Andrea in Afghanistan

Cooking Lesson#1: Aushak

walking in Kabul

Like most cities in the world, Kabul is home to a chapter of the global social club the Hash House Harriers. HHH follow venerable traditions began by British expats in Malaysia in the 1930s. They lived somewhere with bad food (hash), decided they wanted to go for a run and ritualistically drink large quantities afterwards.

And so it goes in Kabul, that every Friday a cluster of foreigners sets out on a trail (either running or walking) set by a 'hare', wandering the streets of Kabul. This part was actually quite a treat. It was surreal walking around with a pack of internationals. But we tramped through small allies well off the main roads we are able to take in from the safety of our armor plated SUVs (ok I don't have one of those but even our little sedan wouldn't fit down one of these roads). We took in the sights, the sometimes less than pleasant smells, and chatted with some of the area children.

If you can see in the background, there is a tall diving board on top of this hill. This is known as swimming pool hill. The Russians thought they'd like to take a swim on the top of this hill. But they didn't figure out how to trek the water up the hill so it was mostly empty. In later times it was a popular site for executions off the diving board... hmm.

There were more mellow sights along the way, like Kabul's ubiquitous roses--which grow everywhere and seem incredibly hardy.

After the walk/run, they have a social event or 'down down' at someone's house, where hashers drink rather too much in a scene that reminded me of my faint memories of rugby culture (only they drink with their left hand since it's haram). I'm not sure it is my cup of tea, but then they were not drinking tea. Another bizarre moment where you can't believe you are in Kabul.

From palace to fortress...

This week I will leave the decadence of Kabul's Park Palace guesthouse...

The Park Palace is the happy home mostly of consultants on 3 to 6 month contracts, with the occasional volunteer and even a woman who claims to be on holiday and enjoys reading in the garden. These people have the ears of Afghan government, influence over its airports, hydroelectric projects, and mines. They are picked up by SUVs in the morning, dropped off at night, and do radio checks to confirm their safety. Some are not allowed to leave except to go to the office. But they make the best of it, a group of Japanese workers had a fine game of badminton going in the courtyard yesterday. And up until recently there were weekly barbecues--strangely last week a can of silly string was brandished at once such festivity (how it found its way to Afghan shops I'm not entirely clear... many joyful things seem to trickle out of the stocks for US military sale, including girl scout cookies)

But, alas, I've grown tired of guesthouse environment. So instead I am moving to a room within a house where several UN folks stay. It's in one of the fancy neighborhoods where the streets have gates on them at nights, and every house has high walls and armed guards. It would not have been my first choice as far as neighborhood ambience, but there are limited options as far as where security people want foreigners living. The house meets the UN standards for security, with these friendly security guards stationed outside the door...

Really they are pretty friendly. And the house has a nice garden and a dog.

And even some grapes growing...

So from one walled compound to another... *sigh*... such is life in Kabul.

Babur's Garden

The Mughal ruler Babur created one of Kabul's few remaining patches of green sometime around the 16th century. The gardens consist of rising terraces with a little canal for water running through the middle (now empty).

The gardens were destroyed during the war, but have been restored due to the graces of NGOs.

At the heart of the garden is a small mosque built by the same man who commissioned the Taj Mahal. Babur's himself wanted to be buried in a tomb open to the sky, which it is...

Around the garden are a few groves of trees. Visitors seek out these scarce commodities and spread their carpets out for picnics.

We were invited by this nice Uzbek family to join them for water mellon and baby-holding.

picnic at qargha lake

A half hour from central Kabul (just past the surreal Kabul 'golf course' where the greens are 'browns' and the course notably claims to be 100% mine free) there's a man-made lake that doubles as Kabul's water supply. It's a pretty dusty place, and more than a few people use it as a public car-wash, but that doesn't stop droves of families trekking out for a Friday picnic (Fridays are the weekend here). I went with two expats from my guesthouse. On the far side of the lake, we met this family. The little boy had just kicked their soccer ball into the lake. We shared our salams and they invited us to tea.

The father works as some sort of administrator in the ministry of women's affairs. The mother is a school teacher.

The oldest son translated from Dari-English for us. He hopes to be a doctor someday.

His sister says she'd like to be a journalist. But she had little interest in the BBC, preferring a local music format station.

The youngest boy demonstrated that his oratorical skills may well exceed his football prowess. His mother had him recite poetry from his school book.

After some cups of green tea, pistachios, and pieces of sugar (like jaggery) we made our retreat promising to meet them sometime again. A very pleasant Friday retreat.

'tv mountain'

Some colleagues recently took me to the top of 'tv mountain' in Kabul, to help me get geographically oriented to the city. Since I never get to walk the streets, take public transport (um, there is none) and I'm always being driven around like a child, it's hard to get a sense of direction...

On the top of the hill are transmitters for all the local television outlets. Dust gets in the way of the view, but I can still get an idea of Kabul's sprawl. The hill itself used to be uninhabited, but since the fall of the Taliban, houses have sprouted up on the steep twists of the hill... almost entirely people from more mountainous regions outside of Kabul.

One of my colleagues Tabasum shows me around. I have yet to figure out how to make my hijab wind-proof.

There are signs of more sinister days here. The nice view made for a nice spot for mujahideen to lob shells at other mujahideen on other hills. Unfortunately they often missed and leveled large swathes of neighborhoods below. TV mountain was a favorite spot of Massoud's troops.

Tank bits are a pretty common site.

Kabul!

Greetings from Kabul,

I've arrived. I'm ok. And I'm slowly adapting to the realities of the kabul-bubble, where it's considered daring to walk a block or two down the street. So for now, it's from guesthouse to car and back again.

That said I have managed to meet some nice people... The Afghan women I'm working with have been quite hospitable.

I even got to have a night out at a fancy buffet restaurant with this future Afghan rock star/potential comedian (and daughter of one of the women I'm working with).

As for security, I think I will be ok. Today was a public holiday (Happy Mujahideen Day!). And though there was an incident at the big parade, my office seemed to be well aware of what's happening and took appropriate safety measures.

So... don't worry too much. More soon...

a