had a lovely surprise ...





paw prints on the weight bench: gym cat!







for days, i've been trying to feed the stray cats outdoors, to no avail. i never know where they will be + can't tell if the food is gone because they came or if the container just fell off the razor-wired high wall where the guards put it (which, sadly, i cannot reach to refill).


the basement has windows facing the garden for gym cat to enter/exit at will.





gym cat, cmon back around, please. kabul's grocers have delightful cat products, including 'brekkies,' which i've taken the liberty of laying out for you.


i will wait patiently for you, friend!