Christina asked about the expression ‘I don’t want

Christina asked about the expression ‘I don’t want my children to walk in the dust’.
‘Dust’, as used in Dari can have simply the literal meaning – i.e., ‘I don’t want my children to live in this dustbowl, this poor man’s house’.

But it also has a meta-meaning – a common curse here, is ‘Khak dar sat-et!‘ ‘Dust on your head!’ – which means, ‘May you die’ – the expression deriving from, when a person is dead and being buried, dust is thrown into the grave, onto their heads  - Muslims being preferably buried standing, so they can properly greet Mohammed the Prophet when he comes summon them.

So, the other meaning would be, ‘I don’t want my children to walk in death’.

 

I sell waistcoats.

We are in De Mazang, and half way up TV Mountain. The road was paved for the first section; now we are walking in a narrow alley, strewn with the litter of the households, and down the the middle of which runs an uneven channel of raw waste and sewerage. People are gathered around a tap stand, filling 20L yellow canisters, and then struggling on up the hill.

Higher up we stop, and Julie goes into a room to talk with the women. I stay in the yard and the husband comes over. In the small yard, three children bat a plastic ball around with a large walking stick.

We talk about the Self Help Group which his wife is part of. He only knows it by the name, ‘the group’. ‘It is good for her, she saves 10 Afs, 20 Afs every week. They put it all together, take loans. Why shouldn’t she do it?’ He tells how he has taken three loans from the group via his wife over the years.

‘And what have you used the money for?’

‘I sell waistcoats. I buy them in Mandaie, from the big underground market there. I carry them all the way up to Karte Se, walk down the bazaar selling them. If I have sold them all by the time I reach here, good. If not, I go on, past the zoo, and then turn around and walk home, selling as I go. That is what I do.’

I cannot capture the simple resignation with which he speaks. It was as though he was saying, ‘This is my life. That is all there is.’ I ask what he might do if he could take a larger loan, say 10,000 Afs ($200USD). He shrugs. ‘I would buy more waistcoats.’

‘Do you have any other skill, or work, or profession, or income?’

‘This is my qisb, my income.’

‘What do you want for your children?’

‘They they do not walk in the dust.’

*

These groups are doing valuable work. The houses and the alleys here are like the slums we lived in, in Delhi. People here are poor; in another group, a man and a woman, old, both blind, sit motionless, as another woman tells of how two of their children have died in the last years. The man next to me sells plastic tubs, in much the same way as the waistcoat seller. The return on such sales is microscopic.

It does take time for these groups to start working, but over 5-6 years the changes are evident; further down the mountain, people are working together, men and women, running small businesses, cooperating. Higher up, though, that process is just beginning.

The closer you get…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All five of us are enjoying being in Afghanistan for these two weeks, with some caveats.

1. the mud. While technically it is spring, it has rained every day since we got here. Julie was meant to fly to Mazar yesterday, and couldn’t because there had been so much rain, the airport was flooded. Yep, you read it right. And Afghan mud has unique and strange qualities. You can walk from the bedroom to the bathroom, and come back muddy. You can wash mud off your pants, three times, and it is still there! You can tiptoe carefully around a patch in the road where the mud is thick, only to find mud in your hair. Hours later!

2. the cold. We didn’t expect this, and had to make hasty trips to the bazaar, to buy jackets. Only their winter jackets are all packed away, because it is summer. So only T shirts are on sale now. So naturally, I bought T shirts. Now we are all layered up like lunatics.

3. the sickness. Within hours of getting here, Rachel had a fever. Elijah vomited carefully into his cupped hands last night at 3am and carried it to the bathroom, but couldn’t open the door, and had to stand there yelling/ vomiting till we came. (He then repeated this trick 2 hours later). Pieta has a cold and sore lips (eh?). Seems there is something about arriving here that activates bugs.

4. the way plans get cast aside. Twice now Julie has tried to get to Mazar. Rain and flooding has foiled both attempts. We have ended up sharing rooms with a couple trying to get back to Lal, who have been stumped twice now, because of weather. The upside to this is pleasant surprises – kissing your wife good bye for three days, only to have her show up two hours later. More time with friends. But it does make for low-level frustration, and traversing many low levels of frustration can lead you to the basement of despair.

All that said, it is good being here. The kids are loving seeing their friends. It is good to see Tom and Lyn settling in so well. We are doing good work. We have been welcomed back into a what is still a family for us. It is almost as though we never left.

Yes, the closer you get here, the more wonderful it is*.

 

*As long as you can expand your definition of wonderful to include some pretty annoying things.

Visas obtained, futility averted, frustrations receding. What next?

We got visas here in Dubai. A straightforward process, with only some ordinary, run-of-the-mill frustrations. We fly in on Saturday.

As they say, If you want it easy, don’t choose Afghanistan.

Afghanistan. Again. Almost. Maybe

Long time readers (all 3 of you) will know that we harbour a long, deep love for Afghanistan.

So it will be no surprise that we were to return there – albeit for only a few weeks – this April. I was to do a risk assessment, and Julie to do an evaluation. Our kids were coming because they were to do a reconnection – reconnect with their old friends, their old places. The country and the life where they have lived; each of them, for at least half of their years. And, they have been really, really looking forward to this.

In readiness, I submitted our visa applications a month ago. Bear in mind that the website says turnaround of visas takes only 5 business days.

After three weeks, I grew worried. A call to the Embassy revealed that Kabul had not yet given permission for us to travel. More days passed. Our departure date grew near.

I will not recount here the numerous – bordering on tedious – number, and content of calls, conversations and agonisings that took place over the last week, as we mulled, mooted and masticated the options. Delay flights? Try in Dubai? Call it all off? Give Canberra more time?

In the end, we gave Canberra more time. We also allowed for a second effort in Dubai. As the Afghan proverb says, ‘Trust in God. But you should still tie up your camel’.

–

Today, we heard that Canberra has not issued visas. Probably, the issue was simply time. Just now, a colleague and friend recounted that it took her five weeks to get her visa. Earlier this month, other friends were so late in getting their visas, they had their passports couriered to them directly to the airport, just prior to departure.

–

We are going anyway. We’ll hope for visas in Dubai. God oversees all this, somehow. This I believe. ‘Oversee’ doesn’t mean ‘control’, and I do not assume to predict that the outcome we desire will eventuate. We’ll see. ‘Being in control’ is less a reality than we’d like to believe.

But I am tired of anticipating disappointment when it comes to Afghanistan. We just wanted to get there. Do some important work. Let the kids have a good time.

We were not, you know, expecting a revolution.

Images of learning

We had a week of learning together in Kenya – 55 of TEAR’s partner staff from Sub-Saharan Africa. After the peversities and effort of Afghanistan, it was incredible to be with men and women together, learning, challenging us, taking the lead, initiating. Really inspiring. A week of hope.

Followed by 36 hours travelling to get home. Which is also great.

Kenya conversations.

I have been with some old friends for dinner. Friends, because we know them and they know us, but really, our friendship is short. They were friends of my sister, and we met them whilst visiting her in Kenya in 2009. We haven’t really corresponded since then. But tonight we met up. I was expecting it to be just them and me; a meal, some wine, some reminiscing.
Instead, I found myself in the middle of Irish/aid worker/ expatriate in Africa world tour, powered in equal measure by alcohol, boast, fact, nostalgia, hope, conceit and cynicism. A strange confection. Impressive people who have worked in some of the worlds worst places, over many years, with commitment and sincerity, who now in the evensong of their working lives seem less happy with what they have done than they should be. I dunno. I’m not there yet – what is it like to work in the world’s crappiest places, for a whole life, and see them remain mostly crappy?

Does faith play a role in this? Does a transcendent hope insure against such loneliness? Well. It was good to see my friends.

*

Conversation with the taxi driver on the way home:

Driver: Are you married?
Me: Yes, I have three kids. You?
D: Four. Two sons, two daughters.
Me: Nice. Perfect combination.
D: What about extra wife?
Me:…. uh…. what?
D: Extra wife. How many you have?
Me: (long pause while my brain reboots)… uh. Just one wife. That’s…. all… You….?
D: Huh! What you mean? Lots. Many. What do you mean, one?
Me: Uh… (beginning to sound daft)…. well, I just married one… That’s enough…
D: Huh.
(pause)
D: Here in Kenya, we have many wife. We need it. Long work, wife gets angry. I say what you get angry. You don’t get angry with me. I go out, get a woman. We all do this.
Me: Umm. Well. Yeah. But. Doesn’t she get angry? Number one wife, I mean.
D: She get angry? I get angry.
(pause)
D: Which country you from?
Me. Australia…. you see, if I did that in Australia, my wife would tell me to get lost. To go. To leave.
D: Australia is different. But what do you do about, wanting extra wife?
Me: I don’t. I don’t want an extra wife. I don’t want one. I’m happy with… I just don’t want… if I was your wife, I would feel sad.
D: Why?
Me: I would want you to love…. [this starts to sound weird, so I rephrase] I think your wife would want you to be faithful to her.
D: I am faithful! I send money. I put 20,000 shillings every month to my children’s schooling!
Me:….[realising, slowly, that we have different frameworks, different languages here]… uh….
D: I get lonely! She lives uptown, 160km from here! I see her once a month, maybe! What should I do? 25 years, we live like this! I go out, I am lonely…
Me:…