Landscape

A friend asked for some pictures of the landscape and I have just now had the chance to take a few. We don't travel outside of our part of the city very much. But the other day I went to the American base again and here is a picture I would have shown you about the way this country seems.



Barren, dry, dusty, brown. Unforgiving. Those are the main adjectives that would stick in your mind if you visited here. And it doesn't even include the filth you usually see all over the regular streets. This is what I thought all the pictures of the landscape were going to look like.

But then, as we were driving home, we took a back road, and I saw a completely different southern Afghanistan. Before that day, I had never seen a field here, or anything that in the slightest way looked fresh and green. But then we saw this...




There were all these green fields. And clouds! There are rarely clouds here. And it was the biggest holiday of the year, so everyone was wearing brand new, fresh-looking clothes. And instead of everything being dirty and brown and depressing... for the first time, it seemed like the city had hope. It was just so beautiful. And I had to remind myself that it wasn't something we want for the future of Afghanistan... this was something we really saw! And so it was an encouraging day.



Here are the camels! Also, forgive me, all the pictures were taken while driving about forty mph. 

Henna

They do the most beautiful henna here. This is my friend who had hers done just before returning to the States. Right now I also have henna on my hands. It takes about two or three weeks to wash off. When I come home I'm bringing a lot back, so if you want yours done just let me know! 

The Hole

A few days ago, there was this giant hole in my front yard. This is the Hole.



Now the Hole is gone. After being partially filled with cement and gravel, along with four cement pillars, the hole is now well on its way to becoming the foundation for a 90 foot cellphone tower.

And why is a gigantic cellphone tower being built in our extremely tiny front yard? I'm still working on that one. But mostly because our landlord is being paid $500 USD per month to have it there, and just because this is Afghanistan. Why not? 

The Test

I want to photograph the faces of my two English students so badly and put them on here. I love these girls so much. They are the daughter and daughter-in-law of my landlord, and I spend most nights of the week with them. But they won't let me take pictures of their faces. Here is one they did let me take...



This is a picture during their big exam. After a few weeks of classes, they practically begged me to give them an exam. The funny thing is, neither of them did very well, and I have no idea why they wanted one so badly. Except that after the test, their first question was, "Who was victorious?" They really wanted to know who won. Another insight into this culture and how important honor is to them. But then I tried to talk to them about how it doesn't matter who did better, what matters is that they both learn to speak English. They ended up shaking their heads; hopefully they agreed inside, too. 

Stress

So many things are stressful here. This is just a stressful place to live. Not only the war, but also working with another culture, having many technical problems communicating with home, not to mention all the differences in the way this country operates as opposed to the way we're used to our country operating. Please be praying for me. I am not invincible and this place is just plain hard sometimes.

What to Wear...

When one of my married friends moved here, she decided that she would forsake her life as a housewife and become a ninja. It seemed better than wearing a polyester tent with eyeholes. So she started wearing this. And when she began learning the language, she found other women asking her with shock, "Your husband lets you show your eyes??"

Sorry guys, there's may be little too much EYE showing in this picture. 

My House

This is where we live. We share a house with an Afghan family. They live in most of it and we rent two rooms and a huge basement from them. Dr. H, her husband, and the J-man live downstairs, and I live in one of the side rooms upstairs. The window on the right is my room.

Many of the little streets and alleys here are really narrow, as you can see from our house. 

The Center

So what have Dr. H and I been doing? We have been seeing patients in their homes and our home while the business we are working with finishes the process of starting a center SOLELY for Afghan women. Here in this city, there is no foreign organization that offers this type of care solely for women. However, that is a huge need here. Many women in this city are not allowed to see male doctors and so sometimes no care, or only very poor care, is available to them.

Above is a picture of the building rented for the center. We are in the process of getting the center ready for business and hiring and training the Afghan women who will staff the center, while continuing to see Dr. H's regular patients. The center should open for business before I return to the States and I am very excited to see it up and running. I will post more pictures when that happens. 

For Mom

I love you Mom. 

Abuse

A few weeks ago, Dr. H was examining our landlady for disurea and she found bruises all over her legs. The night before, we heard lots of shouting through the wall and come to find out, our landlord- who I thought was a great guy- beats her. Not only this, last night I'd just finished giving her daughter-in-law an English lesson and the girl (who is about twenty) told me, "Every man beats his wife, Nazanine. Every man." I explained to her that in America, if a man beats his wife and she goes to the police, they can take him to jail. My dear friend was shocked.

The strange thing is seeing how accepting they have become of the abuse. They still laugh with their husbands, joke around with them, and by all appearances, it seems like they love them. I guess they are not that different from many battered wives in the US. Except that in Afghanistan, there is nowhere for them to go.

What's In a Name?

Here in Afghanistan I have six names. Erin is hard for them to pronounce, and everyone I've met has just given me a different Afghan name. I haven't found one that I like enough to introduce myself by it to other people, and so I am known as Nooria, Nazaka, Ghotul, Nazanine, Hamdiya, and sometimes Erin.

So, if I come home and you feel like making up a name and calling me me it, that's fine. I will just be happy if it is prettier than Ghotul.

Afghan Star

Have you ever considered auditioning for American Idol? If you have, but have been too shy, I would like to suggest an alternative that might guarantee success. Just come to Afghanistan and try the Afghan version- you could be the next AFGHAN IDOL! First of all, there are no women, (not in this city's show) so ladies, you are probably sure to win... secondly, you will be the only one singing instead of chanting about Allah... and thirdly, doesn't being judged by men in turbans sound like an interesting experience regardless? I mean, what will their comments about your singing really be?

How I wish you could have seen it. It was priceless. The funny thing when I saw this show was when a man came up to chant that they thought was really bad. And just like the real American Idol, the turbaned judges were laughing and making fun of him the whole time he was chanting, and cut him off early with, "That's enough.... that's enough!" I have since been told by Afghans that there is a version of American Idol in many nearby countries. Who knew!

Unexpected

Many things are unexpected here. Things that when you wake up, never cross your mind. Like…

Coming home four days ago to find a snake that we think was a cobra outside our front door, with its hood up, doing its little dance. Dr. H’s husband killed it with a rock. It was a little one. Then finding bigger snake trails when we started looking.

And getting electrocuted while taking a shower this morning was a real shock. (That’s for you, Rob Shelton.) Sure, it was over pretty quickly, and my lesson’s learned: Never pour a cup of water over your head BEFORE unplugging the portable water heater from the 220 volt outlet and sticking your hand back in the bucket at the same time. Did I really graduate from college?

Driving

Stud

"Well, here I am. What were your other two wishes?"

Little America

It was a quick trip, but I spent two days in America this weekend. (Thursday and Friday are the weekend here.) I drove a car, ate Burger King, shopped for index cards and Hershey's kisses... and saw tons of other Americans. Yes, this is all 100% true!

I went to the Coalition base on Thursday. Three American friends and I found out that for some reason, right now, anyone with an American passport can get on. This is not usually the case- sometimes you have to be (literally) dying to get onto the base. But in the chance that it was true and we could actually eat American fast food... we spent our free day driving out there in the hopes they would let us on for no good reason. And our plan succeeded! I ate a hamburger and fries from Burger King, chocolate soft serve ice cream, and a Starbuck's-like iced coffee drink, all while seeing people either dressed in shorts and t-shirts or in military fatigues with guns slung around their shoulders. Not only this, but we were wearing jeans and t-shirts with our hair down. Yay! It was so refreshing- just like being home for a few hours.

Unfortunately I found out later that something I did on the base qualifies for me to have been shot on the spot. Luckily, I didn't know at the time and it wasn't a big deal.

Before this trip, I'd never been to a military base before. It really suprised me. I thought it would look more permanent. I don't think I'm supposed to give out a lot of information so it will suffice to say that after going, I have an extreme amount of respect for the soldiers who are serving here. While we were sitting there eating ice cream, having a blast, it suddenly occurred to me that the men we were seeing walk past could very well leave the base in a few hours and be shot. Their service here is so much more dangerous than ours. We have the luxury of blending into the community and not being recognized. They are moving targets from the moment they leave the base.

I was almost in awe of them. Although its a completely different strategy for helping the people, with a very different political motivation, I feel a deep sense of respect and compassion for these men and women who were called up for service here- some of whom are giving up their lives, and all of them risking it, without the majority of America giving them the recognition they deserve for the war they are fighting and the courage they've shown in this country.

The second day in America happened when these same friends and I went to a barbeque here held by a business. You see, there are two types of organizations in this city. Those of us who are working for NGOs and basically volunteer, and then there are those who are making lots and LOTS of money to be here. And the two groups, up until yesterday, didn't really even know about the presence of the other individuals. My friends who have been here for years met other expats last night who have been here for years, and for these years, they have never known of the other's coexistence. But somehow the two groups were introduced recently and we all got together to have Western steaks. It was like being home- but also felt very strange. Part of me thinks all of us at that party were crazy. What on earth are we all doing here? But crazy people are also pretty interesting. For instance, it was interesting meeting the correspondents for the New York Times and the Guardian having just returned from the front line where all the fighting recently ceased.

It was just the little break I needed... now back to Afghanistan.

War

Sometimes I forget that there really is a war here. For the first four weeks I was here, the sounds of war were fairly common, especially at night. For a long time, I didn't even realize what I was hearing. However, the large military operation that has been going on just west of the city finished a few days ago and now, by the sound of it, you would think there is relative peace. But what is peaceful here?

Just a few days ago, the coalition governments were handing out compensation through an Afghan NGO- compensation for families whose homes were destroyed in the military operations. We hear that there are many refugees in the city now and I met some at a home we visited yesterday. Everyone is trying to get out of the villages which are unstable right now. We also heard from Western media that over 500 people were killed in the operations. Maybe they were Taliban, maybe they were Pakistanis, maybe they were Arabs, maybe they were Afghan civilians. The Taliban denies that many were killed. Who will ever know the truth? But rumors like these remind me that people's lives are being destroyed all around us.

Yesterday, our language teacher was searching for a word to describe Afghanistan to us and he ended up saying, "What word do you use when there IS no government?" So we settled on anarchy. The situation is very complex but basically... the government in the capital really has very little power of most of the southern part of this country. The international forces are trying to maintain stability, and it is admirable, but there are so many deep, systemic problems in this country that it will really take years of persistent change to make a lasting difference.

Stars

Tonight I had a unique experience. I can count on one hand the number of times I've gone outside without a veil in these last six weeks. Actually on two fingers. And one of them was tonight… I ate dinner at a friend's house, and when it was over, instead of taking a rickshaw like normal, her driver drove me home in their car. This meant that I could ride with my veil up since it was dark outside. As we were driving along, the air-conditioning blew on my face and I happened to look up and see the stars. I started crying because it just felt so normal and free. And it was so beautiful. The air is not polluted here and I haven't seen anything that beautiful in some time. And my heart was also crying for the women who rarely see anything without the veil here. Something I've realized is that I don't even notice it anymore. I don't even notice what I'm missing. Its no wonder they don't either.

The Wedding

These little girls were so precious. The one in the blue lives in the other half of our house.



Weddings are also separated by gender, and only the groom and little boys are allowed at the women's wedding. These are wearing the tradional Afghan dress. The one on the left has his embroidered- the embroidery in this part of Afghanistan is some of the finest in the world.



Afghans love flowers, and the little girls at the wedding picked almost a hundred flowers for me!

Sorry there are no other pictures of women, I was the only woman at the wedding would allow me to take a picture. But here are some cute faces...



They are giving thumbs up because we're American. (The orange on their thumbs is henna.) They begged me to teach them English, which resulted in me saying a body part of number, and them enthusiastically repeating it in unison. Who can help but love these little kids??

Dr. H

This is Dr. H.

(Besides the burqa (or chaderi), women here often wear this Iranian headpiece with two flaps. One flap covers the back of your head and one flap covers the front but can be easily pulled back. The upside of this type of chaddar is that you have peripheral vision and can breath much more easily. The downside is that at night you cannot see a darn thing.)

Dr. H is really an amazing woman. It is hard to see the things she sees on a daily basis and to continue living and working here without getting burned out or frustrated. Way to go, Dr. H!

Medicating in Afghanistan

Working with Dr. H has really opened my eyes to the reality of life here for the ordinary Afghan. Usually, the sequence of events for a patient is as follows:

1) Symptoms arise. Patient goes to a cheap local doctor.
2) Doctor gives at least ten prescriptions to patient.
3) Patient fills prescriptions and problems persist.
4) Patient goes to a mullah.
5) Mullah does a somewhat mystical ritual.
6) Problem persists.
7) Patient goes to a more expensive foreign doctor.
8) Doctor is horrified at previous diagnoses and prescriptions and has to try to convince uneducated patient that he is correct in diagnosing the real problem.

The picture above is of medication given to one of Dr. H's patients. This woman went to a local doctor for infertility. The doctor, without taking a history, prescribed four drugs contraintdicated for pregnant women, two antibiotics, iron, a cream for vaginal irritation, an antifungal, ibuprofen, naproxen, and told her to rub Dettol on her stomach (which is a surface disinfectant). One drug was also prescribed to increase the number of eggs released during ovulation.

However, after coming to our house, Dr. H found that this girl's real problem was her educated husband. He didn't want a child, and was refusing intercourse during her fertile period. Although there could be other problems, it may have been as simple as that. We also recently saw a woman who has been to many doctors over the years for chronic backpain, but after a simple five-minute examination, it became obvious to Dr. H that this woman had scoliosis. None of the other doctors ever checked for that. It is the frequency of such malpractice that is really disturbing here. People are rarely ever correctly diagnosed and treated by local doctors, some of whom have simply read a medical book from Pakistan and opened a stall in the bazaar.

J-man

This is the J-man. He lives with me. Although he's only three years old, J-man is very, very smart. For only being three, he has a huge vocabulary. For two weeks, J-man wouldn't talk to me at all and the only face I saw was frowning. But after a few weeks of tickling (he only threw up once!) he has warmed up some and now calls me Ate Erin (Ate means big sister in Tegolag).



He posed with his gun for this shot.



Since he knows lots of words, we played Scrabble.

Outside My House

This is the view for men from right outside our gate.



And this is the view for women.

The View From Inside

So what does it look like from inside the chaderi? This is generally what the women here see when they go outside.



And now here's the view looking down...



And if your eyeholes get moved, you can't see at all and that's the worst.

Crazy

Life has been so crazy. I wish I could explain everything! Where to start...

Many things happened at home in the States these last few weeks, and I don't think a public blog is an acceptable forum to broadcast them on. But they were very sad. Heartbreaking. The fragility of happiness hits home at such times. The good news is that nothing is all bad. Good can come out of anything and I am sure it is going to come out of even the sad things taking place back home.

The good news is that everything here is wonderful. Really. I don't think there could have been better timing for me to be here (other than that I can't be with my family now). We are getting into our daily routines, which include: language lessons, working in a midwifery clinic, and cultural experiences galore. Last night, I went to a wedding. Wow. There's no way I can even describe what it was like. The women here are so beautiful and they love to dress up. So it was, along with being one of the most beautiful things I've ever seen, one of the most fun nights of my life. This is definitely a land of contrasts and I find that true in my own life here as well. More to come later. Above is a picture from the wedding.

The Big Move

So last Saturday, I moved in with the doctor I'll be working with this fall. She and her husband rent half of an Afghan family's house, so its kind of like living with Afghans too. I am really enjoying the new situation, Dr. H and I are able to leave frequently and another team family lives just down the street, so its very convenient for us to visit them too.

Last night, we had one big dinner together, so everyone could get acquainted. This was quite an experience, as the mother of the family had decided she was going to teach Dr. H how to cook Afghan-style. So we started at 4:40pm and we finished cooking around 7:30-8:00 ish. So when we khoreji (foreigners) go over to some Afghan person's house and the lovely food is suddenly served to us, I now know exactly how much work and how many hours go into it. Its crazy that they are used to doing this every day.

The dinner was great! But this is really abnormal, for Dr. H's husband to be able to sit and eat with the women from this Afghan family, seeing their faces and everything. However, this family just returned from Iran, where they lived for 25 years. So they don't have a problem with it. When I covered my face in front of one of the men, he was like, "Why are you doing that?" Sometimes it is difficult to know what to do here. There's such a range of ideas among families as to what is appropriate and what is not. This family is ok with an unrelated man seeing his wife and daughters. But other families don't let their wives' husbands see their other daughters. So just being flexible and going with the flow is key.

I do love it here. The food is awesome. No sickness as of yet. Its getting so cool that last night I got up around 3 and changed out shorts for pants! It was actually a little cold!

Final Destination

Yay! I have reached where I'll be living this fall and don't have to take any more sketchy Russian plane flights- yikes. As we flew on a Russian airline from the city in the west to the capital, I kept thinking about this tv show I caught about five minutes of where a Russian plane crashed. Luckily our flight was fine. But just yesterday a Russian plane crashed in the Ukraine.

So for the last two weeks, I have been living with a family while the doctor I'll be working with this fall gets settled in (she just arrived back from a short vacation). I will be living in this southern city until December. I don't get to check my email very much so I'm sorry I haven't been keeping up well with the blog! Hopefully, after I move in with the doctor in a few days it will be better.

I am really loving it here! I can't wait until we get into a routine and I'm really excited to share stories about the local people. Actually, it hasn't been hard to switch over to life here. The funny thing is that I thought the worst part of culture shock would be having to take cold showers... which I despise... but actually, since its so hot, my worst fear has turned out to be the best part of the day!

Here's a short story and a few pictures. If the internet keeps working I'll post more.

Independence Day Birthday Party

So last Saturday was the Afghan Independence Day from the British. Complete with fireworks and the singing of the national anthem on Ariana tv. I was fortunate enough to be invited to an Afghan birthday party! Which are usually nonexistent, as Afghan people don't really keep track of birthdays. But this little girl was born on a holiday, and she asked for a party, so she got one!



The birthday girl herself, turning 6 years old.



We can assume it says happy birthday. But who knows really.



I was suprised how alike it was to our birthday parties, and even more so when they busted out the party hats! Ok and this little boy was wearing western clothes, but he's the first I've seen. Every little boy here wears Afghan clothing. 

Hot

Yes, its hot here! But not as bad as it could have been. Its gone from 50 degrees celcius (around 122 farenheit) to only being 38 and in the forties. Yippee!

Pictures

This the view from the plane to the city we're staying in.



This is a little shop that has just about any souvenir you could want. Its called the Blue Glass Shop.



The blue glass from here is famous around the entire world. The art has been practiced here for thousands of years. You can go next door to the shop and watch them melt, throw, and blow the glass.



You can also get a magic lamp. 

Pictures

If you remember Grace from last year, she has only gotten cuter.



Dinner at my friend's house- where Ashlie & I are staying. She just got new toshaks.



We went to the village from Saturday to Monday. This little girl has a heartbreaking story. Her parents have picked out the husbands for all their daughters from their other relative's children. Her husband is now about nineteen, and didn't want to wait for her to grow up. So, they got engaged last year (when she was eleven) and he was allowed to start staying the night. Now, she is twelve, and wedding is coming up soon.



This is what most of the landscape looks like on the drive out to the villages and back.

Jokes

The people from here love jokes. The TB coordinator we just spent three days with is especially funny and loves to tell jokes. One common kind of humor here is when you retell an exaggeration someone else told. So here are a few he told us.

So, there was once a village that had a watermelon patch. One of the watermelons kept growing and growing and growing, until it was so huge, that it outgrew the village. The villagers got a truck with a big knife, but they couldn't cut it off the stalk, so they brought in an airplane, with an even bigger knife, and were able to cut the watermelon off its stalk. Then they brought in 360 trucks, because they had used the big knife to cut the watermelon into 360 pieces, and each piece was so big that only one would fit on a truckbed. So that is how they were finally able to get rid of the watermelon that was bigger than the village.

There was also once a man who wanted to buy some rabbits. His friend told him that he shouldn't buy any rabbits, because rabbits multiply really quickly. The man said he would buy some anyway, and his friend said, "Well, I once knew a man that bought two rabbits. These rabbits multiplied so quickly that five weeks after he had bought them, anytime anyone walked through his yard, every time they took a step they killed TWENTY rabbits."

Pictures

One day, we woke up and got to go to a nomad camp. There are nomads that migrate all across Afghanistan. Not too long ago, I read Caravans by James Mitchner, so this was like a dream come true. I just wanted to enjoy the experience, so I didn't take any pictures of the nomads or the camp, but this is the view looking down from where we trained one of their women to be a health worker.



Ashlie greatly enjoyed our trip to the villages. This picture was actually taken in Turkmenistan. The last place we spent the night is really, really close to Turkmenistan and we went to the border and ate melons by a stream.



So, I also didn't want to invade this family's privacy by taking a lot of pictures... but our last night, we stayed with the TB coordinator's family. I stayed with them last year and I love this family. I think of all the places I stayed in Afghanistan, this was definitely the most hospitable family. They are amazing. Unfortunately, none of the women are allowed to leave the house although there are rare exceptions. They wanted to henna our hands, but first I asked our hostess if I could do her hands. She agreed, so the picture above is actually my version of Afghan henna on her hands.

Emails and the Village

Thank you everyone, so much, for the emails. I am a little overwhelmed by them right now and may not be able to write back in a timely fashion, but I am so thankful for the thoughts you've all sent my way.

Tomorrow, I'm going with a friend who is a nurse to some villages. We won't get home until next week and then Ashlie and I are leaving this city. I am so excited that we get to go to these villages- we will actually get to stay overnight with the same family I stayed with last year, a family that lives so close to the border of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan that we were able to visit Turkmenistan last time. Hopefully we will get to again. We are going for longer this time and hopefully I'll have some fun stories soon. Be thinking of us though, because the village is usually where you get sick.

Sorry there are no pictures yet. If I can find the cord that connects my camera to my laptop I will get some up.

Dance Party

One of the best things about this country is that everyone loves to dance! Since I love to dance, this works out perfectly. Last night, a friend of mine who lives here had five girls over from a dorm next door. It is really uncommon in this city for college-age girls to live away from their parents, but these girls were accepted by a local university, and because they are from all over Afghanistan, they live together in a big house. The five of them that came over had various majors- engineering, agriculture, medicine- and they are all in the middle of mid-terms. But they came anyway and we had a great time. We served them an American dinner, and then taught them some American dances. The electric slide didn't go over too well, but the Macarena was a huge success.

One of the girls was trying the Macarena, and poor thing, she just couldn't get it. Another girl finally came behind her and stuck her arms under hers to try and teach her. They ended up just laughing. But then suddenly, this girl busted out the Afghan dancing to the macarena music! We were mesmerized. It was amazing. I think all the women here learn to dance like that when they are really young. Which unfortunately makes them bad teachers since its more instinctive than something they were actually taught. Luckily, this girl let me video her while she was dancing, and although I can't post it on the blog, at least I have something to learn from now.

Hello

We finally arrived in the city we will be staying at for the next few days. It feels so great to be off of planes!

We got to the guesthouse yesterday around 2 pm, and after eating fell asleep... I woke up to the most excruciating pain shearing through my calf muscles. I had no idea what a charlie horse felt like. I was screaming, half because of the pain, half because I didn't know where I was. Ashlie was asleep on the couch next to me, she heard me yelling, lifted her head and squinted her eyes, then collapsed to back to sleep. Then I realized where I was and stopped yelling. Well, now I know to get up a little more often on those long flights.

Today we're going to go shopping so that Ashlie can get a chadar namaas. They are the long black garments women wear in this city. Although the women are still very modest, when we arrived yesterday, it seemed to me to be much different than last year. The women were wearing fewer layers. It was encouraging, to know things are changing, although its only been ten months. Hopefully more to come soon.