Images of fire

For years now, until he died, my father and I burnt off patches of bush at his and Mum’s bush block in Margaret River. Every summer, we would anxiously watch the weather, wondering if this year the fire would come.

This year, the fire came. I care not to blame any one person or department or decision; if it wasn’t DEC it might have been a motorist with a cigarette butt, or a piece of glass, or an arsonist. The fire came, and it burnt the lot.

Here is the old railway carriage that we first lived in, back in 1975. I did it up a few years ago: restored the floors and walls, pulled out the old fittings, painted it. It was a lovely studio space.

And here below, is the view of the beach right in front of the land. It is a view that I have never tired of. When the brown dust of Afghanistan gets to me, I remember this place.

Here is what remains of that railway carriage.

And here is the view down to the sea. Few patches of the fragile coastal heath remain.

My sister used to work in a bookstore while she was at med. school. She collected antique books, first editions. Of the hundreds of books stored there, this was all I could find.

Some years back, we built a shed for the tractor, the vehicles, the tools and equipment necessary for caring for 160 acres of bush. The shed is now a wreck: the roo-bars melted off the ute; the windscreen draped over the steering wheel like silk, 8m ladders reduced to pools of metal on the floor. The diesel exploded, blowing off the roof.

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I have often described Afghanistan as being brown and blue: brown land and blue sky. Margaret River has new colours for me: white and black.

The tractor we pulled out and left to rest under some trees. I will later sandblast and repaint it. It is good to hold onto to some of the destroyed things, they are a way to grieve and go on.

After four days of solid work cleaning, repairing the water and the electricity, salvaging items, talking to a crowd of officials and inspectors, we went down to Gnarabup beach and swam.

That night I went down to pull the old padlock of the incinerated back gate, and I saw that a bare week after the fire, the bush is coming back.

We’ll fly back to Kabul on Sunday. ‘We’ is Nathan and I. Nathan and Bronwyn and their kids are friends of ours in Kabul. When they heard about the fire, Nathan said he would come with me. I shook my head. But he just went ahead and paid $2500USD for a ticket, and with his wife’s blessing, he came and worked along side me, all week, through all the destruction.

Thankyou Nathan.

Earlier in the week, without being asked, another friend, Dave, had driven down to Margaret River, evading police blocks and closed roads, and walked in through the still-burning bush to conduct the first reconnaissance of our place, and give us some picture of what was ahead of us.

Thankyou Dave.

Images from the Palace

Our good friend Cam T is visiting us from Western Australia. We decided to wander the old, ruined Darulaman Palace together. The guards were initially reluctant, pointing out that we needed ‘a letter of permission’ to enter, though I am not sure who would issue such a pass. Perhaps they meant a different kind of letter. But with a little encouragement, the chief guard, who had a split lip and a loud voice, relented, though not before pointing out some areas where a little donation would help. I demurred.

From within the ruined old palace, the new Parliament takes shape.

We climbed a few internal staircases, somewhat hidden away, and there in a roof space was a pile of school books. It was odd.

The fallen ceiling. It was quite beautiful, the way it hung, a lattice of plaster and wire.

From an upper window. Clearly, someone had been hidden there, sniping at people below. 

On our way out, we passed the guards, and I slipped them 500Afs. I’ll come again, with other visitors, and I’d like to keep the relationship cordial. Needless to say though, the guards looked disgusted at the paltriness of my thanks. ’500Afs? What use is that?’

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Today we learnt that our bush property in the South West of WA has been largely burnt in the bush fires. My uncle’s house is destroyed; my parent’s home damaged. It is hard to be so far away, and the shock has an unreality to it.

Images of destruction at Eid-e Quorban

The last three days have been Eid-e Quorban, the Festival of the Sacrifice. For those of you who went to Sunday School, you’ll know that Abraham was told by God to sacrifice his first born son, Isaac, on the mountain (one of those bible stories I end up shaking my head at). At the last minute, as Abraham has sharpened up the knife and is preparing to slit his son’s throat, God intervenes, thanks Abraham for his devotion, and in gratitude, Abraham kills a nearby sheep instead. In the Islamic tradition, Abraham is told to kill Ishmael, but the rest of the story is pretty much the same.

So at this Eid, which remembers that event, lots of sheep and goats are killed, and the meat distributed to the poor in thanksgiving. Quite a nice tradition, unless you are one of the sheep, I guess.

For Muslims around here, it is a time to visit, share meals with each other, and judging by what I see on the streets, give beebee guns to your children. I wonder how much the incidence of eye injury rises during Eid…

Julie took the time to visit and hold a wee, premature baby that has been left at nearby Cure hospital. The young mother had twins, a boy and a girl, prematurely. The boy has been taken home; the girl left at the hospital. It desperately needs touch and love, and so a roster of expat mums has been there to hold and cuddle it. I don’t think it is the case that the mother is disinterested – she is young, it is a long way to travel every day, and she has the other child to care for. It is predictable though, that it was the girl child who was left. Hopefully, if she gains strength, she will rejoin her family when she can come out of the Intensive Care Unit.

I and the kids took the time to visit the old Ministry of Defence, further up Dar-ul Aman.

We have visited previously, but the military then took a dissuasive position with regards us going in. This time we were more lucky, and the lone guard was happy to let us poke around. It appeared to be thoroughly demined (it was certainly thoroughly graffiti-ed, and in many places, thoroughly used as a latrine), and it was also thoroughly destroyed.

Kabul used to be full of such buildings or remnants of buildings, there are fewer and fewer as they are bulldozed for the construction of new narco-palaces.

Walking through it with the kids was strange. It was moderately nerve-racking, wondering if there was still any UXO around;  it was depressing – seeing the ruin and devastion of what had once been a beautiful and grand building; and it was a bit numbing. The Afghans I spoke too were ambivalent about the building: I don’t think they saw it romantically. It signifies loss and destruction for them, a sad time when the Mujahideen blew Kabul to bits. It is also simply a building, home now to some 30 refugee families.

Afterwards, we drove back to the hospital and shelled peanuts until Julie came.

 

(* all these images shot with the superlative Tokina 11-16 F2.8 lens, a fantastic wide angle lens, superior in construction, speed, performance and price than the Nikon equivalents – and I am normally a Nikon purist.)