nature's teet

Back in the suffocating heat for a week, it doesn’t feel like I was gone for three weeks until my reduced salary came in.  Was it worth it?  Would you do it again?  I hope I don’t have to make that decision again.  But for crying out loud, isn’t it time, this cosmological joke we’re all in is making the higher powers to be look pretty damn obsolete. 

It is hard to describe the attitude of the students with three weeks to go before final exams.  Yes, they are burned out, lethargic, apathy you can drink right from nature’s teet.  I got to find another room and show a movie. 

I have until 2 July to notify the people in Washington if I want to work for them in Albania.  Thanks, folks, for the heads up.  I’ll know by then if Kandahar is a bust, and why would it be a bust, no reason, it’s just a long time from now.  The heat is slowing everything down.

I have to get the car in for a check up.  When I returned to Buraimi last week it stalled in the mountains, I pushed it hard, four plus hours in the searing heat and then to climb was just too much, the engine just cut off.  In any case, I booked a few nights at the old Intercon in Al-Ain next week, the car has to work, or I can walk across.  We’ll see.

5.28.15

Thursday evening and it’s only 94 degrees outside, well that’s good to know.  I swept the balcony of its mounting shit and cigarettes butts and dead pigeon to one side and this morning in the pile two pigeon eggs.  They have no decency, so am I gonna chase them away?  Nah, I can watch the ugly birds come to life.  Welcome to this shithole. 

l told a colleague I had a new job in Afghanistan and he said, you will die, I quote Captain Hook, death is the last great adventure, tongue in cheek, it’s been calm in Kandahar for a while and I know people there and they say it’s ok, so I don’t fear.  I’m more likely to die in Baltimore or Brazil than in Afghanistan, right, and besides there’s an airport nearby and a two hour flight to Dubai if anyone behaves poorly.

I look forward to sleep tonight.  I long for the deep recesses of life with eyes closed and if I remain in the silent world for two days that would be a good thing.

5.29.15

I posted flower photos on that social media site today unconcerned who likes them or not. What else does one do with photos if they’re not printed or, or what, I don’t know. 

I tried to read Borges ‘Labyrinths’ and I don’t know where he is going, so I started the ‘The Sixth Extinction’ and that is interesting enough to fill the hours.  Imagine your time off in Kandahar, one isolated place to another, why don’t you try a place with parks and museums and things to do outside, I don’t know, is it a perpetual low grade kind of depression that keeps me in states of isolation I don’t know.

I’ve been looking at the European map, looking for inspiration, Hamburg, Oslo, a day or two in Wittenburg though I’d like to visit the door in two years when for the 500^th anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation and why pray tell do you want to visit this, because it is big, the moment the Catholic church was confronted, the moment in western history where everything changed. 

I went to Lulus at eight this morning otherwise I’ve been inside today, washing and ironing, reading, napping, on the net, not a whole lot.  And what is there to say here that hasn’t been said already.  Two weeks of classes to go, I need to, I should, prepare lessons for Sunday, next weekend I don’t expect trouble crossing the border though I’ll try to cross at the Shakla border, an eye scan I’m told is necessary, no biggie, scan away.  The beard itches and I keep forgetting to buy a beard brush, dobs of hydrocortisone help, temporarily. 

The moon rises, a full one in a week’s time and then one more and that’ll be it.  Can you look back for the past two years and come up with the best and worst moments?  Ya, give me some time, nothing good comes quickly, bad, the border absurdities jump out, teachers cheating worse than students comes quickly……..gee not much else.  What was good?  I don’t know, professionally it was a good two years, a year and half as coordinator was good experience.  Where would you really like to be, the number one place on your list of places to live.  San Francisco, probably the most expensive city too, gee John, you always think of places so out of reach. 

I want to do the novena again but I fear, what will happen, maybe nothing will happen, but I need to do it, the last six weeks packing, a lot of what I have I’ll take to Girgic’s office for staff to peruse, a can for donations, I don’t want the money, will be there. 

Mother pigeon sits on two eggs.  If I open the door for a smoke she takes off, what is this, there is no bond between mother and egg?