What does it cost to post a letter to Germany?!?

Yesterday I went to post some letters I had written during the last weeks. Direction Europe. When I reached the ministry of communication (that’s where you post your letters and cards here in Kabul), the stuff had already left. Some people in the ministry though advised me not to send the letters via government post, it would take some 3 month and I could better take them home once I go. We tried some private couriers than, and now, please sit down!, surpassingly DHL take some 115$ for every letter from 1 up to 500g, TNT only 71$ and the snip by an afghan private courier: 30$. I had 7 letters so, that would be: 210$.

So, please don’t mind if you don’t receive anything from here! I will hand the letters over personally, once I’m back in Europe.

Afghan Hospitals

Coming back from Sharkardara in the night, we had half of the car full of food. Kg of Angur (Grapes), Behi (quince), Piaz (onion) etc. for the winter. As Javed had a very bad stomach-ache I felt myself responsible to help carrying all of this into the apartment on 3^rd floor. So, I took the huge sac of onions (some 60-70 kg they told me later on) and made it somehow to the 2^nd ½ floor where I was not able anymore to make a single move. I broke down in laughter and cried tears. The others shouted at me how I could be so damn stupid taking this huge sac alone. History will tell that they were more right then they maybe thought – two days later I found myself in an afghan hospital – fearing a inguinal rupture. Thanks God, it was just some stupid muscle inflammation, painful enough.

Afghan Hospitals are an experience themselves. Especially if you come there with pain in your joints. I had first been to a German hospital near to the place where I work, but as the female German doctor was a generalist she advised me better to see a specialist (orthopaedist or surgeon). In the afghan hospital I was perhaps the only foreign patient and as I was not able to walk a single step Javed and his sister drove me around in a wheel chair, so that I attracted the interest of each and everyone. Poor both had to explain nearly a hundred times my whole story, starting from what had happened to me, what I was doing here in Afghanistan and ending somewhere between birth and childhood.

The nurses and doctors were just as caring, sensitive and nice. Though there was this one problem. The doctors were all male and - as they told me - my pain at a place where according to their costumes man where not allowed to look at. Even though one of the doctors took the effort to at least touch my hips under the trousers – looking in the opposite direction, what goes without saying. They decided than to take a radiography to be sure that nothing serious had happened to my bones. The x-ray machine was placed in a huge hall which looked more as a storage room, with all different disassembled medical machines. I had to wear a kind of nightshirt over my clothes, what for I don’t know, and got a radiogram made from my hips. Luckily they couldn’t find anything on the radiogram, so that they send me home again, with the advise to take rest for some days – couldn’t do differently anyways, with those pains…

Sharkardara

We went to Sharkardara last Friday (Fridays are off here, therefore we work Saturdays and Sundays) to visit some of my families relatives (grandmother and two uncles). Sharkardara (sugar valley) is a place one hour north from Kabul and a really rural area, without running water or electricity (ok, we don’t have here in Kabul neither most of the time– but here at least we are supposed to have), but it’s a beautiful place. The nature is just overwhelming and the people incredible nice, well-coming and surprisingly free in comparison to Kabul city. And perhaps the most remarkable, coming from the supposed-to-be dirtiest (at least dustiest) city in the world, is the fresh and clean air.

Javeds parents had grown up here (and even Javed and his brothers and sisters lived there for some time in their childhood, before they had to leave Afghanistan). His father, grandfather, uncles, cousins, they all had fought here against the Russian during the war and beside its amazing nature, peaceful surroundings and wonderful mountains cape, this place is full of sad souvenirs and marks of history. I heard all the stories of how they had fought with hands and feet against an massive invading army with newest technology, how they had hidden themselves in the mountains for days and nights, I have seen the places where their brothers, sisters and parents have died. I have seen the calderas of bombs in the ground where they used to hide in the ongoing of the war when the Russian army attacked from the other side of the river; I visited the graveyard with its hundreds of green-white flags just next to the village, where they had buried the martyr (all those people who had left their life for their fatherland).

Later on in the evening I went to meet the “Kutchi”-people (Nomads), who had build up their tents just next to the village. Kutchis are supposed to live a relatively free live, a bit out of society (or perhaps better in their own society). Even during the Taliban time their women did not were a burqua and were treated extremely equal. Unfortunately their “leader” was not their that day, so that the two men (Javed and his uncle) who had accompanied me where not allowed to enter the “Kutchi-village”. With me, as a woman, they had no problems though. They showed me around, made me enter each and every tent (amazing how they build tandours (ovens) in the ground to bake bread, or the hammock-similar beds the babies sleep in) and told me a lot of stories of which due to my limited paschto-knowledge I couldn’t mostly get the pointed. Just that much, that their life is not the easiest. Surviving as a nomad after years of drought is difficult enough, and now the winter is coming and they do not have enough warm tents. Support is not really existing, from where?!

Lunch out

The other day when the bomb explosion happened where two German soldiers and 5 afghans where killed, I was rooming around freely with Jawed in the city centre. German embassy and UN had warned of bombings and strongly advised all foreigners to stay inside their houses and compounds. But I got to know of this warnings only in the evening when I was back home.


At lunch time we went for one of these typical afghan worker restaurant where I assume they haven’t seen any foreigner entering before. It was my idea to eat there and Jawed really liked this idea. We took a place in the corner on the floor (so really afghan style) even though they also had some tables. We had a really delicious lunch there, and I so enjoyed the atmosphere; many worker from the neighbourhood came to have lunch there, but everyone was just staring at us – I guess they were really confused about what both of us were doing in such a place.

Raisins like your eyes

The last two evenings we were sitting with the whole family (some 10-15 people) to separate raisins which had come from their own gardens somewhere in the southeast of Afghanistan (unfortunately one of the places were it is still very unsafe – especially for foreigners – otherwise I would join them once there – should be an amazing place) and which had dried in the windows for the last weeks.

The work itself is not the nicest: first taking out the most beautiful light green ones (for guests) – Javed’s fathers called them: “Doris eyes” J - and then separating the rest from the spoiled ones, wood and other dirt. I enjoyed the atmosphere so much though, as I do all the evenings here. We generally do not have power, mostly just for some hours a day, and it’s getting really cold. Without heating-system you are shivering even inside the houses. The only way to keep you warm then is to sit all close together under huge blankets. We have some kind of petroleum lamps which gives us a little light and loads of time to discuss, to philosophise, to cite poems ;-) and to learn each-others languages (Dari, Pashto, and GermanJ)…

After one week living with an afghan family I start understanding the people here more and more. Getting more and more used to everything here and feeling more and more safe.

Warlords and Drugs

One thing which scares us a lot here in Afghanistan is the presents of warlords in politics and economics. There is a huge new area here in Kabul where they are all putting up new houses. Houses?!? They are actually more looking like these palaces you know from the mogul area in India. A little Amber (Jaipur) Palace with it’s mirror-hall as an entrance-area. Horribly presumptuous if you consider Afghanistan as one of the five poorest countries in the world followed only by Burundi, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Sierra Leone.

But these people get their money basically out of drug-production (Afghanistan is producing 70% of the opium you find on the world-market), bribery, corruption, etc. And now you are asking what the government is doing against this? Well nothing! They are the government.

What I have heard, some of the highest ministers and politiciens are deeply involved in all this. And the recent parliamentary elections have shown nothing better. Many of the warlords have actually been elected. The reasons are basically huge sums these people had put into bribery and similar things. Many had been paid (I heard of sums up to 100-130 U.S.$), phone-cards had been distributed, mosques had been build: a “good” Muslim should be a “good” politician. A “good!!!” Muslim for sure!

Allah!?!

My life has become pretty much philosophical here. I don’t want to say religious because I’m first of all not practising any kind of religious rites neither Christian nor Islamic and would also not say that I have become a strong believer in this short period of time. Anyways, when you find yourself right in the middle of not only strong believers but also huge thinkers and questioners you can’t but getting involved into these things. What the big Persian and Arabic Philosophers and Poets concerns I’m still a beginner but on my way to new thoughts.

Eid mubarak

I had the first Eid of my life. And it was really, really nice. Beside that my illness of the other day went on and I had to stay in bed two out of three eid days.

Even though I had a brilliant time celebrating this big Muslim festival in an Afghan family.

The first thing I found really funny was, that nobody knew when Eid would actually be. Thought that they’d fool us when I read a sign in front of the Goethe Institute in Kabul saying: “If Eid is on Wednesday, we will be off from Wednesday to Saturday. If Eid is on Thursday we will be off from Thursday to Sunday.” – What the hell?!? Imagine somebody tells you the 23^rd of December: “If Christmas is tomorrow we’ll be closed, if not, not…” The reason for this confusedness actually is, that Eid is celebrated after the moon-calendar, the first day after the new moon actually comes out. And this somehow you never know exactly before you actually look into the sky the night before.

The night to Wednesday then .. we were all hoping for a day of postponement cause nobody was prepared. I didn’t have new cloth yet, which is somehow a very crucial point so that the father of the family insisted to go with me to the “Bazaar” and to buy me a new skirt; the house wasn’t cleaned enough and other things had to be bought. The kids were running around spreading rumours that they had seen the moon but we finally went to bed without any confirmation as the power was cut (as almost every night) so that we couldn’t see the announcement of some Mullahs in Saudi Arabia. But the next morning I got woken up at 6am as usual. Not Eid – Ufff…

The first day of Eid (Thursday) we all woke up very early and spend hours to prepare the guest room with tons of dry fruit for all the family member, friends, colleagues etc. who should drop by one day or the other while the men attended the special congregational prayers in the mosque.

Afghan bakery

The other day Javed and me got invited into a bakery. I actually just wanted to take a picture from their shop when they asked us in. They showed us around their little place, explained me everything and made me see the traditional oven, which is basically a round hole in the ground where they make fire. Once they have formed the bread, they through it against the wall where it gets stuck. At the end they baked a double-size bread for me (they wanted to make one which had my size (so almost 1,80 m) but we wouldn’t have been able to take it home.

The afghan people are just so amazingly well-coming! Especially in the family I live in everybody is trying to make me feel at home as much as they can and I am really considered as their fifth daughter/sister. But what I actually appreciate the most is how they act with each other. Everybody is just so much caring of each and everyone in the family and they would do everything to make the others happy. It’s a kind of sacrifice they do, but they do it with so much joy and love that it is just amazing.

Whomever I have spoken to had told me to be very careful outside the houses and not to go out alone cause it would be too dangerous. Also the security policies we put up are quite tough (even if not at all comparable to those of most of the international organisations here in Afghanistan): I’m actually not going anywhere alone beside some 100 meters around the office. Javed is bringing me to the office in the morning and picking me up at night. The guys are too afraid that something could happen to me and are freaking out when I actually speak to someone I do not know…

Strange though that my experience with the people in the streets is so different. Whoever I’ve met on my very few walks around the corner, the people had just been so warm and open. When I was carrying a bread the other day a shop-owner stepped out of his door and gave me a little bag. I don’t know how many chewing-gums or other sweets I had been given by some random people. Seeing me they generally start smiling and try to remember the few words in English or Russian they learned sometime back. Seeing this it so much hurts thinking of what the last more than two decades of war have brought to the country – all this mistrust and fear has destroyed so much of their culture. It’s now up to the young generation to actually go on the journey and to (re)discover so many things which had been forgotten for ages.

And it is just amazing to see the enthusiasm of my friends here; how they actually believe in their country and how they are committed to work for a better future.