I rang in 1389 on a weekend holiday to the city of Herat, walking around Old City alleys, staring at minarets, sitting around in Friday Mosque, climbing Herat Citadel (courtesy of Alexander the Great), and drinking tea on the roof of Jam Hotel. It was dissimilar to the western concept of New Year's celebrations in some respects, such as the lack of screaming, drinking, and other obvious party functions, although the hotel did string up some lights outside that blinked on and off. On the other hand, traffic did get a bit worse.
A short movie of Herat images in similar fashion to my 2-week movie is probably on its way.
For my first act of 1389, I ate a flavor of ice cream I had never tried before. It tasted like pistachios and rosewater. Also a little bit like cigarettes.
Afghanistan, Pro. Green tea is the national drink of choice: good for health, widely available at low prices.
Afghanistan, Con. Job interview, date, and kidnapping: all virtually indistinguishable from each other in the early stages.
Forthcoming on the blog:
15+ years of staunch vegetarianism die an unholy death when I eat a small pile of unknown baby animal parts.
23 March 2010
13 March 2010
Massachusetts Paul and Typhoid Linny
The day started out pretty decent enough. The dust was sluggish. The surveillance blimp looked especially crisp and white in the sky. Then Paul from Massachusetts showed up at the hotel, and I was suddenly facing close contact with another American.
Paul claims to have fought with the mujahideen against the Soviets back in 1988. He wrote a book about it, of course. Now he's back, desperately seeking Osama Bin Laden so that he can end the war and force the withdrawal of American troops. It confirms some nagging suspicions I had formed some weeks prior, based on my brief contact with a French intelligence agent, that the foreigners in Afghanistan are predominantly out of their goddamned minds.
So it started. I would be trying to drink my tea and watch my Afghan Idol, and there he was, juicing our Afghan counterparts in the hotel for book material, ruining my evenings with some cockamamie political theories about nothing in particular. On the very first conversation he pissed German off so much that he started calling Paul Karzai after that. I couldn't tell exactly what they were saying, because it was all in German, but somehow the obnoxious undercurrent transcended the barriers of language.
I looked up Paul's book; it was listed on amazon for $119 USD. I calculated the cost at an approximate charge of 50 cents per page. I initially wanted to go all jihad on his ass, but eventually settled down into a moderately irritated complacency.
In unrelated news, Linny, my Indonesian coworker and carpool-mate, has contracted typhoid. "The good news is, I'm not contagious," Linny said, "Unless you eat my feces."
Paul claims to have fought with the mujahideen against the Soviets back in 1988. He wrote a book about it, of course. Now he's back, desperately seeking Osama Bin Laden so that he can end the war and force the withdrawal of American troops. It confirms some nagging suspicions I had formed some weeks prior, based on my brief contact with a French intelligence agent, that the foreigners in Afghanistan are predominantly out of their goddamned minds.
So it started. I would be trying to drink my tea and watch my Afghan Idol, and there he was, juicing our Afghan counterparts in the hotel for book material, ruining my evenings with some cockamamie political theories about nothing in particular. On the very first conversation he pissed German off so much that he started calling Paul Karzai after that. I couldn't tell exactly what they were saying, because it was all in German, but somehow the obnoxious undercurrent transcended the barriers of language.
I looked up Paul's book; it was listed on amazon for $119 USD. I calculated the cost at an approximate charge of 50 cents per page. I initially wanted to go all jihad on his ass, but eventually settled down into a moderately irritated complacency.
In unrelated news, Linny, my Indonesian coworker and carpool-mate, has contracted typhoid. "The good news is, I'm not contagious," Linny said, "Unless you eat my feces."
09 March 2010
Afghan Idol
4 March, Thursday night: weekend in Kabul. German, Nasr, and I are sitting around in the upstairs living room drinking tea and eating cookies. German is actually half German, half Afghan, but Half German Half Afghan isn’t such a clever literary nickname. German and Nasr are both in Kabul for the same basic reason: property rights. They’re fighting a complex bureaucracy and a corrupt legal system to try to win back their own property and houses from opportunistic thieves. They both appear to be losing.
On this particular night we’re watching Afghan Idol. The former host of Afghan Idol was something of a success story. He rose from zero training in broadcasting and no former education to become a real hit as the beloved host of the show. He received invitations from all over the world to visit and make appearances. Finally he accepted one such invitation, to go to the United States, upon which he immediately fled to Canada and was never heard from again.
The new generation is like that, Nasr says. Prone to flight.
On this particular night we’re watching Afghan Idol. The former host of Afghan Idol was something of a success story. He rose from zero training in broadcasting and no former education to become a real hit as the beloved host of the show. He received invitations from all over the world to visit and make appearances. Finally he accepted one such invitation, to go to the United States, upon which he immediately fled to Canada and was never heard from again.
The new generation is like that, Nasr says. Prone to flight.
04 March 2010
03 March 2010
Is it me, or is this hotel moving?
27 or 28 February: I fail to fully enjoy my first earthquake by sleeping through most of it, then waking up for a few seconds of shaking around, putting on pants, and immediately going back to sleep. Despite two weeks in Afghanistan, survival instinct is still minimal.
2 March: I complete a short movie about my first two weeks in Kabul, but entirely lack the bandwidth to upload it.
2 March: I complete a short movie about my first two weeks in Kabul, but entirely lack the bandwidth to upload it.
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