Wednesday, September 26, 2012
kickboxing club video, finally
It doesn't really need subtitles, except for the pep talk at the end. Some quick explanations/translations:
The guy holding the kick paddle is saying "In the name of God" repeatedly
The guy in the wife beater pulling the little kid in front of the camera is telling him to introduce himself
The kids who runs away during sparring keeps saying that he won't fight, which the ref doesn't accept
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Wrapping Up
I'll be cloistered at home trying to get through a first draft of my report before I'm back in New York and preoccupied with moving into a new apartment and catching up on classes. The hardest part is going to be keeping it under 5000 words--I feel I've lost the ability to be concise or just to focus on one little argument while ignoring what's going on all around it. Anyway I'll be busy so I think this is it for this blog. Tune back in next summer.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
passing for Turkish
You know you've been in Afghanistan for a while when your solution to being electrocuted by your shower is to go switch off the circuit breakers and continue the shower cold.
I usually tell taxi drivers and the like that I'm Turkish--a less polarizing nationality than American or Iranian--and I have been able to pass even with Uzbeks who speak their own Turkic dialect. But yesterday's driver back from a ministry way on the other side of the city got all excited and called up his nephew who had been living in Turkey for the past five years and was in med school there on his cell phone and then handed it to me. I hadn't had an actual conversation in Turkish in months and I garbled, then explained to the very friendly nephew--from whose voice I could tell was puzzled by my funny accent--that I was a Kurd from Diyarbakir and my Turkish wasn't great. Oh, I'm in Diyarbakir right now, he said, where in the city are you from? I tried to remember my geography from last time I was there 3 (?) years ago and then told him I was from a bad little neighborhood he'd have never heard of and changed the subject to his studies. We agreed that I'd give his uncle my contact info and maybe we could meet up when we got back before I handed back the cell phone. Whew.
But then the driver decided that he would avoid traffic by driving through a restricted area where several embassies including the Turkish one are located. Just tell them your going to your embassy, he told me. Crap I was sure they'd ask to see my passport and the jig would be up but the soldier at the checkpoint just gave me a long look up and down and decided I was Turkish and we were through.
Luckily the driver forgot/neglected to get my contact info on his nephew's behalf.
Not that there would have likely been any real consequences if I had been revealed as a fraud--it would just have been awkward.
I'm back in Kabul by the way.
I usually tell taxi drivers and the like that I'm Turkish--a less polarizing nationality than American or Iranian--and I have been able to pass even with Uzbeks who speak their own Turkic dialect. But yesterday's driver back from a ministry way on the other side of the city got all excited and called up his nephew who had been living in Turkey for the past five years and was in med school there on his cell phone and then handed it to me. I hadn't had an actual conversation in Turkish in months and I garbled, then explained to the very friendly nephew--from whose voice I could tell was puzzled by my funny accent--that I was a Kurd from Diyarbakir and my Turkish wasn't great. Oh, I'm in Diyarbakir right now, he said, where in the city are you from? I tried to remember my geography from last time I was there 3 (?) years ago and then told him I was from a bad little neighborhood he'd have never heard of and changed the subject to his studies. We agreed that I'd give his uncle my contact info and maybe we could meet up when we got back before I handed back the cell phone. Whew.
But then the driver decided that he would avoid traffic by driving through a restricted area where several embassies including the Turkish one are located. Just tell them your going to your embassy, he told me. Crap I was sure they'd ask to see my passport and the jig would be up but the soldier at the checkpoint just gave me a long look up and down and decided I was Turkish and we were through.
Luckily the driver forgot/neglected to get my contact info on his nephew's behalf.
Not that there would have likely been any real consequences if I had been revealed as a fraud--it would just have been awkward.
I'm back in Kabul by the way.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
conversations
Nobody around here seems too convinced by my little consent form and its guarantees of confidentiality. Today one of my interviewees seemed to take my promise that I wouldn't use his name in my report as an accusation of cowardice. "I'm not afraid of Americans or English or Germans or Taliban. I'm only afraid of God," he bristled.
The tiny fish-shaped thing in the background sky is the surveillance blimp of the American Provincial Reconstruction Team.
Research aside, I had a long and slightly surreal talk with the head of the provincial council here, Hajji Ehsan Noorzai, who succeeded President Karzai's half-brother Ahmed Wali after the latter was assassinated last year. We sat on huge pillows in the guest room of his straight-out-of-an-Ikea-catalogue mansion, located behind the scarred earth construction site of the private hospital he's building, and he told me through my Pashto translator all about the ills of corruption here in Kandahar.
My experience in Kabul was that when asked about politics people mostly told me what they thought I wanted to hear, depending on whether they categorized me as American or Iranian or Turkish. But here was one of the top US-allied politicians and tribal leaders in the region blaming the US for corruption and outright robbery to an American he'd just met. Ehsan told me that the Soviets had been more honest (a few people have told me this kind of thing--that the Soviets at least believed in what they were doing and in their development ideology, while Americans are just interested in power and money) and the Taliban better because at least they weren't corrupt, much as it pained his heart to say so because he hated the Taliban.
Just yesterday, he told me, he'd gotten a flurry of phone call complaints that US soldiers had detained a bunch of shopkeepers, tied their hands, and made them stand out in the sun for four hours and then let them go without charging them with anything. The Americans had stolen money right out of the pockets of those they tied up. Then (this is all by Ehsan's account) local police had showed up and the Americans had asked them to sign a paper confirming that their operation had been carried out successfully, provoking a stand-off that Ehsan said could easily have turned into a firefight. He called up one of the men who had called him saying that the Americans had robbed him and put him on speaker phone to have him rehash the story (in Pashto), the translation of which verified Ehsan's summary. The guy claimed they had taken 35,000 Afghanis--$700--from one shopkeeper.
He added that just recently a friend of his (also a friend of my translator) had his house raided by US special forces, who stole a wad of money and some golden jewelry.
The tiny fish-shaped thing in the background sky is the surveillance blimp of the American Provincial Reconstruction Team.
Research aside, I had a long and slightly surreal talk with the head of the provincial council here, Hajji Ehsan Noorzai, who succeeded President Karzai's half-brother Ahmed Wali after the latter was assassinated last year. We sat on huge pillows in the guest room of his straight-out-of-an-Ikea-catalogue mansion, located behind the scarred earth construction site of the private hospital he's building, and he told me through my Pashto translator all about the ills of corruption here in Kandahar.
My experience in Kabul was that when asked about politics people mostly told me what they thought I wanted to hear, depending on whether they categorized me as American or Iranian or Turkish. But here was one of the top US-allied politicians and tribal leaders in the region blaming the US for corruption and outright robbery to an American he'd just met. Ehsan told me that the Soviets had been more honest (a few people have told me this kind of thing--that the Soviets at least believed in what they were doing and in their development ideology, while Americans are just interested in power and money) and the Taliban better because at least they weren't corrupt, much as it pained his heart to say so because he hated the Taliban.
Just yesterday, he told me, he'd gotten a flurry of phone call complaints that US soldiers had detained a bunch of shopkeepers, tied their hands, and made them stand out in the sun for four hours and then let them go without charging them with anything. The Americans had stolen money right out of the pockets of those they tied up. Then (this is all by Ehsan's account) local police had showed up and the Americans had asked them to sign a paper confirming that their operation had been carried out successfully, provoking a stand-off that Ehsan said could easily have turned into a firefight. He called up one of the men who had called him saying that the Americans had robbed him and put him on speaker phone to have him rehash the story (in Pashto), the translation of which verified Ehsan's summary. The guy claimed they had taken 35,000 Afghanis--$700--from one shopkeeper.
He added that just recently a friend of his (also a friend of my translator) had his house raided by US special forces, who stole a wad of money and some golden jewelry.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Yesterday was a flurry of interviews. Today I've got nothing to do but transcribe and enjoy the surprisingly zippy internet until 5pm. Below, my first royal-blooded friend:
Note below the lack of a steering wheel on the left side of the car. Most of the vehicles here seem to be from Pakistan. My host has a little Japanese flatscreen something (GPS unit?) beside the stick shift on his SUV, and explained to me that he and his brothers buy their cars for cheap in Japan and then have them disassembled and shipped in crates labeled "auto parts" to avoid paying customs duties.
All in all Kandahar seems a much cleaner and more spacious city than Kabul, with good roads and solar powered street lights--the latter a pet project, I was told, of the previous mayor (who before that was an accountant in Virginia) who was assassinated last summer.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
in Kandahar
aerial of Kabul:
One of the flight attendants looked exactly like a tanned Amy Winehouse.
Sharing Kandahar airport with military planes:
Not too many people seem to speak Persian around here, so I'm completely dependent on guides. I just met with a fixer/translator who's giving me the bargain day rate of $120, and will be driving around all day tomorrow doing interviews. For today looks like I'm confined to my quarters, which at least gives me time to catch up on transcribing other interviews and if I'm feeling ambitious to begin to drag my data into some kind of order.
One of the flight attendants looked exactly like a tanned Amy Winehouse.
Sharing Kandahar airport with military planes:
Not too many people seem to speak Persian around here, so I'm completely dependent on guides. I just met with a fixer/translator who's giving me the bargain day rate of $120, and will be driving around all day tomorrow doing interviews. For today looks like I'm confined to my quarters, which at least gives me time to catch up on transcribing other interviews and if I'm feeling ambitious to begin to drag my data into some kind of order.
Sunday, August 19, 2012
updates
I got my files back but not yet my money. My ex-neighbor isn't answering his phone. I'll ask my new roommate to call him tomorrow, see if he answers an unknown caller.
Shopping for used motorcycles with the new roommate. His plan is to have one shipped to Herat, then drive it to France.
Shopping for used motorcycles with the new roommate. His plan is to have one shipped to Herat, then drive it to France.
Tuesday, August 14, 2012
Manners
Iranians are the least politically correct foreigners in expressing their views of Afghans: both my absentee roommate and another Iranian photographer who's staying in my house's spare room for the next month have told me that Afghans are all liars. Several Afghans have for their part told me that they are the one and only Afghan I should trust.
It seems to me that a lot of this comes from the combination of a culture that puts enormous emphasis on the performance of hospitality and selflessness and a people in whom a generation of basically continuous war and unpredictability has instilled a survivor's distrust in others and a short-term looting rather than long-term investing mentality.
Yesterday my former neighbor's brother, who had given me his laptop to use with assurances that he never used and didn't need it, showed up at my house and asking if he could borrow back his laptop just for an hour or so because he had to scan and print some documents. I saved what I was doing and handed it over and repeated that if he needed it I would of course give it back to him and find another laptop. He assured me that he only needed the laptop for this one quick thing, and would come back with his brother (who was at a NATO base working on a contract to build a row of showers and toilets whose completion had been delayed repeatedly--he blames his workers for laziness--and so he hasn't been able to yet pay me back the $500 he owes me) and maybe we could go out for dinner.
I waited for Iftar time and then another half hour and then called my ex-neighbor, who knew nothing about his brother taking his computer back or dinner plans. He called the brother and then me back to explain that his brother wasn't yet done with his work and would bring me back the computer tomorrow or the next day, and gave me the brother's number.
I guess the brother felt it would be more impolite or show him off as inhospitable to demand his computer back. Somehow the best way to avoid impropriety was simply to lie and continue the performance of hospitality to my face and so avoid the "confrontation" of openly asking for his laptop back that would be an embarrassing unmasking of him as not living up to the ideals of taarof. Or maybe he just thought that if he told me he was taking it for keeps I would make excuses and not give it back.
But goddamn it he could have saved me a lot of worry and a day of getting no work done and himself a trip back to the other side of town.
It seems to me that a lot of this comes from the combination of a culture that puts enormous emphasis on the performance of hospitality and selflessness and a people in whom a generation of basically continuous war and unpredictability has instilled a survivor's distrust in others and a short-term looting rather than long-term investing mentality.
Yesterday my former neighbor's brother, who had given me his laptop to use with assurances that he never used and didn't need it, showed up at my house and asking if he could borrow back his laptop just for an hour or so because he had to scan and print some documents. I saved what I was doing and handed it over and repeated that if he needed it I would of course give it back to him and find another laptop. He assured me that he only needed the laptop for this one quick thing, and would come back with his brother (who was at a NATO base working on a contract to build a row of showers and toilets whose completion had been delayed repeatedly--he blames his workers for laziness--and so he hasn't been able to yet pay me back the $500 he owes me) and maybe we could go out for dinner.
I waited for Iftar time and then another half hour and then called my ex-neighbor, who knew nothing about his brother taking his computer back or dinner plans. He called the brother and then me back to explain that his brother wasn't yet done with his work and would bring me back the computer tomorrow or the next day, and gave me the brother's number.
The ex-neighbor called again this morning to say that his brother actually needed to keep his computer but he my ex-neighbor would find me another laptop. I said it was no problem I could find my own laptop, but I had 3 months of research on an encrypted drive (only partially backed up for complicated reasons) on the laptop and I just needed the brother to bring the laptop so I could transfer files. The ex-neighbor said he and his brother would come later today with both te laptop I'd be using and a new one for me. I called both of them a few times over the course of the day--they either didn't pick up or had their phones off--until finally I reached the ex-neighbor, who said he had tried and tried but hadn't been able to find me a new laptop. No surprise, I just wanted to know when I could transfer my files from the old laptop. He didn't know so I called and eventually reached his brother, who sounded delighted to hear from me (no sarcasm) and said it was really lucky because his flight to India has been delayed until the day after tomorrow so he can bring the laptop for file transfer first thing tomorrow morning. I said if he just gave me directions to his house I would come tonight and copy the files but no no he lives way on the other side of town ins bad neighborhood that I should avoid.
He wasn't the least bit apologetic for telling me one hour when really he intended to fly the laptop out of the country (dunno how long he's staying in India) and I figured expressing annoyance would only decrease the chance of him coming tomorrow morning.
He wasn't the least bit apologetic for telling me one hour when really he intended to fly the laptop out of the country (dunno how long he's staying in India) and I figured expressing annoyance would only decrease the chance of him coming tomorrow morning.
So hopefully he'll show up and I will be able to get a summer of research back. And hopefully his brother my ex-neighbor will pay me back that $500, now that I no longer have any collateral. He's still going to want to come to my house to Skype with his Internet girlfriend(s); I've got that at least in my favor. And hopefully I won't get ripped off too badly buying a new laptop tomorrow.
I guess the brother felt it would be more impolite or show him off as inhospitable to demand his computer back. Somehow the best way to avoid impropriety was simply to lie and continue the performance of hospitality to my face and so avoid the "confrontation" of openly asking for his laptop back that would be an embarrassing unmasking of him as not living up to the ideals of taarof. Or maybe he just thought that if he told me he was taking it for keeps I would make excuses and not give it back.
But goddamn it he could have saved me a lot of worry and a day of getting no work done and himself a trip back to the other side of town.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Friday, August 10, 2012
kickboxing club
Here's a first rough cut:
Apologies for the very low quality--anything else would have taken too long to upload with Afghan internet
It doesn't really need subtitles, except for the pep talk at the end. Some quick explanations/translations:
The guy holding the kick paddle is saying "In the name of God" repeatedly
The guy in the wife beater pulling the little kid in front of the camera is telling him to introduce himself
The kids who runs away during sparring keeps saying that he won't fight, which the ref doesn't accept
Apologies for the very low quality--anything else would have taken too long to upload with Afghan internet
It doesn't really need subtitles, except for the pep talk at the end. Some quick explanations/translations:
The guy holding the kick paddle is saying "In the name of God" repeatedly
The guy in the wife beater pulling the little kid in front of the camera is telling him to introduce himself
The kids who runs away during sparring keeps saying that he won't fight, which the ref doesn't accept
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
negligence
Yes I've been neglecting this blog, not out of laziness but because I've been busy doing interviews and such for two different articles.
I also shot a little video of my kickboxing club, which I'll hopefully get edited and bandwidth allowing post here on Friday.
In the meantime, a few photos of what I've been up to lately (ignore the stupid horizontal bars that this website for some reason adds in this country):
This guy had the old Taliban official gazette full of Mullah Omar's decrees in his private library. The first page I flipped to was the law banning shaving and the cutting short of beards.
I also shot a little video of my kickboxing club, which I'll hopefully get edited and bandwidth allowing post here on Friday.
In the meantime, a few photos of what I've been up to lately (ignore the stupid horizontal bars that this website for some reason adds in this country):
This guy had the old Taliban official gazette full of Mullah Omar's decrees in his private library. The first page I flipped to was the law banning shaving and the cutting short of beards.
Friday, July 20, 2012
a few from Kabul University
I counted 63 volumes of Kansas State Board of Agricultural biennial reports. "USA gives 20,000 books to Kabul University," proclaimed a 2002 headline.
Very different notions of privacy and propriety: there's little effort to hide men's bathrooms behind purdah. (highlight the 2nd para to read--this site is all buggy all of a sudden and for some reason is deciding to put some of my white text against a white background and I can't figure out how to fix it)
One thing I've found odd is that though a house isn't complete without a high wall and razor wire, once inside a house nobody seems to knock before entering bedrooms or bathrooms. When I had an Indian woman as a roommate, male visitors opened her bedroom door and walked right in on a couple occasions (on both occasions she wasn't home but they didn't know that--should this have raised my indignation?), and when Mina walking in on me just after I had finished changing one day and I told her she should knock, she said Oh but I thought you might be busy and didn't want to disturb you.
I found just a couple shelves of books from the pre-communist era among the stacks:
This is one of five US-funded Lincoln Centers in various cities. They provide free photocopying and internet (the only place in Bamiyan to do so, I was told), of course used mostly for facebook, and are well stocked with TOEFL and GRE study guides. Iqbal on the left who sat at the reference desk explained that Lincoln Centers observe casual Wednesdays.
In the Iranian reading room:
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Ramadan begins
The chowkidar at the institute where I hang out when bored or without electricity likes to talk about what weaklings Iranians are and what good Muslims Afghans are by comparison. He lived in Iran for years, working as a firefighter in Khuzestan in the '80s when Iraqi rockets were raining. Khomeini brought a little Islam to Iran for the first time, he told me, but still Iranians are always making excuses during Ramadan that they can't fast for this or that reason. In Afghanistan it's not like that: even bent-over old men fast, they endure. And if people see you eating in the street they'll beat the hell out of you. I'm planning on doing a good bit of traveling this month and one isn't supposed to fast when on a journey, but I don't know whether people will buy this excuse around here.
In the Ramadan I spent in Iran I'd pretty frequently see people sneaking cigarettes or snacks in alleyways or cars, on the lookout for cops, and it was entirely normal to offer house guests food during the day. I'm not sure if I prefer top-down Iranian or bottom-up Afghan enforcement.
In the Ramadan I spent in Iran I'd pretty frequently see people sneaking cigarettes or snacks in alleyways or cars, on the lookout for cops, and it was entirely normal to offer house guests food during the day. I'm not sure if I prefer top-down Iranian or bottom-up Afghan enforcement.
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
Sunday, July 15, 2012
making deals
I've finally gotten my hands on a replacement laptop. My aging macbook pro went down last week with the same symptoms as a problem that forced me last year to pay about as much as its now worth to get it fixed in New York. I figured around here it would be much more expensive than it's worth to repair, and had little faith it would be fixed properly. So I've been trying to figure out a way either to get a warrantied US mac delivered to me here by someone flying in to Kabul.
Also last week, the noisy neighbors who were constantly playing ball (the kids with their game of toss the ball unto the corrugated metal roof, the men with late-night cricket) got kicked out and I mentioned to the old guy next door that some foreigners I knew might be interested, more to make conversation than anything, but he relayed this on to the landlord, who came knocking the next day asking when my friends were looking to move in. So I placed an online ad and the next day a very blonde Englishwoman with a very large security contractor husband responded, visited, fell in love with the house despite all garbage the former neighbors had left strewn everywhere and agreed to move in in two weeks without haggling.
Problem was he wanted a thousand bucks up front for renovations but she said she's just started a new job and wouldn't have the cash until August 1 (what foreigners in Afghanistan don't have a wad of bills under their mattress?). Landlord wouldn't budget so she went looking to friends for loans. I texted her asking if she had a macbook she'd put up for collateral. She had one but didn't want to give it up, and we settled on her bringing me the Dell laptop her new job had given her but she didn't need for a $500 loan.
The landlord is now constantly inviting me over for meals (I choked down a pile of liver he had specially prepared for me, my third least favorite organ meat), and brought me a pot of Qabuli rice the other day. He has another house freeing up in a couple weeks and wants me to keep playing broker. I should ask for a commission.
In the end the Brit got the full $1000 from a friend and told me at her job they'd ended up giving the laptop to someone else. She told me her husband would ask around about buying Apple computers for US prices with US warranties on military bases.
It was my ex-neighbor who comes by to skype with his internet girlfriends who stepped up with a laptop, one his brother had bought in India a few months ago and rarely used. As we waited for the brother to show up, my ex-neighbor told me how one of his local girlfriends has been begging him to take her virginity just to spoil things for the arranged fiance she hates, but he's too honorable and also afraid she's trying to rope him into marriage, as he'd be legally forced into if she told the police that he'd deflowered her. Then he mentioned that he owed a guy $3000 because of a contract he hadn't completed but he'd spent all his money on his new house and pitching in for one of his brother's weddings (he has 5 full sisters and 4 full brothers, along with 7 half brothers and 3 half sisters from his father's second wife--he said his unhappy childhood had taught his that marrying multiple women was a bad thing, which is why he told said girlfriend from the start that he wouldn't marry her) and investing in a new ISAF latrine construction sub-contract. So just to be polite my ex-neighbor had offered that the former business partner take his car as collateral, but the guy had actually taken him up on the deal and now he had to borrow one of his brother's cars to get around and this wouldn't do, so he was borrowing money from here and there, which he'd pay back as soon as he got paid by ISAF on August 1. He began counting the money he'd collected thus far in his lap and I took a hint said I'd be happy to lend him $500. So a different ritual of exchange but weirdly the exact deal I'd worked out with the Brit.
Search history on my new laptop (I happened upon that, didn't go typing the alphabet to see what popped up, though now I'm mildly curious to do so):
.JPG)
This blog has definitely taken a turn for the obscene. I'll start reporting more on politics and history and such.
First Mughal Emperor Babur's tomb, refurbished by the Aga Khan Foundation but still bearing bullet scars from the civil war:
.JPG)
Production notes from Reel Unreel, on display at an art exhibit at Bagh-e Babur:
Also last week, the noisy neighbors who were constantly playing ball (the kids with their game of toss the ball unto the corrugated metal roof, the men with late-night cricket) got kicked out and I mentioned to the old guy next door that some foreigners I knew might be interested, more to make conversation than anything, but he relayed this on to the landlord, who came knocking the next day asking when my friends were looking to move in. So I placed an online ad and the next day a very blonde Englishwoman with a very large security contractor husband responded, visited, fell in love with the house despite all garbage the former neighbors had left strewn everywhere and agreed to move in in two weeks without haggling.
Problem was he wanted a thousand bucks up front for renovations but she said she's just started a new job and wouldn't have the cash until August 1 (what foreigners in Afghanistan don't have a wad of bills under their mattress?). Landlord wouldn't budget so she went looking to friends for loans. I texted her asking if she had a macbook she'd put up for collateral. She had one but didn't want to give it up, and we settled on her bringing me the Dell laptop her new job had given her but she didn't need for a $500 loan.
The landlord is now constantly inviting me over for meals (I choked down a pile of liver he had specially prepared for me, my third least favorite organ meat), and brought me a pot of Qabuli rice the other day. He has another house freeing up in a couple weeks and wants me to keep playing broker. I should ask for a commission.
In the end the Brit got the full $1000 from a friend and told me at her job they'd ended up giving the laptop to someone else. She told me her husband would ask around about buying Apple computers for US prices with US warranties on military bases.
It was my ex-neighbor who comes by to skype with his internet girlfriends who stepped up with a laptop, one his brother had bought in India a few months ago and rarely used. As we waited for the brother to show up, my ex-neighbor told me how one of his local girlfriends has been begging him to take her virginity just to spoil things for the arranged fiance she hates, but he's too honorable and also afraid she's trying to rope him into marriage, as he'd be legally forced into if she told the police that he'd deflowered her. Then he mentioned that he owed a guy $3000 because of a contract he hadn't completed but he'd spent all his money on his new house and pitching in for one of his brother's weddings (he has 5 full sisters and 4 full brothers, along with 7 half brothers and 3 half sisters from his father's second wife--he said his unhappy childhood had taught his that marrying multiple women was a bad thing, which is why he told said girlfriend from the start that he wouldn't marry her) and investing in a new ISAF latrine construction sub-contract. So just to be polite my ex-neighbor had offered that the former business partner take his car as collateral, but the guy had actually taken him up on the deal and now he had to borrow one of his brother's cars to get around and this wouldn't do, so he was borrowing money from here and there, which he'd pay back as soon as he got paid by ISAF on August 1. He began counting the money he'd collected thus far in his lap and I took a hint said I'd be happy to lend him $500. So a different ritual of exchange but weirdly the exact deal I'd worked out with the Brit.
Search history on my new laptop (I happened upon that, didn't go typing the alphabet to see what popped up, though now I'm mildly curious to do so):
.JPG)
This blog has definitely taken a turn for the obscene. I'll start reporting more on politics and history and such.
First Mughal Emperor Babur's tomb, refurbished by the Aga Khan Foundation but still bearing bullet scars from the civil war:
.JPG)
Production notes from Reel Unreel, on display at an art exhibit at Bagh-e Babur:
Monday, July 9, 2012
Being neighborly
I invited my National Directorate of Security neighbor, who we'll call A, over for dinner last night. While we waited for his friend B, A told me how his current job training special forces is much more laid back then when he was doing recon operations, speaking the English he'd learned living for years in the US. For the latter, he and usually one other guy would go to a village posing as travelers and then if they found who they decided were insurgency they called their team in from 2-3 klicks away. Sometimes his partner doing recon would be a white boy (his words) with a beard who pretended to be a mute. That had raised suspicions on occasions, and a few times he and his partner had to run for it, hole up in an irrigation ditch or other cover while backup came. He showed me a couple scars where he'd gotten nicked by bullets. That's the thing: if it's not your time yet you're not going to die, he said. Simple as that.
A's Pashtun but doesn't trust other Pashtuns. Tajiks and Hazaras and Uzbeks are cool; like his Hazara servants at work they do whatever he tells them to, but Pashtuns don't take any shit and don't like strangers. But if you're their guest, in with their family, then it's all good. I should come back with him to his home town in Paktia, he told me (maybe in 10 years, I said). He went back there sometimes and it was no problem even passing through Taliban checkpoints on the road as long as you could say where you were from and what family you belonged to. Because even the Taliban were afraid to fuck with you in case your family decided to take revenge. Last time he was back his uncle showed him weapons cache he had for his household of about 20 males and 10 females who could fight. Not just AK's but RPGs, mortars. The uncle had asked A to buy him a couple .50 caliber heavy machine-guns when he had a chance.
Of course A told everyone back home that he worked helping out orphans in Kabul, and not for NDS.
B was also NDS but had learned his English wholly from the American soldiers he worked with. He had something like a southern accent and ended many of his sentence with Nigga you know what I'm sayin'? or Nigga pleeaase. A and B had worked together on many an operation. The shit we've done, man, you wouldn't believe it, A laughed. You should write a book, I told him. Write it in English and it's be a bestseller: Memoirs from Afghan Special Ops. Nah man, he said, I try writing thing but I get pissed off, you know. I've smashed a few of my laptops when they screwed up on me.
Back at their place I was introduced to C, who looked pious and maybe 40 in white shalwar kamiz and beard. As C kneaded a lump of hashish, A told me how C had spent 14 years in prison in Germany and 7 in Russia. He became like the president of the jail in Germany, A told me. What was he in jail for? I wanted to know. Lot's of things. He's killed so many people, A chuckled. He would go a factory and tell the owner to give him 200,000 dollars, and if the factory owner told him to fuck off he'd come later and kill him, or even come back and put all the people working at the factory in vans and take them away.
6 years ago he was transferred back to Afghanistan in shackles and immediately released. Now for the past 5 years he had been trying to build a legal case against the German government,demanding 40 million euros in damages for wrongful imprisonment. He did all the bad shit they said he did, they just don't have the documents and proof now, A explained. C had a big binder of documents in clear plastic sleeves from the case and gave me a few to look over. He told me he'd gotten signatures and backing for his case from lots of important people in Afghanistan, even President Karzai (I really should have asked to see that letter). He told me he was very hopeful because Germany is trying to maintain very good relations with Afghanistan and they wouldn't want his case to spoil that.
C half-seriously started negotiating in Pashto with A and B about the provision of security once he got his 40 million euros. A switched over to English for my benefit: We're telling him he better give us a lot of money for security, otherwise we'll just take it all. He laughed.
C used to be a great kickboxer too, B mentioned to me. He fights mean, A added. C asked me if I'd like to write an article about him. Maybe, I said, You have a very interesting story. Yes, it's an interesting case from the perspective of human rights, he replied. I don't want to get murdered for writing in a way that displeases him, but I might mention this to journalist friends to see if they want to take up the story.
C later decided, however, that I should write a screenplay instead. He could invest a lakh (100,000) or two of euros of his court winnings into the production and then make 60 lakhs in profits selling distribution writes in Asia and Europe and Africa. Books and articles had too low of a profit margin.
Another two friends showed up later on, one of whom didn't seem to speak Pashto and the other I'd met before briefly and was surprised to now have me introduced as an Iranian. Oh I thought you were Herati, he said. That made me feel good.
They brought some hashish but after taking first tokes and passing it around refused to take the joint back after it had circled around. They won't smoke with us because we've been drinking alcohol, A explained to me.
It turned out that not only C but and A and B spoke good Russian and had spent time in Moscow, for what I didn't pry. B missed blondes--he used to have 10 girlfriends at a time back in Russia. A wanted to know about all the honeys who were always coming over to my house. He sat at the upstairs window smoking sometimes and knew who all visited who on our block. And I'd better invite him over and share next time I had bitches over, he joked, otherwise he and B would come knocking demanding documentation from them. They laughed and bumped fists. We're just fucking with you man, B reassured me, We're really humble actually. We're country boys in the city, you know?
A's Pashtun but doesn't trust other Pashtuns. Tajiks and Hazaras and Uzbeks are cool; like his Hazara servants at work they do whatever he tells them to, but Pashtuns don't take any shit and don't like strangers. But if you're their guest, in with their family, then it's all good. I should come back with him to his home town in Paktia, he told me (maybe in 10 years, I said). He went back there sometimes and it was no problem even passing through Taliban checkpoints on the road as long as you could say where you were from and what family you belonged to. Because even the Taliban were afraid to fuck with you in case your family decided to take revenge. Last time he was back his uncle showed him weapons cache he had for his household of about 20 males and 10 females who could fight. Not just AK's but RPGs, mortars. The uncle had asked A to buy him a couple .50 caliber heavy machine-guns when he had a chance.
Of course A told everyone back home that he worked helping out orphans in Kabul, and not for NDS.
B was also NDS but had learned his English wholly from the American soldiers he worked with. He had something like a southern accent and ended many of his sentence with Nigga you know what I'm sayin'? or Nigga pleeaase. A and B had worked together on many an operation. The shit we've done, man, you wouldn't believe it, A laughed. You should write a book, I told him. Write it in English and it's be a bestseller: Memoirs from Afghan Special Ops. Nah man, he said, I try writing thing but I get pissed off, you know. I've smashed a few of my laptops when they screwed up on me.
Back at their place I was introduced to C, who looked pious and maybe 40 in white shalwar kamiz and beard. As C kneaded a lump of hashish, A told me how C had spent 14 years in prison in Germany and 7 in Russia. He became like the president of the jail in Germany, A told me. What was he in jail for? I wanted to know. Lot's of things. He's killed so many people, A chuckled. He would go a factory and tell the owner to give him 200,000 dollars, and if the factory owner told him to fuck off he'd come later and kill him, or even come back and put all the people working at the factory in vans and take them away.
6 years ago he was transferred back to Afghanistan in shackles and immediately released. Now for the past 5 years he had been trying to build a legal case against the German government,demanding 40 million euros in damages for wrongful imprisonment. He did all the bad shit they said he did, they just don't have the documents and proof now, A explained. C had a big binder of documents in clear plastic sleeves from the case and gave me a few to look over. He told me he'd gotten signatures and backing for his case from lots of important people in Afghanistan, even President Karzai (I really should have asked to see that letter). He told me he was very hopeful because Germany is trying to maintain very good relations with Afghanistan and they wouldn't want his case to spoil that.
C half-seriously started negotiating in Pashto with A and B about the provision of security once he got his 40 million euros. A switched over to English for my benefit: We're telling him he better give us a lot of money for security, otherwise we'll just take it all. He laughed.
C used to be a great kickboxer too, B mentioned to me. He fights mean, A added. C asked me if I'd like to write an article about him. Maybe, I said, You have a very interesting story. Yes, it's an interesting case from the perspective of human rights, he replied. I don't want to get murdered for writing in a way that displeases him, but I might mention this to journalist friends to see if they want to take up the story.
C later decided, however, that I should write a screenplay instead. He could invest a lakh (100,000) or two of euros of his court winnings into the production and then make 60 lakhs in profits selling distribution writes in Asia and Europe and Africa. Books and articles had too low of a profit margin.
Another two friends showed up later on, one of whom didn't seem to speak Pashto and the other I'd met before briefly and was surprised to now have me introduced as an Iranian. Oh I thought you were Herati, he said. That made me feel good.
They brought some hashish but after taking first tokes and passing it around refused to take the joint back after it had circled around. They won't smoke with us because we've been drinking alcohol, A explained to me.
It turned out that not only C but and A and B spoke good Russian and had spent time in Moscow, for what I didn't pry. B missed blondes--he used to have 10 girlfriends at a time back in Russia. A wanted to know about all the honeys who were always coming over to my house. He sat at the upstairs window smoking sometimes and knew who all visited who on our block. And I'd better invite him over and share next time I had bitches over, he joked, otherwise he and B would come knocking demanding documentation from them. They laughed and bumped fists. We're just fucking with you man, B reassured me, We're really humble actually. We're country boys in the city, you know?
Friday, July 6, 2012
eavesdropping
Paraphrased excerpts from a conversation between a Canadian and an Afghan who spoke unaccented American English with slight lisp at a garden cafe of whose existence locals working on the same block were unaware. The Canadian looked to be in his mid-forties; the Afghan looked a few years younger.
Canadian: ...They've got more cameras and shit there than anywhere. So whenever I bring a group to Dubai, I'm like, Don't just grad the first hooker you see, you know? But there's always one guy who within a few hours shows up at the hotel with two, you know, and I'm like, That's what I'm here for. You have to check; you don't know if she's underaged or what. And they'll throw you in jail for that shit. They don't give a fuck.
Afghan: Last time I was in Dubai I was with this fucking Afghan businessman, rich as fuck. And we're in Dubai airport and he wants to buy Johnny Walker. Because Afghans don't know what's good. I was like, Fuck that blended shit, you should get X brand (can't remember). He was like, But it's expensive, and I was like, Trust me it's worth it. And by the time we got to London he was drunk as fuck. I took him back to the hotel and asked if I should come back in a few hours and he was like, Come back tomorrow (they laugh).
Good shit is so hard to get in Kabul, you know. I always tell my foreign friends they shouldn't drink anything from the bars at the expat parties, you know. 'Cause what happens is they just ask their Afghan guys to bring them and they get local homemade stuff that's been put in brand name bottles. That shit is dangerous.
Canadian: I'm always telling Karzai and the ministers, they should just license that shit. In Dubai they're Muslims and they license the shit out of liquor and make lots of money off of it. And then you'll be able to find the real shit in Kabul; you'll be doing your country a service. If you're a good Muslim just don't drink it.
Afghan: But they all drink. If you go to the house of the fucking Minister of the Haj I bet you'll find bottles.
Canadian: R, W (naming ministers) I've brought them all bottles and they say yeah let's license it, but the next day--
Afghan: They forget (they laugh).
Canadian: I'm just saying in private they say it's a good idea, they all drink. I was on a plane with R and before the fucking plane even took off he was ordering a cold beer. There are what, four or five flights to Dubai a day now? And it's hard to get a spot, and it's not foreigners and NGO people, it's Afghans going to have fun.
Afghan: All fucking Afghan businessmen. They've got so much money.
Canadian: So have the courage to do it at home.
Afghan: Instead of fucking hypocrisy.
...
Canadian: I'm supposed to be a governance expert but the way I see it when I compare Canada and here, Canada's just gotten better at legalizing corruption. When you apply for a passport, there are different prices listed depending on how long you want it to take.
Afghan: It's exactly the same here, only in the West they legalize it.
Canadian: And like with democracy. In Canada just before elections you see all the roads paved and services provided. And politicians give contracts to a construction company and get delivered a thousand votes in return. The way I see it, if the construction guy does a good job and the people get the road they want, then what's the problem? That's what all this lobbying and shit is, it's legalized corruption; that's what they've gotta do here. So the way you get something back for what you give is more predicable.
Afghans: And they should license bars; that would bring peace.
...
Afghan: You can't date no girls in Kabul 'cause everyone knows everyone. There's pretty and there's Kabul pretty (they laugh). Every time I get back from Europe it's like, Oh shit, I've gotta get back into Afghan mode.
...
Afghan: (after they discuss how much Afghanistan would benefit from making Kabul a hub for international flights) And a corridor, you know? A corridor to the sea; it would be so helpful if we could get that.
Canadian: And it's not that far, right? So how would that corridor work? Like--
Afghan: You'd have to cut back the borders of Pakistan and Iran.
Canadian: Who's working on that?
Afghan: Nobody in Afghanistan 'cause they're all fucking puppets of Pakistan.
Canadian: But it wouldn't be that hard, right? Compared to the Suez Canal and shit... And with modern transportation it would be really close. Same thing with that railroad, if the Chinese could get their shit together and build it...
(They discuss Chinese economic success and how the Chinese are learning English like motherfuckers)
...
Afghan: Here's my thing with communism. It seem like a good idea on paper, but it's actually impractical. Capitalism seems like a terrible idea, but it's practical.
Canadian: Exactly.
...
Canadian: And that's what I've been saying: you've gotta start teaching English from grade one in Afghanistan. I'm sorry, you've got a beautiful language, but English equals dollar sign. They've gotta get more Afghans studying abroad, not even in the US, but even--
Afghan: Even in India would be better than nothing, right?
Canadian: Yeah. But fucking W is as thick as this piece of glass (he raps the table). He's always underspending his budget and I'm like, Look, you've got a million dollars unspent; that would be scholarships for 20 (or did he say 40?) Afghans to study abroad. And he says yes and B would you bring me a bottle of scotch next time you come? And then I leave his office and there are fucking 40 moollahs waiting outside. W always tells me, You've got a great idea--talk to the donors. I say look, donors are great but at the end of the day it's your fucking government and you've gotta take charge. Makes me want to cry.
Afghan: You cry and you're a foreigner. Think of us Afghans.
Canadian: But that's the thing. You're one of the few who understands this stuff.
...
Afghan: Alright I gotta go back to my village. Gotta cover my fucking tattoos and put on my Afghan clothes before I go see the family.
Canadian: Put on your Afghan costume. So that's like to show respect in the village, or...?
Afghan: Nah, I mean they're all my family so it's not about respect; they don't give a shit if I'm in jeans or whatever. It's just something you do, you know? But it feels weird, like naked. The clothes are all long and shit but a lot of wind blows around inside. And I'm gonna have to sit cross-legged all day; that'll suck.
Canadian: Oh I know. I can't fucking sit cross-legged for five minutes. The worst is those government tea talks when you all have to sit there for ages.
Afghan: Yeah, you must go to a lot of those.
...
Canadian: ...They've got more cameras and shit there than anywhere. So whenever I bring a group to Dubai, I'm like, Don't just grad the first hooker you see, you know? But there's always one guy who within a few hours shows up at the hotel with two, you know, and I'm like, That's what I'm here for. You have to check; you don't know if she's underaged or what. And they'll throw you in jail for that shit. They don't give a fuck.
Afghan: Last time I was in Dubai I was with this fucking Afghan businessman, rich as fuck. And we're in Dubai airport and he wants to buy Johnny Walker. Because Afghans don't know what's good. I was like, Fuck that blended shit, you should get X brand (can't remember). He was like, But it's expensive, and I was like, Trust me it's worth it. And by the time we got to London he was drunk as fuck. I took him back to the hotel and asked if I should come back in a few hours and he was like, Come back tomorrow (they laugh).
Good shit is so hard to get in Kabul, you know. I always tell my foreign friends they shouldn't drink anything from the bars at the expat parties, you know. 'Cause what happens is they just ask their Afghan guys to bring them and they get local homemade stuff that's been put in brand name bottles. That shit is dangerous.
Canadian: I'm always telling Karzai and the ministers, they should just license that shit. In Dubai they're Muslims and they license the shit out of liquor and make lots of money off of it. And then you'll be able to find the real shit in Kabul; you'll be doing your country a service. If you're a good Muslim just don't drink it.
Afghan: But they all drink. If you go to the house of the fucking Minister of the Haj I bet you'll find bottles.
Canadian: R, W (naming ministers) I've brought them all bottles and they say yeah let's license it, but the next day--
Afghan: They forget (they laugh).
Canadian: I'm just saying in private they say it's a good idea, they all drink. I was on a plane with R and before the fucking plane even took off he was ordering a cold beer. There are what, four or five flights to Dubai a day now? And it's hard to get a spot, and it's not foreigners and NGO people, it's Afghans going to have fun.
Afghan: All fucking Afghan businessmen. They've got so much money.
Canadian: So have the courage to do it at home.
Afghan: Instead of fucking hypocrisy.
...
Canadian: I'm supposed to be a governance expert but the way I see it when I compare Canada and here, Canada's just gotten better at legalizing corruption. When you apply for a passport, there are different prices listed depending on how long you want it to take.
Afghan: It's exactly the same here, only in the West they legalize it.
Canadian: And like with democracy. In Canada just before elections you see all the roads paved and services provided. And politicians give contracts to a construction company and get delivered a thousand votes in return. The way I see it, if the construction guy does a good job and the people get the road they want, then what's the problem? That's what all this lobbying and shit is, it's legalized corruption; that's what they've gotta do here. So the way you get something back for what you give is more predicable.
Afghans: And they should license bars; that would bring peace.
...
Afghan: You can't date no girls in Kabul 'cause everyone knows everyone. There's pretty and there's Kabul pretty (they laugh). Every time I get back from Europe it's like, Oh shit, I've gotta get back into Afghan mode.
...
Afghan: (after they discuss how much Afghanistan would benefit from making Kabul a hub for international flights) And a corridor, you know? A corridor to the sea; it would be so helpful if we could get that.
Canadian: And it's not that far, right? So how would that corridor work? Like--
Afghan: You'd have to cut back the borders of Pakistan and Iran.
Canadian: Who's working on that?
Afghan: Nobody in Afghanistan 'cause they're all fucking puppets of Pakistan.
Canadian: But it wouldn't be that hard, right? Compared to the Suez Canal and shit... And with modern transportation it would be really close. Same thing with that railroad, if the Chinese could get their shit together and build it...
(They discuss Chinese economic success and how the Chinese are learning English like motherfuckers)
...
Afghan: Here's my thing with communism. It seem like a good idea on paper, but it's actually impractical. Capitalism seems like a terrible idea, but it's practical.
Canadian: Exactly.
...
Canadian: And that's what I've been saying: you've gotta start teaching English from grade one in Afghanistan. I'm sorry, you've got a beautiful language, but English equals dollar sign. They've gotta get more Afghans studying abroad, not even in the US, but even--
Afghan: Even in India would be better than nothing, right?
Canadian: Yeah. But fucking W is as thick as this piece of glass (he raps the table). He's always underspending his budget and I'm like, Look, you've got a million dollars unspent; that would be scholarships for 20 (or did he say 40?) Afghans to study abroad. And he says yes and B would you bring me a bottle of scotch next time you come? And then I leave his office and there are fucking 40 moollahs waiting outside. W always tells me, You've got a great idea--talk to the donors. I say look, donors are great but at the end of the day it's your fucking government and you've gotta take charge. Makes me want to cry.
Afghan: You cry and you're a foreigner. Think of us Afghans.
Canadian: But that's the thing. You're one of the few who understands this stuff.
...
Afghan: Alright I gotta go back to my village. Gotta cover my fucking tattoos and put on my Afghan clothes before I go see the family.
Canadian: Put on your Afghan costume. So that's like to show respect in the village, or...?
Afghan: Nah, I mean they're all my family so it's not about respect; they don't give a shit if I'm in jeans or whatever. It's just something you do, you know? But it feels weird, like naked. The clothes are all long and shit but a lot of wind blows around inside. And I'm gonna have to sit cross-legged all day; that'll suck.
Canadian: Oh I know. I can't fucking sit cross-legged for five minutes. The worst is those government tea talks when you all have to sit there for ages.
Afghan: Yeah, you must go to a lot of those.
...
Sunday, July 1, 2012
e-community, body building
I've just discovered the Survival Guide to Kabul bulletin board: http://www.quicktopic.com/23/H/NN24HsfiTdmn
It's mostly people looking for language teachers and housing and massages, but there are also some wonderfully bizarre ads, like one for 10,000 liters of engine oil.
In Iran badan sazi, a literal translation of body building, means the same thing it does in English. But in Afghanistan apparently it means that you all line up and your kickboxing coach walks down the row kicking and punching each of you in turn, starting with the legs working up to the throat and then back down while you hold your muscles tense. The elbow to the liver was the worst.
It's mostly people looking for language teachers and housing and massages, but there are also some wonderfully bizarre ads, like one for 10,000 liters of engine oil.
In Iran badan sazi, a literal translation of body building, means the same thing it does in English. But in Afghanistan apparently it means that you all line up and your kickboxing coach walks down the row kicking and punching each of you in turn, starting with the legs working up to the throat and then back down while you hold your muscles tense. The elbow to the liver was the worst.
Saturday, June 30, 2012
Panjshir tourism
I took a little road trip to Panjshir yesterday with a tailor from down the street, his relative (can't remember know if cousin or brother-in-law), and a female Indian grad student who communicated with the tailor in funny half-English Hindi (("depend kerta hai" "kaafi cute hai"--Bengali's her first and English her second language) that he sometimes kinda understood.
Trying to pass for local in New Balance sneakers:
The road through most of the valley has been paved over the past decade but there were a few scrabbly bits:
We left home early and arrived in my companions' village for a huge late breakfast of homemade dairy products (yogurt, doogh, bread stuffed with the curds left over from straining the liquid for doogh, butter, and the cream crust skimmed from the top of the yogurt) at the guesthouse of a local commander. I wasn't sure if we were being treated because we were foreigners or because the tailor's relative was a VIP or because the local commander was obliged to provide hospitality to constituents as a form of patronage (see Fredrik Barth, Political Leadership among Swat Pathans).
At any rate the tailor and his relative were friendly with him but seemed to take the commander's generosity for granted and didn't make a big show of thanking him or taarofing off his offers of mulberries and talkhan (a sweet made from pulverized dried mulberries with a rock-like consistency that had me a bit worried I would crack a tooth, though they apologized that it was all soft because it was warm; it was much better when cold and firmer. They told me that when the Panjsher was more or less under siege during the Soviet occupation and then at the peak of Taliban power and flour and salt were hard to come by, talkhan was a staple. Local myth is that the Soviets observed them eating the stuff and threw up their hands: These people eat stones; how can we fight them?)
I took this below picture later, during our lunch picnic of meat and bread and mangoes:
Cutting watermelon with an improbable California license plate:
At the commander's house in the morning we were given a mound of some of the best mulberries I've ever had, though they kept apologizing that it wasn't quite peak season:
Preparing hash. A friend of the guys driving me joined us with a lump of the stuff the size of an eyeball and made not the slightest effort to conceal it when we passed by police checkpoints.
I'm sure my camera and having an un-burqa'ed foreign women in the car earned us more attention, but still it seemed like a lot of Panjsheris spend their Fridays gawking at people driving down their one main road.
I got a second chance to photograph the chicken salesmen because after passing them we were held up for a few minutes at a checkpoint, not because of the hashish but because one of the guys was suspicious of us foreigners, and they got ahead of us again. When the plainclothes cop (?) asked what we were doing here and for our ID's the friend who had brought the hash started snapped at him that we were his guests and it was none of the cop's business. That got the cop angry and he made a point of slowly flipping through scrutinizing each of my Indian friend's visa stamps on her passport (which he held upside down).
At Ahmed Shah Massoud's tomb:
Other tourists climbed on the broken down Soviet APCs and tanks parked near his mausoleum:
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)