may you soon breathe free

The man who I found nothing but goodness in cooked last night and this morning the kitchen is filthy, ants everywhere, uneaten food everywhere, dirty dishes, pots, and they don’t use sponges, what the hell is that?  Where is a clean spoon I can’t find it.  Men don’t cook or clean at home, that’s what the wife is for, but here who gives a shit, it’s a kitchen in the PDI guesthouse, feel free to debase yourself like a man on the loose.

From the same man I need help, it’s a careful minefield I must walk through, I can’t confront someone who isn’t aware there is a foreigner living here and who doesn’t know shit, and who has to share this kitchen. 

Every time I returned to the Gulf I didn’t experience culture shock because I know how the game works.  I’m having culture shock here and it’s only been a week. 

I started reading “All the Light We Cannot See” and ironically I can’t read a lot at once because I have no natural light in this room.  Last night my eyes were so tired I had to stop everything and just sit with them closed and think of nothing but sandy beaches and cool galangal green oceans.

9:18am

City power came to the house and I washed my personals in the old washing machine and laid them out on the metal frame of the uncovered gazebo in the yard.  Rezek was awake and filled the swamp cooler with me and an hour later, we are again without power.  I wouldn’t mind the absurdities of it all if it was winter, I wouldn’t.

7.18pm

I wanted vegetables so I left the PDI complex alone and headed for the shops I was shown by car the day I arrived.  I didn’t find tomatoes or garlic but I did find the place that sells honey cheerios and bought another box, and I found  Kandahar’s first modern supermarket.  Here a 2kg bag of pistachios, a brush for cleaning pots, an LCD desk light, two packs of Camel cigarettes without any scary pictures, and two badminton rackets with birdies for around $18, give or take a few affs, as the currency is called here.  In an hour’s time I was back behind the walls of my temporary home and Younnis turned on the solar power may it remain on all night.   I couldn’t find the bread shop and not a single healthy item was to be had.  Granted if I took a right at the fountain at the end of the road I might have, but not tonight.

And the next time I walk in the new ‘Afghanistan’ it would serve me well to dress like them.  My Tibetan flags t-shirt, no matter how peaceful that might look many may not know what the colors stand for.  And I was the only one on this busy evening of men and children wearing a t-shirt and trekking pants.  I heard a few ‘how are you’s but didn’t respond.  Isn’t it obvious enough that the dude wearing a baseball hat isn’t from around here.  And here, the safety zone, the Taliban free zone, I walk without fear.

And I saw a half dozen women, ok, I didn’t really see them, I saw…I don’t want to get cynical here, but the little screens in which they’re supposed to be able to see and breathe through looked pretty damn…say no more but don't forget.

This afternoon I crashed on a carpet in the cellar with Rezek and Saffiq and we watched cricket and an Indian television show set in New York City and Rezek made a yummy egg dish which we mopped up with bread and then he heated/lightly fried these conical looking chips he called papads which tasted of corn and drank green tea and smoked cigarettes.  I also worked on my TOEFL preps and I’ve already got a beef with these people and their overuse of demonstrative pronouns.  That is just absurd I kept saying to myself.  Talk about picking gnats out of my beard.

I’m between the moments here, do I eat ramen noodles or do I open up the pistachios?  I open up the nuts and that’ll be it for tonight which means I might wake up a little hungrier than usual. 

I received an SMS from the AUAF office in Kabul of an explosion.  I checked CNN and there was a three sentence story.  It’s all too common for the world but surely not for the locals.  How can anyone get used to 15 dead and 240 wounded, among them women and children.  What is to be gained, no political points, no public support, it’s selfish, no one will accept you, evil men.

Wow, these nuts are a rich source of energy.  Ok, I’ll keep eating them.