we're so naive

The house is empty and with window open on a perfect sun filled afternoon I should be outside instead of sitting in a cold room with a cold nose and fingers doing this.  I’ve been sorting out, updating, organizing, writing and doing other whatevers with my classes.  I had three breakfasts this morning, one I made myself at seven, juice, coffee and two slices of untoasted pound cake, two at nine when Fezel brought egg in the pan, bread and green tea and then again at eleven when Saffi woke up and then there was milk chai and four slices of poundcake. 

So?  What is it that you have to do but you need...11.13.15 and it’s a Friday, should I be gambling or lighting incense sticks or just forgetting it has any significance, if I was busy I wouldn’t think about it and I might need to eat something now.

4.49pm—Fezel and I split a pizza and that was enough.  Temps will be colder than usual at night for the week, clear skies and the space heater looks like it wants to work, at attention it sits.  So?  Have you decided what your itinerary is going to look like?  It’s a tough call, really, I go up and down, can I really do what I want to do or am I really just fooling myself.  I am not a scholar by any definition.  Of course you’re not but that’s what you might be closer to doing something like that after a year there, though that is not my intention.  And what if I can’t do it? It’ll certainly look like I made a mistake, now, right?  Surely, you’ll know soon enough if you can hack it.  Ya know this working in places that gives me a lot of time to think and write and take photos, that’s cool, I’d be doing the same thing except I’d be writing and thinking about one topic only.

One topic only. 

With lots of branches.

and with new places to take photos.

Nothing doing here.  I’m confined to a walled garden, I stare at the yellow and orange flowers for a long time, spot three or four look cool, yawn.

‘How do you like Afghanistan?’

I don’t know, I haven’t seen much of it.

The sun slipped away quickly at five!  I know I’m north of the Gulf where sunset is roughly six all year round, but wow, are we gonna be really dark a month from now?  Ah, darkness, is it my friend, let’s be friends for the next three months or so, ok?  I have five more hours of darkness before it’s time to sleep.  Stay busy, stay active, get something done, watch a movie, fill out an application, listen to music, make a cuppa.  Sounds good right now in fact.  Wo..

I stepped outside and on the porch to find two chukar partridges in a bird cage.  Hanukkah pointed to the mountains I guess that’s where they come from and Saffi has just returned and one in his entourage opens my door.  ya, I know, I’m not paying rent but really bud, knock first.

8.02pm—‘Never get out of the boat unless you’re going all the way’

The heater is on.  It’s nice and it’s on wheels.  I can wheel it in front of the toilet when I take a shower next time. 

I see every evening for the past week they’re turning on the big generator, hey, ya have to when you got no city and less sun. 

A nine year old girl was one of those seven beheaded by men with serious spiritual and mental issues.  ISIL, Taliban, it goes on and on and on.  They really don’t have anything better to do than play Jihadi Army, rich, poor, the disenfranchised, impoverished and despaired Muslim finds in his faith a reason to kill people.

So, how in the world do you change the belief of a Taliban or prevent the next normal kid from becoming a Taliban or worse?  One generation after the next holds onto a Koranic interpretation along with ancient cultural and ethnic pashtunwali laws that condone the use of force in just about every infraction between families and tribes.  The moderate Muslims, educated and uneducated have to demonstrate the kind of geopolitical Islam that has to be kind.  Kindness kills.

And I’ll be naively naïve but corrupt politicians weren’t born dishonest.  I know, the Taliban and the other hoodlums are only half the problem in this place.  No one trusts anyone in the government.  Well, that’s part of our problem too, I know, but here, oh, I gotta go.  It’s time for bed.

                                                            The Grapes of Tulufan