Street scenes; Local stories

“Things are looking better here, don’t you think?” my Afghan friend from the guesthouse asked me as we drove through the streets of Kabul. Indeed they were. More paved streets, more policemen directing traffic, more building.

“What do you think about progress here?” I asked him.

“Oh, it’s good. Much better now,” he answered.

When I noted that even the air pollution seemed better, however, he said, “Well, that’s because it’s still so early in the morning. The cars aren’t out yet.” Oh. Then he rolled down his window to shout friendly advice to a fellow driver, that car a minivan full of commuters. “Tire puncture as’!” The car had a flat tire in the rear. Both “tire” and “puncture” are English words that have made their way into the language because Dari was developed before either rubber tires or their punctures came to Afghanistan.  Then we saw another car strike an old man on a loaded bicycle. There was shouting and the bicyclist hit at the window of the car before it pulled ahead into traffic. My friend stopped to ask after his health and commiserated with him about the hit-and-run driver. “A policeman would have stopped that driver if he’d seen it,” he muttered.

My friend has become engaged since I was last here. He was explaining that he and his wife would follow the age-old Afghan custom of living with his father. “That is how we have always done things here, like no other country in the world.” (I don’t think that’s true, but anyway…) “We like living with our family. My father will always be the head of the household, but he listens to what the rest of us say. We try to reach consensus. Here’s the way it works: my father has the first say, then me as the oldest son. Then comes my mother, my younger brother, and my wife. We will be very happy because my father consults us before making a decision.”

After sleeping off my jet trip, I left the guesthouse to “chakar mezanum” – go for a walk. It was early evening and the streets in the neighborhood where I am staying were packed! Two roads converge at an old bridge and the traffic is always congested there. Policemen and bystanders were needlessly waving their arms at the cars, calling, “bero, bero, bero!” (go, go, go!). Pedestrians, among them me, weaved along the edge of the traffic on broken sidewalks and in muddy puddles. Paving hadn’t gotten this far. A line of cars had found an easier way through the jam, by making a third lane going in the wrong direction. I kept laughing at the free-for-all. There were women in burkas, women with only scarves, high-heeled professional women, vendors pushing carts, old men with headwraps, young men with T-shirts, a balloon salesman with a huge bundle of wares over his head. Children tagged along holding their parents’ hands, other adults carried babies swaddled against the cool evening.  Street vendors sold vegetables, ice cream, boulani. I remembered why I like coming to this country.

When I returned to the guesthouse my friend Naqib reminded me that I need to carry a cellphone at all times. He had been standing anxiously at the window waiting for my return. “I wanted to phone you, Camilla, to see that you were safe!” Then he led me to the meet the neighbors who rent a small house at the rear of the guesthouse property. I knew the old gentleman from previous trips, and he was delighted to see me. He had been employed as a cook in the home of a rich family, but has been let go. With him lives his son and daughter-in-law with a 4-month old baby. His son was a driver, but has also been let go. He pulled out a carefully-folded letter written in English from his past employer; a recommendation. He hoped I would use him when I needed a driver, as currently their household is without income. Even though they are in dire straits, the son searched through their tidy china cabinet to find me an onyx egg, which he wanted to present me as a gift. They offered me tea.

Advertisement

---