I had assumed, quite naively so, that all
the meals I ate here were being put on the PDI tab and paid for from a monthly
budget. Ha ha, in hindsight. Today I hired one of the ‘guards’ to cook
breakfast and make lunch or go out and buy lunch. I feel so colonial and a bit feeling like I
need to somehow compensate all those meals because they were paid for by
someone who really couldn’t have afforded it and that is one answer I didn’t
get in our talks this morning.
Why would a man who doesn’t make that much money and
has a few kids and a wife, why would he buy breakfast and make lunch out of his
own pocket? And why didn’t anyone else
in the house who ate those meals not chip in if they knew what I didn’t know
until today, we gotta pay our own way, dude.
I'm paying someone to cook
for me, look, I am very simple to cook for and I like not worrying about
what I am going to cook because options are terribly limited and ya, I still feel
a tad colonial.
I finished my first toefl class. Much to learn, much to consider, how to teach
it differently, what worked, what didn’t.
I liked the book, I didn’t like the book. Another class will start, presumably the end
of this week or next week. Next week
would be fine with me. Tuesday I have to
see a fine female doctor who’ll pull these stitches out. I hope.
I stopped listening to Putamayo music
when I stopped buying CDs six years ago.
They still put together some really good selections, and not a song I’ve
heard before, except for the occasional remakes.
Ya, it is strange I don’t feel a real need to eat
dinner. A few handful of nuts and water
is usually enough. Sometimes I’ll make a
cup of coffee, like that is really what I’d like now and I will get up and do
just that. I live in this damn house and
I refuse to be completely colonial.
It’s terrible, but really, providing work
is never a bad thing and if the cook is happy and his reward, his payment for
service is the food he cooks, and this is all he asks for, then, well, I don’t
know what to say because I don’t know what kind of man would cook and receive
in payment his meal. This is ok if he is
ok with it and he is. As far as I
know.
Someone is cooking chicken outside, the smell is coming
through the window. Let’s go smell, I
mean see, how cold it is now, at 8:57pm.
It’s chilling cool. And winds are strong right now, slamming
window frames and shutting doors.
So, a quick check…wait…thunder. When I went out I thought I saw sheens of
light race across the sky, I kept blinking thinking something is wrong with my
vision, looking at this screen way too much and now, winds gusting, the front
approaches. It’s almost too exciting to
delay bed but I am tired.
Tibet in July? Ha ha, what happened to New Zealand in
February? Woah, the storm approaches,
the rain is now falling, it smells good. Yeah and what about Leuven in August,
listen to the rain. It’s raining. We
gotta go look. It’s coming down good
alright. And just like that, a new
season slam bangs its way into Kandahar.
ok, it’s calming down let’s go to
sleep.
10.19.15
A clear desert clean and crisp morning, certainly not
fifty outside, perhaps tonight. One
thing I hope for today is the temps remain cool. Right now, we’re good. Coffee in hand, three lessons to
prepare. The morning class will begin a
new subject, sports, and I was dismayed to learn no school, from elementary to
college, has sports programs. Kids talk
about playing cricket or football but it’s all impromptu, there are no leagues at any level. The country has a national football and
cricket team but no one follows. How in
my right mind am I going to get the men to talk about sports if they’re really
not into it? Well, I guess we can talk
about why they’re not into it. Pretty
lame discussions if you ask me.
Fezel and I stand on the porch enjoying
cool and we look up at the parade of helicopters. American? Probably.
Do Afghans have an air force?
Surely they can fly their own helicopters. An Afghan trained to be a pilot is certain
his future will be good. If he’s not
killed before then, of course. Ok, can we think about sports? What the blazes am I gonna talk about with
them?
Breakfast this morning:
at six thirty it was a glass of juice, a bowl of corn flakes and a cup
of coffee. At nine thirty it was a glass
of green tea and bread used to pinch thick yellow curd sprinkled
with sugar, purchased in the city, brought in by the new old cook. A perennial favorite this
is. Manana, now, let’s go to work.
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