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.
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