goodbye november

The bank manager said he hadn’t received my ATM card from Kabul yet so I called the Finance Dept and they said they’d call the Kabul branch and later the Dept called and said I had to email the bank and authorize the delivery of my card to Kandahar.   I have been trying to get this card since they told me I would receive it 40 days after I applied for it, which is now three months later.  Everything is new I’m told, be patient and besides the most people here don’t have any need for an ATM card, what’s the hurry?  It would be nice to have it when I travel.  It may not work, that is a real possible, but I’d like to have it in case whatever happens.  I left money in the account simply to demonstrate in some small naïve way my trust in them.  Of course the bank people may be thinking why doesn’t he transfer all his out like all the rest?  Right.

How many hotel reservations do I have to make?  How many train tickets do I need?  A four hour and 39 minute taxi from Pittsburgh to Detroit costs around $940 and change, ha ha.  Paying $230 for a 4 hour taxi from Muscat to Buraimi sounds cheap indeed. 

When I most need it the Internet fails to work.  Quick, tesol Arabia, march 2016  ‘on the spot curriculum development’  I can give a paper, eh, on how I took nothing and made a syllabus though I still have tonight to go and five more so I won’t contact them, gee, thanks for being slow you _____ connection.

The most frustrating thing about having dial up connection quality is when I want to log out of facebook and I can’t and people see the little green light next to my name and they think he’s on line but he isn’t!  He’s in class now, talking about body language.  How many things can your eyes say? 

11.30.15

7:43pm—On the last day of the month a huge chunk of the cracked tooth in the upper left region came out quietly during breakfast with Razzaq and Hanukkah who has about 14 teeth.  As long as it doesn’t hurt they say, and it’s a bonus if I can still eat on that side.  Well say no to dried apricots, dal is ok, bread is ok so far and toasted pound cake is ok but for how long, I don’t even want to see how unfortunate it looks.

And a day of coughing and spitting and feeling generally blah I was invited to dinner with some important people but I turned off my phone and told one of the kids from an important family in class who is also sick to tell his father forget it I feel like crap. 

I finished the four thirty class today with an easy test and Ezra asked me what he was going to do until I returned almost six weeks later.  The 20 year old who likes boxing says he doesn’t have a computer and if he did he wouldn’t have the internet in his home to access tens of thousands of websites for learning English.  I have two more classes with the seven am men and I hope they want to take a break.  I don’t want to continue, nothing personal, but I’m closing down and getting ready with the dates I have, putting this class behind me as well and to extend simply for five more lessons before I leave is just lame.

That would be cool if my insurance covered dental. 

So, if you weren’t feeling yucky would you be excited about this voyage, it’s certainly that, isn’t it, it’s absurd and all I think about is having something to make me really relax on these planes.  Lord, flying into New York six days before Christmas, let’s test your desert disposition and get to your connecting flight in JFK.  On painkillers.  or Sleeping pills, or 26 hours of no sleep. 

In any case, for the next 17 days I have to complete a number of things and to remember these things a list will have to be made, perhaps we’ll do it tomorrow.  Tonight, for the next few minutes just listen to Mozart, lean into the space heater, cough one last time, and go to bed.

 

Hanifa

12:47pm

In the cellar 30 men and women are taking the paper based TOEFL test.  I am sitting at my computer in the blue room, the door is open wide when a young woman walks in and draped over her arm is the medieval blue burqa.  She is sporting a serious nickel sized wound under her bottom lip.  She says she fell down but she was probably hit.  She is told by a voice I hear in the hallway she is not supposed to be in my room but she doesn’t care.  Her color is deathly off and twenty minutes since she left lingers a smell of waste.  She has dancing eyes and she asks many questions how can I help her learn English and she goes on laughing nervously until I give her my email.  Hanifa.  This is the woman who needs to be freed from the shackles of Pashtunwali.  Nothing in the damn Koran says a father or a son or a husband can keep this poor woman caged like a dying raven.  There is no damn honor in that, gentlemen. 

4:20pm

I have eleven movies in the ‘with subtitles’ folder and I don’t know which one they’ll choose but I’m giving them the choice.  No notes, no idioms, just popcorn if someone brings it and dried apricots which I bought a week ago and they are too hard to eat, though they did show me which tooth in the upper left side is cracking like an egg. 

Should I tell them today is a holiday in America?  Oh, they’re gonna let me choose.  In that case I choose…

8:42pm

They choose Will Ferril’s ‘Elf’ and…it was sort of ok.  I saw the lone kiss coming up but I didn’t move to cover the screen and I looked at the three women who covered their eyes when I looked at them…and I said sorry.  They were real sweet, Koshay and Runa, bringing two bags of popcorn and cans of mountain dew and pepsi.  Yes, the popcorn and the pepsi helped make the experience but ya don’t have to be polite, that movie kind of sucked. 

Wait a minute.  They covered their eyes when I looked at them.  What the Sam Hill was that?

Fezal is trying to start the space heater, there’s enough gas, something mechanical isn't right and…whatever, let the room get cold. 

One of my students came by and gave me a pizza.  Thanks, dude, that was very kind of you.  ‘you need anything, anything, you call.’  Same old story friend, what I want is out of your leagues.  Besides I don’t really need what I want, what I want is what I need and what in God’s name do you need? 

Fezel just cranked up the generator.  Let’s watch Indiana Jones. 

11.27.15

The space heater stopped working and I have a bummer headache which has left me in bed for the most of the day.  Now that it is sunset Hanukkah fires up the generator and we are no longer in the dark, but we are still in the cold and I have nothing to wear to fight inside coldness.  The only heat comes from the stove when I rub my hands over the boiling pan of water for my coffee. 

There are six remaining lessons for the advanced conversation class and I want to give them the best and before I had to retreat to the bed I scoured the internet  looking for any inspiration and my hands are almost too cold to type.  Anyways, I’m still looking because I didn’t find much.  This class could be so much better in the hands of the more competent.

9:54pm—I watched Rush in spite of not having prepared too much for this week’s classes.  I tell ya, I’m tired of thinking sometimes.  I just want to hear the deep dark silence of nothing when I’ve heard and done too much.  My headache persists, my body appears to have adjusted to the indoor chill.  I hard boiled two eggs Razzaq left for me and a couple of slices of toast that were almost toasted before the generator gave up.  This week two classes will finish and I will be glad for the 7am to be done with.  This will leave me the evening conversation group and the one thirty class until I leave.  We’re good with this I hope.

11.28.15

6:48pm—The new space heater works three feet away.  Saffiq via mobile wants to continue the seven am class even though we will only meet for two weeks before I leave.  I have to explain this to the men tomorrow but I am a little reluctant only because seven am is seven am.  I’ll ask if they could do seven thirty to nine.  Or I’ll ask if they want to wait.  I told the afternoon class I’d be back on January 13, which from this week is six and a half weeks.  I hope they don’t ask for the two weeks.

Tomorrow it's off to the bank in order to pay for the tickets and for travel money.  This is shaping up to be the most expensive trip in my life.  Any guess?  I shudder. 

And with still 19 days to go it is too early to plan though I am visualizing the pre-pack.  The flight to the states will be 14 hours.  Omigod.  I gotta get something strong for this one, mother of pearl should I do the Novena and pray for strong pain killers.  Naem Kabar

protect your own honor

In the living room Mom hung a pencil sketch print of three men; JFK, Pope John the 23^rd, and John the Baptist.  In a daily meander of thought I sometimes wonder if I am behaving like any of these.  To be born with such a name shouldn’t come any responsibility or expectations, it’s just a name, right?  Anyways, am I anything like JFK right now?  I don’t think so.  How about the 23^rd dude, ha, unlikely.  John the crazy man Baptist, eating twigs and probably smoking whatever was around in the desert, wearing the same clothes for months and months.

Yesterday evening I went to the Arena for lamb kebabs and we sat outside in a half dome tent and it was too cold so as a result I am lung and nose congested and I have to loosen that shit all up and how do you get someone to cough all the bad out without birthing another hernia?

In Tianjin a student said he hated me because I had a passport.  Last night a student tells me he wants nothing more than to get out of here though he tempers his enthusiasm when other students come into the room.  Is he just practicing what English he knows or is there a face to keep in public?  I don’t know.

I don’t know what it is but November in the Western Hemisphere brings gloom and doom to the world.  While the sun disappears unacceptably earlier each day so does the optimism and clarity of those who follow too much news.  What to do but buy sun lamps and download Bill Murray movies!

11.24.15

This morning I helped interview 18 young women who want to study in a new management program sponsored by USAID.  This was the first time I’ve had the chance to meet so many of Kandahar’s female population in one morning, how kind and sweet they are, happy to say, optimistic.  Youth breeds optimism and to hear is to hope.  In any case it was nice to meet a young woman who is a mid-wiver and I had to ask if the money was good,  her green eyes twinkled and stunning smile said but of course.  The others were teachers or had just finished their secondary school. 

Some were kinder than others which led me to tell one student with sparkling warm eyes and confident countenance that the one skill she possesses that ensures success in any management position is empathy.

It’s relief sometimes when I don’t have to explain the meaning of a word.

I have to admit my video library has grown in the last two or three weeks.  I’m pretty sure I know which movie I’ll show on Thanksgiving. 

8:35pm

Now I don’t know what I’m gonna show in two days.  Suggestions for animated movies, suggestions to watch an hour of a movie and then talk about it was suggested.  I’m flopping around like a cold fish because my syllabus is a working syllabus and it’s back to searching.  An animated movie that’s only an hour and won’t bore anyone older than 13.  You’re breaking my balls, dude just because you’re in that ring of incredibly wealthy people in this country, you can’t toss me around, ok I should have expected stormy skies.

‘How many years has Kandahar had peace?’  4

Off the grid.  One panel space heater is good.  Coldest temps of the season tonight. 

Is it ok to fly a kite in Kandahar?  Yes, of course.  Ok, when do people fly kites?  Crickets chirp and diversions are made. 

Why doesn’t anyone use their roof in Aino Mina?  Why doesn’t anyone have a garden on their roof in Aino Mina?  Murmured responses, oh, a few dry their clothes on the roof, sometimes a man has tea on the roof.  Women never go up because they are still purdahed, a tradition we agreed, came from the Maharashis in Rajasthan, and is looking hopelessly absurd, agreed so by the women. 

I don’t know, mac, it sometimes sounds more like possessive ownership and jealously than what they say is protecting a woman’s honor.  Let the woman protect her own honor. 

The women in class tonight expressed their frustration and I joined with them every time a man in the class said Kandahar is still 5, 10, 20, years away from coming alive again.  Men are realistic and remain cautious.  Woman are optimistic and want action. Pashtunwali still influences relationships and decision making and the Taliban harass at will.  When does corruption begin?  How does it begin?  This wasn’t an easy question to answer from the class because it begins with individuals making choices and being the change that starts within.
 

11.25.15

10:06pm

it's just a Catholic thing

9:00pm Last night’s gift of pizza left me on the loo and under the covers all bloody day.  What the hell.   The pizza was cold so I heated it up in the toaster oven.  What happened then?  Heating up cold chicken released something that is poisoning me.  Only now do I  regain some strength and two cups of tea and nibbles of popcorn Saffiq returned with last night are all I’ve consumed today.  Blah.

Did you get much done today?  Must I be thankful for not having to teach on the day I get food poisoning.  I would have been even more miserable if I had had to stand when I felt like total crap. 

11/21/15

And no, I didn’t remember.  Why in God’s name do I want to remember one of the saddest days in my life?  It’s just a Catholic thing for sure, ok, maybe others do it, but I’m not crazy about remembering. 

But do I have a good excuse for not remembering?  I see no coincidence being sick as a mule on this date eleven years ago. 

I took a nice hot shower this morning, hoping it would revive and clean me from yesterday’s bed-fest, it did.  I hesitate to turn on the space heater because I know it’s going to get colder soon.  I will put some socks on though and stand outside in the sun. 

Clouds drift above, a call for rain possibly tomorrow.  I liked the first rain, I was there on the front lines soaking it in but now it’s cold and rain and cold are simply not nice together.  What to do.

Do you think in 8 years your body is suddenly going to fall apart?  Such things to think about on a chilly Saturday afternoon.  No, I don’t think about such nonsense, how depressing. 

A generator across the street ruins the silence and here comes Hanukkah singing to himself.  He composed a poem in his head and shared it a few lunches ago.  No, he never learned to write.  And as far as I can see, he probably wishes he had learned but he is who he is, no problem.  I think he would learn English if a woman taught him. 

11.22.15

I went up to see the dark skies at sunrise and rain began to fall.   The smell of freshness woke me up and got me readier than usual for the morning men’s class where we practiced the pronunciation of numbers and their various forms and uses.  The curious emerged when I heard students saying ‘foint’ when they should have been saying ‘point’.  The P sound is in Pashto, it is just a strange misplacement.  I’d have to open my phonetic book and identify the locations of these sounds in our mouth and then develop a rubric to address and then practice the sound. 

I could do that this morning but I’m not going to, thank you very much.  I’m not exactly ready for the afternoon and evening class looming large ahead of me.  Goodbye.

If you get too close to divinity you either become enlightened or legalized.  Freed from all, bound by the jots and tittles.  Liberty vs Law. 

10.53pm—A pleasant sunset but look behind me and the moon and her clouds gave me a lot more to remember. 

A student in class wants the next movie to have some adventure and action and I laughed because I know exactly what I want to show, now can I borrow it from the world’s digital bank in the next few days.  Of course if I show a movie I’m tossing out ideas for conversation and I’ll be looking for new ones. 

Tell me why Islam is unable to bring peace to Afghanistan and I will, I will…let you choose the next movie.  Well of course the polemic one couldn’t answer.  Blame it on tribal and ethnic who all happen to be Muslims and all use Allahu Akbar against each other.  “The soliders are completely demoralized after 35 years of fighting, they see no end, they see no support…” and so on it goes and I asked anyone if they had seen the sunset tonight. “No one goes to the roofs to enjoy nature. We work, we go home.”   Well, dammit, you can start, it doesn’t cost anything go up on the roof tomorrow and watch the sunset or get up at 6am and watch the damn sunrise and remember, you need nature’s moments to keep close. 

They’re shell-shocked.  They don’t know how to relax anymore.  They don’t know how to find anything good in nature.  This evening’s class did feel like I was there to encourage them and I must have sounded naïve, but maybe not.