A hike to the top of the mountain
Alleyway up the mountain
Three of us from the guesthouse decided to hike to the top of the mountain overlooking Karte Char (the fourth quarter in Kabul), despite warnings from Naqib that there were bandits there. He was originally going to be part of our outing, but decided against it when he saw exactly which mountain we had chosen. He shrugged and grimaced, washing his hands of the entire affair, and went back to the guesthouse.
We looked at each other: a female science teacher, a botanist from Washington who had only been to Afghanistan once before on a supervised tour, and an Iranian gentleman in his 60′s who had never set foot in the country. We decided that it was unlikely we would be molested and set out. Knowing how Afghans generally want to protect foreigners, we figured there would be plenty of saviors if someone did try to jump us. The way led up a narrow alley, and turned between houses before leading under a building that crossed above the narrow way. A man dressed in black country clothes was climbing the same set of steps and overheard us wondering if we were taking the right path. He stopped to suggest that we follow him; he was going the same way. The four of us passed a group of young men pouring water into large plastic vegetable containers at the community pump. They glanced at us, then smiled and greeted us. Curtains were pulled aside in upstairs windows and children, women looked down at us. All of them were smiling. They seemed to think it an honor that westerners would visit their neighborhood. Most foreigners never get up into this section of town, a place where only the most determined Afghan returnees would live.
Smiling Children
Up here on the steep rocky slope of the mountain, the land is government owned and free to anyone who will work to make a home here. We stopped to talk to a group of Panshiri men who were hewing a foundation hole in the limestone, using pick and shovel. They had left their valley to come to Kabul because of their hopes of finding work. The home would be very small, crowded at the top of the hill just above the roofs of houses below. Although we saw others carrying jugs of water up stairways to their home, these men said they could get piped water from a reservoir above. As for electricity, that was available too. They pointed to a wire passing over our heads. That would be their tie-in. Public utilities had recently been brought to this mountain, but the men would have to pay monthly fees. Maybe the families carrying water couldn’t afford the fees.
A Rocky Homesite
A group of school-aged boys were hanging around a small storefront. They asked where we were going. “Koh,” we said. (to the mountain). “We will come, too,” the oldest one said, and so we were accompanied by a flock of running and jumping boys. When they discovered one of us was especially interested in flowering plants, they began pointing out every gul (flower) they could see. Our Iranian friend stooped down to pick a large-leafed plant. “If you are thirsty, eat this,” he said. “We eat this in Iran.” He chewed the stem, then offered me a bite. It was refreshing, juicy like celery. The boys gathered some dry rust-colored lichen. “We use this for medicine when we feel bad, mixed with milk.” The boys knew enough English from school to speak with us, aided by our friend’s translation.
A Plant with Juicy Stems
“Do you know how to swim?” one boy asked me. He said sometimes he plays in a neighborhood swimming pool, but cannot swim. Far below in the smoggy Kabul mist I could just make out the swimming pool he pointed to. He added that only boys are allowed into the pool. I replied with lite-self-righteousness that in America, girls could swim too. “Of course!” he answered. “In America, you are free!”
We had climbed way past the last house, up to the edge of an ancient stone wall that bisects the mountain from top to bottom. The story of this wall, the boys said, was that there was a king whose sons were fighting over their inheritance to the Kabul region. Finally they decided to build the wall to divide it. How many years ago was this? The boys didn’t know. Holes in the lower part of the wall aimed straight down to the other side. Defenders could pour hot oil onto attackers climbing up from below.
The Dividing Wall
I stopped to pick up rocks: quartz, serpentine, granite. Seeing this, the boys would look for colorful rocks to hand me. If I had accepted each of their gifts, I would have brought half the mountainside downhill with me. Then we walked amid shallow caves dug by mujaheddin, still full of spent cartridges. I held one and turned it over in my hands. This rusty shell would be exactly the right size for a bud vase. I put it in my pocket.
Until the 1960′s, Kabul had a noon gun for marking time. I’d read about it many times, because it had been famous in its day. The hill had once been called Cannon Hill, but I’d never been able to discover where it was. Simple timekeeping methods have always interested me. On an inspiration, I asked the boys if they knew about the old cannon. Not only did they know of it, they pointed to a flattened spot just a few feet away from where we stood. That was where the cannon had been mounted!
Playing shotput on Cannon Hill
We reached the very top of the peak after a couple of hours of walking, then returned by a different path leading down the other side of the mountain. We passed more mujaheddin shelters, then reached the swelter of homes where we said goodbye to the boys. Mehdi, our Iranian companion, laughed, “Do you know what they said to me? They said it was my duty to convert you two into Muslims!”
At the Top
At the bottom, we three found an ice cream shop where we stopped to rest over ice cream cones and pepsi. A small group of young men followed us inside and sat at the next table, eating their own ice cream and watching wrestling on the TV over the door.
When we told Naqib we had encountered no bandits, he explained the real reason he had not wanted to join us. He is Tajik, and the hill neighborhood is Pashtun. There has always been bad blood between these two ethnic groups, he said. Possibly, he added, it was like the blacks and whites in America.
