Foods I Don't Like!

As usual I'm lazy and the last month has been at turns eventful and uneventful. I got to meet with the warlord from Kunar province, Malik Zarin, who had some clever proposals about reigning in the illegal timber industry. My copper project is progressing too and I really feel like I'm starting to know how to do things.

One of the latest challenges I've been facing is developing a questionnaire aimed at a report we're going to do on perceptions of NGOs. It's shot through with holes and I'm going to go over to Counterpart and work with Sahar on Wednesday, it turns out they're facing similar problems. It is fun doing the questionnaire in Farsi though.

I have also adjusted to the altitude here, especially as it concerns my ability to take in alcohol. I've been able to get properly drunk a few times here and I had a nice evening drinking with Nathan, Sahar, and Marina at the Gandomack last night.

And yes, I have discovered here that there are a lot of foods which can be just plain nasty. Chief amongst them are the feet of any hooved animal and kidneys. Cows' feet are nothing but pure rubbery gelatin cooked in an especially nasty gravy which rather hard chickpeas which give you the notion of chewing on bits of bone. Kidneys taste like warm, soft, metal. No furthern description necessary.

The last cool thing that comes to mind at the moment is Ashura. I've never been in a place where the Shiis really come out of the closet and celebrate but here you see all the black banners with red lettering lamenting Yazid's victory of Husayn at Karbala in Iraq. People even attach the banners to cars, which I think is bold given that Shiis are only 20% of the population. And you can see the results of the increasing anti-Shiism on the part of Sunnis. They say utterly stupid things and show a profound lack of understanding. It seems as if the ascension of Shiis in Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran itself are bit too much for some people to bear.

Hindustan Ki Masti

My week-long vacation in India was frankly awesome. It was amazing how smoothly the whole thing went; God was definitely on our side.

To start out with keep in mind the number of miracles, which it took for us to get out of Kabul in the first place. We had to get to the airport, the airport and its employees and parts had to be functional, the weather had to cooperate, and the plane had to come. Traffic getting to the airport was an absolute nightmare. Every road was packed as millions of people flooded into the city for their holiday shopping (for Eid-e Qorban, that's Id al-Adha to you Arabs and Passover to the rest of you--along with cars the roads were clogged with sheep for slaughter). It took nearly 1.5 hours to get to the airport. Then there was the problem of electricity at the airport. Out airline, Indian Airways, was all fancy and dependent on computers and such, so of course they had to wait till the power came back to process customers (Kam Air, the Afghan airline, had no such problem, as they seem to issue mud-tablet boarding passes with cuneiform). And finally the airlplane did actually take off.

The transfer to our Bangalore flight in Delhi was as normal as could be, meaning chaotic. I should interject here that we're not talking about long flights, the Kabul-Delhi one is 1:40 and Delhi-B'lore is 2:05. The Delhi airport is a great achievement in failed socialist planning. The airport was not intended for expansion, with the result being that most passengers are ferried by bus to their plane far out on the tarmac. The airport only has about 10 gates proper and no real procedure to international transfer. This means that you can't check your luggage through. According to Nathan, a group of people sit around confused in the passport control room, knowing that they can't go through customs--an official eventually takes a herd of people through a door and sits the down in the departures lounges, then they herd you around to get your luggage and connecting boarding pass (both of which are on the other side of customs). For we simply had to get to the domestic terminal. Of course this is not in the same building. It is in two rather small buildings some kilometres away. In other words the transfer involves getting to sit in traffic on the N8 freeway for a while. The airport does kindly provide shuttles, but they only leave once an hour so they are hardly useful if your transfer time has been squeezed down to about 50 minutes.

We did get into Bangalore around 10.30 in the evening though and had no trouble finding a room at the place I stayed at this summer, right in the middle of downtown on Brigade Road. It's nice to be in a normal country without the NGO price-bubble. A fine room can be had for only about USD 30 per night--a self catered meal for three from an Andhra restaurant cost Rs 250 altogether-the same amount would buy a crappy vegitarian dish in Afghanistan. Bangalore has little history and like most cities in India is relatively new, at least in relation to those in America. That's fine though--I'm generally bored by historical sight because they only amount to things and drawn rather to commercial culture. And Bangalore has great shopping.

The next day we (me and Nathan) managed to find Neda, hit up several malls, and then close down a bar. The weather was also perfect, warm and dry. This with some of the world's restaurants makes me so thankful I'm not in a place like Europe. After the bar had closed Nathan managed to fulfill his grand desire to play beer pong. All the while we were debriefed by Neda who is trying to sell to a friend of hers at Columbia, Vivian, who seems eligible on all counts. The day after that involved more shopping!

Finally we went over to Livio's place (Lorenzo's brother) in Indiranagar. It was a beautiful three-story place with a lovely roof deck. Livio works in Bangalore as an architect, which is pretty cool considering all the opportunities it offers given the construction everywhere. Saurabh and Lorenzo were both there from Kabul and we all went to a great Mughlai restaurant (it's called Tandoor if any of you come through there). Finally the next day was the big new years party. We all brought the year in in style with non-veg catering and lots of booze. It was a real mix of people, with all the Indians being especially impressive in that they were intelligent and articulate--not to mention that they all have beautiful accents which make you feel stupid. The only slight drawback was that me and Saurabh had not taken control of the music and hence the selection was below par. Nathan disappeared on the roof with a girl named Leila (from Tunesia, but living in Dubai!) where they "made friends". Meanwhile me and a girl from Nellore were totally loaded and sang (and tried to sing) old Telugu and Hindi songs.

Alas, due to our limited timeframe we did have to leave the party at a reasonnable hour. We decided to get our beach time in in Mahabalipuram, a town about 40 km south of Chennai (Madras) which is famous for its stunning temples and rock carvings. We didn't really have time to take the train, so I hired a driver who was to come on the morning of the 1st. Meaning that at least I had to get some sleep so as not to miss the drive. One thing I learned is that the roads are quite decent, well marked, and well paved, so it would be a lot more fun to rent a car in India--especially in the south. Of course car rental is kinda a new concept in a place where it's cheaper to hire someone to do almost anything than to do it yourself.

The drive was indeed beautiful, Tamil Nadu, the neighbouring state of which Madras is the capital, was really like a foreign country. It's flat and interspersed by the occasional huge mountain. The saris were amazing too. Tamilian saris get truly bright and and out of control which colour schemes unheard of anywhere else. Plus, like anywhere in India, the sheer variety of styles is amazing. I guess it's like looking into the future but in fashion. When you see the tremendous diversity of India, you understand where the South Asian pop-culture juggernauth gets its power from. There's an amount of strength, diversity, and plurality there that Western countries can only dream of if they're willing to open they're doors fully to immigration.

In Mahabalipuram we made for the nicest resort we could find an crashed there for two nights. The temperature was perfect--about 30 during the day and 25 at night, all the while with a nice breeze coming off the Bay of Bengal. Yep, we just veged.

On the way back we stopped for some awesome chicken manchuri and a "Kerala Chicken Fry" that rocked Nathan's world and redefined what the chicken nugget should be. It was excellent chicken breaded and fried in tandoori masala with spring onions and cilantro. Awesome. That night it was back to Livio's house to hang out with them and Saurabh until it was time to leave for the airport. Amazingly there were no difficulties in returning to Kabul either. So all in all it was a pretty stunning trip.

Of course I came back to be suprised by -25 night and the realisation that my water tank will be frozen for the near future, but that is another adventure!

Surviving Winter

Well life here has finally settled into a routine, a very cold one. The other night, in a blinding flash of insight from Nathan unlocked the true potential of my heater. I discovered that I could let in more air to increase the heat of the flames and that I can burn wood to heat up the room a lot and then start up the sawdust component to keep the room warm further into the night. I also realised that I do have a small kitchen in my house, which I had previously though was only a store room. That being said, the weather hasn't been all that bad since most days are above freezing here.

My boss, Lorenzo, finally came back from France, with tonnes of great ideas that hadn't occurred to me for my own project. In other news Saurabh left from India after three days of snow had shut down the airport's short-wave radar. Then last night I went out for dinner with Team Counterpart, since Ian is leaving for DC tomorrow and our land mines specialist, Matt, decided to get out of town early before they shut down the airport again.

The most exciting news, however, is the Nathan might well be moving into my hood. While we didn't have room for him in my lovely rustic house, he will be getting a room with Khwaga, which will make Saurabh his housemate and give him some exposure to Afghan culture, along with the wood-burning stove which he so fervently desires. Counterpart, Nathan's NGO, realised that A) they were running out of space at their guest house, B) that is was probably the most unsecure living arrangement obtainable in Kabul, and C) that their insulation from Afghan society was hurting productivity.

And, yes, I am ready for that lovely trip to warm Southern India!

Bollywood Reloaded

Sorry for the delayed post, our internet's been messed up at work and I finally got time to come out to a coffee shop and get a connection.

So, the best way to describe me and Saurabh's party is to see the pictures, which I have just posted on flickr. The party was a great success and we managed not to get overcrowded. The music was awesome--between us we managed a pretty complete South Asian anthology. Of course there were other fun parts, like the fact that we seem to have scared away a number of Americans with the modern music selection and lack of alcohol. You'll also notice it was a grand excuse for me and Saurabh to get pimped out in full party regalia.

Otherwise I have been dividing my time between hanging out with Nathan and Sahar and watching Battlestar Galactica ("the DC refugees" whose compound I have termed farangestan due to the fact that it's more than a dwelling place, it's a cultural voyage to the land of potato chips and English speakers). Because the internet has been down in my office, I have spent the extra time improving my Farsi.

The other interesting thing that I can say about this place is that it is the middle ground between to titanic cultural spheres, India and Iran. The US doesn't matter and much of the West comes filtered thru Iran. For people who know what California is, they assume it's some sort of Iranian colony (not totally wrong) and that we are all Twelver Shi'is. It's also interesting to watch people correct their Farsi around me toward the Tehran/Los Angeles standard. All I can do is embrace my Iranian identity, sometimes I drop the Afghan pleasantries for the urban Iranian version, which both fits people's expectations and makes me anything but American (if they know what that is!). More important that my complexion and hair here is my cosmopolitan affectations, looks don't matter in the way a Westerner might expect, since people here look like everything (I've seen a few people blonder and pinker than me) and the surrounding countries are all equally diverse. I really kid you not, it surprises me just as much, but after a few conversations with people who don't know the difference between France, the US, and even Arab, you begin to realise that perceptions differ greatly! I think the calculus goes: "not Indian, not Western (firangi), so Iranian". In other words, though people might have problems with Shi'ism and Iran's expansionist politics, Iran is still the "near other" and refers to 'good' westerners as opposed to the 'bad' ones who continue to be culturally alien whilst in Kabul. Of course this is a slipshod analysis, but I'm rather surprised at the amount of street cred I get on my block, especially considering how I see my neighbours treat other Westerners and vice versa. It is what it is, but it's cool to have your worldview readjusted!

Where's the party, yaar?

In my lastest right of passage, I have had the opportunity to witness the expat scene in action. The easiest way to describe it is that it is a much more extreme version of Cairo. Last Wednesday I went to Samarqand and it really was the bar scene from Star Wars--mercenaries aplenty and all sorts of other rough-and-tumble detritus from the oecumene. The next night I went to a house party that was only slightly better; less mercenaries but the music selection was lowest-common-denominator of old American pop and yet more current American pop. Of course there was no Farsi spoken at all and a random white guy told me that he was taking the time here to improve his Arabic!

Actually there are a lot of cool people, when met in a different environment. And the unfortunate truth is that a party's coolness is inversely proportional to the number of Americans present. Last night I went with Saurabh to have dinner at a restored beautiful fort in Kaarteh Parvaan, which functions as a base for an NGO that runs academies to preserve local artistic traditions. Fascinating project and cool people. 

So, again I'm thankful that I have a normal situation and get to live and work with locals. With Nathan, Sahar, and Lorenzo all gone this week I've branched off with the Desi crowd. Nothing beats chatting endlessly about cricket matches, fight scenes, and the best remixes. Whilst watching the B4U music video countdown me and Saurabh hatched the idea of having a Bollywood party, so that we can have our superior music and dress well. We'll see how that goes next weekend--we're gonna use the office and hopefully project montages of classic fight scenes on the wall. I guess this will be my debut on the party scene, but it should be a cooler and less provincial crowd due to the music selection.

The food here is good generally with some exceptions. Afghan Fried Chicken completely sucks. I tried it because it's the closest thing to my house, but it has no Afghan masala or jaadu or anything like that. I've tried most of the places for chapli kabab around here too. The one by the park is disappointing and the one by here gets props for using marrow and eggs in the mix, but still isn't spicy enough. The winner goes to Nathan's hole-in-the-wall place out in Karteh Seh (about five people can fit inside and the place is only identifiable by the clever sign on the window which reads "Peshawari chapli kabab". It's relatively spicy but it doesn't rank up there with Kabab Palace in Arlington or Ashiana in Diamond Bar. The Frontier (as this area is broadly know) is one of the world's cooler food ecosystems as far as technique and flavour are concerned, so there will be more good news hopefully. For those of you who don't know what chapli kabab is, Nathan put his finger on it by describing it as "a man-burger". It looks just like a hamburger patty, but the brilliant Frontier folks have figured out that you can ADD OTHER THINGS TO THE MEAT. And they add the most flavourful mix of spices, chillies and onions to the meat before cooking it in oil. Often some flour is mixed in to that it comes out a bit crispy (actually this can go to the extreme of deep-fried hamburgers at some of the famous fast food locales on roads around here. The frontier region is exceptionally rich with fast-food, which is one thing that US sorely lacks (burgers and fried chicken, or else you have to sit down and wait).

Some of you asked me to tell more about my job and what I do. Right now I'm starting up a project on natural resources and the government's role or lack thereof in their extraction. Within that, at the moment, I am figuring out which resources and what my methodology is going to be. There's plenty of time for drinking massive amounts of tea and bullshitting with my co-workers too! My outerior motive should be to find resources around Herat and Mazar-e Sharif, so I can make a trip up there, which Lorenzo also encourages. Another co-worker, Gul Pacha, has mentioned that we should go to Peshawar and maybe even Lahore for a long weekend. That would mean getting to see the Khyber Pass! It turns out the Peshawar is only 4.5 hours away from here.

Home in the Hindu Kush

So, after a very, very long flight I finally made it here. Upon arriving in San Francisco (barely on time because we didn't have a gate to go to), I had to rush over to my Lufthansa flight. Lufthansa and United not only have a codeshare, but also have two different planes leaving at the exact same time from San Francisco. How fun! I of course got on the wrong plane and then was redirected to the correct one just in time.

In Dubai I had to take a taxi between terminals so I asked the driver to give me a tour. Totally awesome. I don't know if I have ever seen so much so big--pictures down to it justice. It is the most auto-centric place I've been but the architecture was uniformly inspiring. I'v never seening seen so many ways to build a skycraper and on such a scale. Even the shopping malls were cool (and of course gi-normous). It's a purely superficial and aesthetic impression, but it's worth seeing just for that. And bollywood was everywhere.

Arriving in Kabul occasioned a little bit of confusion--I wasn't able to check my email en route and I couldn't find my driver amongst the melee so I called Nathan and went to go hang out at his office and then got in touch with my boss.

My boss, Lorenzo, job, and living situation all absolutely awesome. My office is across the street from my house in Shahr-e Nou. There are about 15 people altogether in the organisation and we've got more projects than you can shake a stick at. There all young and extremely motivated, plus they come from diverse backgrounds (students, former civil servants, etc.). Yesterday, one of my co-workers entertained me with a discourse on the vices of virtues of chapli kabab in Kunar, Jalalabad, Peshawar, and Abbotabad, and the joys of the drive to Peshawar. At lunch there was a cool discussion about women's status throughout history and the compatability of Islamic law and code law--all in Farsi of course. More fun yet, my boss just left for an anti-corruption conference for two weeks so I've been left in charge of the office on top of figuring out what I'm supposed to be doing in the first place! Two cool facts: our doorbell plays the theme from Mohabbatein and we have significant category in our budget just for cilantro. Also, when I come into the office every day I get an awesome breakfast of walnuts, cheese (panir-e irani), olives, bread, and black tea with cardamom and rose. That rocks. After that I get to work (my typing in Farsi is pushed 30 wpm, and I'm getting used to the Urdu keyboard layout) with my choice of Indian, Afghani, and/or Iranian pop. oh yeah, did I mention that I get to wear kurta pijama every day to work?

Lorenzo's a great boss and this organisation is really top-notch and unique. He's very much the French version of myself with fluent Farsi and just as determined as I am that I use my time in Afghanistan to network, improve my Farsi, and immerse myself in the culture. It's definitely helping that this workplace is entirely Farsi-speaking with bits of Urdu, Pashto, and French in on the side. My house is great too--we have a few flats around a courtyard filled with roses. It's traditional architecture and beautifully decorated. There's one for Lorenzo, one for me, and one for our servant, Ghani.

The social scene is full of interesting characters and I can tell there's always going to be a party or mehmani to attend. What's more is that there's more people in on our India trip for new year's now....the party just keeps growing :-).