the tenth month blues

When I arrived in August I was so happy to see a pool but the happiness evaporated quickly when I saw how dirty it was and that one doesn't swim in it unless one is a toddler.  I'd be wading.  Still at 118 in the shade, I was always tempted to disrobe and at least wade for a while.

Cooped up in this house I swear God has me in a corner, he's, she's, it's forcing me to renounce, renounce what?  Why I can't I be where I want to be doing what I want to do?  Ok, God is listening, again, what do you want to be doing and where do you want to do it? Accgg, God already knows.

The pomegranates are pretty damn good here, take a mouthful and each of the seeds is filled with juice, it's a marvelous and unfortunately dangerous fruit to eat because the corn-sized kernals are filled with juice and inside each kernal and there's also a hard seed determined to break up my teeth a little more but for now they only get stuck between them and then I start chiseling away causing potentially more damage.  Sigh.  But they are good. What to do. I have yet to see a blender anywhere, ah, what's the point, 98 percent of the time there is no electricity in the morning, wouldn't it be nice to make pomegranate juice.

After three months of teaching there's no question these are good students, so unlike those I've worked with those who come from wealthy nations.  And they are very courteous and respectful to me as a teacher, I must say I don't mind the politeness, it's kind of endearing.  And it's nice I don't have to deal with anyone's mobiles, if someone calls they step out, and there's no sms-ing and no wifi is available to them, another good thing.  When I have the smartphone out everyone comments on how nice it is.  It's more of a smart ass phone and a normal smartphone.  Teacher, what is 'smart-ass'?

I've been fortunate to have a roof to take photos of the sky, I sure hope they don't lock the roof door or tell me not to go up because of some pumpkin heads fear I'll expose their possessions, it would be a bummer and I will leave.  Six months will be enough, close a door on nature on me bud and you lose me.

Two images from the 'Bush Bazaar', rice no one will ever eat and a young boy in the tent full of GI tents.
And of course, coffee, instant is fine here, I miss the real stuff, but the real stuff is just better when you don't have it for a long long time.

 I ain't no fiddler on the roof that's for sure.  It looks like you are going over the ledge.  With my hand out, to lead the way?  Pish. 

purdah's pumpkin

A house sits to the east of my blue room window and completely blocks any sunrise view from where I stand next to my bed and brilliant oranges and reds were spilling out from each side of the house so I promptly ran up to the roof at 6.15 this morning and what a disappointment to see in such a huge sky only a small area of oranges and reds and it wasn’t enough to remember with a photo. 

And it was cold.  The blue room at night is now cold enough I put on a few more layers but what a terrible night of sleep because of mosquitos.  How is it they still live in the cold?   Why are they always going after my ears?  Do they see infrared heat spewing out, I don’t know.  So now, today, my morning class has finished, I am free until Saturday afternoon.  Gee, I could almost go to Dubai.  I hope I am productive today, why, the first thing I need to do is start a new book.  Hmmm.

6.51pm—A splendid sunset tonight, almost a hundred photos as the yellows became reds  on fire, and it would have been even more special if I didn’t have this conversation with the man who lives on the large empty plot in a tiny house with a family:

Excuse me excuse me

yes

my family cannot come out because you are on the roof with a camera.

I’m taking photos of the sunset.

my family cannot come out because you are on the roof with a camera.

ok, five minutes I finish. 

I gestured with my free hand to my chest to show him respect and whatever form of apology he could take from that and I finished taking photos for I don’t know how long and twenty minutes later back in the blue room Said Wali called and said five neighbors are complaining that I am on the roof with a camera.  Hanukkah was told to calm them down and tell them he doesn’t know our ways blah blah, oh but I do know your ways, middle-age purdah pumpkin heads.

And it is completely absurd to entertain any notion of someone telling me I can no longer take photos on the roof because I will leave.  No complaints. I have enough to live on for a while before I find something else.    

Then I saw Hanukkah in the kitchen and I pantomimed holding a camera and gestured toward the neighbor who spoke to me and he went into an explanation and I understood ‘Kandahar’ the three times it was mentioned and then I told him I understood “Purdah” and he laughed, wo, ok. 

And I know what they think of keeping their women safe from all men’s eyes, here’s a fuzzy white dude wearing his LL Bean shirt for the first time in two years since he picked it up at St. Joes taking photo crazy pics of stunning sunsets or moonrises or just bloody boring ass clouds. 

Look through all my photos and you’ll find there are no photos of any people in this neighborhood outside of this house.  Of course I believe you, Jack, and you know how to win them over.  Trust. 

Trust, shmust.  Hanukkah suggested maybe one of them would take a shot at me if I photoed his purdah, ha, bring it on Pat Benatar, of course I should take this crazy man sort of serious, I have to respect the people, if staying off the roof is the way I have to show my respect then they are showing me no respect because they don’t want to trust me.

How do they trust me?  I show them all my photos.  Not good enough.  I’ve read enough to understand Afghans have never in their history trusted people from the outside and why should I be the exception, oh right because we'll never know each other.

On to more tranquil moments of the day:  Rezak cooked a nice chicken with potatoes lunch and he gave me a Tupperware full of it for lunch tomorrow.  That was very kind of him.  And he took my beige kameez to the dry cleaners.  A double thanks he is off tomorrow. 

And I started Helen Rappaport’s “Four Sisters” --The Lost Lives of the Romanov Grand Duchesses, good choice, I think I am gonna really like this one.  Lots of history explained from another view and what I didn’t know started on the first page.  Enjoy. 

 

an auspicious bowl of fruit

9.12am—The sun is delicious.  Close your eyes and just feel it hum through you heating you up and let your thoughts disappear in the silence of an organic orb.

Saboor is one of the part time teachers here and while I sat on the steps getting slowly lost in the sun he came to teach his class.  He said it would be good if I shaved, he called me Johnakkuah and he didn’t feel right saying it, no, not because I’m 52?  I told him I don’t mind the gray beard and that is true for the most part. 

And yesterday the young man told me he was born a refugee.  He returned to Kandahar a year ago with a Pakistani undergraduate degree and his family.  He has no passport and getting one may be tricky but not impossible.  Well, good luck to you, son.    

1:54pm—For lunch there was a plate of dal and to eat it there was this morning’s baked twist off, open, pinch bread, and a serving bowl of shlum-bay, the odd yogurt drink with green bits of vegetables.  I always sit in the same place when a meal is served in the classroom slash women’s prayer room next to Saffi’s room.  Today to my right was Rezak, who enjoyed yesterday evening’s pizza, then Saboor followed by Hanukkah sitting across from me, a white-looking Afghani friend of Said Wali sat to Hanukkah’s right, and then there was Said Wali, who yesterday became a father for the first time.  Mabrook and goodbye to sleep for a while.

In the meantime Saffi left this morning to Kabul for four days and Fezel has a temp job in construction.  Is it feeling more monastic than usual around here?  I can go outside into the courtyard and run around and bark and no one will hear me.   woof.

All my lessons are ready for the two classes in two and half hours and for tomorrow’s morning men. 

I have a burnt hole on the front of my blue kameez.  How am I going to explain that, ya smoking is bad for everyone and thing.

8.15pm—The highlight today and maybe for the month occurred this afternoon, eating a bowl of pomegranate seeds and finishing To Kill a Mockingbird under the shady trees of the courtyard.  And then it was time to teach. 

And teach I did. 

And now I sit in the dark with only a solar stick light giving enough to see around, but not enough to read a book, not that I read books at night.  I don’t. 

I was standing under the airplane trees on the courtyard’s rectangular field of grass smoking a Korean cigarette and the weather was beautiful, the birds were chirping politely and I couldn’t for the life of me convince myself to crash on the mat and relax under the soft shade and I felt bored for the first time in a very long time and that really bummed me out.   

So I finished the cigarette and when I opened the front screen door Rezek met and handed me a bowl of pomegranate seeds.  Suddenly  I had this reason to crash on the mat under the shady trees so I ran into the blue room and brought Harper Lee back out again and didn’t we enjoy a relaxing moment outside. 

Who do I thank for an auspicious mood swing that gave me reason to chill and enjoy a great novel.  I’m afraid this is really looking like another coincidence.  I didn’t have a reason to sit on the grass and relax and what a spin right outside it was, back on the grass, lounging on the mat with fruit and a book.

Gee, I’m getting chills with this one.  It felt kind of close.  

breathe the free air again

10:03pm--A 7.7 earthquake in the Hindu Kush at one thirty this afternoon and I never felt a ripple.  I had just sat down to eat lunch when the earth cracked way up there.  I was surprised to read though that Quetta, two hours drive southeast from Kandahar, felt it significantly.  The tremors don’t go in all directions.  Why is that?  In Nepal they went east and west and north, ok, surely they were felt in the south,  but this one in the HK went east and then south, as far as New Delhi.  The tremors went right around the desert city. 

And just as I write this the solar power goes off and I hear Rezek skirmishing around.  For the last two nights the solar has been on during the night, what the jeebs boys, turn it off when no one is using it so there’ll be some juice at least until eleven.  oh well.  And the internet went off as well and that is alright I guess.  It’s time to go to sleep again. 

10.27.15

At six am the room is too dark to read.  Two days of no city power until seven thirty came.  This is good.  Today we are going to Kandahar University to give the resume workshop and I’d like to shower.  I’ll also change kameezes, the beige one has collected a wide variety of stains and darkened dirt edges and I must admit, wearing the same outfit for seven or eight weeks is pretty damn agreeable. 

A student said Kandahar never feels the earthquakes and we looked at the map I put up a few minutes earlier of the region which shows the mountains bending around to the east of the city and its plot in the flat desert.  I guess I’m still surprised that the tremors didn’t fan out. 

It was 46F this morning.  Ya, it never got this cold in Buraimi for sure.  I think tonight is a full moon.  I hope to be on the roof for its rising whatever time that is.

The city power went off.  Ninety minutes of juice didn’t heat up the geyser enough. 

4:37pm—The workshop went as well as can be expected.  There were roughly sixty students in the room with a stage that I stood on and referred to the power point on the screen explaining steps one must take to write a resume.  I’ve certainly revised mine way too much…is that why I’m doing workshops now?

A waning gibbous is less than an hour away, 5:32, ten minutes after the sunset.   Has a moonrise ever coincided with a sunset?  I do not know that.  Surely there could be some serious hoping something would happen, eh, but science, ya, ya just take the mystery out of the heavens.  Blood red moons must have scared the shit out of everybody until science pooped on the stage. 

8.43pm—The sunset and moonrise were somewhat disappointing, I know it’s peaceful and clean on the roof but these two have been dancing above these deserts for so long they haven’t had anyone take their photo since…when I don’t know.  I have yet to see someone on a roof.  Today was another calm and cool day, the sun simply warmed me giving me the good chills which quickly toasted and I was toasty.  This season is short according to a few I’ve asked, take advantage and have some seats on the roof and a table and relax and chill. 

Yes I know expecting an Afghan to behave like a Yankee is absurd, but there is nothing wrong with being on the roof above the walls where you can once again breath the free air.  And such stars at night. 

I didn’t take my camera to the university and I wish I had;  from the main road to my right I saw a huge baby blue mosque that just looked like the top half of a Faberge egg from top to bottom, I couldn’t see where the entrance was but it just looked really cool and I blew it.  The battery was half charged and I left it plugged in the charger in case city power returned, which it did, so I could have a full battery for this evening’s solar duel dud. 

And I didn’t take the camera with me to Pizza Hot for what turned out to be a place with pretty damn good pizza I am happy to report, in Kandahar.  So, I can say there are five restaurants with English/Pashto menus I have eaten in and have not become ill.  This is good.  They say they will deliver.  A new concept still here, but the manager Ahmed said he’d deliver.  Even if he has to take a taxi to deliver  our dinner here.  We will see. 

What are your intentions?

9:36pm—The day has almost finished, time spent away from the computer is always time to reconsider and revise and hopefully resolve. 

Tonight’s ho hum sunset was eclipsed by a brilliant moon and wafting clouds.  And today’s sunrise had potential but ended ho hum as well.  So, did you reconsider, revise and hopefully resolve anything on the rooftop?  Oh, I don’t remember, sometimes there is a promising idea but without something to write the idea down I usually forget which means it probably wasn’t worth remembering, right? 

Today was off because of the Shia’s holy day called Ashura, on this tenth day a long time ago Hussein was killed in the battle of Karbala. 

And I’m thankful to have had a two day weekend, twice a week would be ideal.  There was a time, fortunately, for talking, getting advice, and trying to ignite, inspire that will to pursue aggressively what I need to do.  It’s so unlike me, I concede, but...if I know my back is covered….

Saffi and I walked to the Arena for biryani rice and some fine kebabs and Azad sat with us and he was informed by the school in Silicon Valley that he was accepted into their MA program (with a 61 on his toefl score) and is expected to be in town by January.  I told him I was jealous, not so much of the Silicon farcials but of San Francisco.  The most beautiful city in America. 

And it was mentioned I was interested in a school and the application process begins next month.  Azad asked what I wanted to do and I said I wanted to rearrange a famous collection of letters and then we talked for an hour about theology and the hadith and the Koran and it was very informative but most important, and I’m glad Azad asked because I have to defend this germinal hypothesis and I have to talk about it, I need to convince myself first and be one hundred percent confident I have God’s green light.  I’ve talked about it in this blog and in my journals but to go public, it’s a different game.  Anyways, how did you sound?  I think the way I explained interpretation and the spirit of God and ya da, it sounded quite plausible indeed.  

Earlier in the afternoon I brainstormed the idea of a paper I have to submit in the application process.  A story on any religious topic.  They want to see my style, write it like a blog, eh?   What is my intention, said Azad, the young man who doesn’t have too big of a problem eating a shellfish at Fisherman’s Wharf because his intention isn’t to sin against God.  It is to find pleasure in God’s creation in the form of a huge lobster.   Why do I want to return to university and reshuffle the New Testament?  It’s so ballsy, I shake in my own socks. 

Enjoy the Bay, dude.  I am jealous. 

I will breathe free again. 

When was the last time you breathed free?  Not too long ago, perhaps the trek to ABC.  I couldn’t not breathe free and strongly at 4000 meters.   

I should sleep now. 

10.25.15

Last night we turned on the generator for an hour to re-energize the solar batteries, and for the rest of the night there was solar energy until seven this morning.  Does it seem like a waste to have light when everyone is sleeping and then not have any electricity at eleven in the morning and my pc battery ebbs low?

Teaching at seven am is such a novelty but I like the idea all across the nation of these mini esl breakfast clubs in mcdonalds.  ninety minutes of talk with my coffee and egg mcmuffin. 

What can I recall from last night’s conversation?

Is the Koran and the Hadith on the same sacred canonical level?  The value of the Hadith cannot be underestimated.  It’s explanatory sayings reinforce the authenticity of the writings in the Koran.  The scholars who lived after the death of the prophet questioned eye witnesses and primary sources, making sure hearsay and fourth or fifth hand information was placed in such a category and could not be considered as worthy when considered when a sura in the Koran needed further explanation.

I asked the three men at the table the question, putting two fingers together:  Is the Hadith equal in holiness to the Koran?  Not exactly assured responses.  Paul’s writings, sacred as sacred can come are a significant departure in the narrative of Jesus’s Ministry and include not only divinely inspired words but opinions, commentaries if I may say, advice on how to live like a Christian. 

I think that’s all for now.  Work calls, sort of.