I like organic hand pulled oatmeal

This morning Saffi, Fezel and I went to one of the ‘bazaars’ close to the airport to find a mattress and frame and didn’t I find a nice one.  I will now sleep three feet off the ground and God help me if I roll because a single bed leaves no room for restless karma.

When the US started leaving in 2008 they left everything behind. I’m at a loss:  Saffi said there are hundreds of these bazaars, huge areas of shipping containers converted into ‘shops’ filled with food, medical supplies, kitchen supplies, automobile accessories, building supplies and that was only one area.  I found hundreds of boxes of 8lb cans of lemon pie filling, thousands of cases of canned Belgian new potatoes, hundreds of cases of individual bags of Indian harvest rice, garlic-ginger paste, English tobacco and the list goes on.  We bought four cases of the rice and new potatoes and will distribute them.  Fezel wondered if anyone would eat American rice, we figured if people are really hungry and they cook it with a few masala tailored changes, it should be good.  And I bought one box of ‘self-heating’ meals, God wonders who came up with this, this one before me is blueberries & cream steel-cut oatmeal, perhaps we’ll go back buy a few cases and distribute them.  But really, that doesn’t sound like it’ll happen, I mean, steel cut oatmeal?  I was raised on organic hand pulled oatmeal. 

The thought though was, is, was this all for the troops or did they have plans to distribute it to locals?  I swear Americans are the most generous people on earth but ya gotta wonder, what the hell is a Pashto gonna do with an eight pound can of lemon pie filling?  The heart is there but the brain is, sorry, lost in a rogue filled corn field. 

I also found of box of books, mostly paperbacks, water damaged, and I bought one title: ‘Bible Basics for Catholics—A New Picture of Salvation History’.  Six years ago I announced like a mad man the true eschatological interpretation was to be found in the Augustinian teaching that Jesus would return and after seven years the world would come to its ‘end’.  In 2009 I visited the ruins of an Augustine Cathedral in Goa, destroyed by other Churches for its heretical teachings on end times and felt, believed, understood as I walked through piles of ‘friar’ bones that they had it right.  So what is it to us today?  Are you suggesting that we are coming close to end of the seven years, that Jesus has indeed been on earth and we just, ya know, don’t know what to believe.  I don’t know what will happen at the end of next year, I wasted four years of my life hoping, thinking 2012 would be it, and to pin my hopes on another date, I can’t think like this and though I really want to read this book, I don’t want to be convinced something is going to happen if nothing was ever meant to happen.

I placed an order today for some entheogens, Lord help me get through this life.

And Saffi’s brother and five travelling companions reached Quetta today and will soon head for the borders of Iran. They do not carry any ID, intentionally, and if they can make it to Turkey, they should be able to reach Europe in four or five months.  A student today told me it’s a tragedy that so many young Afghanis are leaving, they have lost all hope and it’s one of those inevitable human conditions, you move on, isn’t that a natural thing to do?  We migrate when we have to.  To stay in a country where thugs want you killed, where there are no jobs, where the government doesn’t have a clue how to bring about peace, would I do the same?  I can’t see myself in their shoes and my heart breaks.

10.11.15

Military exercises ten kilometers south and the skies are buzzing.  I haven’t gone outside to look, I slept poorly on the new bed, a mosquito here and there annoyed otherwise I just couldn’t fall asleep.  Was it simply sleeping in an unknown bed that left me staring at the ceiling? 

My seven am class began today, a nice group of men who all get up early.  Why not come to PDI for 90 minutes three times a week and practice English?  The first issue, unfortunately for me, is they prefer a conversation course, which is fine except I’ll have to come up with a new syllabus from scratch.  And that isn’t too problematic unless I can’t stay awake.  In fact, I think I’ll lie down again.

4:37pm--For lunch Rezek cooked up the American rice mixed with barley and radish seed and it was terrible.  No one in the group of eight could stomach it because it was too salty.  I was, am, terribly disappointed.  We will ask Fezel to take another packet (which feeds 20) and cook it the local way and do away with the bag of seasoning which contributed to the icky taste.  If you send food to a charity--perhaps this is why money sent is better so people on the ground can buy what the locals eat--but if you just have to send food, find out what the locals can eat.  A rice mixed with barley and radish seed ain't gonna go down kindly unless you're from northern Minnesota I reckon.