The Best Things About Kabul

February 6, 2009 Living in Kabul has been rich beyond imagination. I often have trouble putting words to paper because so many sights, sounds, and tastes compete for air. Of the many things I love about this city, I offer the following which I will carry with me.

The greeting that meets me every morning when Shah Mahmood drives me to work: Roz-e khush, “have a good day.” Literally, “have a rosy day.”

Moroyhar kanar, or chAklEtA, hard butterscotch candies which the kitchen staff set out in small glass bowls every morning and place in each office in the compound where I work. The hard shell of the candy melts and gives way to a creamy caramel.

Abdul Qadeer “Istalfi” Carpet and Handcraft Store on Chicken Street, my favorite shop in Kabul. Abdul Qadeer sells carpets, chapan (also known as the “Karzai coat,” a mid-calf length purple and green silk jacket worn as a cape with the sleeves hanging free), pakol (a round, flat wool hat worn by men), gorgeous painted furniture made by Afghan refugees in Pakistan, silk and cotton tapestries. The shop is a maze of separate rooms; as soon as you think you have seen the last offering, there is another small room behind the next decorative curtain. Today I went to Abdul Qadeer’s shop with my friend, Tom. Abdul was willing to bargain with Tom because Tom came with mAdar, or “Mother.” (That's me!) I enjoy an elevated status in Afghanistan due to my tender age!

Nan, the best bread I have ever eaten. A loaf of Nan, a two foot long flat bread, can be bought at one of the dozens of street bakeries that dot Kabul’s commercial and residential neighborhoods. Indeed, Nan bakeries may be the Starbuck’s of Kabul, that is how close together they are found. Nan is baked on a blazing charcoal grill and sold hot. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, I never get tired of it.

The BGs as our bodyguards are known affectionately watch over all of us who live in the Guest House and work on the Rule of Law Project 24/7. There are 8 BGs, all young Afghan men dressed in natty royal blue blazers and packing heat! My friend and BG, Farid, is a born leader. Within days of my meeting him, Farid was offered a job as a security supervisor and left us. The BGs ride in the car with us to and from work and home and wherever we go on our day off, always sitting in the front passenger seat. All those years that my children competed for the front seat of the car by seeing who could shout “Shotgun” first, and now I know why. The BGs are no older than my two children. It is their job to get out of the car first, assess the setting, and then give us the nod to get out. The mAdar in me wants to take care of them. It hardly seems right that they should put themselves at risk when they are so young and have their long lives ahead of them.

The calico cat lives at our office. I heard her before I met her, basking in the sun on the terrace of the office, mewing at the top of her lungs as the lunch hour approached. No fool, this Afghan peshak, she has worked her charms on me and all but a handful of my colleagues as she makes her way from office to office to lounge on a comfortable chair, announce her hunger, or nuzzle up against a friendly ankle. I wish I could bring her home with me.

Meena, Salima, Modera, Kamila, Modera, and Razia, my young Afghan colleagues. Salima translates legal publications from Dari to English. She learned English as a child and in her free time teaches young Afghan girls English and math because, as she told me, she was lucky to have a family that encouraged her to get an education and many Afghan girls are not so lucky. Razia has her law degree and also works as a translator. Parwana (her name means “butterfly” in English), Kamila, and Modera are Cleaners at my office. Meena is a Human Resources Clerk. Not a day passes that I am not asked, “How is your daughter? How is your son?” Meena often greets me with “Hello, Mum, how are you? Your eyes are beautiful today.” Salima and I share an office. When I come in on a morning, she asks “How was your evening?” When we part at 4:30 PM, I say, “Have a nice evening,” to which she responds, “I wish you the same.”

I have become friends with a group of women law professors who are in Kabul studying Legal English in hopes of becoming sufficiently fluent to earn fellowships to study in the United States. Three times a week, I go to Kabul’s Safi Landmark Hotel where Anargul Mansouri, Nadia Noorzi, Noor Jahan Xousufuzai, Sekba, Fairida Qadiri, and Nadia Alkan are staying and we speak in English. I have learned from them what it was like to live under the Taliban when they were young girls. They were not allowed to attend school, and could not leave their homes. Nadia Alkan described those lost years as a time when her mind lay fallow but the seeds for her career in law germinated. Today she teaches on both the Law and Sharia Faculties at Kabul University. Three of these women are married to husbands selected by their parents. Until they married, they lived at home with parents, grandparents, in-laws, nieces, and nephews. As they became comfortable with me, Anargul asked with a twinkle in her eye, “Can we ask you personal question?” “Of course,” I said. “Did you have boyfriends before you married?” I owned up to one or two boyfriends and explained that it is our custom in the United States. They explained that boyfriends and dating are not a possibility in Afghan culture, and that is fine with them.

Dovecotes dot the rooftops of many homes in Kabul. On my first morning here, I awoke early to the call for prayer which sings across the city five times a day, starting at sunrise. Listening carefully, I discerned a competing sound. Cooing. I got out of bed and opened the curtains to see where the noise came from. There they were at eye level, cooing to their hearts’ content, a flock of doves issuing their own call to worship from their lofty temples atop the house next door.

Chicken Street

January 23, 2009 I woke up this morning to blue skies and sunshine. Kabul looked glorious out of my second floor window. Today is my day off and I welcomed the break from work which has kept me busy and has stretched me in good ways. First thing when I woke up, I had a Skype call with my brothers, my sister-in-law, and my Dad who live in Southern California. It was so good to see their faces on the screen and to catch up with them for the first time since I came to Kabul. I think my Dad was a little taken aback to see me full screen! It sure was good to see all of them.

My morning emails brought a card from Louisa from “The Office,” a television show we share a passion for. The card is a photo of Phyllis (aka Mrs. Bob Vance of Bob Vance Refrigeration) on her wedding day. That made me smile. I miss my children. The next email from Alex was brimming with good cheer about his senior thesis film and the Nietzch Factor, his Wesleyan Ultimate Frisbee team. A third email shared the great news that “Trouble the Water,” the extraordinary documentary film about Hurricane Katrina that Alex worked on as an intern two summers ago is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Film. Big shout-out to Tia Lessin and Carl Deal from Kabul!

After brunch – Fridays we have brunch at 10 AM in the Guest House – of sausage and the most amazing soufflé-like pancake, I went off to Chicken Street with my friend, Belquis.

I had heard about Chicken Street before I came to Kabul. Carpets, furniture, tapestries, hookas, Karzai hats, chapans (vibrant colored Karzai knee-length jackets), lapis lazuli. You name it, Chicken Street has it.

Today was a lark for several reasons, the most exciting of which is that my friend and I were out together in Kabul without a bodyguard. (Shhhhhh!) We were in a safe area and we were in and out of shops. And we had a phalanx of 7-and 8-year old boys tagging along behind and in front of us, beseeching us to buy chewing gum, offering to carry our packages, and finally determining that they were our bodyguards. At one point, my friend noticed that we were the only women on the street.

We made our way in and out of the most extraordinary shops, each one a warren of small rooms offering feasts for the eyes. Carpets stacked floor to ceiling. Tapestries, silks and wool. Kilim saddlebags for camels. Karzai hats made of lambs wool. Karzai jackets --- chapans – of elegant green and purple fabric. (To be worn, I have it on good authority, with arms in sleeves for informal occasions and draped over the shoulders for formal occasions.) Carved walnut chairs, divans, tables, bed frames. (My friend, Belquis, is trying out one of the beautiful carved chairs in the photograph above.) Lapis lazuli carvings, rings, bracelets, and necklaces. Handblown glass in the most exquisite pale aqua.

All this and the small boys were still escorting us, waiting patiently as we entered yet another store, hoping against hope that we would acknowledge their patience with some form of material reward! We relented and purchased chocolate bars. The boys accepted them with smiles and continued to tag along after us.
Every shop keeper in every shop we visited offered us tea and sweets and led us up stairs to upper levels where carpets and saddlebags and chairs and tables and wall hangings are kept. We are invited to select items and pay now or pay next time we come back. Afghans give new meaning to the word “hospitality” by their words and deeds.

The colors, textures, carvings, finishes, threads, and patterns dazzle the eye. After the second carpet shop, the carpets and tapestries became a blur of reds, blues, golds, and creams. Silk and wool. Blankets made of camel hair and beads of lapis lazuli. My heart was set on two tiny tables, one red and one blue, with intricate folk designs painted on them. A multicolored bedspread embroidered in cotton. A woven wall hanging, a painted box, blue glass beads. For this, I paid the sum of $90 US.

The sun was still high in the sky at 2:00 PM when we returned to the Guest House. I was still feeling the freedom of walking down Chicken Street with my friend, not a care in the world other than a growing pack of young boys eager to please, hoping for baksheesh.

Tonight, I went to the Gandamack for dinner with my new friend, Liz, a beautiful Australian woman who has been here for several months and will be leaving on Monday to return to her home in Spain. This is the third restaurant I have been to since I’ve been in Kabul, and the drill is the same with each one. The restaurants we are allowed to go to are the “double door” restaurants. One enters from an institutional grilled and locked door streetside and crosses a dirt courtyard into a set of double doors. The first door is metal and it is locked. Liz has been there before so she knows to knock. We are viewed through a peephole and we pass muster. We are allowed into a tiny holding stall while we are either viewed again – or in the case of other restaurants, searched for firearms – and then the second door opens and we cross another courtyard and enter what is one of the most beautiful restaurants I have ever seen. White linen tablecloths, sterling flatware, bone china. Candlelight and wine glasses! Boo-yah! The menu offers Boston Climb Chowder and Trout Squeegey Style. (Don’t ask; I didn’t!) Liz has grilled chicken breast and I have Spinach Lasagna. The dinner is delicious and the conversation is wonderful. What a great day!

Every day I wish my children were here with me. I make mental notes to tell them about something I saw, heard, ate, even imagined. How to telegraph the colors, sounds, sights, smells, and tastes? This is too much experience for one person.