dream with open eyes

It’s supposed to get colder tonight, tomorrow, tomorrow night, but right now I sit with the space heater in waiting mode.  In our last conversation class everyone talked well on subjects everyone was interested in getting their word in and I made sure the quiet ones were grilled on issues that need attention:  Abdul, is your wife going to wear the blue burqa?  An emphatic yes.  Oh, he speaks Dari he’s different and the commotion went up a decibel and I looked at this kid with jewish curls of hair under his ears and I don’t believe it.

There are Muslims here who believe Pashtunwali has more merit than Islam. 

And it is understood in a room full of college graduates and present students that the blue burqa is an import from Rajastan and its merry maharajah’s who practiced purdah.

They are women on purdah and there’s nothing in the Koran that condones it.  And you look at him and he is poker face with a tad bit of concern because I am looking at him like a psychiatrist with a hand saw I guess, ha ha. 

But I’m glad this class has finished.  Good day to you all.

8:08pm—The power has gone off and I should go for tea.  And maybe a slice of old pound cake if it’s still ok.  

The Day After

Monday Dec. 8-1941

 Feast of The Immaculate Conception.

Dear Charles,

             Well the radio is humming and newspaper extra’s on the street.

 This being a holiday Richard and I went down to 6-15 mass, as he had to go to school.  I stayed for 7 oclock for you, I do hope your well, not getting any mail does make one anxious.

Again I beg God to be good to our Men in service. God be with you and keep you always.

           
Love Mother

12/8/41         20^th day out—Things have really started to pop to-day when news was received of Japan attacking Honolulu and the island of Guam, and on the Hawaiian island of Oahu, oil tanks and hangers of the U.S. airfield were hit and destroyed by Jap bombers.  It has been reported that Jap parachutes have landed in the Philippines.—The U.S. forces have already accounted for six planes, four subs, and an air craft carrier according to a radio report.—Our position this morning was 38 degrees S and 21 degrees E—We received our pay to-day, I had $18 coming but I only drew $5, for I don’t believe I’ll need it very badly.—I would feel a lot better if we get in to-morrow for there are rumors of subs following us and besides everyone seems to be getting restless.—I have the 2400 to 0400 watch to-night.  Lights out.

12.9.15

The eternal bowl smolders on this coldest of mornings and the sun emerges from behind the wall and warmth encourages life to move. 

One week to go, ha ha, the hardest class is in the rear, what do I have to do I have to write religiously for the next week.  A professional statement of sorts to justify why this venerable institution should let this crazy sod enter it’s hallowed halls and make noise like an undeserving eunuch.

Peanuts Christmas is in the background at eight this morning, I have tests to grade, lessons to plan for this afternoon and, that’s it al humda’allah.  

                      Ѡ

This morning’s fresh curd was delicious but my stomach says something else.  Is it the cold, perhaps, was it an early morning headache, maybe, was it news that the airport was attacked last night?  Why would that bother me?  They got a week to make it safer than usual. 

         Ѡ

9:05pm—If there is no flight to Dubai I would have to scramble.  What options?  Go to Kabul.  If there are no flights?  Hello.  Dude, I’m stranded unless I could get to Quetta but I’d need a visa. 

Can I write like an academic?  I don’t know.  My motivation letter is quite unhealthy.  I have to write it again this week.  I also have to complete a lot of paperwork in the next week, please do as much as you can in the next two days of which you’ve got only one class, ok?  Time to reach out.  The room tomorrow morning is going to be dead cold and I really don’t need to get up before seven which means I’ve still got more than an hour with the space heater. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xB_X9BOAOU

This is helpful.

12.10.15

Razzaq and Fezel helped me set up the food on a table in tonight’s last class.  Thermoses of green tea and hot water for 3-1 Turkish coffee packets, boxed juices, Pakistani biscuits, Turkish chocolates and for 900 afs a one kilo bag of slightly salty, slightly sweet pine nuts in their very dark brown but easily opened shells.  Said Wali persuaded me the students would like these more than the pistachios, almonds or dried mulberries. 

They are addictive, indeed. 

I have been reassured the airport will be open.  Confident but unsure if you ask me. 

My students and two visitors enjoyed the first 45 minutes of Witness and then the film broke down.  A bad copy I reckon.  Ezra to my right said the Amish look like Muslims.  And if only they lived like Amish, my friend. 

10.29pm

Paddington was fun to watch in Buraimi but it kind of sucked in Kandahar.  The three stooges and Curly were far more entertaining.  Younnis just gave me a wool blanket, thanks dude, he is as cold as I am.  I appreciate it.  Ya, good night.

12.11.15

Younnis brought in a thermos of tea and a bowl of last night’s uneaten biscuits and chocolates.  I left the eight cans of coke and pepsi in the kitchen and explained these were for him.  Why is he being so nice, it’s Friday the guards don’t really have much to do unless it’s keeping the electricity going and it isn’t going today. 

What am I going to do today.  Read, write, sleep. 

and dream with open eyes

under the clear and cool

brilliantly 

blue skies

happiness

in its relative state

for a minute 
I am happy

as a clam

on someone else's plate

13,005km apart

December 7, 2015

Cape Town is seven hours ahead of Pittsburgh. 

Pearl Harbor is 12 hours behind Cape Town and 6 hours behind Pittsburgh.

While Dad was writing in his journal at one in the afternoon aboard the USS Dickman Pearl Harbor was not yet under attack.  It was six am in Pittsburgh.

Roughly seven hours later while Marcella was writing in her journal-we can estimate a December afternoon would be between 12 and 4 thirty when it’s get dark-or almost the same time Charles had written, she had just heard the news of the attack on the radio.

13,005km apart  8080 miles

12/7/41         19^th day out—Man o man!  what a night we had, I noticed it first when I went on watch, the sea was really kicking up, in fact it’s the worst I have ever experienced so far.  It caused quite a bit of damage aboard ship for instance, in sick bay shelves, literally shelves of medicine were toppled off and broke, desks, file cabinets were turned over, dental equipment was wrecked, dishes were broken, in the pay office a safe weighing more than a ton broke loose and broke up desks, typewriters, file cabinets and what have you!  The galley was thrown into disorder, and everywhere aboard ship something was overturned or wrecked.  It was all so unexpected but still to look at the tremendous waves from the deck with the moon and stars shining on our port side and they coming at us on the starboard beam, well, it was something magnificent to behold.  It is 1300 now and its still plenty rough, I haven’t heard what the extent of the damage was.—It has been said we are to arrive in Cape Town the day after to-morrow.—I have the 1600 to 2000 watch, so  Lights out.

Dec-7-1941 Sun afternoon.

Dear Charles,

           Was sitting in the living room, and wondering where you were and what you were doing. We have just had a broadcast that Japan has fired on Pearl Harbor and also, on a transport in other words did not declare war on U.S. just fired with out any warning, well, we are in it now and May God help our Navy and Air Corp.

I attended a mass special for you this morning Charles.

It is possible Marcella Ranagan went to mass at the same time Charles was writing in his journal.  Her thoughts were with his thoughts and his thoughts were with her thoughts. 

5:54pm—Said Wali took me to the bank this morning and I wrote and signed a letter which the bank said they would scan and send to the Kabul bank and let’s see within three days, will I have an atm card.

9:00pm—booking rooms, getting advice, listening to Bocelli Christmas music, what’s missing aside from the obvious.

Such a stressful time yesterday, I have been better today, thanks for asking.  Going to the bank helped allay my worries to a manageable level and the rest of the day, what did I do but read journals.

My four thirty class didn’t come.  They didn’t come on Saturday either.  I don’t care if they come or not.  I told them on the day of their final test last week we would only have six classes before I left and I think they all want a breather, which is fine with me. 

So, tomorrow I’ll give a test and I still have to plan for tomorrow night’s last conversation conversation class.  I did nothing today to plan for it, maybe I’ll look a little, I don’t want the stress and if I go into the class not prepared for two hours I’ll slowly encourage everyone to slip out quietly humming ave maria. 

And speaking of Maria a student wanted me to write down the Hail Mary prayer I said for him as I showed him how the rosary worked.  Isn’t that the funniest thing you’ve ever heard today?

wall climbing

I heard it again tonight:  peace will come to Afghanistan when the Pakistanis return land, guarantee access to the sea and all the Taliban are gone.  It’s sounds too simple and I don’t know.  But what if it were really just this?  Everything I’ve read and heard it sounds more complex than simply asking the Pakistanis for peace.  These people need a strong central government, the kind only a King has provided around here. 

Why can’t these two Islamic countries make peace together?  Evil is the man who plays war.  Blessed are the peacemakers.  Honestly fellas, wouldn’t you be richer if there was peace?  Wouldn’t everyone love Allah more if there was peace, wouldn’t Islam look better if you stopped your childish tribal games?  Fighting in the name of Islam or in the name of your tribe is so not cool right now, and if you read your history you’d know change is inevitable and you can’t escape scrutiny anymore.  We see you and we’ll smoke you out.   

I would really love to come up with two conversation plans tonight.  Such stress there is when I am not ready and I do not like waiting until the last hour to come up with something.  Let’s be good tonight. 

10:07—the big solar is done and so am I.  I have pieces of a lesson for tomorrow, Lord, the frustration was palpable today, the depression was gnawing at me, and thank God for talking to the students today.  Gee why in God’s name would I ever be more bummed out than them I don’t know but it was a miserable day and I am going to bed to think of nothing.

12.6.15

Cabin Fever is what I come up with.  Thank God for sleep.  A new day the same circumstances but I am not climbing the walls yet, or am I climbing the walls and I don't know it, but I would know it if I look a second and looked around me...well, what do you see?  I see I am climbing the walls, I gotta get out. 

Why do you need an ATM card?  So I can get money when I need it.  No, no, why are you keeping money in this bank?  Why the fuck am I?  Why am I nervous that I might need access to my money and I might not have access to my money?  Am I anticipating, speculating or lamenting over nothing?  I burn so much energy with worry.  Please.  Relax. 

5:11pm—a nice sunset.  I had my camera and was ready to go but changed my mind.  It is now only a moment. 

90% of the population suffers from depression.  Perhaps the little children don’t as much. 

For the last movie of this conversation class I am going to show Paddington, or that's what I've decided right now, I am always subject to change.  It might depress people because their chances of ever leaving this place are slim to none.  It might also give them hope that in the next life they can return as bears.

Ya, I’m flying into the states during the busiest travel times in the year, arriving at one of the busiest airports in the world.  Ya, I’d like to try some heroin for the trip there.  Can I get it in capsule form?

The former teacher from Indiana suffered from cabin fever as well I’m told.  When I was told in my interview this place, this job, would be hard, and that came from former military, I didn’t know it would be this kind of hard.  Mental fucking fighting the demons of doubt, fear and distress.  Take heed to the quotations you give your students in a few minutes.  They ought to help somehow.

“It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy.  It is what you think about.”
Dale Carnegie

9:12pm—I’m thinking it’s time to sleep, let's push to finish here.  I’m bummed in hindsight to see how my temperature and my voice rose when I was being told by someone in Kabul I had to submit a letter to the bank in Kandahar who would then contact the bank in Kabul who will allegedly then send the stupid atm card before I leave.  He deserved to be shouted at for assuming such incompetence would be taken in stride, oh, we’re just a war torn country having suffered for 35 years, we can tell you we are taking the security of your card so seriously we’re actually not going to do anything and they haven’t for four stupid months.  Come on people, snap out of it.

Shanti shanti, not being ready for the conversation class, of which there were only four who came tonight, set a stage for what has been an awful  morning and early afternoon with no way of knowing how to escape foreboding gloom which left no light of hope in my thinking. How miserable it was. 

Will it be better tomorrow?  I don’t know.  Said Wali and I are going to the bank tomorrow, the two hour escapade to sign a post it for all I care right now with my stupid ass signature.  Look at that, I can’t write without anger.  Ok, let’s stop here and go to bed.  It’s time.  Lord have mercy.

letting GOD off the hook

We ate breakfast and lunch outside, the sun warmed me up freshly and it would have been ideal if I could have woken up and found myself on the shores of Koh Samui. 

At one Razzaq arrived with a breadbasket full of 12 inch river fish from Helmund Province and yes sir it is tasty fish but the bones overwhelmed everyone and one was enough which worried me because I knew I was gonna be hungry after the evening class but without hesitation Hannukah walked in unannounced with tonight’s meal of two more Helmund fish and his special dish of oily potatoes and spinach along with the dregs of cold Shlum-bay and three varieties of bread that were really good this morning.  Thanks, dude, Freedom Fighter.

This cold makes people old.  I was describing the kind of cold I’d be facing in two week’s time.  I have no appropriate clothing for this venture and there’ll only be a day in Dubai before landing in the artic fertile Alleghenies. 

12.2.15

“The love of God, the love for one’s neighbor…All religion is found there…How to get to that point? Not in a day since it is perfection itself: it is the goal we must always aim for, which we must unceasingly try to reach and that we will only attain in heaven.”  Charles de Foucauld

12.3.15

The morning men’s class has begun a five week break, take care fellas, it’s been an education. Tonight I’m showing ‘The Pursuit of Happyness’  I should put something together, right?  Questions for later.  One question comes from the movie,

It is possible in a man’s lifetime he may pursue happiness and never attain it. 

Life and Liberty, they sound so foreign in a place where it doesn’t exist.  Am I wrong to fill them with hope and possibility?  I think some of the visibly and audibly defeated think otherwise, but it shouldn’t stop me from being optimistic.  I’m not baiting them at all, haram. 

12.4.15

9:48am—I have some clothes to wash and there is no city power though it ought to come today.  Fezal is crashed on the floor behind me.  An hour ago he came in visibly freezing with a thermos of tea, bread and a pan of fried egg and a portable space heater accompanied with a five kg gas container. Now he snores. 

Friday morning.  I long for days when I have work to do but don’t need to do it.  I read a few chapters of the Romanov sisters, there’s no internet and my battery has a couple of hours.  With city power I can spring into action and wash clothes, do lesson plans, ya da that’s all, and maybe return to bed for a few hours. 

I don’t think I can wait any longer.  I have to wash clothes, where’s the bucket?

12:36pm—City power is here, the geyser is heating up for my first shower in I don’t remember how many days.  Fezel moved himself out and now sleeps in the sun.  I’d join him if I didn’t have a lot to do and what do I have to do but consider first of all, what I have to do. 

A New York newspaper defiantly claims God isn’t listening to the prayers of those weary of another mass shooting in the US.  What exactly do we want God to do?

God works in individuals, God doesn’t do miracles for the masses anymore.  Why not is good question.  24/7 media coverage, a word from the ALMIGHTY would go viral faster than GOD can wipe his U.P sized nose. 

It isn’t that hard, GOD.  Yahweh.  Jehovah, just a word to reassure at least.  GOD isn’t going to stop the source of all misery and suffering until what, who the hell knows anymore.  Having a date the despaired can anticipate would at least give people a chance to change, oral and written theologies got nothing over time which means it’s time. 

Perhaps the despaired are anticipating GOD do something even more now because the despaired know so much more and that is not good.

The disconnect between GOD and the masses who are believers and wannabe believers is the amount of evil they see every day.  How can a believer in his right mind watch another story, feel sad, angry, and then forget about it and praise God for dinner and then settle in for a night of ice hockey or beach volleyball.  We know the refugees are suffering but we aren’t.  Thank GOD for saving me from such suffering. 

I think people, too many people, are letting GOD off the hook far too easily.  Because they have it better than the suffering, GOD is alright with them.  Their formula works, their place of birth is fortuitous, evil is essentially an individual fight and while GOD helps me and doesn’t help others, it’s not GOD at all, is it, it’s just how it is. 

And we are wrong to get angry with GOD because it is what it is.  GOD can intervene but GOD cannot because the laws which govern the universe apply to GOD who wrote up the laws. 

GOD is, essentially, in a bind. 

Of course that’s not true.  We just have to rethink GOD and rethink all of these transmissions we’ve been dealing with for five thousand years.  Surely in the chaos we’ll find a pattern, right?  Give us something you old fart. 

Fezel left the thermos and it’s cup number five coming up this afternoon.  It sure is nice outside but there’s nowhere to go.  I can walk around the courtyard like an old man.  How in God’s name anyone can stay here for more than a year has to be running from the law. 

8:25pm—I just finished watching ‘The Book Thief’ and I am surprised how hard it hit me in the gut.  Maybe it was Death’s narration, so certain about everything you sonnava bitch, or the characters who warmed up to me and it was simply an awful and weird ending.   

Whew. 

So it is as well the end here.  Tomorrow begins another week made a tad easier with no morning class.  I am thankful.  I spent the afternoon reading depressing statistics about Afghanistan and trying to find something to do for the last three conversation classes this week.  I came across a lifeboat ethics exercise, not very cheery eh, to talk about who to kill in order to live.  I am told ninety percent of the country is suffering from some level of depression.  How can I not be cheery, at the end of yesterday evening’s movie, Will Smith puts on a commando performance and there isn’t a dry eye in the room.  Happiness brings tears.  They could use some of it here, along with a few lobbed miracles, I believe you GOD, I believe you made some goodness, anyone who understands your duality will understand.  But that goodness is ok for me but I know it’s not ok for tens of fucking millions, perhaps even billions who suffer from no goodness.  Come on, dammit, show the world something good that will end evil, at least for a day for crying out loud.  OM - N