and a tesaduf to you too

12:19pm—Four hours of electricity thank you city power, keep it coming.  A lightly overcast day dries the laundry a little slower, but it doesn’t matter because you have other things to do like outline a syllabus or two and fill in later. 

I toasted Saffi’s last seven slices of bread, lathered honey, jam, and cheese and then halved them and we drank tea with Simon and Younnis, who I am told is a man of means and owns a pomegranate farm.  What he’s doing here I know and care not.  It’s Beethoven’s 9^th.  I had a coffee, juice, and bowl of corn flakes three hours earlier and now it’d be good to take a shower with the geyser happily getting hotter and have another coffee and come closer to nature for a few moments.

Rezak came in on his day off to cook a chicken for lunch.  Okay.  Let’s consider working for a short spell after I go outside and say hello to divinity. 

It’s just a guess but I’d say the majority of people I meet here are beer virgins.

City power is off, the afternoon sermon comes from the west and the east.  Rezak has a whole chicken in the cast iron steamer and I had five half slices of toast two hours ago.  If I eat lunch in the next thirty minutes I may need to take a nap.  It would be nice to lay on the mat outside, take a book or two, make it look like your intentions were something else. 

I lay down and read a chapter from Harper Lee.  I visit the kitchen, one of my first students sautés onions with three large green chilies, another plate of tomatoes and garlic waits to be added to the chicken.  I’d like a hamburger once in a while.  Could I justify flying to Dubai just to have a hamburger? 

I like Bernie Sanders because he doesn’t like the banks.

4.22pm--it is very dark an hour before sunset, the clouds cover the valley from horizon to horizon.  They don’t smell like rainclouds but wouldn’t it be nice.  The darkened room is also putting me to sleep.  I gotta go outside. 

6:30pm—the house is dark and silent.  I watched thirty minutes of the Children of Huang Shi, nice music and cinematography.  Only advanced students would be able to follow the dialogue.  I returned to work on a syllabus for about ten minutes.  I’ve left a lot for tomorrow, oh well, that’s alright what the hell else have I got to do? 

And the battery ebbs.  Let’s take a walk, maybe buy some juice and milk and find a loaf of something and pasta or ya. 

7:47—When I opened the front gate Saffi pulled up with Simon and Sami in Sami’s red Corolla.  Where are you going, man?  Tesaduf, ya…to the market and when I returned I rung the doorbell and immediately Simon opened it because he was leaving.  Tesaduf two! 

I find nothing significant in these accidentally timed greetings when two are going different ways and whatever they mean, whatever. 

Sami gave me a lift to the KS and before I got out he asked if I needed any money, an odd question, I assume he was practicing his English because he hopes to get his visa and fly to Dubai in a fortnight.  I laughed and said no thanks and pointed to the ratty little boy outside his window and said I think he needs some.  That was nice timing, I’m not sure if it was a tesaduf or not, but my departure and the kid was a nice transition for whatever reasons.

 Tonight’s sunset was a no show for the first time since I skidded into Kandahar.  It was still pleasant and of course I took photos of clouds in various modes, trying to get something ordinary look more than ordinary and maybe that’s when I should be quiet, eh?

I made a mock itinerary for December and it takes me around the world in about 24 days.  I wish I had eighty.  The itinerary has seven cities on it.  Absurd! 

It’d be a lot easier if I just went to a few islands instead this December.  In 2006 I did my only round the worlder and I don’t think it was planned, it just happened that way in hindsight.  But I did have 48 days + do it.  Three weeks is actually the right amount of time to do it.  And the city stop count could go down in the next month or so, we’ll see.  Until then, what the hell.